by Rhett DeVane
“We have to go to her.” Sheila waved for the server.
Choo-choo threw a wad of cash on the table. “That ought to more than take care of the bill and tip. C’mon!”
“Wait!” Sheila said after they had filed outside. The group stood beneath the lone streetlight next to the Towncar. “Which hospital?”
“Capital Regional. That’s the one on the other side of town,” Loiscell answered.
“Had to be that one.” Choo-choo fumbled in her purse for the keys. “I know my way blind to Tallahassee General. Aren’t there some new roads they’ve cut through? And us here in the dark, half-drunk, trying to find our way.”
Chapter Twelve
The suicide
Glenn Bruner jerked awake and peered through the shadows. He wiped spittle from his chin with his coat sleeve. Was that sound the restaurant door? He blinked twice to clear his vision and glanced at the illuminated dial of his wristwatch. Almost an hour had elapsed since he had taken up position beneath the live oak in the darkened parking lot. How had he dozed off? The lost sleep from the past week, had to be it. Good thing his other senses were so sharp, or he might have slept straight through. He shuddered, thinking of Clay’s reaction.
For a moment, he held the image of the sparkly bass boat in his mind’s eye. He expanded the vision, and hooked it to the back of a brand-spanking new pick-up. Perfect match. When the sun hit right, spangles of refracted light shone from the glitter chips in the paint.
Only time and four bullets separated Glenn from his dreams. Clay had assured him the money was already there, resting in an offshore account. By tomorrow, Glenn would have his share. What a difference a few hours could make in a man’s life.
He took three deep breaths and stifled a sour-tasting belch. The start of a hangover threatened. His vision blurred. No matter. At this distance, he could surely fire dead drunk and still hit his mark. On more than one occasion, he had nailed a buck when he was so sloshed he could barely stand.
Some women stood in the pool of yellow light. Glenn blinked, squinted, and counted. One. Two. Three. A white-haired old woman and two others. One with her back to him looked vaguely familiar. Clay had warned him of that possibility. Where the hell was the fourth one? He hung back in the deep shadow of the building. His fingers caressed the gun in his coat pocket. The anticipation, at once thrilling and agonizing.
Another woman joined the group. Glenn panted. He counted again. Four times the payola, buddy boy.
Bingo. Party time.
As he stepped forward, he eased the weapon from the pocket, released the safety, and held it close to his body. For a moment, Glenn stood, relishing the heady sense of power. The white-haired woman noticed him one second too late. Her mouth hung open. Like that mounted largemouth bass in his living room. He raised the gun, took aim, and fired.
The first shot spun one of the women around. She flailed and fell. The others’ faces mirrored shock, then horror at the pool of blood forming around the woman’s body. The shortest of the three screamed. Glenn fired again. The screaming stopped.
That woman, the screamer. Sheila. Glenn reeled backwards, stumbling, falling. The last two shots sailed high, one ricocheting off the streetlight pole.
A sharp, white-hot pain seared through his head when he hit the asphalt. Then darkness.
Choo-choo Ivey stared for a moment—seemed like much more. Struck dumb. Her mind, not comprehending the scene unfolding around her. Who was screaming? There had been shots. And that iron stench of discharged body fluids, faint at first, then blooming up and up. Separate scents: one a trifle fruity like overripe apples, the other the smell of wet rust.
Loiscell’s voice filtered through. “Ambulance! . . . shooting! . . . two people!” The words ran together, jumbled into nonsense.
People shouted, ran toward them. Diners who had witnessed the scene through the long windows poured outside. One of the owners and two young male servers banged from the bistro’s front door. The three men gestured wildly and ran toward the crumpled man who had fired the shots. One kicked the handgun from the downed man’s hand, then stood over him, menacing. Another spoke into a cell phone. All around them, people jabbered to each other and to whoever listened on the other end of their cell phones.
“Let me have your sweater!” Loiscell snagged at her sleeve. Choo-choo slipped it from her arms, handed it over.
“Hang in there, Sheila. Honey, help is on the way.” Loiscell’s voice sounded absurdly calm. As if she comforted a child with a skinned knee. Sheila moaned. Didn’t open her eyes. Dark blood seeped through Choo-choo’s favorite cream sweater—the perfect weight for a summer evening. Loiscell pressed down. “Get that little blanket you keep in the back of your car. I think the other lady’s worse off.”
Choo-choo snapped from the inertia. Blanket. In the trunk. She grappled with the catch on her purse and located her keys. She hit the key fob button; the trunk popped open. She found the Hello Kitty blanket.
Another man hunkered over the second prostrate lady. He sobbed and said Lucinda, Lucinda, Lucinda. The woman didn’t respond. Choo-choo stepped over and crouched down. What to do? Stop the bleeding. How long before those ambulances arrived? A pool of liquid spread from the woman’s midsection and flowered outward. Sobbing Man turned to her. “My wife . . .” Choo-choo couldn’t understand the rest of his words.
The crowd surrounded them now, circled as if in protection. Voices talking at once, women crying. One lady filmed the action with her cell phone camera. Four men now flanked the shooter. He moved his head and moaned. Where were the police!
Choo-choo used the balled-up blanket to help Sobbing Man apply pressure. Hello Kitty turned from hot pink to deep red. “Help’s on the way, Mister. Hang on.”
Sirens whined nearby. Hurry, please hurry. People should move out of the way. Let them through! My friend has been shot! Back up people. They need air. This isn’t a circus.
The blood on Choo-choo’s hands stung and puckered as it dried along the edges. She was going to throw up. Deep breaths. You’ve seen worse than this, Choo-choo, done worse than this. Her head swung to watch the men corralling the shooter. Two police cars screeched to a halt—City of Tallahassee logos swirled down their flanks. A female officer jumped from one, a male from the other. Both held revolvers in ready position. The female took the lead, calling out, “Where is the gun? Step away from the gun!” She motioned the bistro servers to move aside, and removed the shooter’s gun to her squad car.
Chain of evidence. Secure the scene. Choo-choo thought of all the cop shows she loved to watch. And here it was in full color and sound.
The male officer stationed himself with the downed shooter. The female talked into the mic mounted on her shoulder as she jogged over to where the two victims lay. She assessed the situation, added, “three down. One gunshot to the gut. One gunshot to the shoulder. Shooter immobilized.” The rest, a series of code-talk for the EMS vehicles in route or waiting nearby for clearance from the officers on scene.
Two more squad cars arrived. Tallahassee Police and Leon County deputies. Doors opened, slammed. Barked commands. Step back, people! Blue and white light strobes streaked the darkness.
Emergency vehicles arrived in quick succession. First, a fire engine. Its red lights joined the blue lights, ricocheting off buildings, windows, and peoples’ frozen faces. Loiscell and Choo-choo stood back when the paramedics swooped in. Sobbing Man had to be pulled from his wife. Medical chatter passed back and forth as the first responders triaged. Two ambulances arrived, additional paramedics joined in. More lights streaked the night.
Paramedics wheeled the other victim into the first waiting ambulance. Sobbing Man spoke with an officer. This one, clearly the commander in charge, stopped long enough to nod a couple of times before pointing to the passenger side of the EMS vehicle. The ambulance doors banged shut. Sobbing Man climbed inside the cab with the driver, and the ambulance pulled away, its sirens screaming. A patrol car pulled out and followed.
> Choo-choo looked from the paramedics securing Sheila to a gurney, to the crowd of officers with the handcuffed shooter. He sat up. Something black fell from his head. An officer picked it up with a gloved hand, held it out as if it was vile. Beside her, Loiscell watched the scene, then swore beneath her breath and turned to face Choo-choo.
“I’m going on this ambulance with Sheila,” Loiscell said in a low voice. “Anybody asks, I’m her sister.”
Choo-choo blinked. Frowned at Loiscell.
“Soon as they let you leave, go to Capital Medical, check on Abby. If you can’t drive, sweet-talk one of these officers. We can get your car later. Can you do that?” When Choo-choo failed to reply, Loiscell grabbed her upper arm and gave it a firm shake. “Can you do that?”
Choo-choo nodded.
“Remember,” Loiscell whispered into Choo-choo’s ear. “I’m Sheila’s sister.”
Loiscell stepped over to the same official that Sobbing Man had spoken with a few moments before. Around them, other law enforcement officers corralled the crowd. One rolled out a yellow police tape boundary. The rippling line of spectators became an audience. Controlled chaos.
Choo-choo couldn’t hear the exchange over the babble, only see Loiscell’s adamant expression, see one finger jab toward the gurney. The officer led Loiscell to the second ambulance and she slid into the front passenger side. With Sheila inside and the doors closed, it pulled away—lights and sirens—with a TPD squad car close behind.
God. This was all her fault. She had set this up, paid for it! Her dear friend. That poor, innocent other woman. The weight of it all settled over her shoulders. It was supposed to be one bullet, one perfect aim through each heart. Boom and then down. A graceful freefall, not this violent, jerking slam. The movie special effects showed these kinds of scenes through molasses air. Bullets spooling past, allowing the intended target ample time to flash raw emotions—shock, realization, panic—before the projectile crept through pliant flesh, bone, organs. The body spinning, yielding to gravity, a pirouette. A ghost image rising from the spent carcass like curling paint, hovering and regarding the Earth shell with compassion and prayer hands.
Choo-choo listened until the sirens turned into a faint whine before she turned once more to the shooter and his law enforcement escorts. He stood, stumbled. They herded him to an awaiting squad car. The group paused for a moment in a pool of streetlight. Choo-choo saw his face, long enough.
The man, the shooter: Glenn Bruner.
She staggered a couple of steps back to lean against the side of the Lincoln. A handsome, dark-haired TPD officer—one with a baby face, young enough to be her grandson if she only had one—supported her arm. Questions, and more questions. When would they end?
Puddles from the earlier afternoon summer shower pooled by the curb. A thin line of red had joined the gathering runoff. Choo-choo forced herself to inhale.
She glanced up at the evening sky. A few dim stars, nothing as impressive as in the country. Bats skittered through the air. The scent of garlic and oregano wafted from her shirt.
Chapter Thirteen
The suicide
One hour after
Elvina Houston pushed the accelerator hard and the Oldsmobile shot forward from the side parking lot of the Triple C Day Spa and Salon, sending a spray of rocks in its wake. Sedating endorphins moved aside for a jolt of adrenaline. So much for the afterglow from Stephanie’s expert massage. When she paused at a stop sign, Elvina pressed an icon on the cell phone’s keypad and listened again to the voicemail messages. Three were of no consequence. Normal town babble. The last two made her heart race: one from Abby McKenzie and one from Loiscell Pickering. All Hades had broken loose over in Tallahassee, from the sound of things.
“I’m out of touch for an hour, and the holy white shit hits the fan!” she said aloud, then admonished herself for cursing. But sometimes, doo-doo or crap didn’t cut the mustard.
That would teach her to take a moment to herself. Being the head of the little-ole-lady hotline required constant vigilance, like being President of the U. S. of A. She needed an administrative assistant, someone to monitor the cell phone when she needed to sleep, eat, pee, or get a massage. Even the Good Lord Almighty took Sunday to rest.
Her mind raced. What to do first? By the house to throw plenty of dry food and water down for Buster. Grab some of the reserve cash hidden in the sewing basket. Throw a change of underwear, toothbrush, and her medications in a bag.
Elvina turned into her driveway and killed the engine. What was she thinking? She could no more drive to Tallahassee this time of night than she could pedal to the moon. Chattahoochee streets were one thing for failing vision; the capital city traffic was another. She hit the icon for the address book and tabbed down. Time to call for reinforcements.
Less than a half-hour later, Ben Calhoun manned the wheel of Elvina’s gas-guzzling boat of a car. He turned onto the entrance ramp for Interstate 10.
“Go ahead and give her the juice, Ben. She’s had a tune-up on her V-8 and she’ll flat-out move when she needs to. We’ve got two folks in dire straits, and now’s no time to worry about the speed limit. If one of those highway patrol fellers pulls us over, let me do the talking. I’ve been stopped a handful of times, and I’ve yet to drive off with a ticket.”
“If you say so, Miz Houston.”
“For heaven’s sake, call me Elvina. Mrs. Houston was my mother-in-law.”
Ben nodded. The faint coral glow from the dash lights painted his features. He wasn’t half bad-looking.
“What’s going on?” Ben asked. The speedometer registered ninety.
Elvina shrugged. “Heck if I know. The first call was from Abby. Didn’t even sound like herself. Said she was in the hospital off Capital Circle. Second one was from Loiscell. She was all kind of hysterical. I could barely make out what she was talking about, or yelling about, I should say. Something about a shooting, and Sheila and some other woman on the way to Tallahassee General in ambulances. She screeched something about Choo-choo and Glenn Bruner I couldn’t make heads or tails of. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Loiscell was a little tipsy. That aside, it sounded like a big flaming mess.”
“Which hospital should I go to, first?”
Elvina tapped her chin. “Would’ve been more convenient if they’d both landed in one or the other.” She held the smartphone with one hand and jabbed the digital keyboard with the other. “Wish everyone would join this century and text, for heaven’s sake. You should see that phone of Loiscell’s. I’m surprised it doesn’t have a crank.” She paused. “Loiscell? This is Elvina.”
High-pitched keening echoed across the car. Elvina held the phone away from her ear a couple of inches. Waited for a pause.
“Take a deep breath. There. Now. Calm down long enough to give me some information. I have Ben Calhoun with me. We’re flying the highway.”
The conversation lasted a couple of minutes, then Elvina stored the cell phone into its pouch on the side of her purse. “I said to myself that all hell had broken loose. Nix that. The Devil himself has rose up and tromped through in a fire-snorting gallop.”
“So, TGH or Capital Regional?” Ben asked again.
“Loiscell sounds like she’s near to falling apart. She’s at TGH with Sheila. She’s been shot.”
“Loiscell has been shot?”
“No, no. Sheila’s the one who’s been shot. Loiscell is there with her. Try to keep up, Ben.” Elvina took a breath to steady her frayed nerves. The effects of the massage were long gone. “Choo-choo is on her way to see about Abby at Capital Regional.”
Ben glanced away from the road, his worried expression highlighted by the dim light from the dash gauges.
“Let’s go see if we can keep Loiscell from ending up in the psych-unit first, then we can dash over and see what’s up with Abby.”
Ben clasped the steering wheel so hard, his knuckles turned white. “Why don’t I drop you off at Tallahassee General, and I’ll run on over to t
he other hospital? You have my cell number. We can touch base as soon as either of us knows anything.”
Elvina reached over and patted his shoulder. “That’s a wonderful idea, Ben. I knew you were the one to call with all of this. You’re so steady and calm.”
Ben sighed. “People seem to think because a man doesn’t fall apart or emote uncontrollably, that he doesn’t feel fear, dread or . . . love.”
Elvina studied Ben’s profile. The word love hung in the silence between them, a loaded sentiment suspended on a gossamer thread.
“So I have this hole in my colon.” Abby McKenzie’s statement slurred from the effects of the medication dulling the deep pain in her abdomen.
“Yes. That is what the tests revealed.” The emergency room physician’s expression remained a mask of professional distance. “Could be a number of causes. Colorectal cancer. A weak spot in the colon. An ulcerated diverticulum.”
Abby searched her memory for the term. Years of reviewing patients’ medical histories helped with a basic familiarity of anatomical lingo. Still, doctors needed to come with some kind of translation manual. “Diverticulitis. Isn’t that some kind of condition where you have to avoid eating certain things?”
“There are various schools of thought on the relationship between diet and this condition.” The doctor pulled up a chair and sat down. “Let me explain; a diverticulum is a pouch-like herniation of the muscular wall of the colon. Sometimes, one or more may become inflamed and cause cramping and bleeding. Other times, one might become ulcerated and rupture, causing fecal matter to be expelled into the abdominal cavity.”
“Not good.”
“Of course, colorectal cancer can mirror some of the same symptoms.”
Abby closed her eyes and the word cancer echoed in her head; the mere mention could send a person into a dark place. Cancer lurked everywhere, and took no prisoners. All ages. All walks of life. Rich or poor. Cancer: the equal opportunity disease. Abby opened her eyes and fought to blend the twin images of the doctor back into one person. “You’re a breath of fresh air, doc.”
