Raw Bone (37 page)

But Knox was cornered and just shook his head, drawing the boy closer to him.

The white noise had become the roar of something unforgiving approaching fast, pushing everything ahead of it, including the sound, so it was impossible to determine how close it was. Dylan struggled to get free, but what had looked like a protective embrace had turned into a headlock and Dylan was choking.

“Don’t hurt your son, coach. Put the pin back before it’s too late and we’ll help you up the ladder.”

“I can’t.” The water was now above his knees, driven by what was coming. Knox turned and looked north down the tunnel, measuring perhaps how long it would take to run to the next vertical shaft. The roar grew louder by the second, the ladders were rattling and the sewer water, now above the walkway, was passing by in angry waves.

Knox may have been thinking about the humiliation of giving up, maybe about the trial, the disgrace and the media frenzy or the rest of his life in prison. The man was frozen.

MacNeice had to scream to be heard over the noise. “Put that pin back. Don’t do this.” Lowering himself on the ladder, he put a foot on the submerged walkway.

With the water slamming furiously at their legs, Knox finally made a decision. Keeping an arm around Dylan’s neck, he fumbled with the pin, trying to put it back, but he couldn’t see the hole in the grenade’s safety lever without letting go of the boy. Knox was shaking from panic; he looked up at MacNeice, who reached down and called, “I’ll do it. Give it to me, just keep the clip closed.”

“No,” Knox screamed.

On his next attempt, the pin slipped from his fingers and disappeared in the rush of water. He looked helplessly at MacNeice, his eyes filling with tears.

MacNeice yelled, “It’s okay. Just hand it to me.”

Knox let go of Dylan and lifted his arm to pass the grenade. That’s when it hit.

A wall of grey-black water slammed into them. Instinctively, Aziz reached out and grabbed Dylan’s hoodie. She had threaded one arm through the ladder rungs and held on to his hoodie with both hands. The force of the water slammed her against the wall but she hung on.

MacNeice leapt, grabbing the rung above Aziz. He edged down the ladder until he was pressed against her back, trying his best to hold her as she held the boy.

The water was boiling up toward the escape hatch, threatening to swallow them. Aziz was able to keep her head above the water only because her arm was locked around the step. Dylan’s weight and the force of the current pulled on her elbow joint and the pain was excruciating. “Mac, the hoodie’s coming away.”

MacNeice took a deep breath and disappeared below the surface, clutching the ladder with his left hand. Buffeted by the water, she could feel his body slamming against her lower legs.

Then it happened: she lost her grip on the hoodie. Desperately, she reached into the current, but there was no boy.

She screamed and smashed the water with her fist.

MacNeice’s head appeared, his face contorted with effort. He met her eyes, trying to communicate what—did he have Dylan? Coughing, he took a breath and disappeared again.

Aziz reached down and found MacNeice’s shoulder; she took a deep breath and ducked under, following MacNeice’s arm to where his fist was clutching Dylan’s belt and jeans. She was trying to find something to grab hold of when there was a flash and deep boom from somewhere farther down the sewer.

Knox had let go of the grenade. For an instant, the black water turned pale brown. Whatever damage it had done was lost on her. When she finally caught hold of Dylan’s leg, she was out of breath.

Aziz thrust herself backwards, determined not to let go of him. She could feel MacNeice’s body pinning her to the ladder but could no longer feel her left arm wrapped around the rung. With the last of her strength, she pulled against the current, shoving herself upwards.
Her face broke the surface, and suddenly a firefighter appeared above her. He reached down and clamped a large hand on Aziz’s shoulder.

“I’ve got his leg—get the boy out first,” she screamed. In seconds, the firefighter was on the ladder behind her, reaching under the roiling water for Dylan.

He groped for a second, then turned his face sharply up to hers. “There’re two people down there.”

She wiped the hair from her face and yelled, “MacNeice. He has the boy. Hurry!” She was yelling as loudly as she could but wasn’t sure he could hear her words, though he nodded. Above her, another rescue worker was quickly descending on a rope line.

The firefighter snapped a safety line to the rail, inhaled deeply and threw himself beneath the surface. He quickly had hold of Dylan and the doubled-over form of MacNeice. Pulling hard, he hoisted them both to the surface.

“I’ve got the kid,” he yelled to his partner. “I can’t hold them both. Grab the detective.”

The man on the rope line swung to where he could throw his arms around MacNeice. His partner hauled the boy up the ladder, as more hands reached in from above, ready to help.

The rescuer on the rope line yelled at Aziz, “I’ll be right back—don’t go anywhere.” He smiled at her, and she managed to smile back. She wasn’t capable of going anywhere. She had the shudders, her left arm was numb and her right, looped around the rung, was throbbing as though she’d wrenched it from its socket.

For what seemed like minutes, MacNeice’s face hung less than a foot from hers. His eyes were closed and his lips had turned purple. He was unconscious, dead weight. Then an unseen team reeled in the line and the rescuer walked him up the wall, keeping MacNeice’s legs free of the ladder.

Aziz watched the two ascending as if by magic as darts of rain fell toward her. At the top of the shaft, several arms broke the circle and the two men disappeared from view.

In seconds the rescuer was back, gesturing that he would drape her over his shoulder. Reluctant to relinquish her shaky purchase on the rung, she hesitated, and then let go, collapsing on him. As he lifted her up, she was fixated on the torrent below. It remained a deafening, menacingly indistinct blur, like standing too close as a speeding bus passes by.

At the top, he set her down on the concrete platform. Exhausted, she closed her eyes. Rain washed away the grime and, for the first time since she was a girl, Aziz prayed.

Nearby, Dylan was on his back. His eyes were closed and the rain was pelting his face. They’d bared his chest, and three paramedics worked in turns doing CPR. His skin was so pale it was almost translucent. Ten feet away, she could see MacNeice’s legs but nothing more. Firefighters and paramedics surrounded him and there were open medical kits on either side.

Aziz kept praying.
My Lord, forgive me and admit us to Your mercy; You are the most Merciful of all those who show mercy
.

A firefighter approached on the run. “I heard there’s someone else in the sewer.”

“Yes,” Aziz said, and then corrected herself. “No … he’s gone. That explosion … he was holding a grenade.”

The firefighter shook his head. “Okay, so let’s get you off there. Put your arms around my neck and just relax—I’ve got you.” Like a sleepy child being lifted by her father, she hung on to him and he carried her to an ambulance in the parking lot.

“I’m not leaving,” she said with difficulty as he set her down, her teeth chattering with the cold.

“That’s fine with me, detective. I just wanted to get you out of the rain and under a Kapton blanket. You’ve got a nasty laceration on your scalp—probably hit by something coming down the sewer. The paramedics will take care of it, but you’re gonna need a tetanus shot.”

She could see the ring of cops keeping Mercy’s staff, straggling students and worried neighbours away. Two members of the bomb squad rushed out of a black van in the parking lot and were met by a uniform who must have told them they’d missed the show. Disappointed, they removed their cumbersome gear and stowed it in the vehicle before walking over to the concrete pillbox to see the shaft.

A paramedic wrapped a foil blanket around her. Disregarding the cut to her head, Aziz stood up and started making her way toward MacNeice.

She’d only staggered a few feet when there was a menacing rumble in the distance, like something massive was being sucked from existence.

Those who weren’t engaged in saving the lives of Dylan and MacNeice turned in time to see the distant goal posts shudder and lurch before dropping from sight. Swallowed whole. A teen in a Mercy melton jacket shouted, “No fucking way!” as others about him gasped. Moments later, the entire goal line—from the posts to the bleachers—folded into the ground, leaving the bleachers’ steel supports hanging over an abyss. Dark grey water shot skyward, arced and then fell to fill the muddy gap. The field soon flooded to the thirty-yard line and a grey tide raced around the surrounding track.

“What the hell was that?” the firefighter shouted.

“The grenade,” Aziz said wearily. “I guess it shattered the sewer wall and the surge undermined the field.”

He turned to her. Blood was running freely from her temple to her chin, where it bled into the wet collar of her jacket. A plume of red spread along the grey threads. Taking her gently by the shoulders, he said, “Ma’am, why don’t you sit down. You’re bleeding.” Whatever she was going to say next was lost in violent sputtering and hacking. A paramedic had rolled MacNeice onto his side and he was purging himself of the water that had invaded his airways. In seconds, he was given oxygen tabs and one of the firefighters had draped a foil blanket over him and slid a makeshift pillow under his head. When he was finished coughing and spitting, he rolled onto his back and lay still.

Nearby, a paramedic had positioned defibrillators on Dylan’s bare chest. Shouting for clear, the paramedic hit the switch, sending an electrical charge through the boy. His body bucked violently. There was a sickening pause that seemed to deflate everyone, and then Dylan coughed, sending a ragged stream of grey water into the face of the paramedic holding the paddles.

The firefighters laughed in relief, and Dylan’s eyes opened wide with fear. He stared at the men and women around him and tried to sit up. One of the firefighters eased him back down so the paramedic could slip oxygen tabs in his nostrils. The firefighter covered him with another foil blanket and Aziz heard him say, “Stay on your side, son. You’ve still got some sewer in you.” He rolled Dylan over so he was facing MacNeice. He seemed shocked to see the detective lying on the grass, covered in tinfoil, looking back at him.

The firefighter holding Aziz asked her what she wanted to do.

“Take me to MacNeice,” she said. He nodded and put an arm around her waist and carried her forward, her feet dangling several inches off the ground.

MacNeice was staring skyward when she appeared above him. He blinked several times, then studied her face with a look of wonder. He smiled before letting his eyes close.

She turned to the firefighter, who still held her off the ground. “Lay me next to him, please. Can we keep the blanket?”

“Sure thing, but don’t get too comfortable. The paramedics will be taking the three of you away as soon as they get their gurneys out here.”

He put her down next to MacNeice, tucked her silver blanket around them both, then covered them with a heavy wool DFD blanket. MacNeice turned in her direction, scanning the details of her face. The tightness around his jaw, which had been there since the fire at Samantha Stewart’s, was gone. His eyes were watery, whether from tears or rain, she couldn’t tell. But his smile, when it came, was what she imagined she’d see if she ever woke up next to him. She smiled back.

He raised his hand and let it pass lightly and softly over her cheek. Somehow, he seemed to know the difference between a raindrop and a tear.

After two days in the hospital MacNeice was sent home. Though he didn’t feel the need for any more rest, he was nonetheless happy to be out of the public eye, dodging the press conferences that had been taking up much of Wallace’s time since Coach Knox had exploded in the sewer.

He knew about those conferences, because on his first day home, he’d turned on the television to be confronted by school portraits of Alexander Knox, David Nicholson and Jennifer Grant—the same ones he had taped to the whiteboard. Wallace confirmed that the latest tragedy signalled the end of the investigation into the fatal bombing in Gage Park. After that, the network cut away to a reporter standing near the concrete sewer shaft. As the reporter spoke, the camera panned to the other end of Mercy’s football field, where two bulldozers were busy lifting broken sections of concrete and soil and sod from the wide gash. MacNeice turned the television off.

He took out a Nina Simone CD and slipped it in the player. He turned down the volume and waited for the satin chords of “I Put a Spell on You.” Until he’d met Kate, MacNeice had only known the song as sung by its creator, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. The original was more voodoo than love, more Halloween than bedroom. Simone’s take was the perfect fusion of sex and longing.

Crossing the room, he settled onto the sofa and lifted his eyes to the skeletal canopy of the pre-spring forest. He wasn’t prepared for the coyote that walked casually in front of the large window, pausing to put its snout toward a pane, sniffing as if a fine scent had betrayed the presence of the weary man inside.

Its coat was lush despite the winter, its eyes wise from several millennia of living rough. He sat up slowly and reached for the camera on the side table. The coyote turned, wary but not intimidated. It lifted a leg and calmly peed against the cottage wall. Before MacNeice could level his camera, it trotted casually across the patio and out of sight.

The chickadees, juncos and the pair of cardinals had remained frozen on their branches while the coyote was near. MacNeice watched them, each tilting an eye to the ground. Perhaps in their birdbrains they worried that the beast might be gifted with flight, and for birds maybe stranger things had happened. When they started hopping about again, calling to each other and dropping down for seeds that had fallen from the feeder, he knew the coyote was out of range.