Flashpoint (2 page)

Inside, the air was thick with the smell of hospital and damp cops, both overlaid with a tangible odor of smoke. The muted crackle and mutter of too many police radios was punctuated by the ding of very slow elevators. An ambulance crew was bringing a stretcher through, and Sonora stepped sideways, moving away from the path of a medic holding an IV packet. A trail of blood droplets marked their route.

Sonora's vision blurred, and she stopped for a minute to rub her eyes.

“Specialist Blair?”

The patrolman at her elbow couldn't have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three. His uniform was stained with sweat and soot.

“I'm Finch. Captain Burke said I should check in with you. I responded to the scene right after Kyle. He's burned pretty bad.”

“Kyle?”

“Kyle Minner, Officer Minner. He got there just before I did.”

Sonora put a hand on his arm. “You see anybody? Hear a car pull away?”

The patrolman swallowed. “Don't know. It was … the guy was screaming and his hair was burning. I didn't see anything but him.”

“Okay, you did good. You hurt?”

“No ma'am.”

“How bad's Minner?”

Finch swallowed. “I don't know.”

“I'll ask after him and let you know. What can you tell me about the vic? Daniels, right?”

“Car's registered to a Keaton Daniels, victim is his brother, Mark. College student, twenty-two years old, lives in Kentucky. Up for a visit. Evidently borrowed his brother's car.”

“So what happened?”

“Dispatch got an anonymous call from somebody in the park. Said something funny was going on. I thought it was teenagers parking or something. By the time I got there it was burning good. The guy was screaming, sounding, God, unreal. Minner was working at that park station, typing up a report, so he's like a minute away. So he's there ahead of me, grabbing the door handle of the car. He jerks his hands back and the skin comes right off 'em. Then he reaches in through the driver's window and grabs the guy, and starts pulling him out. But it … he … Minner yells something about handcuffs. He told me before the ambulance came, this guy Daniels was handcuffed to the steering wheel. Anyway, Officer Minner disengages Daniels from the cuffs—”

“
Disengages
Daniels from the cuffs?”

Finch's eyes seemed glittery. “Guy's hands are almost burned off. It's like he snagged for a minute, then slid right on through.”

Sonora squinted her eyes.

“It was the only way, the only chance of getting him out of there. So he's burning, Minner's burning, they're rolling. I've got my jacket on, so I throw it over the both of them and smother the flames.”

“You sure you're okay?”

“Just singed my eyebrows a little. Minner's really hurt. And the vic, Daniels, he's charred.”

“Did you ride over with them in the ambulance?”

“Yes ma'am.”

“He say anything?”

“He was out. But he was screaming when I got there. Sounded like ‘key' or something.”

“Key?”

Finch shrugged.

“That's all?”

The patrolman nodded.

“You did good,” Sonora told him. “You want to go home?”

“I'd like to stay around and see how Kyle's doing. I'm also supposed to tell you that O'Connor brought in Daniels's next of kin. The brother.” Finch inclined his head toward a man who stood in the shadows of the hallway, watching them.

Sonora had an impression of height, solid presence, a face pale under heavy five-o'clock shadow.

“Anybody talked to a doctor?”

“Guy came out of emergency and talked to the brother.”

“Hear what he said?”

“Just that they were very concerned with Mark's condition, and were doing all they could.”

“Shit. Daniels won't make it then. They're already hanging the crepe.”

“Ma'am?”

“Never mind. Get somebody to take the brother a cup of coffee, looks like he could use it. Have one yourself.” Sonora headed past the plastic couches and went through the swing doors into emergency.

2

Inside the ER, the lights were bright enough to be energizing. Sonora spotted a black woman in blue cotton pants and top, hospital issue, her hair back in a cap, feet encased in plastic booties.

“Gracie! Just the woman I want.”

“You here about the burn guy?” Gracie took Sonora's arm and pulled her out of the way of a technician rolling an IV pole.

“How's he doing?”

Gracie pointed to a cubicle, white curtains billowing. “They called Farrow over from Shriners. Should be here any minute, but even that may be too late. ET gave him thiosulfate to detox, but his blood gases are the worst. He's on the respirator—he won't be talking to you.”

“Yes or no questions?”

Gracie narrowed her eyes. “He's conscious. Give it a try.”

She led Sonora past a man pushing a steel cart that seemed to be extraordinarily heavy. They went in from the side where the curtains split. Sonora frowned. The ER doctor was Malden. Malden didn't like her.

“Okay?” she asked.

He gave her barely a glance but didn't say no. She hung over Gracie's shoulder.

Mark Daniels was conscious, which, Sonora thought as they worked him over, was her good luck and his bad. She saw death in his eyes. She was vaguely aware of the doctors and technicians, hands busy as they invaded Daniels with the nightmare of medical technology. The air was thick with the smell of smoke and the sound of jargon—hypovolemic shock, Ringer's solution, central venous pressure. Someone was gauging the extent of the burns—18 percent, anterior trunk—the tally continued. Hypothermia, body temp seventy-eight degrees. Cardiac arrhythmia. Auscultate the lungs.

Daniels's scalp was white and hairless, with a look of pliability that contrasted with the charred and inelastic surface of his chest, arms, and neck. His face was ravaged, the lips melted and smeared. One eye was black socketed, and the right ear had the crumpled look of charred foil.

Nothing left of the right hand. Sonora saw the whiteness of bone. The left hand had a blackened lump of flesh at the end, like an infant's curled fist.

Sonora turned on her recorder. “Mr. Daniels, I'm Specialist Sonora Blair, Cincinnati Police.”

He moved his head. She said it again and connected suddenly with the good eye. He focused on her face, and Sonora had the odd sensation that she and Daniels were worlds away from the doctors, the technicians, the bright, intrusive lights.

“I'm going to ask you some questions about your assailant. Mr. Daniels? Shake your head yes or no. Okay? You with me here?”

He nodded his head, smearing stickiness on the white sheet. The thick tube of the respirator parted the melted lips, expanded and deflated the scorched lungs.

“Did … do you know your assailant?”

Daniels did not respond, but his eyes were locked with hers. He was thinking. He nodded, finally.

“Had you known him long?”

Daniels shook his head.

“Not long?”

He shook his head. Kept shaking it.

“Met him tonight?”

Nodded his head, then turned it from side to side. Sonora wondered if he was connecting. But the awareness was there, in the eyes. Something he was trying to tell her. She frowned, thought about it.

Ground zero, she thought. “Man or woman. Mr. Daniels, was your assailant a man?”

The head shake. Vigorous. Not a man.

Wife, Sonora thought. Ex-wife. Girlfriend.

“Your assailant was a woman?”

Sonora stepped to one side, out of the doctor's way. But she caught his response. “Witness indicates the assailant was a woman,” she said for the benefit of the recorder. “Someone you know?”

Back to that again. No.

“Wife?” No. “Girlfriend?” No. “Just pick her up tonight?”

That was it. A stranger.

He was fading on her. “Young?” she asked. “Under thirty?”

He focused again, aware and intent, in spite of the chaos of the ER, the sensory overload. Sonora had a sudden strong feeling that he wanted her to touch him.

She was afraid to. Afraid she would cause pain, infection, the wrath of the doctors.

Sonora tried to remember the rest of her questions. Daniels watched her, his eyes large and lidless. The fire had stripped him to almost embryonic form.

Sonora laid two fingers on the blackened flesh of his arm and thought she saw some kind of acknowledgment in his eyes. Likely her imagination.

Questions, she thought. Get this man's killer.

“Young?” she asked again. “Under thirty?”

He hesitated. Nodded.

“Black?”

No.

“White?”

Yes.

“Prostitute?”

Hesitation. No.

Young. White. Not a prostitute. Maybe.

“Black hair?”

No.

“Blond?”

Yes. Definite.

“Eyes,” Sonora said. “Blue?”

He was going on her.

“Brown?”

Something about him changed. An alarm went off, the doctor shouted clear. Sonora stepped away from the table and ducked out from under the white curtains. She knew without looking that the EKG monitor would be flat.

3

Officer Finch stood in a hushed circle of uniformed cops, telling and retelling his story, answering questions. Sonora paused but kept walking. Talking would be therapeutic, at least, and Finch was young to be racking up nightmares. They seemed to be hiring them right out of the nursery.

There'd be no playing it close on this one. The cops wouldn't talk to civilians, but the hospital people would. They were the worst, even ahead of lawyers. Putting something in a medical record was worse than telling Oprah and Phil, though not as bad as faxing Geraldo.

“Specialist Blair!”

Sonora glanced sideways. Channel 81's Tracy Vandemeer moved close, trailed by cameras. No other press around. At the crime scene, Sonora thought. It was where she wanted to be. She waved a repressive hand at the camera. “Tracy, you're way too early here. Not before makeup, please.”

Tracy Vandemeer blinked. She herself had had ample time, though less reason, to do her own makeup. She wore a crisp red blouse, silk, and a high-waisted Lycra skirt that could be worn only by a woman who was a stranger to childbirth and chocolate.

“Specialist Blair, can you give us the identity of the—”

“Come on, Tracy, you know better. We'll have the release out in a few hours. Any questions have to go through my sergeant.”

Vandemeer smiled. “Come on, Sonora. I've got deadlines.”

“Going to interrupt the farm report with a special bulletin?”

Vandemeer's smile faded, and Sonora remembered a beat too late that Tracy had started out on the 6
A.M
. broadcast, covering barley and corn crops.

“For that remark, Sonora, we'll be filming you from your bad side.”

“What? Me walking in and out of the ER is news?”

“It is if you don't give me anything else.”

“Homicide cop forgets to brush hair. Don't forget to call CNN.”

Tracy Vandemeer let the microphone relax, eyes roving, surveying the huddle of cops in the corner. Sonora took advantage of the lapse of attention to move away. Vandemeer would have no luck with the boy's club.

Sonora scanned the room, looking for hospital security. Saw the brother, shoulder against the wall in the hallway. It struck her that hers was the last face Mark Daniels had seen.

Daniels took a sip from a cup of coffee, his free hand jammed deeply into the pocket of his coat. Moisture glistened on the navy blue raincoat that hung open and unbuttoned, the cloth belt trailing the floor. Behind him, a door stood open. The sign on the door said
FAMILY CONSULTATION
/
CHAPLAIN
.

Sonora looked him over carefully as she drew close, checking for tears in the white dress shirt, soot on the shoes and beige khakis. She took a breath, wondering if he'd reek of smoke. He didn't. But she wished he'd lose the raincoat. No telling what might be under it.

Sonora smiled and put on the mom-voice. “Your coat's wet. Probably ought to get it off.”

The man's eyes were glazed, but they focused on her suddenly, intensely. He had a raw, pained look she knew only too well. It was a look that begged for a miracle, for peace of heart. It was a look she saw in her dreams.

“Your coat?”

He took it off slowly and draped it over his arm. The white cotton shirt was wrinkled but clean. If this guy was involved with the killing, he'd had time to change clothes.

No stone unturned, Sonora thought. She held out a hand.

“Specialist Sonora Blair, Cincinnati Police Department.”

He met her eyes steadily and took her hand, holding tightly. He had brown eyes, and he looked intelligent, younger than she had first supposed. He had black hair, thick and curly.

“Keaton Daniels.”

Keaton, Sonora thought. Key? Mark had been screaming “key” when Officer Minner had pulled him from the burning car.

“How is Mark?”

His voice was deep, shadowed with fear. He still had her hand, though she didn't think he realized it. The automatic doors swooshed open, and Sonora glanced over her shoulder.

Another news team, idling in the restricted lane out front, a guy in blue jeans and an old army jacket arguing with a uniform.

Sonora guided Daniels into the consultation room.

Inside was an oasis of worn green carpet, a brown vinyl love seat, and a well-padded easy chair. Sonora steered Daniels into the chair, for her money, the best seat in the house for comfort and a moment of peace.

“Sit down, Mr. Daniels. Be back in a minute.”

She slipped into the hallway and motioned to a uniform, checking his name tag.

“O'Connor? Looks like you got plenty of help out here.” She waved a hand toward the lobby. “Channel Twenty-six just arrived in their action Pinto, and there's never just one ant at the picnic. Keep them
in
the waiting room. I don't want anybody sneaking into the ER. Tracy and her bunch are okay, but watch the cameraman from Twenty-six. See that guy over there in the suit? Norris Weber, hospital security. Used to be one of us, retired. Coordinate with him. Victim's brother is in the consultation room—I don't want him bothered. Got all that?”