Sky Zone: A Novel (The Crittendon Files)

by Creston Mapes

  “Is there a chance he’s disabled?” Jack said. “What are we looking at? What do you think it is?”

  Jack was getting really intense, but Pamela couldn’t say a word. She didn’t think she was even breathing.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just too early to tell, but as I said, the tests—”

  “Did the fall Pam took hurt him?” Jack interrupted.

  Dr. Shapiro looked at Jack and then leveled his gaze at Pamela. “We’re not certain there are any long-term problems at this point. He could come right around and be the loudest one in the nursery. We are working right now to pinpoint what’s going on.”

  “Can we see him?” Margaret said. “Is he awake?”

  “Yes, I’d like to feed him if I can,” Pamela said.

  “Don’t worry about his feeding,” Dr. Shapiro said. “He’s getting plenty of nourishment—”

  Lucy’s sober expression hadn’t changed the entire visit. “But I think she wants to encourage milk production, Doctor,” she said, and Pamela gave her a grateful glance.

  Dr. Shapiro looked at Pamela and nodded. “I understand. If you’d like, we can have a nurse help you pump until he’s … until you can feed him. Let’s do that. I’ll tell—”

  “Doctor, is he responding at all?” Jack’s arms went out toward the physician in desperation. “I mean, we need to know what we’re looking at here.”

  Margaret and Pamela stared intently. Lucy folded her arms and peeked at her watch.

  Jack continued. “I know low Apgars can indicate cerebral palsy or—”

  “He is responding, yes, to a degree. He has been taking formula from a bottle. He’s had at least one bowel movement.”

  “Oh, has he? Good.” That relieved Pamela greatly. The more normal, the better. “Has he cried? I mean—”

  “Look, can we see him?” Jack shook his head and threw up his hands. “We just need to see him, okay?”

  But Pamela wasn’t sure she was ready, mentally. She was scared. She wanted to see him when he was healthy and normal—not like this. That is so wrong. She should want to see him now, regardless. She didn’t say anything.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Dr. Shapiro said. “Give us another thirty minutes or so to wrap up the tests we’re conducting, and we’ll get him ready to see you. How does that sound?” He looked at Pamela. “And you can try to feed him then.”

  “Good. Okay.” Jack sighed. “Thank you for all you’re doing.”

  Jack walked him to the door, where Dr. Shapiro stopped and turned to Jack, looked him dead in the eyes, and said something with a somber expression, out of Pamela’s earshot.

  When he left and the door closed, Jack just stood there, staring at it for the longest time.

  A dreadful, sour feeling twisted Pamela’s gut, giving her the distinct impression that their lives were about to change—forever.

  45

  It was dark, damp, and getting cold. Derrick’s face was in the wet grass, and his wound was burning like it was on fire. The cop gruffly cuffed his hands behind his back, got him up, retrieved his things, and pushed him up the slope toward the main activity near the helicopter and ambulance.

  Police and firefighters were running around, calling out to one another. Sirens wailed, getting closer.

  “Derrick?” Jenny King broke away from the people she was talking to and hurried over, one of her high heels catching in the thick grass. “My gosh, what’s going on? Officer, I called him here. He’s with the Gazette. He covers the senator—”

  “I told him that,” Derrick said.

  The brash cop’s wide face was set in stone. “Ma’am, we can’t have the media trampling all over a live crime scene.”

  “He’s the only one I called,” she said. “Uncuff him so he can do his job.”

  “I can’t do that, Miss King. We’re responsible—”

  “Would you rather have Senator Sterling tell you?” she said.

  The cop panned the grounds, shook his head, and eyed Derrick. “Lemme see your credentials.”

  “Around my neck.” Derrick nodded down at his chest.

  The cop dug inside his jacket and shone his flashlight on the plastic ID. Without a word he spun him around and uncuffed him.

  “I don’t want to hear a peep out of you,” the officer said. “If you’re any trouble, you’ll spend the evening in my squad car. Here.” He handed Derrick his pad and recorder.

  Derrick took it and surveyed the situation.

  “A thank-you would be in order,” the officer said.

  Derrick stared at him. “Thank you, Officer.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Jenny said. “Oh, Officer, there will be one reporter coming from WSC-TV, James Jordan. I’ve promised him access, but that’s all. I promise.”

  The officer’s eyes burned into hers like lasers.

  “I’m expecting him any minute. Give him access, please.”

  The cop twirled his little flashlight and stormed off.

  Jenny squared up close to Derrick. He smelled coffee on her breath. “The senator’s being treated in the ambulance. The hostiles landed the chopper here. Two vans were waiting; no plates.”

  She checked her small pad of notes. “When they were going from the chopper to the vans, the senator made some kind of move. I don’t know the details yet; we’ll find out. There was some turmoil between them, and he got free and ran toward I-24.” She pointed toward the road Derrick and Daniel had come in on. “They shot him once in the leg. I’m not sure if he has any other injuries.”

  Jenny nodded toward a burly man in his midforties squatting near the ambulance, holding a Styrofoam cup in his large hands. “That gentleman stopped his pickup when he saw the senator. From there I don’t know what happened—yet. Police have questioned him.”

  “Is Sterling going to make a statement here?” Derrick said.

  “We’ll see. If so, it’ll be brief. He’ll be anxious to see his family. We’ll do a full press conference tomorrow morning if we can pull it together by then.”

  Derrick noticed Daniel just over the slope, hiding behind some brush. If the cops saw him there, he’d get them both kicked out. “Jenny, my cameraman’s out there.” He nodded in Daniel’s direction. “Can he come over with me? I don’t want to cause any more commotion.”

  “Derrick, really?” She was annoyed. “You should’ve told me he was here when we were talking to Officer Grumpy.”

  Two police cars with blue strobe lights bounced onto the grounds from the far entrance. As they came to a stop, their sirens bleeped to a halt.

  “He’d better stick close to you. Tell him no flash. You make me mad, Whittaker.”

  “Thanks, Jenny.” Derrick texted Daniel to come over.

  “That’s Rufus Peek, FBI special agent in charge,” Jenny said.

  Derrick recognized the gaunt man from the press conference. He was talking on his phone while telling some cops where to tape off the area and others where to erect tarps and wind blocks. “The rest of you, stay back, stay back.” Peek waved his free arm in disgust. “This is all evidence. All of it. Get back. Way back. No one but my investigators in there.”

  “And you know Hedgwick and Wolfski.” Jenny pointed toward the police captain and SWAT chief, who were deep in conversation. Derrick was surprised Peek had even let them in after the way they’d botched the arena event.

  Jenny’s phone played a funky ring tone. She dug for it, pulled out the pearl-white case, and examined the screen. “I’ve got to take this. Behave yourselves. Don’t make me sorry I called you.”

  Derrick thanked her again as Daniel approached timidly, like a kid lurking around at a party full of adults.

  “Don’t use your flash. I’m gonna talk to this guy.” Derrick nodded toward Sterling’s rescuer, who was still squatting. “Sterling flagged him down for help. Get some shots of him i
f you can, but be subtle. He doesn’t look much like the photogenic type.”

  Derrick felt this guy would respond better to a pad and pen, so he put the tape recorder in his pocket and approached. “Hey there.”

  The man barely moved, but his dark eyes shifted upward.

  “I’m Derrick Whittaker with the Gazette. I understand Senator Sterling flagged you down over here on I-24. Can you tell me about it?”

  The man’s bottom lip was bulging with snuff. He worked his jaw as if he were chewing taffy, then leaned over the cup and let a long line of spit sink to the cup. “I told the police everything.” He wiped his beard with the back of his wrist.

  “I could get it from their report, but probably not till tomorrow,” Derrick said. “Which way were you going on I-24?”

  Without looking up, the man pointed to the right.

  “Okay, so you were heading east, and then what happened? Had you seen the helicopter?”

  The big man pursed his lips and shook his head. “I didn’t see nothin’ till he come runnin’ out the woods. He caught my eye from the side. I thought it was a deer; there’s a lot of them out here. Then he come right out onto the road. You can see my skid marks. I almost hit him.”

  Derrick looked back out to his truck, where more flashing lights and detectives had arrived, then jotted down some notes.

  “What happened then?”

  The driver looked down and spit into the cup again. “He was panicked. Said people was after him. He’d been shot, was limpin’ pretty bad. I put the truck in park, grabbed my gun, and told him to get down on my side.”

  “You had a gun with you in the truck?”

  “Always.”

  “What kind?”

  “Mossberg 500 pump-action with a fifteen-inch barrel. Twelve gauge.”

  “A shotgun?” Derrick wrote as fast as he could. It was dark, and his pad was damp, and he wondered if he would even be able to read what he wrote in good light.

  “Yeah. By then I’d recognized him—”

  “That he was …”

  “The senator. Martin Sterling. I got out, pushed him down on my side of the truck, and started firin’. My truck’s big, ya know, so we had plenty of cover.”

  “Were they firing at you?”

  “At first, but they changed their tune when they heard me blasting back at ’em. I took three shots, and they was good as gone. Cops took my gun, though. That aggravates me.”

  “Could you see what they did next?”

  “They took off out the other side in a couple big vehicles. I couldn’t see what kind they was.”

  “Then what?”

  “Cops showed up. Two of ’em seized my truck, my shotgun. Two others brung me up here. You think they’ll take my truck?”

  “They’ll definitely need to look at it closely, probably in daylight. They might have to keep it awhile.”

  “Of all the … I’m supposed to start a new job out in West Jefferson tomorrow.”

  “What do you do?” Derrick said.

  “Welder.”

  “You live here?”

  “Now I do. Spent most of my life in Heath. Typical Ohio country boy.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Ed Scarborough.” He spelled the last name for Derrick and gave his age, forty-two.

  “Let me ask you, what transpired between the time the bad guys drove away and the cops got here?” Derrick said. “What did you and Sterling do? What was said?”

  “Well, we had a look at his wound,” Scarborough said. “I tied it off with a clean rag I had in the truck.”

  “Was there just one wound?”

  “Yep.”

  “And what did he have to say?”

  “Not much. He was just about out of juice. I thought he might pass out. Like I said, cops got here lickety-split.”

  Just then, Derrick noticed Jenny King drop her phone in her bag and head for the back of the ambulance at a good clip. With her was the WSC-TV camera guy, who must’ve showed up while Derrick was interviewing Scarborough. Special Agent Peek was headed in the same direction, as were Hedgwick and Wolfski.

  This was it.

  He and the TV guy had a worldwide exclusive.

  Derrick’s heartbeat surged. He wished Jack could be there.

  He thanked Scarborough and signaled for Daniel to get to the back of the ambulance and be ready to shoot.

  More sirens were coming from every direction.

  The police were stopping cars at both entry points now.

  Derrick got out his recorder as he made his way over, his hands trembling as he checked the settings.

  Jenny fixed her lipstick, then spruced her hair.

  The fact that Sterling—this hard-nosed, fiery presidential hopeful—had survived, had beaten his assailants, generated an electricity in the air the likes of which Derrick had never experienced before.

  The door latch sounded.

  All heads turned.

  And the ambulance doors opened …

  46

  Jack had pulled the blinds and stood staring out the window of Pam’s hospital room at the sparsely lit parking lot, the cars, the people coming and going. Most of them were probably worried, hurting, grieving; a few happy—those who’d had successful surgeries and healthy babies. But for the most part, he thought, hospitals weren’t the happiest places to be. In fact, no one wanted to be there, except perhaps the doctors and nurses who made their livelihoods there.

  In the window’s reflection he watched as Pam sat up in bed and Lucy and Margaret spoke quietly, one on each side of her, eating sandwiches he’d picked up in the café. He had no appetite but sipped weak coffee from a dinky Styrofoam cup. He and Pam had just hung up with Rebecca and Faye, who’d stayed up late watching a movie at Tommy and Darlene’s house. Thank God they were safe.

  What would he and Pam be up against in the days ahead? The years ahead?

  Before Dr. Shapiro left the room, he whispered to Jack that he and Pam should prepare themselves mentally for anything. Jack hadn’t shared the physician’s comment with Pam.

  What if down the hall in that progressive-care unit lay a baby boy with special needs? How would they ever manage? Would they need to build ramps and widen doorways, have a special hospital bed and a full-time nurse? Would the child be able to feed himself, bathe, get dressed, walk? What about all the doctors’ visits and physical therapy?

  How would they pay for it all?

  Jack’s face burned.

  Why did it always come back to money?

  It infuriated him.

  Why hadn’t God provided a job for him? It had been almost an entire year!

  He needed that editorial position at the Gazette desperately.

  His stomach churned. The apple Lucy gave him was all he’d eaten in a long time, but he didn’t want to eat. He felt like starving himself—whatever it took to understand God’s purpose in all of this.

  He needed some air—fresh air. On his way he would find a TV and get the status on Sterling.

  “Jack, don’t you think you and Pam need to decide on a name?” Margaret said.

  He turned around to find all three women staring at him. Pam rolled her eyes without a word.

  “I think we’re going to wait till we see him, Mom,” Jack said. “Right, honey? I mean, who knows, we might want to name him something totally different.”

  “Oh, but I thought Andrew would be good,” Margaret said. “He’s been a brave baby so far, to make it through all the tests and the whole thing at the arena.”

  “That’s true. But I think we still want to see him first,” Jack said. “Did they say we need to name him within a certain time?”

  “Well, they’ve got to do the paperwork—” Margaret started.

  “They can wait,” Pam said. “Mom, we
’ll get to that.” She patted her mom’s hand.

  “You’re doing pretty well, aren’t you?” Margaret squeezed her hand.

  Pam nodded. “I’m feeling okay.”

  “You know, when I had you, they gave me ether. I wasn’t the same for days,” Margaret said. “Can you believe that?”

  “Ether?” Jack said. “The solvent? No wonder Pam turned out the way she did.”

  Lucy and Pam chuckled, but Margaret frowned.

  “I don’t think that’s funny, Jack.” She shifted in her chair.

  “Oh come on, Mom, you know I’m just teasing,” Jack said.

  “Well, I don’t find it humorous.”

  “Mom, lighten up,” Pam said. “We need to laugh. That was a pretty good one.”

  Jack’s phone vibrated. He glanced at the caller ID and answered. “Hey, Brian.”

  “How’s the baby?” Shakespeare said.

  “We don’t know.” Jack caught him up to speed.

  “You stay on top of those doctors. Don’t let them give you the runaround.”

  “We will.” Jack walked into the hallway. “What’s the latest on Sterling?”

  “What’s the last you heard?”

  “That they’d taken him, but I saw there was breaking news—I haven’t had time to follow up.”

  Jack wandered down the hall, bracing himself for the bad news that Sterling had been found dead.

  “He escaped.”

  Shakespeare’s words hit Jack like a shot of adrenaline.

  “The chopper landed in Seneca Falls. Some vans met them. Somehow Sterling got away. Flagged down a car. He got shot, but from what I hear, he’s gonna make it. Don’t hold me to that; it’s secondhand.”

  “No way! Where is he now?” Jack’s spirit soared.

  “Not sure. So maybe you’ll get that job after all. Wouldn’t that be somethin’?”

  “Oh, man. You know it.” Jack laughed. He turned back to the room and noticed a slender man in street clothes checking the name on the door to Pam’s room. “Hey, I gotta go. Can you give me an update when you know more? Call or text me.”