Lifeblood

by Penny Rudolph

  Rachel froze. Cops. Of course, there would be cops. She had killed someone. For the first time her brain registered the possibility that she could wind up in jail for a very long time.

  “Someone should take a look at you.” The woman nudged Rachel into the room and closed the door.

  A knock on the examination room door was accompanied by the woman’s voice saying firmly, “Sorry officers, you’ll have to wait out there.”

  Another knock. A male voice. “Hello, ma’am? Please come out to the waiting room when you are finished.”

  Rachel swallowed hard, then called, “All right.”

  The woman from the rescue team knocked lightly, then stuck her head in. “They’ll want you to disrobe. There’s a cover-up.” She gestured to a folded, flowered piece of cloth on the examination table. For the first time, Rachel realized the woman’s hair wasn’t blond, it was gray.

  A few minutes after she had removed her clothes and donned the flowered cape, another knock was followed by the entrance of a woman in street clothes. She handed Rachel a form attached to a clipboard and told her, “Fill this out, please, and stop at the office on your way out.”

  Using the pen chained to the clipboard, Rachel laboriously filled out the form. She listed her insurance, although this was sure to come under the deductible. She was adding a note about that when a person in an unbuttoned white coat entered the room.

  He looked like a twelve-year-old playing doctor, but seemed efficient. Rachel answered his questions, let him poke and prod and shine a light in her eyes. He pressed a prescription into her hand, and told her she could go home.

  She gazed dully at the prescription. “What’s this for?”

  “A sedative. In case you have trouble sleeping. Most people do after a traumatic experience.”

  “I need to find out about another patient,” she began. “A man who was just brought in….” But the doctor was already gone.

  She left the examination room on unsteady legs. Unsure whether she was angry, frightened, or both, or just tired, very, very tired, she wandered down two hallways repeating to herself how much she hated hospitals and how she kept finding herself roaming the halls of one.

  Where was the damn waiting room?

  What would she tell the cops when she found it?

  Finally, she spotted a door marked Exit and pushed through it, half expecting to set off an alarm. Maybe she could get herself arrested twice tonight.

  Stepping out into a parking lot, she followed the pavement around to the front door. She glanced around the lobby. There were eight or ten people in street clothes, but no cops. Where were they?

  Well, that was their problem. She wasn’t about to hunt for them.

  She found the information desk and asked about Hank.

  The woman there was at least a hundred pounds overweight, but her face was pretty and her manner pleasant. “I’ll see what I can find out.” She dialed a phone, spoke into it, disconnected, dialed again, spoke quietly and listened for what seemed like a long time before she turned back to Rachel.

  “He’s in surgery. They don’t know how long it will take. Then he’ll be in critical care. I wouldn’t wait, ma’am. It might be all night, and then they may say no visitors.”

  “Okay,” Rachel murmured. “Thanks.” She turned to leave, then turned back and held out the clipboard. “I was just in the emergency room. They said I should stop by some office….”

  The woman nodded and pointed toward a window to her left.

  Rachel made her way to the window, but there was no one in the office behind it. Just as well. They would want her insurance information and money. Mostly the money. Well, they would have to bill her for it. She slid the clipboard into the space below the glass and left it there.

  She sat down on one of the big brown imitation leather sofas that passed for places to sit but were so uncomfortable no one wanted to sit there long. Twenty minutes dragged by. A little girl was hanging onto her mother’s knee and blowing a pink gum bubble.

  Where were those cops? Had they gotten a call more important than waiting for her? Was she supposed to hunt for them? Surely they didn’t expect that.

  She had to figure out a way to get home. If this was Pasadena, it wasn’t all that far. She could take a cab, but she’d have to find a phone book to call one. For some reason, that seemed like the task that would push her over the edge. She was barely sure she could stand up.

  Remembering the cell phone, she drew it from her pocket and dialed Goldie. No answer. She left a message, then dialed Marty. He didn’t answer either. She checked her watch. Almost six-thirty. He’d be down at the poker club. Rachel could have him paged there, but she didn’t know the number. She’d have to find a phone book, and if she did that, she might as well call a cab.

  She dialed the garage. Irene couldn’t come pick her up, but she could send a cab, and at least Rachel could find out if everything was all right at home.

  “Dear girl! I didn’t expect to hear from you. Of course, everything is fine here. You know there’s never much happens on a Saturday. A few folks who would rather work than stay home, but mostly it’s just been keeping people who don’t belong in, out. Good thing I know all the regulars.” She paused. “However, there is a gentleman standing right here asking about you.”

  “My dad?” Rachel thought she couldn’t be that lucky.

  “No. Your friend from the hospital.” Rachel could hear Irene handing the phone to someone.

  Gabe?

  Gordon. “You poor thing,” he said when she had told him where she was and admitted she was stranded. “No, no,” he added, when she asked him to send a cab for her. “I’ll pick you up myself.”

  She waited for him in front of the hospital. She knew he drove a white Lexus and when it appeared she waved, which took about the last of her rapidly fading energy.

  He gave her a worried look when she slid into the passenger seat. “Are you okay, Rachel?”

  “The doctor back there seemed to think I probably wouldn’t croak in the next twenty-four hours.”

  He smiled sideways at her as he steered the Lexus out of the parking lot. “That’s good news. You want to get a drink? Dinner? Anything?”

  “Thanks, Gordon, but I really just want to go home.”

  “Looks like you’ve had a nasty time of it. What happened?”

  “I was camping with a friend, up in the Angeles. Someone started shooting at us. Hank was hit. We got out of there by way of a rescue team and helicopter. So I wound up at the hospital with my car still up in the mountains.”

  Gordon’s eyebrows rose and nearly met in an angle over his nose. “You want me to take you up to your car?”

  She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m too worn out to drive it back. I’ll get it later. I just want to lie down and look at the ceiling over my bed for a while.”

  “Is your friend okay? I mean—”

  “He’s in surgery. I guess they don’t know yet.” She hadn’t thought she had any tears left, but suddenly they were burning, filling her eyes.

  Gordon reached into the back seat and handed her a box of tissues. “Who was the shooter? Some moron hunting out of season after a beer too many?”

  “Something like that,” she said, not wanting to explain, just wanting to get home.

  The Lexus swung onto the Glendale Freeway. Rachel stared at the road, willing herself calm.

  When they arrived at the garage, he pulled the Lexus next to the glass booth.

  “Dear girl, you look terrible. Simply frightful,” Irene said. “You just go upstairs and rest, you hear me? I’ll take care of things here.”

  “I think I’ll just drive her up to the top floor,” Gordon said.

  “Good.” Irene beamed.

  When they got to the top, he parked where only a few days before Rachel had smashed the vodka bottle against the wall. She hoped he didn’t get glass in his tire for his thoughtfulness.

  “Oh, shit!” she said when she realized the ball
ed-up paper in her hand was the prescription the doctor at the hospital had handed her. “I wonder if I really need this.”

  Gordon cast her a concerned glance. “What is it?”

  Rachel sighed. “A prescription. For sleep I guess. I probably won’t need it.”

  Gordon took the paper from her, smoothed it out. “In case you do, I’ve got some in the trunk.”

  Rachel had all but forgotten what he did for a living. Remembering that made her remember something else. She looked at the car ceiling. “Gordon, I know you heard about my being arrested for—”

  He reached over and squeezed her hand. “Yes, I heard. And I never believed a word of it. It’s ridiculous.”

  She looked at his kind face and the tears started again.

  He reached around her and gently brought her head to his chest. “There, there. Just cry it out. It’ll be okay.” He patted her shoulder. “My mother used to say, ‘It’ll all come out in the wash.’”

  Chapter Forty-three

  Gordon gave her some pills, but Rachel put them unopened in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Like many recovering addicts, she viewed all medications with suspicion.

  She slept fitfully and woke early. Clancy was lying on her pillow peering into her face. He sat up and yawned, as if now that she was awake he could go to sleep. She was rubbing his head when everything came back in a rush of awful images. Hank.

  She had to wake up enough to be able to call the hospital.

  Waiting impatiently for the Mr. Coffee to finish gurgling, she noticed a box sitting on the floor next to her front door. Irene must have brought it up to the apartment.

  The toaster popped the English muffin up too soon. Rachel shoved it down again. Her stomach growled. How long since she’d eaten? Breakfast yesterday? A thousand years ago. She dropped the jar of plum jam as she was taking it out of the refrigerator. The glass shattered across the floor of the small kitchen.

  The jam was sticky. Rachel was just scraping up the last of it when she heard someone knocking on one of the garage doors.

  She tried to ignore it, but it went on steadily. Then her phone rang.

  She answered, hoping it would be Hank.

  “Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs,” came a voice. “We’re on the sidewalk in front of a parking garage. We’d like to speak with you.”

  She threw on jeans and a yellow tee shirt and went down to the door dreading the worst.

  They were as unlike each other as any two men could be. One was built like a bear and looked like he could bring down a mountain lion with his bare hands. The other was thin and pale. He wore small, black-rimmed eyeglasses. A clipboard was clutched in a knobby hand.

  Rachel smoothed back her hair, which was still tumbled from bed.

  “Sorry about the early hour,” the big man said. “But we need to talk with you about what happened yesterday.” The stubble on his chin gave him a slightly disheveled look, which might have been deliberate.

  “Up in the Angeles,” the thin one said, and added, “We expected you to come to the hospital waiting room.”

  Rachel sighed. “I did. You weren’t there. I waited quite a while.”

  “We most certainly were there,” the big man said.

  Rachel frowned. “But I was there. In plain sight, on one of those uncomfortable brown things.”

  “Brown things?”

  “Sofas.”

  “Ah.…That’s the lobby.”

  “Yes.”

  “We meant the emergency waiting room,” the bear said. “Okay. That explains it.” He paused, then started again. “You live here? In a parking garage?”

  “There’s an apartment upstairs.”

  “Mind if we come in?”

  “Can I see some ID?” She didn’t doubt they were cops, but buying a minute or two to clear her head seemed wise.

  They flipped open identical leather cases. The blond’s name was Jack Nease, the bear was Tom Walchel.

  “Okay.” Feeling weary already, with her day only an hour old, Rachel led them to the elevator. When it reached the top floor, she showed them to her living room and perched herself across from them on a kitchen bar stool.

  The big man sank so deep into the sofa the frame creaked.

  The blond remained standing. “Now it’s your turn. Mind showing us some I.D.?”

  “You found me, but you don’t know who I am?”

  “We’d still like to see some I.D.,” the bear said.

  Rachel sighed, then stood and started for the bedroom door. The blond moved with her. She gave him a puzzled look. “Excuse me? This is my bedroom.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t let you go in there alone,” he said, moving to block the door.

  “My own bedroom?”

  “Sorry.”

  She shrugged. “Okay, fine. If you don’t mind the mess, come along.”

  She took her wallet from her purse, opened it to show her driver’s license, and handed it to him.

  “Okay,” he said, glancing at it, and escorted her back to the living room. Still standing, he drew something from his pocket and held it up. “Tape recorder. Mind?”

  Oh crap, Rachel thought. What would happen if she said she minded? There was something scary about having her every word recorded.

  “Should I call a lawyer?”

  “Up to you. We’re not taking you in. Not right now anyway. We just have some questions.”

  She thought about that. If they weren’t taking her in for questioning, it must mean they hadn’t connected her to the OxyContin arrest. “Okay, go ahead,” she said, her voice shaking a little. She reminded herself that if things went badly, she could stop and insist on an attorney.

  In a low tone deputy Nease told the recorder the time, date, and Rachel’s name, then set the machine on the coffee table in front of the sofa. “Please state your name.”

  “Rachel Chavez.” Already she could feel her pulse quickening. You haven’t done anything wrong, she told herself.

  “You killed a man,” Nease said.

  “He was trying to kill us. I was scared to death he would do it.”

  Half an hour later, they were still asking questions. “Who fired first?” the big man asked for the third time.

  “I’ve told you,” Rachel said, exasperated, “he did. I didn’t even see him until he had fired several times.”

  “Why were you at that particular place at that particular time?” Nease asked.

  Rachel looked at Walcher, whose eyes were thoughtfully examining her face. “My friend and I were camping.”

  “In what?” the big man asked, and for the first time she noticed a dimple to the right of his mouth. Somehow it made him less scary.

  “In a tent.”

  “Was this in a campground?” The sofa creaked as the big man leaned forward.

  “No. You must already know that, you must already know a lot of what I’m telling you.” Rachel wondered if camping outside a campground would be added to the list of laws she had broken lately.

  “We’ve got preliminary reports. We’d like to hear it in your words.”

  “Like I said, we had hiked up to the top of the canyon and when we got back to the camp, someone started shooting at us.”

  “Shooting at you, or just a stray bullet? A hunter, maybe?” the thin man wanted to know.

  “I am absolutely certain he was shooting at us and that he was trying to kill us.”

  The blond chewed on the end of his pen. “Both of you?”

  Her shoulders sagged. “I don’t know.”

  The sofa creaked as the big man leaned forward. “Did you get a good look at the shooter?”

  “I told you. I didn’t even see him until he was shooting. I know he wasn’t wearing an orange cap, or anything orange. In fact, I’m pretty sure he was wearing camouflage clothes and cap. He was like part of the landscape. I could hardly see him at all. I think that was on purpose.”

  “That might mean he was stupid, but it doesn’t mean he wasn’t out there t
o kill deer, not people.” Walcher scratched the stubble on his chin. “You have any idea the number of shots he fired?”

  “I wasn’t counting. But he kept it up even after he hit Hank. He was aiming at us, trying to kill us.”

  “You’re sure you didn’t know him from somewhere?”

  “I didn’t get that good a look at him, but I don’t know a lot of people who shoot at other people.”

  “And you don’t think it’s possible he was a hunter, maybe a stupid one, or maybe one who just went bonkers?” Nease asked. “Maybe you were in his favorite site or something, and it just set him off, and he went postal.”

  After a moment Rachel said, “I guess that’s possible. All I know for sure is he was definitely, deliberately, trying to kill either me or Hank or both of us.” She said the last words slowly as if to emphasize them.

  Nease raised his eyes from the clipboard to stare at her from the other angle. “If that’s the case, what prevented him from accomplishing his objective?”

  Her pulse had slowed a little. Now it sped again and heat rose into her cheeks. “I shot him.”

  In self-defense. You should have added that it was self-defense.

  But Walcher was already asking, “With what?”

  “An old thirty-eight.”

  “And you killed him,” the bear said. “With a thirty-eight. At that distance.”

  “I guess I did. He fell over. And one of the people from the helicopter took a look at him and said he was dead.”

  The blond was quick to ask, “Where is this weapon now?”

  “Still up where we camped, I suppose.” Rachel bit her tongue. Oh shit, Why did I say that?

  I forgot.

  No, you didn’t. You just don’t want them to take the gun away from you. Good thing you’re not hooked up to a lie detector. You’d flunk with flying colors.

  “We recovered the shooter’s rifle. There was no sign of the gun you describe as yours.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Rachel said, knowing where the questioning would go next.

  And it did. “How did this handgun get to the camp site?” Nease asked.

  “You mean from here?”

  He nodded.

  She knew some of the rules. “Locked in the storage compartment in the back of my car.” How could anyone find out now that it wasn’t true?