“Eddie?”
He had his head and shoulders in the van, but he backed out. Leeanne stood beside him, holding his phone.
“Tammy wants to know if there are injuries.”
“Yeah. This little kid might be hurt, and his mother’s pretty bad, I think. She was driving.”
A siren wailed.
“I’ll go flag them down,” Leeanne said.
“No, wait!”
She stopped, skidding a little, and flapped her arms before she steadied.
“Do not go out in the street,” Eddie said. “Just wait here or get back in the pickup.”
“Okay.” She had that contrite look.
“Tell Tammy we need at least one ambulance that I know of. The guy from the car that hit them may need to be checked, too, and I have no idea what went on behind us.”
He turned his attention back to Screaming Mason. Finally his fingers found the release button for the car-seat harness, and the straps relaxed.
“Come to me, buddy.” When Eddie started to lift him out of the seat, Mason’s screams hit a new decibel level. “I’m sorry,” Eddie yelled. “I’ve got to get you out of the car. My name is Eddie, and I’m going to help you.”
The van had enough damage and was in a bad enough spot that he knew it wouldn’t be safe to leave Mason there. He picked up the child’s seat with him in it and hauled him out.
“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”
“Eddie, the car’s on fire,” Leeanne yelled.
He looked where she pointed. Smoke poured from around the edges of the van’s hood, and flames flickered.
“Take him and get as far away as you can.” He put Mason, seat and all, into her arms and ran for his truck. When he reached it, he pushed the driver’s seat forward and thrashed amid the stuff behind it for his emergency kit. He had a small fire extinguisher. It took him precious seconds to find it, but his hand closed on the cylinder, and he ran to the front of the van. he tried to open the hood, but the release had to be triggered, so he sprayed foam on the cracks. He needed to get that hood up or he’d waste all his ammunition. He went back to the front passenger door.
“Ma’am? Ma’am? Can you hear me?” Eddie crawled halfway onto the seat.
Mason’s mother’s head had slumped, and she didn’t respond to him.
“God, I need some help here.” That was probably not a very polite prayer. If Abby had heard him, she’d have called him Rude French Boy again. “I’m sorry,” he said out loud, reaching across the woman’s body and straining to feel beneath the dash.
“I need your help,” he yelled at God. The woman didn’t move or speak. “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed—”
He found a lever and pulled it, praying it wasn’t for a vent or something. He heard a little pop, and something moved.
The sirens were deafening when he climbed out of the van.
“Thank you,” he breathed and hurried to the front. The flames meant business now, and the hood was hot. Black smoke roiled out, and the smell of hot oil was almost overpowering.
He pulled a glove out of his pocket and put it on, then threw the hood up. The fire leaped up with a whoosh. Eddie let loose with the extinguisher, and the blaze went down pretty fast. He kept spraying until the cylinder was empty. He thought the fire was out, but he wasn’t sure.
He looked around. Leeanne stood between cars about thirty feet away. She had gotten Mason free of the car seat and was jouncing him up and down. She saw him and walked toward him.
“There’s an ambulance,” she yelled, pointing across the lanes of northbound traffic.
“Okay, you stay here.” Eddie pulled Mason away from her. The toddler started wailing again.
Eddie walked cautiously around the front of the van and the back of the GTO. The vanity plate on the car said “CROOZR.” The driver stood a few feet away, hugging himself and shivering.
“Stand away from the vehicles,” Eddie yelled at him.
Mason continued to scream. A couple of cops hurried over on foot.
“Hey, I’m Detective Thibodeau. This kid’s mother’s in the van, and she needs medical help bad. She was conscious, but she’s out now. I’ll take the boy to the ambulance.” He jerked his head at the GTO’s driver. “That guy started it. Slid over into oncoming traffic.”
One of the two cops was already using his shoulder mic. The other one hurried toward the van as Eddie set out with Mason. He realized the little guy had quit yelling and was sobbing.
“It’s okay, Mason.” Eddie patted his back. “We’re going to get you to a nice doctor. Those cops will get your mommy out.”
Mason’s stubby little arms came up around Eddie’s neck, and he hung on tight.
People were getting out of their cars. Some walked toward the crashed vehicles, but most just stared and got in the way. The ambulance was now in the center northbound lane and had come to a stop. Eddie worked his way toward it, lugging Mason, and the driver rolled his window down.
“I’m a cop,” Eddie said. “I pulled this kid out of that silver minivan over there. His mother’s trapped inside. She’s hurt bad.”
“Eddie?”
He bent down and saw Mark Johnson, Jeff’s friend, in the passenger seat. He’d been an usher at Jeff’s wedding the week before.
“Hey, Mark. Can you guys get to the mother?”
“Yeah. Let Liam have a look at the kid. I’ll go help the mom. There’s another bus on the way.”
While Mark threaded his way toward the crash carrying his kit, Eddie stood back so Liam could get out.
“Bring him around to the back.” Liam opened the rear doors on the ambulance and climbed up, then reached for the little boy. A patrol officer appeared and began waving traffic around the ambulance.
“His name’s Mason,” Eddie told Liam.
Mason didn’t want to let go. Eddie held him for a second with his face close to the toddler’s, wishing he could fix his mother and heal any pain Mason felt.
“It’s okay, buddy.” Gently, he peeled Mason’s arms away and lifted him. Liam took the child and sat him on a stretcher. Eddie climbed into the ambulance, too.
“Mason, I’m Liam,” the EMT said. “Do you hurt?”
Mason nodded. Tears streamed down his face, and his nose was running.
“What hurts?” Liam asked.
Mason put a hand to his stomach.
“Oh, your tummy hurts?” Liam looked at Eddie. “Probably from the harness.” He unzipped the kid’s jacket and did a quick visual inspection. “I don’t see anything obvious. He could have some internal problems.”
“I need to get back there.” Eddie wrote the license tag number of the minivan on the back of a business card and handed it to Liam. “That’s his mom’s plate number. I don’t know her name yet. Can I just leave Mason with you?”
“Yeah. I’ll check him out thoroughly, but I think we’re safe to wait for his mom to join him. Do you think your people can clear the street for us?”
“We’ll try.”
“Good. We’ll take them to Mercy.”
It was the closest hospital, but not the one where Abby worked. Eddie bent down to Mason’s level.
“Hey, buddy, I’m going back and see if your mommy needs help. You’re going to be okay.”
Mason stared up at him with watery eyes. Poor kid. Eddie stroked his head like he would a puppy’s. “It’s okay.” He wondered how Leeanne was doing. She’d better still be at the spot where he’d left her.
He climbed down, and another officer hurried over.
“You guys need help?”
“Yeah, talk to Liam.” Eddie nodded toward the EMT. “He’ll need to get out of here once they load their patient.”
By the time he got back to the crash site, several more officers had arrived. They worked on getting the northbound traffic moving first, since the wreck didn’t impact those lanes much. Liam should be able to edge the ambulance over closer to the scene soon, if one of the patrol officers watched Mason.
Mark and two cops were at work at the van. Another one was talking to the GTO’s driver, and Eddie glimpsed a fourth officer weaving among the stopped vehicles behind his, probably checking for more injuries.
He halted by the GTO’s driver and said to the officer, “Hi. I’m Detective Thibodeau, and I witnessed the crash.”
She nodded at him. “Alicia Peterson.”
“I’m off duty, and I have a passenger I need to take home,” Eddie said.
“Can you file a report tomorrow?”
“You bet I can.” Eddie left her and went around the far side of the still-connected vehicles. Mark was inside the van, tending Mason’s mother, and the two officers helping him stood outside the open passenger side doors, barking at each other and into their radios, asking for tow trucks and Jaws of Life.
“Anything I can do here?” Eddie asked.
One of them said, “I don’t think there’s room for more help, unless you’re a doctor.”
“No. Sorry.”
Eddie turned toward his truck. Leeanne rolled down the passenger window. “Eddie, is the little boy okay?”
“The EMT thinks his tummy’s just bruised from the seat belt, but they’ll know more later. I guess the mom’s pretty bad, huh?”
“Sounds like it. I just got out of the way.” She handed him his phone through the window. “Oh, Tammy said for you to call in when you were free.”
“Okay.” His hands were freezing, and he walked around and got into the truck and put one hand over the heater vent for a minute. Leeanne looked as though she was dying to say something. “What?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Tammy is a fifty-year-old grandma who’s been dispatching since before you were born,” Eddie said.
Her eyes got even bigger.
“You weren’t thinking that, were you?”
“What?” She looked truly baffled.
“I’m sorry. Come here.” Eddie pulled her over into a hug and sat there for a few seconds, holding her. “Thanks for helping. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes.”
“Your neck didn’t snap when they hit us from behind?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should get it checked anyway.” He knew of cases where people thought they were all right after a wreck, then started having pain a couple of days later.
“Really, I’m fine.”
“Okay.” He sat up and keyed in the com center’s non-emergency number and asked for Tammy.
A moment later she came on the line.
“That you, Eddie?”
“Yes, ma’am.” In the background, he could hear other dispatchers talking to callers. It was their worst night of the year, too.
“You all set?” Tammy asked.
“Yeah. I passed the kid off to EMTs, and people are working on his mother now. As soon as I can move my truck, I’m going home.”
“Thanks for checking in.”
“No prob.” After he’d warmed up, he got out and walked around to assess the situation. The on-duty officers seemed to have enough manpower to deal with things. He inspected the rear end of his truck and decided he’d gotten off easy. The driver behind had a broken headlight and gave Eddie his contact information.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Eddie assured him. “I’m blaming the jerk in the GTO.” But he gave him his insurance information anyway.
“Was that car ahead of you on fire?” the man asked. “Because I couldn’t move an inch. We were sitting ducks.”
“Yeah. God was good to us.”
He gave Eddie a funny look.
Leeanne was quiet when he got back into his warm seat. He got her talking about the ice show after a while and decided she would be okay. When she suggested they pray for Mason and his mom, Eddie knew she had her head on straight.
Several more minutes passed before the traffic on their side was unsnarled enough for him to back his truck away from the minivan and ease into the next lane. During that time, they kept talking about inconsequential stuff, and Leeanne called Jennifer and told her they’d been involved in an accident but were all right.
“Jeff and Beth are there,” she wailed to Eddie when she’d signed off. “I hope they don’t leave before we get there.”
“I’m glad they got back safe,” Eddie said.
When they finally got to the house, he stopped the truck in the driveway, behind Beth’s car. Leeanne hopped out before he could say anything and ran inside.
Harvey, Jennifer, Abby, Jeff, and Beth were sitting in the sunroom.
“Hey, Jeff!” Eddie shook his hand. He was tanned, and his hair had bleached out a little. Beth had darker hair, but she was tanned, too. She stood up and kissed Leeanne and Eddie.
She put a couple of plastic leis over their heads. “Aloha.”
“Wow, thanks,” Leeanne said, inspecting the fake flowers.
“Don’t you know too much sun isn’t good for you?” Eddie asked.
Beth grinned at him. “We had the best time, and it was beautiful!”
“We went surfing,” said Jeff.
“You went surfing?” Jennifer asked Beth.
“Well, I tried it. I was sort of a wipeout. Jeff was terrific, though.”
“Always wanted to try it,” Jeff said with a shrug.
“So, when do you go back to work?” Eddie asked.
Jeff smiled. “We both have another week off.”
“Great! Let’s do something,” Harvey said.
Jennifer frowned. “Harvey, they’re still on their honeymoon.”
“That’s okay,” said Beth, “We can still do stuff.”
The house phone rang, and Harvey looked at Abby. “Would you get that, please, Abs? It’s got to be for either you or me.”
She disappeared into the kitchen and didn’t come back, but they could hear her talking happily.
“Gotta be Greg,” Jennifer said with a frown. Eddie thought maybe Peter was winning out on Jennifer’s scorecard.
“I like Greg,” said Harvey.
“Oh, I do, too,” Jennifer assured him.
Jeff looked over at Eddie. “So, you two were in an accident?”
“Barely, but we couldn’t get out of traffic,” Eddie said.
Leeanne grabbed Jeff’s arm. “He helped rescue a kid.”
Eddie shrugged. “There was a little boy in the vehicle ahead of us, and I got him to the EMTs. His mother was badly injured. Your friend Mark was working on her when I left.”
“I’ll have to call him tomorrow and get the full report,” Jeff said.
Abby came back from the kitchen. “That was Josh Wright.” Josh was one of Abby’s hangers-on at church. “He said you were on the eleven o’clock news, Eddie.”
He frowned at her. “What for?”
“He said you rescued a baby from a car wreck, and they showed you carrying him. He said it was very dramatic.”
Eddie couldn’t remember seeing a camera crew at the scene. It must have been someone with a cell phone or a dash cam, or some kid with a GoPro.
Beth said, “If the late news is over, it’s past my bedtime. We’d better get going.”
“Don’t you want to ring in the new year with us?” Jennifer asked.
It was nearly midnight. She brought out wine glasses and poured ginger ale. Leeanne handed Eddie a glass.
“Happy new year, everybody,” Jennifer said.
Abby came around with oatmeal cookies. “Happy new year, friend.”
“Thanks.” Eddie took a cookie. “How’s Greg?”
“Great. He’s coming up next weekend.”
“So, you have a normal schedule now?”
“Pretty much. Friday and Saturday off, at least for now.”
“Thought you’d be out at some fancy party tonight.”
“No,” Abby said. “Peter’s taking me out tomorrow night. We didn’t want to drive the same roads as all of Portland’s drunks.”
“It’s their first date without the boys,” Leeanne said. “Jennife
r and Harvey are babysitting.”
Abby took the plate back to the kitchen, and Eddie said to Leeanne, “Do you think she’s actually going to marry one of these guys?”
“I don’t know.” Leeanne smiled. “She likes them both. One of them’s got to come up with some superior drawing card.”
“Or make a huge mistake,” he said.
Harvey stood up. “Do you want to take your wedding presents tonight, Jeff?”
“Let’s get them tomorrow.”
Beth nodded. “Tomorrow for sure.” She turned to Leeanne. “How long are you here for?”
“Just until Sunday. Harvey’s taking me home.”
“We could take you,” Jeff said. “We were thinking of running up to see the folks.”
“Really?” Harvey sounded hopeful. “Not that I wouldn’t love to see them myself, but I might get called in this weekend. We’ve got a case that’s kind of all over the place. You never know when something will turn up.”
“Sure, we’ll take her.” Jeff drained his glass of ginger ale.
Beth smiled. “That will be nice, Leeanne. We’d better get going, but we’ll come by tomorrow afternoon and get the gifts and show you our pictures from Hawaii, okay?”
They talked for a few more minutes, but Eddie wasn’t listening. Leeanne was leaving Sunday, and he probably wouldn’t see her again for a while.
*****
The next morning, the priest came to see Eddie. Of the ten people he least wanted to see that day, Father Claude was second, with the first being Abby’s coworker Delaney Marshall.
Eddie was scraping the windshield of his truck, figuring maybe he’d go by Mercy Hospital and ask about Mason and his mom, then go to Harvey’s and hang around with Leeanne. Father Claude came walking along the sidewalk, bundled up against the cold like normal people, but all in black. He saw Eddie and waved, then came over and stood on the curb, watching him.
“Good morning.” Eddie lifted one windshield wiper to scrape underneath.
“Happy new year, Eddie. I haven’t seen you for a while, at least not outside news reports.”
“Nope.”
“You haven’t been to Mass for six months.” Father Claude sounded a bit aggrieved.
“Nope.” Eddie started feeling nervous.
“Your mother’s concerned about you.”
Heartbreaker Hero: Eddie's Story (Maine Justice Book 4) Page 14
