Ella Awakened (18 page)

Ella glanced
at Sarah and Jeremy still sitting on the blanket and noticed they were indeed
looking at her curiously.

Burke quickly
grabbed Ella’s hand and headed toward the back of the movie screen at a fast
but reasonable pace.  There was a shallow, rocky gully that ran through the
city park.  Sometimes rainwater ran through it, but typically it was dry.  Wooden
bridges crossed it in several places.  The girl who had screamed sat on her
knees close to one of the bridges, crying uncontrollably.  Burke and Ella
weren’t the first to arrive; several people had milled around the girl trying
to comfort her and figure out what was wrong. 

I smell
blood,
Ella told
Burke.

I do too.
It’s coming from the gully. 

Looking
down, Ella and Burke could make out the shape of someone lying in the bottom of
the gully.  The head and shoulders were obstructed from view by the shadow of
the wooden bridge. 

“Somebody
get me a flashlight,” Burke said.

The young
man who had been running the movie projector quickly left and returned with a
flashlight.

“Stay with
her,” Burke told Ella as he gestured toward the crying girl.  Burke turned on
the flashlight and carefully made his way toward the body to check for a
pulse. 

Oh my gosh,
Burke!  It’s the girl we overheard arguing with her boyfriend before the
movie.  She thought he was having an affair with some girl named Mara,
remember?  I didn’t realize until just now because everyone was huddled around
her and I couldn’t see her face.

It’s her
boyfriend down here and I’m not getting a pulse.  Don’t ask her any questions. 
Just sit with her.  I’m gonna call this in.

Burke got
out his cell phone and dialed the police precinct.  “Hi Katy,” he said when the
dispatcher answered.  “This is Burke Gellar.  I’m at the movie showing in the
city park.  I need you to send a unit out.  I’ve got a 10-53.”  Burke listened
a moment then replied, “10-45D.”

“What’s
going on?  Are they all right?” someone shouted down to Burke.  By now almost
everyone who had been watching the movie had gathered around.

“Everything’s
fine.  I called 911.” Burke called back up.  He didn’t want to cause a panic,
and he could already hear the police sirens in the distance. 

What’s
really going on? 
Ella
asked him. 
What did those numbers mean?

I can’t
move around due to the risk of disturbing evidence.  I need lights before I can
do a cursory exam of the body.  I just got close enough to feel for a pulse. 
10-53 means man down and 10-45D describes the condition of the patient, which
is dead.
 
I’m not
sure yet what happened.  Maybe he fell, maybe she pushed him.  We can’t tell
anyone that we heard them arguing though; we won’t be able to explain how. 
However he got down here, he hit his head on a rock when he landed.  That’s
where the blood we smelled was coming from.  Head wounds bleed like crazy. 

Are you
gonna perform CPR?

No, he’s
gone.  When I laid my hands on him to check for a pulse it was obvious to me that
he was past the point of being brought back.  Carl’s on call tonight, but since
I’m already here I’ll take this one.  I’ll find out what really happened when I
get him back to the office.

I’ll come
with you.

Burke
couldn’t see clearly what was going on above him; there were too many people
blocking his view.  He could hear Jeremy asking Ella what was going on, though.

Tell
Jeremy to take Sarah back to the apartment.  They were with us the whole time
so they didn’t witness anything.  I’ll tell the officers they were here and I
let them go.

Ella
suggested to Jeremy that he take Sarah back to the apartment just as the first
of the uniformed officers approached the scene.  “I don’t want to leave you
here,” Jeremy told Ella.

“I’m okay,
I’m with Burke.  This is what the internship is all about, Jeremy.  Even if we
hadn’t been here when it happened, I would have come with him or Carl when they
were called.”

Jeremy
hesitated another moment before saying, “Okay, call me if you need me to come
get you.”  He took Sarah by the hand and started leading her back towards the
apartment.  He didn’t know how Ella could stand being a part of this line of
work, especially considering how her parents had died.  It kind of gave him the
heebie jeebies.  She was a bad ass.

By now there
were six uniformed officers asking the movie patrons questions before sending
them home.  Ella recognized Detective Brady strolling across the lawn toward
her.

“Ella, the
M.E. intern, right?” he asked extending his hand.

“Right,”
Ella said shaking his hand.  “Burke’s down there,” she added pointing towards
the gully.  “He needs lighting so he can do a cursory exam.” 

“You,” Brady
said, pointing at one of the uniformed officers.  “Get some lighting down there.”

Brady walked
over and called down to Burke that the lighting was on its way.  He took a
flashlight from another officer.  “I’m coming down,” he announced to Burke.

“So what do
you think?”  Brady asked Burke when he had joined him in the gully.

“I’m not
sure just yet, but it looks like he fell and hit his head.”  Suddenly the crime
scene lit up from above.  The uniformed officer had rolled one of the huge flood
lights to the edge of the gully and angled it downward.

“Fell or was
pushed?”  Brady circled the body and glanced back up the hill contemplating the
effects of a fall verses the force of a push.

“Don’t
know.  We’ll have to wait to see if I find fresh bruising or scratches that
can’t be explained from the fall.”

“Who’s
hysterical girl?”  Brady motioned with his head toward the hill.  The young
girl was still crying uncontrollably as a police woman tried to ascertain what
had happened.

Burke
shrugged his shoulders.  “Not sure, girlfriend maybe.”

Brady had
circled the body a second time and was now kneeling and studying the head
wound.  “She found him?”

“Yes, she
screamed and Ella and I ran over.  There were already a couple of people with
the girl trying to figure out what the problem was.  I saw the body and came
down to check for a pulse, but he was already dead.  It’ll be hard to find
signs of a struggle on the lawn the way everyone came running and trampling
around.”

Brady stood
up, shoved his hands into his jeans pockets, and raised a questioning eyebrow
at Burke.  “Here with the hot intern, huh?  Giving Mike a run for his money?”

“Just
catching a flick with a friend,” Burke knelt down and busied himself by looking
over the body.

“Sure,
sure,” Brady flashed a crooked grin.  “I’m gonna go chat with hysterical girl
for a bit.  You want me to send Ella down?”

“Yeah, have
her bring bags and the camera.”

Ella
cautiously made her way down the steep incline.  She could have easily jumped,
but there were too many people standing around.  Burke was right; she needed to
be considerably more careful how she moved.  She wondered if Jeremy or Sarah
would say anything later about how fast she leapt to her feet when the girl
screamed.  If they did, she’d just chalk it up to adrenalin.  Hopefully her
movement would be completely overshadowed by the fact that their movie had been
interrupted by a possible homicide.

“Sorry our
night turned out like this,” Burke said when she’d reached the bottom.

“I know, I
was really enjoying myself.  So, what do you want me to do?”

“Let me take
pictures, and then we’ll bag his hands.  I also want to check for a wallet and
give that to Brady.  I didn’t do it earlier because the lights weren’t set up
yet.”  Burke started walking around the body taking multiple pictures from
several different angles.  The flash from his camera illuminated the scene in
bright morbid strobes.

Do you
think the Demon did this? 
Ella silently asked him.  She scanned the area to see if anyone was
watching her and Burke.  Didn’t murderers have a sadistic interest in the
aftereffects of their handiwork?  If the Demon had done this, was he watching
them now?

I don’t
know.  It doesn’t look good for his girlfriend.  Just because we can’t say we
heard them arguing doesn’t mean someone else won’t come forward with that
information.  You know what they say about a woman scorned.

Yeah,
hell hath no fury. 
She
glanced up the hill at the still crying girl. 
I gotta say, I’m not really
getting a ‘hell hath no fury’ kinda vibe from her.

Ella had
been standing out of the way while Burke took pictures.  He paused and glanced
at her.  “Did she say anything while you were up there with her?”

“Mostly just
cried and moaned.  Brady’s talking to her now.”

Burke put
the lens cap on the camera and carefully stowed it back into its case.  “I’ve
gotten enough pictures; hand me those bags for his hands and we’ll get the crew
down here to remove the body.”

Burke bagged
the victim’s hands and pushing him slightly to the side, reached into his back
pocket and removed his wallet.  He flipped it open and looked at the driver’s
license.  “Daniel Parker, twenty years old,” he said.

Burke stood
up and turned towards Ella.  “Why don’t you walk back to the apartment and
check on Jeremy and Sarah?  I just need to give this to Brady and I’ll be with
you in a minute.  If you’re going back to the office with me, pack a change of
clothes so you can spend the night at my place when we’re done tonight.” 

“All right,
I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Straight
there, Hutsool. 
Burke
looked wistfully at Ella.  He wanted to take her into his arms, but this was
neither the time nor the place. 

Yes, and
you too.  If you’re more than ten minutes I’m coming back.

I love
you.

I love
you, too. 
She
flashed a comforting smile then carefully made her way up the steep incline. 
She was getting a peculiar vibe from him – she knew Burke had a bad feeling
about this.

Ella walked
the short distance back to her apartment.  She didn’t have her key so she
knocked on the door.  It opened straight away and Jeremy practically jerked her
inside.

“Jesus
Christ, Jeremy!  Are you trying to rip my arm off?”  Ella snapped at him.

“Sorry.”  He
stuck his head out the door and look around before ducking back inside and
locking the deadbolt.  “What the hell’s going on over there, and where’s
Burke?”

“They’re
interviewing people and sending them home.  Burke will be here in a few minutes. 
No one knows yet what exactly happened or rather, how it happened.  Someone
died, that’s all I know.  Now chill out.  You’re upsetting Sarah and you’re
annoying me.  I’m going to the M.E. office with Burke.  I don’t know how long
we’ll be so I’m just gonna crash at his place.  Is Sarah going to stay here
with you?”

“Yeah, she’s
staying here.  She’s a little freaked out.”  Jeremy nervously chewed on the
corner of his fingernail.

“Right here,”
Sarah called, waving a hand from the depths of the couch.  “I can hear you.”

“Well you
were freaked out,” Jeremy said.  “Shit, I’m freaked out.  Aren’t you freaked
out?”  He asked Ella with wide eyes.  He went to the window and peeked through
the blinds.  He was just too worked up to sit down.

“A little
bit, I guess,” she answered. 
He has no idea what freaked out is.  This is
pretty much routine compared to the rest of my week
, Ella thought. “I’m
going to run into my room and change,” she said.

Ella went
into her room and closed the door.  She paced around for a few seconds running
her hands through her hair.  This was not good.  When Burke had taken her to
the crime scene of the rape victim that morning she hadn’t gotten this feeling,
this instinct. 
She couldn’t explain it – not even to herself.  She knew
it didn’t look good for hysterical girl; how sad that she had come to be called
that so quickly and it was sticking.  Even if she and Burke kept their mouths
shut about what they’d heard, chances were someone else might come forward.  It
seemed to be a rocky relationship to say the least.  Heck, Mara might even come
forward.  Ella really hoped not, because she just couldn’t shake the idea that
this killing had something to do with the Demon.  It would be horrendous for
hysterical girl to take the fall for something she didn’t do.  Had that
happened in the past?  So far all of the killings had been ruled accidents. 
Jill had drowned, and the jogger had died of sudden cardiac arrest.  Did the
Demon consciously
try
to make the killings look like accidents?  That
would imply he cared about covering his tracks - that he was being methodical
and careful.  It would mean that he was much more than just a monster on a
rampage.

There was a
sudden knock on her bedroom door.  “Ella, can I come in?”  It was Burke.