David pulled the suture high, using his teeth to keep one side taut, and guided the needle through the loop with his thumb. "One-handed sutures. Reminds me of internship." He yanked the top of the string so the knot slid down and nestled near his flesh. "You should see Peter tie these. He's like a magician with his hands."
Diane rolled her eyes. "Maybe you should have been a surgeon."
"Cut this." She leaned over with the scissors, and he felt the softness of her hair on his forehead. He hoped his triceps didn't look too soft beneath the cut sleeves of his scrub top, and he laughed silently at himself for having such juvenile thoughts.
He rose briskly and opened the door. A group had gathered outside. Carson stood in the front. "Uh, Dr. Spier, we decided in light of your courageous escapades today, and your fighting spirit, we should present you with this prize." Pat handed him a box with a ribbon on it, and several lab techs giggled.
David opened it to reveal a pair of bright red boxing gloves. The group exploded in laughter. At Carson's prompting, David slid the gloves on, careful not to lift the suture, and raised his fists as Pat snapped a Polaroid.
They laughed and joked for a few minutes, and then David headed to the doctors' lounge to put away the gloves. When he opened the door, he recognized Sandra's mother sitting on one of the chairs, facing an open locker. A diminutive Asian woman with a sad, thoughtful countenance, she'd evidently come to retrieve her daughter's things. She held Sandra's white coat in her hands, her shoulders trembling. David realized she was crying.
Feeling foolish, he lowered his hands, red puffy globes in the boxing gloves. Lost in grief, Sandra's mother did not take note of his presence. He wanted to move forward to comfort her, to rest an arm across her shoulders, but found he was paralyzed.
After a moment, he pulled off his gloves, walked back to the CWA, and located Diane. "Sandra's mother is in the lounge," he said. "I think you might want to… "
Diane nodded and handed off the chart she'd been scribbling on. He watched her head back to the doctors' lounge without hesitation.
He felt suddenly ineffective.
Chapter 19
Dalton slouched down in the backseat of the LA Express Airport Shuttle van, and Yale looked over at him with a grin. "The windows are full tint," he said. "We're covered."
Dalton pulled himself up in his seat with a groan. "That's just how I sit," he said. Like Yale, Dalton wore a surveillance piece, the clear plastic tube hooking around his ear, the spring coils hidden beneath his hair. The tube connected to a wire that disappeared beneath his back collar, and hooked into a Motorola Saber radio strapped over one of his love handles.
"Our boys have been bedded down since five this morning," Yale said. He leaned forward and tapped the driver. "Jerry, bring it around through the parking kiosks and into the ER lot. We're gonna do a drive-through and see how it looks."
Because of the high-profile nature of the case, it had taken less lobbying to get approved for the overtime necessary to do a stakeout. In the end, the Captain had personally called the Mayor; he'd managed to pull six undercovers, whom Yale had briefed at the West LA station. Yale had asked Dalton not to attend the briefing, so he could assess the stakeout with fresh eyes.
Dalton leaned forward, focusing as they turned left off Le Conte and approached the parking kiosks. Blake, the older UCPD cop from whom they'd acquired the case, leaned out the window. He wore a baseball cap and a University of California Parking T-shirt. "That'll be five dollars please." He did not so much as glance at the two officers in the back of the van, maintaining their cover.
"Actually, sir," Jerry said, "we're just pulling down to the ER. I believe there's no charge for ER short-term parking."
"All right." Blake waved them forward.
"What the fuck?" Dalton muttered as they pulled away.
Yale shrugged. "UCPD wanted in, and, to be fair, they have a better idea how parking works here."
"Why not someone younger? For parking, you should've pulled a twenty-two-year-old out of the academy or something."
"Politics," Yale said. "They're still chafing we yanked him and Gaines from the case, so we cut Blake in on the loop. Besides, given the second attack, we don't mind sharing juris as much. It's more than a glam case now. It's a fucking plague."
"If our guy's familiar with this area of the hospital, new faces might throw him."
"The parking workers switch all the time, from complexes all over campus. There are new faces every week."
Dalton made a noise of resignation and turned in the seat, taking in the surroundings as the van veered right and headed toward the ambulance bay. An old man sat on the bus stop bench, a girl with pigtails sitting on his lap and trying to untangle a yo-yo from her legs. An overweight woman assisted her elderly mother up the walkway from the ambulance bay into the PCHS lot. A homeless man padded by on Reeboks, pushing a shopping cart filled with cardboard boxes and plastic bags, and two Mexican gardeners worked on their hands and knees on the stretch of ground ivy to the right of the ambulance bay. A trench they'd dug left some piping exposed, and one leaned over with a wrench, pushing his fanny pack to the side. A scattering of tall trees, mostly pines, framed the edges of the buildings and the parking structure.
The van drove down the ramp into the subterranean ambulance bay and idled alongside an ambulance double-parked at the left curb. UCLA CRITICAL CARE TRANSPORT was block-lettered on the side; the back windows were blacked out. Yale slid the van door open and stepped out and immediately through the back doors of the ambulance. Dalton followed suit, slamming the ambulance door behind him. The two officers sat on small stools, peering out the one-way rear windows. The shuttle van U-turned in the narrow space and passed them, heading up out of the ambulance bay. Concrete pillars, painted blue at the bases, set off the parking strip to their left. Beyond that, near the entrance, a chain-link fence enclosed a utilities storage area. Plenty of natural light spilled down the ramp, and the rows of fluorescent lights overhead colored the far reaches of the ambulance bay a tired yellow.
From their seats, Dalton and Yale had a clear view up the ramp; any incoming traffic or pedestrians would have to pass right by them. Beyond the ramp, a patch of grass was visible, as well as the parking turnaround and the edge of a kiosk.
"Well?" Yale asked.
"Nice touch, finding Mexicans for the gardeners. You pull them from Southeast or 77th?"
"From 77th. How'd you make 'em?"
"For starters, there's an LA sun overhead and no sweat stains on their shirts. The fanny pack couldn't be more obvious-what the fuck, are they European gardeners? Plus, their hair's a bit high and tight, but not much we can do about that."
"What else?"
Dalton tilted his head back and closed his eyes. "Oh yeah," he said. "I went through the academy with Garcia."
Yale pressed his lips together to keep from smiling. "And here I thought it was your keen detective skills." His fingers found the microphone beneath his shirt and pushed the button. Since they were on TAC12, there was no need to speak in code. "Garcia, Garcia, Yale."
Outside, Garcia faked scratching an itch beneath his shirt and activated his mike. "Yale, Yale, Garcia. Go ahead." Since he barely moved his lips, his vowels were better enunciated than his consonants.
"You got a friend who wants to say hello."
Dalton smiled as he spoke. "Garcia, you lazy spic, if you're not gonna work out there, at least fake it well. Splash some water on your shirt in the front, and a bit beneath your arms. Tell your buddy too."
"Hugh Dalton, you motherfucker. I was sure you'd never get promoted."
"Every mutt has his day. Did you check the sprinkler timers? We can't have you getting doused out there and looking like a rookie."
"Already taken care of. Hey, I was sorry to hear about Kathy."
Dalton's face shifted, the folds and wrinkles rearranging themselves but staying the same. "Thank you," he said.
"She was a good cop."
Dalton no
dded, as though Garcia could see him. His voice was a bit raspy when he spoke again. "Also, you gotta lose the fanny pack up front. Too obvious, especially with the drawstring."
"I already got my portable beneath my shirt. If I move the gun to my waistband, I'll bulk up even more."
"It'll still be less conspicuous than a big black brick strapped to your dick."
"All right. Over."
Dalton sat staring through the tinted windows of the ambulance, not looking over at Yale. "You gonna ask me what happened to my wife?"
"No."
"She was killed on a routine traffic stop last year. Pulled someone over and was approaching the car when a semi swerved and clipped her. Guy wasn't drinking or anything. He just leaned over, reached for the radio." His hand flared, then clapped to his knee. "She was a good cop. Great lady. Twice my IQ and four times my looks." He smiled faintly. "Not that that's saying much."
Yale pulled his Revos down over his eyes, despite the fact they were in an underground garage. "Kids?"
"Two girls. Nine and twelve." Dalton reached for the picture in his wallet but stopped himself. "Forget it."
Yale didn't insist.
Dalton cleared his throat, a little too loud. "Tell your homeless guy to wear shittier shoes tomorrow. The spanking-white Reeboks are a no-brainer. The overhang to this entrance is a parking area. Have him patrol up there from time to time in case our psycho decides to drop an alkali balloon down on a pedestrian. And have a UCLA PD car come by and roust him every now and then to make him look legit. That's all I got. I hope you didn't put anyone up a tree-they might be stealing our guy's hideout."
"No trees. We got a black female working reception inside, and a white male orderly standing by near the other entry control point."
"Just one other ECP?"
"Yeah, there's one hall into the ER from the hospital proper, but I'm pretty sure our guy's looking to hit here again. More open, closer to the streets, easier."
"So he thinks."
Yale nodded. "So he thinks."
"Getting bolder, isn't he, the fucker? He hit Nance up on the sidewalk. Took the second girl just about where we're sitting." Dalton looked down, as though he could see through the ambulance floor. "Came down here, right near the ER doors." His head snapped up. "What do we got east of the hospital? Anyone in the Botanical Gardens?"
Yale shook his head. "There are a lot of good hiding places down there, but we figured someone coming in from the east would've been picked up by the CCTV on the kiosk." The only closed circuit television camera near the ambulance bay entrance was mounted on the front parking kiosk, angled down and eastward, catching cars as they pulled through and paid. It recorded a wide scope and would have caught any pedestrian traffic looping around into the ambulance bay entrance from that direction. Yale had spent more time than he cared to recall watching the footage. Aside from the occasional woman in a low-cut dress, he'd found very little of interest. "We couldn't pull more than six undercovers," he continued. "I figured they were best used elsewhere."
Yale and Dalton had decided on a stakeout after several other angles had led to dead ends. Though the consistency of the assault location pointed to the hospital as the primary connection between Nancy Jenkins and Sandra Yee, Dalton had also been investigating the possibility of it being secondary. If both victims stayed in the same hotel attending a medical conference, for instance, they might have been selected by the suspect off the hotel guest list. Unfortunately, they'd taken no trips at the same time and had not attended any similar conferences. According to the women's credit card bills and records, there had been no overlap between workers and servicemen they'd had through the house in the last six months. Dalton had been briefly excited when he'd discovered they'd both received FedExes on the same day, but a few phone calls had confirmed that the packages had been delivered on different routes. The hospital files had been difficult to get hold of, but conversations with other physicians and nurses revealed little regarding patients Nancy and Sandra had treated together. It was looking more and more as though they'd been targeted merely because of their association with the hospital.
Yale had been slogging through pending lawsuits against the hospital and had yet to uncover any solid suspects. No reports on disgruntled ex-employees. No alkali- or even acid-throwing incidents had come back from PACMIS or CCAB. A car accident victim who felt he had received poor ER treatment last year had sent hostile letters to the hospital board, but he now lived in Massachusetts. Yale had run him through the Automatic Wants and Warrants System anyway and had found no red flags.
When Yale stretched, his hands touched both sides of the ambulance interior. Dalton shifted on the small stool and groaned, then checked his watch. The first two assaults had occurred in the early morning, two days apart. The last attack had been Tuesday, and it was now Thursday morning.
Someone was due to be attacked.
The stools inside the ambulance became increasingly uncomfortable as morning dragged into afternoon. Yale and Dalton received the occasional alert from Garcia and gave a few heads-ups to the officer working reception inside, but the majority of the patients and workers coming in were not suspicious. Blake had an argument with a news van that tried to pull past the parking kiosk down toward the ambulance bay and succeeded in fending it off without blowing his cover.
Despite the fact that Yale kept the front windows cracked, the ambulance remained stuffy; they couldn't run the air-conditioning without starting the vehicle and giving away their location. They ate lunch around one-sandwiches from Jerry's-then sat some more.
The officer disguised as an orderly called in laughing when a woman dressed as Barbie was admitted to the ER with bad flu symptoms. Evidently, the same Mattel executives who had purchased the UCLA Children's Hospital had hired and costumed a Barbie to tour the pediatrics ward, bringing good cheer and product placement to the sick children.
With the exception of Explosive Diarrhea Barbie, the rest of the afternoon passed without incident.
Nancy barely stirred when David stepped through the curtains surrounding her bed, though he made an effort to rattle them to alert her of his arrival. Her torso was slightly elevated, and she'd pulled her hospital gown up high to hide the scarring from her esophageal resection, a small act of modesty that David found at once pathetic and moving given the massive distortion of her face. A bandage pushed out her gown where they'd lifted skin for grafting from above her clavicle.
The ICU stood mostly empty-just an elderly man intubated across the way on a monitored bed, multiple IVs stringing around his arms. The sunset, diffused through the LA smog, glowed orange through the venetian blinds, lighting the room in bands of color.
David became aware of the intensity of his heartbeat and realized it was probably due to the ICU's similitude to the MICU, where Elisabeth had been removed from life support. He closed his eyes for a moment, clearing the thought.
"Nancy," he said softly. "It's me. David."
Her head rolled slowly to face him. Her response was relaxed and listless, as though she were moving underwater. "Dr. Spier." Speaking around a tongue sluggish with morphine.
He took in the shock of her face. Her eyes, milky white, shrunken and sightless, were those of a Macbeth witch. Bolsters covered her face from forehead to chin. Xeroform-yellow antibiotic-impregnated sheets-had been sutured into her face over the skin grafts and packed with cotton soaked in mineral water. Then the Xeroform's edges had been folded back over and tied like a package, molding the new skin into the wound so it would take. If the grafts hadn't been laid, the wounds would have contracted as they closed over, pulling her features out of proportion. Disfiguring contractions came in all shapes and sizes-smeared nostrils, drooping eyes, lips stretched wide and thin. Polysporin antibiotic ointment stood out in globs over the bolsters. Infection-the next fight.
David found he was talking. "-in four to five days, we'll get those bolsters off and see if the grafts took. The sutures are sheep gut, so they'll di
ssolve. I insisted the plastics guys get in right away. They found a pretty good color match with the skin from your supraclavicular and postauricular areas, and they pulled a bit more from your lateral thigh-"
She was shaking her head back and forth. "No more," she said thickly. "No more." Her voice was hoarse-when she was in the ER, he should've seen about revising her crich to a trach earlier.
David crouched, resting his forearms flat on her bed. "I'm sorry," he said. "Just know you're being taken care of."
"Scary," she said. "So scary. A man coming at me… " She made a noise like a sigh. "Did they catch him?"
The thought of the assailant free, plotting and moving among others, made David's mouth tighten. "Not yet."
"I heard he got Sandra too. Is she okay?" Nancy's voice was flat and droning, the words all blending together.
"She'll have some scarring, but she should be all right."
"Did she swallow any?"
He shook his head, then remembered Nancy couldn't see him. "No," he said.
"Where is she?"
"Her mother took her up north. She's being treated at Stanford, closer to home. I'm not sure if she's coming back."
They sat in silence. The overhead lights were giving him a headache.
"I don't want to work anymore," Nancy said. "Don't want to be around people." A bit of drool ran from the corner of her mouth down her cheek, tracing the edge of a bolster.
"You can see about that later. Work can help pull you through a tough time." He sounded platitudinous and foolish, even to himself.
Her head looked like that of a mutant insect in a '50s fear film. "I don't want to help others," she said. "Not anymore."
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