Body Parts (Rye & Claire 1) (4 page)

He looked around and spotted
Claire at the end of the hall moving in his direction. He parked the
gurney by the elevator, and headed up to meet her. He passed a couple
returning to their room with the slow halting gait of the elderly.

“Hello,” Rye said, as he came up beside them.

The man stopped, seemingly
happy for the rest, leaned on his walker, and looked up at Rye. “Did
Helen have another case of indigestion?”

“Looks that way.”

The man turned to his wife. “Told you so.” Without another word, the couple continued on their way.

When he looked up, Claire was standing next to him.

“Someone up the hall need our assistance?” Rye said.

“Just talking. The woman says her neighbor has been on a list for a liver replacement over a year, and is beginning to fade.”

Rye reached for the elevator button marked 1, then hesitated. “Do you think we should pay her a visit?”

Claire shrugged her shoulder to reposition the backpack. “Better not, we’re already in enough hot water.”

“You’re right.” He pressed the button.

As they exited the elevator
Rye looked around for Webb, sticking his head in the office while Claire
pushed the gurney through the double doors. He soon joined her at the
ambulance.

She reached under the gurney
and pulled the lever that dropped it from waist high to inches off the
ground. “You find the manager?”

“Nah, he’s probably dealing
with some other crisis.” He bent, grabbing the rail of the collapsed
gurney. “Two, three, lift.” Together they lifted the gurney and pushed
it into the ambulance. “Did that woman say what her neighbor is going to
do about the liver?” Rye asked, latching the gurney in place.

“You won’t like the answer.” They walked around and climbed in the cab.

“What’s she going to do?” Rye said, snapping his harness in place.

“Apparently the son is going to buy a liver off the black market.”

“You’re right, I don’t like
it. I just read how black market organs are usually contaminated, and
how a black market liver can cost up to three hundred thousand.”

He started the engine but left it in neutral while two seniors crossed in front of the ambulance.

* * *

They tried to eat at the
Plaza Café whenever they were in town because it had outside seating,
and the food was good. Claire would set the alarm to lights and horn. It
seemed they were always just beginning a meal when a call came through
and suddenly the ambulance came alive.

But on this day, Rye packed a
lunch and set out to find a place to park, and as he liked to say, eat
in. He pulled the ambulance under a huge Monterey cypress that hung over
a corner of the parking lot of Ruby Park.

Claire released her harness
and leaned against the door. “Here we are brown-baggin’ it in a vintage
ambulance with next to no chance of getting a call. What say we call it a
day and head home?”

Chapter Six

First static, then a frantic voice
—not the dispatcher. Rye reached across to the scanner, and cranked up the volume.

“10-7 requests assist. Old Hanley
Farm.” That was it, no repetition of the address, no lingering static,
and definitely not dispatch.

“Isn’t that Paul’s place?” Claire said.

Lunch forgotten, Rye brought the ambulance to life with a twist of the key.

The look in his eyes told Claire all she needed to know. She flipped on the lights and set all the sirens howling.

Paul Casey was Rye’s
childhood friend. They’d both been runners in school and had been
running together at least once a week for thirty years. Paul was a
Private Investigator retired by a bullet to the hip. Six months later,
he lost his wife to cancer leaving him to raise their six-year-old
daughter. Rye had set up an emergency dispatch trigger at the farm tuned
to a special channel on his scanner both in the station the ambulance.

Paul’s voice over the scanner had been tight with alarm.

Rye turned onto Rural Ranch Road slowing to accommodate the potholes that littered the dirt track.

“There’s Paul.” Claire pointed to a franticly waving figure standing between the farmhouse and the barn.

Rye slowed the ambulance to a
crawl and guided it next to the horse barn. He’d just shut off the
engine when his door was yanked open, and he was confronted by a
mud-covered figure.

“Rye, thank God. It’s Amy she’s fallen down a well.”

Claire circled around the
front of the ambulance, stepping within inches of Paul to get his
attention. “Are you OK?” She’d never seen him so distressed.

“Oh Claire, she’s fallen down a hole. I can hear her but can’t see her.” His voice nearly broke, and he was beginning to shake.

“Where? Paul, show me where.”

She followed him while Rye got rope and a shovel from the lower compartment of the ambulance.

They were a hundred feet
behind the barn when Paul broke into a limping run, taking just ten
steps then throwing himself face down onto the dirt where he crawled to
what looked like a low spot in the ground.

Paul cupped his hands around his mouth. “Amy baby, it’s Daddy.” He looked up at Claire, his eyes pleading.

Without hesitation Claire
flopped down next to him, shading her eyes in an attempt to see down the
hole. “Amy this is Aunt Claire. Are you hurt?”

She turned her head to catch
any sound that might come out of the hole. The tremulous tones of a
child’s voice drifted to the surface.

“Aunt Claire?”

“I hear you Amy. Your daddy is going to get you out.”

Claire rolled onto her back.
Paul was still looking down the hole, as though if he stared long enough
he’d be able to see his daughter.

“How long has she been down there?”

“I’m not sure, maybe thirty
minutes. I just don’t know.” He pushed himself up onto his knees.” I saw
her playing by the barn and when I came out to get her for lunch she
was gone. I nearly fell down the hole myself. I found her blanket by the
edge.”

Rye jogged up, dropping a
rope and climbing harness by the edge of the well. Looking first to Paul
then at Claire, “How far down is she?”

“Hard to tell. She must be pretty deep judging from the sound of her voice,” Claire said.

Rye separated what looked like tent stakes with an eye at the top from the harness. “I need a hammer.”

Paul leapt to his feet and limped to the barn, disappearing through the large, double front doors.

Kneeling next to where Claire still lay on her back, Rye took her hand. “We’ll get her out.”

Claire squeezed Rye’s hand. “I know we will.”

Rye began clearing sticks
away from the opening, careful not to knock any dirt into the hole. When
Paul returned with the hammer, Claire ran the rope through the top of
the stakes like a thread through the eye of a needle.

Spacing each steak about five
feet from the next Rye pounded them into the ground, taking a double
wrap around the last one with the rope. But when he walked back to the
edge of the hole, Claire was stepping into the harness.

He took her arm. “Are you ready for this, what with the dreams and all?”

She pulled the top of the harness up around her waist and buckled it. “I hope so, besides you and Paul are too big.”

“This isn’t going to work,”
Paul said, holding a clump of dirt in one hand. “This is from the side
of the hole. If we try to slip over the edge it’ll dump dirt onto Amy,
maybe cause a cave in.” He stepped back from the opening throwing the
dirt to the ground with a curse.

Claire stared at the opening
of the hole and suddenly spun to face Paul. “I need three four-by-fours.
No, wait,” Then turning to face Rye. “How strong are the tripods for
the floods?”

Claire and Rye often shared the same thought without saying a word. He understood immediately. “Strong enough.”

Paul looked on, puzzled by the exchange, and then walked over to Claire as Rye ran back to the ambulance. “What’s he doing?”

“We’ll put a tripod over the
hole and lace the rope down the middle. I’ll simply step out over the
center of the hole and lower myself down.”

Rye returned with a huge
tripod. The legs were made of a stout aluminum. At the top was a large
opening designed to hold the spotlight mounted on a post that dropped
into the reinforced hole at the top of the tripod.

“Let’s set it up over here.” Claire said, stomping out a flat spot. “And see if it’ll support my weight.”

Rye separated the legs to
their widest point, dropped the rope down the middle and looped it a
couple of times through the hole. The top of the tripod stood about five
feet. Claire had to crawl between the legs, then reach up and grab the
rope pulling her knees into her chest to get her feet off the ground.
There was an audible groan as the feet of the tripod sank into the dirt.

Rye turned to Paul. “Great, looks like it will hold. Get on the far side of the hole and I’ll hand it across.”

As soon as she lowered
herself to the ground, Rye pulled the rope from the top and carried it
to the hole. Paul grabbed the legs of the tripod as Rye opened them up,
snuggling them into the ground.

“Hold on, I’ve got an idea,” Paul said

He went to the barn and
retrieved three large construction bricks to brace against the legs. As
Paul put the bricks in place, Rye passed the rope down through the top
of the tripod so it hung over the middle of the hole. He reached out and
grabbed it, tying off the end through a metal loop set into the front
of Claire’s harness.

Paul wrapped an arm around
one of the legs and leaned out over the hole. “Amy this is Daddy, Aunt
Claire is coming down to get you.”

All three stopped what they were doing and listened, nothing.

Claire stepped to the edge
of the hole, Rye reached across and grabbed the back of the harness,
Paul grabbed the front. When she pushed off, they slowly released their
grip and let the tripod take the strain. They watched Claire swing
suspended only by the rope, then ran to where the rope was lashed to the
last of the five stakes and together began lowering her into the hole.

She desperately fumbled with
her headlamp, until she could hold up her hand and see it was on. When
her head dropped below ground level she could feel the air being sucked
out of her lungs. Her knuckles were white from holding the rope too
tightly. Then a head appeared from above, partially blocking out the
light.

“Can you see her yet?” Paul yelled.

Claire knew his question was
silly, but was born of concern. She squeezed her eyes shut and quickly
tilted her head so the light shined down, then opened her eyes. She
couldn’t see a thing. “Not yet.” Realizing she was yelling down the well
she closed her eyes and tilted her head up. “Not yet,” she repeated.
They began to lower her again.

She counted breaths to stay
focused. Suddenly her gradual progress stopped, bouncing her to a sudden
halt. She squeezed her eyes shut. Each breath became audible now as she
fought to stay calm, the sound of her heart pounding in her ears.

Claire was no longer an adult
dangling at the end of a rope; she was thirteen-year-old Clarice,
daughter of a mine inspector. And the giant buildings that capped off
the Star Mine looming ahead, her hiding place. She had to make it to the
mine. She kept pumping her arms faster and faster. She couldn’t let
them catch her.

A volley of words drifted
down the well from above, she opened her eyes shaking her head to clear
it of her past. She couldn’t understand what was said but she picked up
the urgent tone. She tilted her head back and opened her mouth to call
out but the breath was driven from her lungs as she suddenly began to
plummet, the rope had gone slack.

Chapter Seven

In her little trailer
,
squatting in the bottom of the tiny shower, awash in memories, Crystal
began to sob. Remembering how titillating it had been listening to Jan
talk about her first time, how naïve she’d been. Had it only been a few
weeks ago? Now she was having sex with strangers in front of cameramen
and technicians. What was Jan doing now? As the shower enveloped her,
she let the memories flood back yet again to that more innocent time,
and how it had all started.

Jan reclined on the futon,
fluffing the pillow as she lay back. “Actually I was a virgin until the
week that my parents left me alone.”

Crystal fidgeted in the beanbag chair, pulling her gum out of her mouth and rolling it between her fingers.

“I was at school, trying to
think of which boy, but I kept remembering what my friends said, how the
guys would grope them and then get all excited. Just the thought of
that grossed me out.”

“Who’d you chose? Anybody I know?” Crystal said, popping the wad of gum back in her mouth

“I was attending my chess
club meeting and remembered how Mr. James was always looking down my
top, while he pretended to be looking over my shoulder. Anyway he’d been
divorced for about a year, so I told him I had no hot water and that my
parents were away for the week and could he come over.”

Crystal sat up popping her gum and nearly chocked. “God, Mr. James, hmm, he does have a cute butt.”

“Do you mind,” Jan snapped.
“I didn’t pick him for his butt. I figured he might have a little
finesse. Maybe understand my feelings. Boy was I wrong.”

Crystal sensed from Jan’s response that this might not be a story laced with pleasure.

Jan settled back into the futon and looked up at the ceiling

“I’d almost forgotten what
the end result would be,” Jan said. “Then suddenly it was over, and what
a mess. I was actually surprised. Pretty naïve, huh?” Jan laughed
nervously.

“I ran to the bathroom to
clean up. When I returned, he started to cry, said if anybody found out
he’d get fired, could even go to jail. Then the asshole got up and left,
no last kiss, no thanks, no nothing. Some first time.” Jan Laughed
again. “I’d pictured a gentle touch and at least an orgasm.”