by R. D. Cain
Nastos asked, “This whole thing starting to get to you, Dennehy? You don’t look so good.”
Dennehy gulped like his throat had gone dry. He rubbed his hands on his coat.
Dennehy put his phone away. “That was Comm on the line; they asked me to clear for an attempted murder.”
Nastos commiserated. “Don’t they have any idea what the hell just happened here? There’s this thing called paperwork.”
“I’m going to go, Nastos, and I need you to come with me. I’m going to drive. You and Carscadden both need to come along.”
“Why us?”
“Nastos,” Dennehy said gently, “it’s your wife.”
Carscadden rushed to keep up to Nastos as he bulldozed his way into the emergency entrance at Sunnybrook Hospital with Dennehy trailing behind. When Nastos was held up by the locked doors into the exam area, Dennehy showed his badge to the triage nurse, who buzzed them in.
Two uniformed cops stood outside an exam room, one writing in his notebook, the other chatting up the two female medics who were repacking their kit on a hallway stretcher. To them it was a routine call, something that Nastos himself had done a hundred times — but to Nastos, this time it was personal.
Carscadden glanced back to the waiting room and noted that two distressed-looking women recognized Nastos. They were well dressed, with jewellery and blazers — they looked like real estate workers, Madeleine’s colleagues probably. They covered their faces with their hands and began crying louder than they had been before. A sick, empty feeling washed over him; he could only imagine how Nastos felt.
The cops straightened up when they saw Nastos, a civilian, trying to get into the room, but Dennehy waved them off. “Dennehy, with Homicide, it’s okay.”
They moved back and Nastos slunk in.
Carscadden said, “You should stay back here.” It was the first time he could recall seeing Nastos be tentative about anything.
Nastos had paused when he saw the state she was in. Madeleine lay unconscious on the gurney, tubes in her arms and up her nose, an oxygen mask over her face. There were four people attending to her. Carscadden couldn’t tell which were the doctors and which the nurses; they were all busy. A woman rushed in between them and put X-rays up on a backlit wall. A short, red-haired woman studied the image closely and was able to discern something that didn’t seem like good news.
Dennehy squeezed Nastos’ shoulder as if to take him away, but Nastos pulled away and reached out to Madeleine. One of the medical staff, a guy who appeared to be no more than eighteen years old, seemed disappointed. “Who let family in?”
Nastos closed his hand around hers. “Madeleine?”
Her head rolled over to him. The red-haired woman, who seemed to be in charge, reached out and shoved Nastos up closer to the head of the bed. “Stay there and don’t get in the way.”
The young male — Carscadden began to think he was a nurse — stared at the redhead. He was obviously pissed off about Nastos being there. Carscadden couldn’t believe it when he saw the woman slowly move her head from left to right to say no. His heart dropped. No? What the hell do you mean, “no”?
Redhead said, “Call up to surgery and tell them we’ll be there in five.” She glanced at Madeleine, who was beginning to stir, “And page Anesthesia stat — we can’t do any more down here.” Her eyes went to Nastos, but he hadn’t heard her. He was staring into his wife’s eyes, which had partially opened.
One of the cops came in and spoke to Carscadden. “She landed on her side. It must have been forty feet from the rooftop.”
Carscadden nodded and the cop backed off. When Madeleine slowly writhed under the sheets, her head turned farther and he could see severe, black bruising on the right side of her face. It was like she had been hit with a piece of concrete — or Chavez’s fist.
Nastos was holding her closer, not saying anything, just staring into her eyes. Carscadden noted the dressing on her chest was weeping through. He knew it would be a carving in her chest: the word Girl. She was the last of Chavez’s victims. Whatever screwed-up reason he had for targeting these women was a mystery he’d never know the answer to.
Madeleine’s heart monitor showed a faster rate as she tried to sit up in the bed. Both Nastos and one of the nurses put hands on her to keep her down. She tried to reach across to Nastos with her far hand, but it was held back by the tubes and a quickly reacting doctor’s hand. They seemed surprised when she spoke.
“Where’s . . . how’s Josie?”
Nastos leaned closer and whispered, “She’s safe. The guy who attacked you is dead.” He seemed like he was going to remain strong, but then he said, “This is all my fault.” He cracked, tears pouring down his face.
Carscadden felt like an intruder, but could not leave.
Madeleine murmured, “I’m sorry, Steve. I should have been there for you, and I wasn’t.”
“Don’t talk, baby, just try to rest and let them help you.”
“You made me so happy, so proud of you, then you gave me our little girl. Our perfect little girl.”
She tried to reach for his hand again and failed. Nastos grabbed hers and squeezed. “I love you, Maddy, you’ve made me so happy.” He brushed her hair back from her face and drew closer to her, his head lying next to hers on the stretcher.
He said again, “Just rest, let them do their thing.”
“You made me so happy, Steve. I didn’t know I could be so happy. You’re the most honourable person I have ever known . . .”
He kissed her before her eyes closed. When the alarm sounded from the monitor, Carscadden glanced at it and saw the display had changed from what looked like inverted check marks to violent, jagged spikes. Her mouth, arms, legs, everything went slack. One of the nurses pulled Nastos aside, saying firmly, “We need to help her, sir. Why don’t you wait in the family support room.” Her calm demeanour was an indication of how bad it was. The patient whom the medical staff were the most concerned about now wasn’t Madeleine; it was the surviving family: Nastos.
Nastos was confused. “Wait a minute. She made it here, she’s going to be okay, isn’t she?”
Carscadden crouched next to Nastos, guiding him backward, away from Madeleine. Dennehy stood back, remaining silent. He had no idea how to comfort someone who was watching his wife as she faded away. Neither did Carscadden.
After all of Nastos’ efforts to find Lindsay, and their success saving Hopkins and Taylor — only to have his wife murdered. Carscadden wanted to get Nastos out of there, to distract him by turning his attention to his daughter Josie, but it wasn’t time yet. Nastos needed to grieve until he felt he was ready to let her go.
Carscadden stepped back, next to Dennehy, whose eyes were red with tears. “Tell me Anthony is going down for this, Dennehy. Promise me.”
“You’re the defence lawyer, Carscadden, work through it. No physical evidence, no witness, no proof. Anthony is going to walk. This case died with Chavez.”
“Nastos will never forgive you, the police service; you guys have done nothing but screw this whole thing up.”
Dennehy remained silent.
Carscadden continued. “Nastos solved this. He didn’t let it go, wait for managerial approval, have case conferences — he just got out there and did it.” He felt the anger in himself disappear as he looked over at his grieving friend.
“They don’t make them like Nastos anymore, I’ll agree with you there.”
Carscadden gave up on Dennehy and moved over to Nastos, who was still holding Madeleine’s hand. He wrapped his arms around Nastos and held him close.
Acknowledgements
There are many people I’d like to thank for their support Jack, Crissy, Emily, Cat, Erin, Simon, and the entire ECW Press crew for their generous support. Karen Bhatt provided enthusiasm and guidance, and I look forward to providing her the same with her forthc
oming works.
Ernest Becker’s text The Denial of Death as well as Christopher Nolan’s film The Prestige provided me with psychological insight into people’s need to develop meaning in their lives and a theatrical approach to reveal that meaning. The Denial of Death is an interesting read that everyone should consider, and The Prestige is an earlier work from a man who has become the best filmmaker of his time.
R.D. CAIN has worked for the last 18 years in the emergency services as a paramedic, firefighter, and police officer.
Copyright © Richard Cain, 2012
Published by ECW Press
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LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Cain, Richard
Dark Matter : a Steve Nastos mystery / Richard Cain.
ISBN 978-1-77041-006-0
also issued as:
978-1-77090-256-5 (PDF); 978-1-77090-257-2 (EPUB)
Cover and text design: Ingrid Paulson
The publication of Dark Matter has been generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada, and by the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities, and the contribution of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit. The marketing of this book was made possible with the support of the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
