Raney & Levine (4 page)

6


R
ed and blue lights flashed in the chill blue dusk.
Beep
beep
as the ambulance backed up to the ER dock.

They ran, caught up as EMTs unloaded the gurney, got on both
sides of it and helped push it through the double
sliding doors into Emergency. The patient was female, unconscious,
high-bellied, and her head and face were bloodied. One EMT, holding up the IV,
yelled, “seven months pregnant, belly trauma, no fetal heartbeat. Maternal
pulse elevated at 140, BP 90 over 50 and dropping, respiration 24, severe head
trauma, probable skull fracture.”

As they switched the patient
to an ER bed, Sam MacIntyre, second-year resident and good friend, came running
into the cubicle. “Where ya been? Woody’s coming, we’ve been – oh jeez,” he
said as he saw the patient.

David yanked off his
camouflage jacket. “Looks bad,” he said. “BP just dropped in a minute to 85/45,
means she’s bleeding out in her belly. We gotta transfuse her.” He watched two
nurses work fast, one getting the woman’s jacket off and starting an IV line,
the other taping on a new nasal oxygen tube. He sent the second nurse for four
units of whole blood and looked back to Sam.

“You know what to do, stat
complete blood count, type and cross match four units, bleeding and clotting
screen. Call neurosurgery too, there may be a subdural.” To the nurse cutting
the patient’s sweater he said, “Save her clothes. Bag ‘em like for a rape,” and
to Jill regulating the oxygen tank, “No time to change into scrubs, just wash
and gloves.”

“ID’s in her purse, name’s
Jenna Walsh, age twenty-seven,” said the nurse cutting the sweater - and then
she screamed. Stepped back with her gloved hands to her face as a snake slid
out, fell to the floor, and slithered jerkily over her shoe.

Shock froze Jill’ vision. Her
heart dropped.

“Oh shit.” David knelt and
caught the snake writhing under an instrument table. It was weak and bleeding;
offered little resistance. He yanked a plastic liner out of a wastebasket, put
the snake into it, spun the bag closed and handed it to the gasping nurse.

“C’mon, Ruthie. He’s half dead
anyway.” David pulled off his latex gloves. “Keep this with the clothes and
punch some holes in it. We’ll be right back.”

Barely a minute, it took them
to scrub up to their elbows in a near scrub room. “A
real
snake?” Jill
bleated
.
“
Is this the
same creep
?”

“What are the odds?” David
blasted water. “Yeah, it’s a real garter snake like the fake one. This one was
injured like something tore through its-”

“I
hate
snakes! I’m
terrified
of them!”

Back at the cubicle entrance
Woody Greenberg, first-year resident, nearly collided with them. He was wiry
with brown curly hair and always spoke in a rush. “We just saw Jesse, Sam
always
hogs him, he yawned
,
he’s so
precious
…oh…”

He looked in at Sam looking
up, removing his stethoscope. “No fetal heartbeat,” he said gravely. “Child’s
gone.” MacIntyre was a big guy, usually a smart mouth who liked to goof around,
but his expression now was stricken. “Look at this,” he said. “
Just look at
this.”

Jenna Walsh
was now in
a smock raised to just under her breasts, and was sheeted from the hips down.
Her exposed belly was horribly bruised, each black-and-blue splotch looking as
if she’d been viciously, repeatedly kicked.

Jill closed her eyes for a
second and David said bitterly, “Someone wanted her baby dead.”

The snake guy
, Jill
thought, and knew David was thinking the same.

She watched him grimly palpate
Jenna’s wrecked belly, then step past Woody emotionally swabbing blood from
Jenna’s head to palpate the matted hair above her ear. “Depressed skull
fracture. Where’s-”

“Oh God, look at this,” Ruthie
said, sounding truly sick. From the snake? Maybe, but she was so professional.

Biting her lip, Ruthie raised
Jenna’s smock to her clavicle and pointed to her religious necklace. “Here"
– her voice cracked - “a big safety pin attached near her cross. It’s got
bloody
flesh
on it.”

Tight-faced, David took a
sterile forceps from the instrument tray, prodded, saw scales. “From the
snake.” His voice was low, revolted.
“Someone pinned a live snake to her
cross.”

Jill put her hands on the bed
to steady herself. Remembered Hutch’s
Afraid
a real one would’ve climbed out.
The cadaver had been there all night.
Whereas Jenna Walsh had just been attacked. A snake pinned to her was likely to
be seen.

“Jeezus,” said MacIntyre,
coming to peer at the bloodied flesh on the safety pin. Woody forceps-poked the
reddened, scaly skin too, grimacing like a child. “Sick, oh
sick.
Thought
I’d seen everything.”

“Means her attacker knew her,”
David said. “Knew she wore the cross and sent us a message. Probably followed
her into the alley.”

“Definitely planned it,”
MacIntyre said, watching Woody. “Brought his pin and snake.”

The nylon curtains whisked
open and a neurosurgical resident stepped in. Squeezed past the others to check
out Jenna’s head fracture. “Whoa,” he said. “Get her up for a CAT scan.”

David shook his head. “Gotta
transfuse her first.”

He looked relieved when the
curtains parted again and the second nurse ran back in with the four units of
blood. “The cops outside said detectives are coming,” she said, breathing hard.

Seconds, it took them, to
switch the patient’s IV drip from the clear dextrose and saline in water to the
first unit of whole blood. The cubicle was crowded, the usual seeming chaos
when treating a seriously injured person with multiple injuries.

“BP’s down to 80 over 40,”
Woody said, nervously eyeing the monitor.

David said, “Open the clamp.”

“How far?” Jill moved to the
IV pole.

“All the way.”

A foot below the hanging,
red-filled bag, she turned a small clamp counter-clockwise on the plastic
tubing.
Help her, help her,
she prayed, watching red blood flow faster
down the tube. She felt sick. Was imagining the snake writhing and snapping
against Jenna’s chest. Couldn’t blot it out. Actually felt Jenna’s terror…

The neurosurgeon resident,
done checking Jenna’s pupils, was now sticking her fingertip with a sterile
needle. Though unconscious, her hand jerked away. A good sign. He moved to the
foot of the table (“s’cuse”…“s’cuse”) wiped his needle with an alcohol sponge,
swabbed her ankle, and stuck her lightly again. Her foot pulled away.

“No sign of neuro damage
yet
,”
he said. “If there’s a subdural, you have time.”

“Hey!” Woody piped. “BP’s back
up to 85 over 45!”

“From pushing blood in fast,”
David said. “Okay, she can continue stabilizing during transport.”

A uniformed cop looked in to
say detectives had arrived.

David thanked him as Sam and
Woody helped him start moving out the bed. To Jill, at the rear by the IV pole
he said, “Would you stay? Give the cops her clothes, tell ‘em about both
snakes?”

His glance went to the bag of
Jenna’s things, and the punched-with-holes plastic bag on top of it.

Ruthie looked at the second
bag too and sent Jill a grimace.

“It’s
moving
,” she
said.

7


A
hundred years ago, a lovely stream was
here. I close my eyes and see it rippling through green-dappled light to the
marshes, just beyond.

But the city was growing. Overnight teeming with
millions. So the marshes were filled by greedy landfill, and greedy building,
and more building…

Now, with neglect, the world as God willed it is trying to
come back.

And I am helping. God chose me to smite those who have
given in to the devil. This afternoon, in the alley…SHE RENOUNCED HER SOUL!
Made Satan dance in triumph by daring to bring MORE EVIL into the world.

But I didn’t kill her, did I? No! Because killing is
still a mortal sin…isn’t it? Even if the sinner has relinquished her soul? I’m
not sure. I must ask God the next time He speaks to me. I asked a priest once,
and was furious at the answer he gave me. He was surely the devil in disguise.

In this place only, I am happy. October is so much better
because it gets dark early. I can slip through the boarded windows and come
sooner, sit on this rotten timber and look up through the broken, gaping roof
to the sky, so beautiful, mauve and blue and dark blue

I’m wearing earphones. They block out the blare of
traffic just yards away. Through the earphones comes the blessed sound of the
Gregorian chant Benedictinos. It sounds creepy too, but it’s perfect for…what
they’ve done here. Gives dignity back to the broken doors, the walls peeling
paint, the moldy prayer books strewn between toppled pews…

At last my heart has slowed. My breathing has eased. I
can tame my fury that they’ve already demolished the rectory. I hear these
sacred Gregorian voices, and they help me forget that the devil has taken over
the world. I sing softly with them... “Ave mundi spes Maria, ave
mitis, ave pia, ave plena gratia. Ave virgo…”

Now I inhale. Deeply, and more deeply.

I am ready for the next sinner, and that
excites me.

But my friends must be alive from here on,
each time. I am ready to feed them, and to pick one...

So I reach down for my bag, rise from my
rotting perch, and take a last look up through the torn roof to the sky. That
first star up there, shining so bright. It is God, praising me for my brave and
lonely work.

Carefully, I move through the darkening
nave, past the overturned, cobwebby pulpit, to the north transept
,
and ah, here are the stairs.

I descend. It will be pitch black down
there.

But I can already hear them! They are rustling and
impatient, they know I’m coming! Cautiously, my feet hit the black floor. As I
move, my feet make slight splashing sounds. The floor is wetter than before
because God’s splashing little springs are leaking in. Returning! How ironic that
demolishing the rectory has gouged the landfill, re-opened the old marsh!

Down here I can turn on my flashlight. No one can
see…except them, slithering, writhing, coiling as I sweep my beam over them.

“Look what I’ve got for you!” I tell them out loud, and
now I suspect that maybe I really am just a little crazy, because I see every
pointy black head turn to me, expectant, hungry.

Onto the floor I empty my bag of frozen mice. Walk among
them and scatter the almost-thawed tiny bodies among their slithering knots.
Snouts poke at the mice, hideous little mouths open. They appreciate how hard
I’ve worked for them. For three months catching mice in my traps, freezing
them, coming now more often because the work planned since July is at last
underway.

Other work too. Three months of collecting other…things.

God’s will shall prevail! Only these coiling servants of
Satan will catch the world’s attention, remind all sinners of WHAT IS RIGHT!

I stoop and catch one in my gloved hand. He snaps and
writhes and tries to get away, but I’ve got him, and push him into my bag,
where he still snaps and lunges to get out.

He’ll be strong to wrap around my next sinner. Leave as a
sign that no one will ignore.

Halfway up the stairs, I turn off my flashlight. This
visit hasn’t taken long. No one saw me leave, no one will know I was gone. I
take my pills now, and return to walk, unnoticed, among the others.

Outside it has become dark, but I still pull my hood up
so my face will be hidden. Good, there is no one on the sidewalk. I pass the
yellow barriers and walk back quickly with my head down.

Under my hood, those blessed voices sing.

“Ave virgo singularis, quć per rubum designaris non
passus incendia…”

8


T
he ER lounge had lumpy old armchairs, cable TV
burbling low, and sagging couches usually occupied by a sleeping resident or
two. You could send a train through here and it wouldn’t wake the chronically
sleep-deprived.

Jill lugged in the two plastic bags, stiff-armed and
slightly away from her. She greeted the two detectives and motioned them to a
quiet place in the corner. Three armchairs and a coffee table, onto which she
placed the bags. Dread rolled through her.
Another meeting with cops
.
Three months ago seemed suddenly like yesterday.

“Why’s that bag moving?” said Alex Brand, pointing at the
plastic bag with the holes. She knew Alex from last July.

“There’s a snake in it,” she said tersely, thinking that she
was getting to know half the NYPD. “Nice to see you, Alex. Pity such things
have to bring you back.”

Alex Brand had intense, hazel eyes, was good looking, and
wore a navy parka over a dark blue wool sweater. It seemed odd to see him
dressed like that. From his several high-stress visits three months ago, Jill
remembered him in polo shirts under light jackets. Once he’d come running over
in a T-shirt.

Brand frowned at the bag for a second, then introduced Jill
to the second detective. Surprise - it was Keri Blasco, the blond plainclothes
cop they’d seen observing Yelling Megaphone Man. Jill barely recognized her.
Soccer mom was now very cop, in dark slacks with her hair pulled back, holding
an open notebook.

She greeted Jill, then leaned, grimacing, to poke at the
smaller bag with her ballpoint. “A
snake
?”

Dry-lipped, Jill filled them in as Keri took notes. The fake
garter snake in the anatomy lab. The real garter snake hideously, cruelly
pinned to Jenna Walsh’s cross. She looked back at the bag with a pity that
surprised her. David said he’d caught it too easily because its gut had been
torn. It was moving less inside the bag now. It must be dying.

The expressions of both cops showed their revulsion.

Jill pulled in a breath. She was exhausted and hadn’t eaten,
but the weird, wired feeling she recognized from last summer took over.

“The fake snake,” she went on, “had six fake baby snake
heads sewn onto it, just behind the neck. That made it a seven-headed snake,
which alarmed the anatomy professor, who showed us a passage in the Bible from,
ah, Revelations? Something about a seven-headed serpent representing evil.”

Keri Blasco, scribbling, said “Yow, I’ve heard of that.”

Jill went on, speaking faster, nervously stumbling over her
words. “The anatomy prof also saw that SPAWN OF THE DEVIL sign, and got extra
alarmed since today the hospital announced about the baby. So he called us
about that sign
and
the guy with the megaphone and we all worried about
how
many other people out there are like that
…” She swallowed hard,
unconsciously clenching her fists.

“Very scary.” Keri’s intelligent blue eyes met Jill’s, full
of empathy. Jill smiled weakly back at her. So much had been exchanged between
them without words.

“The guy with the megaphone was taped, we saw the pictures,”
Alex Brand said, pulling on latex gloves, pulling Jenna’s larger bag of things
to him. He took out her purse, cell phone and wallet, fingered Jenna’s jacket,
her cut sweater.

“What a bonus,” he said. “Hospitals never do this unless
it’s a rape, and even then they screw up the clothes, lose non-injury
evidence.”

“Anyone touching Jenna’s things was gloved,” Jill said.
“Evidence ought to be intact.” She hesitated, frowning slightly. “It looks like
Jenna was hit on the head first and from behind, to bring her down.
Then
she was kicked and punched in the belly. The blow to her head was serious,
close to lethal. Also just above her ear, as if she had started to turn-”

Brand nodded as his cell phone rang. He answered and
listened, muttered, listened more.

Keri flipped a notebook page and smiled at Jill. “Alex says
last July you and David Levine actually solved that case. I’ve seen him on TV
and the police tape.” Her eyes beamed. “That roof scene, the fight with Arnett,
and that other bad guy he shot
between the eyes
. Where’d he learn to
shoot like that?”

Jill told her. David learned to shoot growing up in Denver,
they give prizes to kids there for sharp-shooting. Then at sixteen he started
getting into trouble, so to straighten him out his parents sent him to a
kibbutz in Israel.

She let herself smile. “He says everyone else weeded all
day. He found an army base nearby, made friends, and did target practice with
them. Then two years later he was hiking with friends, and shot the head off a
rattler forty feet away. I’ve seen the news clippings from
The Denver Post
.
He only showed them to me. Actually, he doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Jill’s smile faded when she looked back to the snake bag. It
had stopped moving.

Brand hung up from his call. “Connor says Jenna’s brother
just arrived. Sounds like a weird guy. They’re going to interview him
upstairs.”

“What about his wife?” Keri asked.

“They’re trying to reach her. Left a voice mail.”

Brand went back to going through Jenna’s wallet, pulled out
a slip of paper and read it. “Interesting,” he said. “Jenna was headed
here
.
She had a four o’clock appointment in your OB clinic.”

He handed the slip to Jill. She read it, frowning. “With Jim
Holloway,” she said faintly. “He’s a second-year resident.”

“She was attacked in an alley off Second Avenue and
Thirty-ninth. That’s four blocks from here. Whoever did this brought his snake
and big pin with him, which means he
planned
, probably knew her, even
knew about the OB appointment-”

A pinging sound startled them. The tune to “Good Morning,
Sunshine.” It was the ring tone for Jenna’s cell phone, which Brand answered.

“Hello?”

He listened. Said no, this wasn’t a wrong number, and
identified himself. The female voice on the other end grew frantic, loud enough
to make out as Jill and Keri leaned closer.

“Where’s Jenna? Where’s Jenna?”

Brand explained very briefly. The voice on the other end
grew silent, then burst into tears. And a torrent of something Brand’s
expression said he could barely make out.

“Yes,” he said gently. “We’ll need to talk to you anyway.”
He told the woman to come to the surgical floor, and hung up.

He looked from Keri clutching her ballpoint to Jill, and
inhaled heavily. “Jenna Walsh was the surrogate mother for this couple, named
Sutter. It was the wife who called. They’d planned to meet her after her
appointment.”

“They’re coming to the surgical floor,” Jill echoed, to be
sure.

“Yes.”

“I’d like to meet them.”

Brand didn’t get the chance to answer. Jill’s phone rang. She
was needed for a delivery, fast.

She rose and explained.

“Will you fill me in?” she asked. “I’d like to know about
this surrogate couple; ditto Jenna’s brother and sister-in-law.”

Both detectives agreed readily. Doctors can do things that
cops need warrants and court orders to do. If only more were like Jill and
David…

Keri gave Jill her card, and Brand checked that she still
had him on speed dial.

She did. “Still near the top,” she told him.