by DL Barbur
I threw the bag with the shotgun in the passenger seat, slid behind the wheel, and nearly broke the key getting the car started.
"Al. You need to listen to me." I tried to keep my voice level.
"Ok."
"Mandy. Where is she?"
"In the hospital, at OHSU. Why?"
And then it occurred to him. "Oh, no…."
"She's the other loose end. If she wakes up, she can tell people I didn't attack her. What room is she in?"
He told me and I wrote it down on my hand as I pushed the car through the side streets. I was going too fast to keep a low profile.
"Al, how fast can you get some of Bolle's hard cases over there to sit on her room?"
There was silence on the line for a minute.
"I'm working on it."
"Work harder. Do it yourself if you have to." I hung up as I swung onto the interstate and started zigzagging through cars much faster than I should have on the rain-slick interstate. The pavement was grooved and the water pooled, deep in places. I forced myself to slow down a little. I wouldn't do Mandy any good if I wrapped myself around an abutment on the way there.
I wondered if Audrey was another "loose end," a way to get to me. I wasn't dumb enough to assume that Todd and his boys didn't know about Audrey. They probably knew my favorite breakfast and the size of my underwear by now. Money had a way of opening doors.
I hit the I-84 to I-5 interchange at about eighty, way too fast, but I made it. I leaned way over to fetch the phone out of the passenger seat, nearly putting the car into the guard rail.
I dialed Audrey’s number, waited impatiently as it rang.
"Audrey, I need you to call me. I need to know you’re ok" I said, as soon as her voice mail beeped.
I put the phone down, blew through a red light at the end of the exit ramp that would take me to the hospital. I left a trail of blaring horns in my wake, but so far I saw no red and blue lights in the rearview mirror.
Chapter Twenty-One
OHSU sat on top of a giant hill. The road up was narrow and twisted. I got flipped off by two joggers and a bicyclist on the way up, but who jogs dressed all in black anyway?
I slowed down as I entered the parking lot. OHSU security were notorious for being both bored and overzealous.
I parked the car and forced myself to walk and not run. Fortunately, I knew my way around the hospital from all the times I'd come here to interview a victim of an attempted homicide or serious assault. I went in a pair of sliding glass doors near the Emergency Room.
My mind raced, trying to come up with a plan. Visiting hours were technically over. I didn’t know if my newly minted Federal credentials would get me past the nurse, but even if they didn’t, my presence would hopefully deter any plans Todd and Marshal had to harm Mandy.
I needed to see Mandy, make sure she was still alive, make sure I hadn't screwed this up so comprehensively that my partner was already dead.
I cleared my mind, saw an unattended clipboard lying at an empty nurse's station and snagged it. Forget wearing a ninja outfit and creeping around in air conditioning ducts. The best way to sneak into any building was to look the part and carry a clipboard.
I forced myself to breathe, and think of nothing on the elevator ride up. First things first. Make sure Mandy was still breathing and go from there.
The doors slid open, all too soon. In front of me was a nurse’s station. A tired looking woman sat there talking on the phone. I stepped out, gave her a professional, distant smile. She looked at me, distracted, and nodded. Perfect.
The hallway stretched out to my right. I knew Mandy's room would be all the way on the end, to the left. I started that way.
A door at the far end of the hall swung open and a guy wearing nurse’s scrubs stepped out. He took a look to the right and left and then looked at me. Our eyes locked.
He recognized me. I could tell because when we made eye contact, he froze and his eyes got a little wider, his mouth opened just a little bit. He was no nurse, not any more than I was. He was a young guy, mid-twenties, with a crew cut and the bullet head and squat neck of somebody who spent hours in the gym.
Unconsciously, his hand went down to pat something tucked in his waistband. He leaned forward towards me.
Weapon! My brain screamed. I dropped the clipboard, leaned forward myself. We were maybe thirty feet apart, separated by the narrow hallway. If he pulled a gun he couldn't miss.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the nurse behind the desk frown, start to put the phone down. Damn. We were attracting attention.
Down at the end of the hall, the guy spun on his heel and went back through the doorway.
I was moving by the time it swung closed behind him. I charged down the hallway, pausing for a second at the door to Mandy's room. I caught a glimpse of her there on the bed. It was hard to tell which was whiter, her skin or the mass of bandages wrapped around her head. Her hair was unbound, the first time I'd ever seen it that way. I would have never guessed it was that long. She was breathing.
I closed my eyes in relief for a second then ran back out into the hall. I pushed the door open, determined to catch the guy and make him tell me what was going on. The door had one of those signs that showed a stick person walking down a flight of stairs.
My brain caught up with my body right as I moved through the door frame. I caught a flash of the fist coming at me from the corner of my eye and lowered my head just enough to catch it on the skull instead of square on the jaw. Still, it was like a flashbulb had gone off right in front of me when it landed. If he'd connected with my jaw he would have knocked me out.
I spun, throwing my own right, which he slipped easily. It went sailing over his head as he charged in low, trying to take my balance. I had just enough time to squat as he wrapped me up, but he still drove me backwards into the wall. I managed a half-ass punch into his abdomen. The kid's belly was like a rock. I probably hurt my hand as much as I hurt him.
He was smaller than me, by six inches or so, but his muscles were rock-hard. We clinched like a pair of boxers, throwing knees and elbows. He kept trying to take my balance and throw me to the ground, or worse, over the railway of the narrow stairwell landing. He was silent except for the occasional grunt.
I swallowed panic. The kid was better than me, faster. I was keeping up with him, barely, countering each move he made, absorbing a glancing elbow or knee here, barely dodging a head-butt there, but I was playing a defensive game, I wasn't getting any shots in. This couldn't last for long.
I put all my energy in a desperate attempt to throw him, he countered easily, threw a knee that narrowly missed my groin. It exploded against the inside of my thigh and I staggered backwards, throwing him off balance for half a second as the resistance went away.
I heard something clatter to the floor and we both looked down involuntarily. A big fat syringe was lying by his foot, where it had fallen out of his pants. It was full of amber colored fluid.
I bet that was for Mandy, I thought, and that was what made me stop being scared. I got angry instead.
We both recovered at the same time. He tore his eyes away from the syringe and launched himself at me, grabbing me around the waist and slamming me against the wall again. I absorbed the attack, nearly blacking out when the door handle dug into my kidney.
He left an opening and I took it. I took my right hand, grabbed his ear, and pulled. I'd pulled taffy once or twice as a kid and oddly, that was what came to mind now. At first, there was resistance, although not as much as I would have expected, and then, with a wet ripping sound, the top three-quarters of his ear came off in my hand.
He staggered. His mouth came open and his hand flew up to his ear. His eyes went to the bloody chunk of cartilage in my fist. They were full of disbelief.
I dropped the ear and hit him. I don't know much when it comes to "martial arts," but I know how to hit people. I blasted a right cross into his open mouth. I put every bit of my weight into it and there
was a satisfying crack as his jaw gave. Blood and bits of teeth pelted the wall beside him. He staggered against the guard rail, his head lolling on his shoulders.
All I could see was red. I moved in, wanting to pound his face into a pulp, then maybe I would pick up that syringe and jam it into him and see how he liked it. I blasted a left jab in that flattened his nose, then another right into his already broken jaw. I felt pieces of bone turn into powder when that one landed.
I hauled back to hit him again but it was too late. I watched in sick disbelief as he stumbled once on rubber legs, then tumbled sideways over the rail of the stairway landing and out of sight. I had enough time to take half a breath before I heard a heavy thump from down below.
I stood there for a second, not believing. The scene of him going over the rail kept playing over and over again in my head. I kept hoping the ending would change and I'd see him lying there at my feet.
It didn't change though. I finally forced myself to step forward, to look over the railing.
He was lying on the stairs below, face down. It looked like he'd landed on the top of his head, as it was folded under his body in an impossible looking position. A thick trail of blood oozed slowly out from under him and started dripping down the first stair until it pooled up enough to drip down to the one below it. I stepped forward, trying to see if he was breathing, and heard a crunch under my right foot. I looked down, at first afraid I'd stepped on the syringe, but I realized it was his ear. I kicked the thing away from me in disgust. It sailed between the guard rails and fluttered down to land on his body.
I tore myself away, looked for the syringe. I found it and stuffed in my waistband after making sure there was a cap on the needle.
The stairwell was silent. The door behind me was still shut. I realized the whole fight had taken fifteen, twenty seconds at most. I needed to get moving.
I walked down the stairs, made myself touch him. My stomach felt like it was going to turn inside out at the grinding of the bones in his neck as I moved his head ever so slightly to take a pulse.
He was dead. No doubt about it.
I stood there over his body. A voice in the back of my head said that's number three.
I pulled the ID off of him. The face on the card was his, but I would bet the name was fake. Whoever gave him the card had the ability to fake OHSU ID cards. Interesting. Maybe it would have fingerprints on it.
Fingerprints got me thinking about evidence. Belatedly, I looked around for cameras, was relieved when I didn't see any. I was sure I would be on video coming in the building, but there would be no footage of the actual fight.
That gave me pause. I was thinking like a suspect. Not a cop. I'd just killed a guy, arguably in justified self-defense, and I was trying to figure out how to get away from the scene.
I heard voices from behind the door up top. That spurred me to action. I stepped gingerly over the body, careful not to step in the blood.
I started moving down the stairs, checking myself for blood as I went. I had less on my right hand than I would have expected. As much of it was from my busted knuckles as it was from ripping his ear off. I had to pause, swallow a sour rush of vomit in my mouth as I remembered the feeling of his ear coming off in my hand. I leaned against the cool wall for a second, feeling beads of sweat pop out on my forehead.
Fuck it, and drive on, I thought, as I wiped my bloody hand on my jeans.
I came out of the stairwell and tried to look cool as I made my way back to the parking lot. There were a few people walking around, but nobody paid me any mind. I kept checking the phone. Still no signal.
I shivered in the wet cold outside. I hadn't realized how hot I'd been.
I sat down in the car, started the engine and sat with the phone in my hand, watching the windshield wipers go back and forth.
I'd just killed somebody, and so far, had gotten away with it. I should call 911, explain how I'd been attacked, let the facts sort themselves out. Surely everybody would understand: It was a conspiracy to kill me and my partner because we'd discovered a plot involving the psychotic son of a prominent businessman, oh and don't forget the secret CIA Air Force that was up to something. We didn't know what, but we were sure it was bad.
I almost laughed.
I picked up the phone and dialed Bolle's number.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bolle answered himself this time. "Miller. Where the hell are you?"
I almost spilled the whole story. I'd found there was a powerful need to confess after you killed somebody, a need to explain it all, convince everybody around you that you'd done the right thing, that you had no choice. The person you were really trying to convince was yourself and that was a process that never ended.
It occurred to me just in time that I was talking on an unsecured cell phone and Bolle was probably recording it.
"They tried for Mandy at the hospital."
He was silent for a second.
"Is she safe?" When he spoke it sounded like he had some genuine concern in his voice. It was enough to keep me from hanging up.
"Yeah."
He breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. I've got a material witness warrant for her on the car seat beside me. I've made arrangements with a private ambulance company I trust to move her to a secure private care facility. It's a step we should have taken earlier when we moved you out of the jail. I'm sorry."
I chewed on that for a minute. As the adrenaline left my body, it was getting easier to think.
"Ok. There were some complications at the hospital."
"We're hearing traffic on the police scanner. A trip and fall?"
"I heard one of the nurses mention something like that," I said.
"We need to meet."
He was right. We needed to meet. But I wanted the initiative. I'd just killed a man and I trusted exactly one person in the world right then, myself.
"I'll call you back in ten minutes and tell you where."
I hung up the phone before he had a chance to speak and pulled off into a parking lot. It took me a second to realize where I was. I'd been driving in a daze down Barbur Boulevard, towards Tigard, towards Bolle's safe house, in fact. I didn't remember the last few minutes of driving. I didn't know if I'd done something stupid like run a red light. I swallowed hard. I needed to pull it together.
I was in the parking lot for the Tri-Met bus station. The lot was only half full. I found a spot near the back and parked nose out.
I liked it. There were only two ways in and out. I could see both of them from where I was sitting. The lot was dark. Behind me was a narrow stretch of scrubby woods and a steep drop to the interstate below. I'd actually recovered a body down there once, and knew the lay of the land. Might as well make it here.
I dialed Bolle back and told him where to meet me, hanging up again before we could talk about anything of substance. I just sat there for a few minutes, listening to the radio. Rush. Damn. I hate Rush.
I put the Glock in my lap, covered it with my folded raincoat. I sat Casey's duffel bag on the seat behind me, where I could reach back and grab it. Pistol grip shotguns looked cool in movies, but they sucked for hitting things more than a few feet away. Inside the car, the lack of a stock made it much handier to move around, and across the width of a parking space, I could just point the thing.
Bolle’s car glided into the lot with a hiss of tires on wet pavement. I started my car, pulled forward a couple of feet, then flashed my headlights. I kept the car in gear, with my right foot hovering over the gas and my left on the brake. Big Eddie pulled the Mercedes into the parking spot next to me, nose first. He nodded as he went past, then stopped the car so the back window was even with mine. It motored down and there was Al, with Bolle sitting beside him.
I looked at Al. He looked tired, older than I'd ever seen him.
"Get in," I said, ignoring Bolle. Bolle frowned but stayed silent. Al, God bless him, didn't hesitate. He stepped out of the Mercedes, came around and got into the car bes
ide me.
I looked at Bolle. "Don't follow us. We'll call when we're done." I didn't wait for a reply, just rolled up the window and pulled away.
I drove in silence for a while, turning onto Capitol Highway and then winding my way through the residential neighborhoods, watching for headlights behind me.
"You wearing a wire?” I asked Al.
"No,” Al said. “He wanted me to."
"Why?"
"May predicted there was a better than even chance you would want to talk to me alone."
"She pretty good?" I asked.
"Yeah. She's pretty good, one of the best profilers I've ever worked with."
"What else did she predict about me?"
Al didn't even hesitate. "That there's a good chance you'll work yourself into a state where you trust no one, could even potentially become violent towards anyone you perceive as a threat. She says you're in an extremely emotionally labile state because your schema of how the world works has been shattered and you feel betrayed."
"What do you think about that?" I'd driven in circles long enough. I popped back out on to Capitol Highway in a different place than where I'd left it and accelerated.
"I think I'm a lot more scared of that Glock you've got in your lap falling on the floorboards and going off accidentally than I am of you shooting me with it on purpose."
I twisted in my seat to stick the Glock back in the holster.
"Thanks. Those plastic guns make me nervous." Al said.
I nodded. "Al?"
"Yeah?"
"What the hell does 'labile' mean?"
"I dunno. I was going to ask Alex. She studied that stuff in medical school."
I snickered and he did too. Before I knew it, we were both laughing so hard I had to pull over to the side of the road. It was ridiculous, but the release felt really good. I was laughing at the image of Al, all studious and professional looking, listening to a psych briefing he didn't understand. But mostly I was laughing because I had to do something to release the pressure building in the back of my mind. It was either that or break my hands pounding my fists on the steering wheel in front of me. My schema, or whatever the hell it was, had indeed been broken, and it made me want to do some breaking of my own.
