Miracles in the ER (11 page)

My hand was on her collar again and she moved away, twisting on the stretcher and placing both hands around her neck.

“It was my dog.”

“Mrs. Evans—”

“It was my dog.”

The window slammed shut and my opportunity was gone.
What could I do? What more could I say?

I had been in this situation more than once. We had patients who we were sure were being abused, and when we offered our help, it was rejected. Denial and fear are powerful emotions.

Many times we called the police anyway, concerned for our patients’ very lives. But they were powerless to intervene unless the victim complained. When met by silence, the officers would shake their heads, give them a card with their name and phone number should they change their minds, and walk out of the department. They knew, as we did, that this wouldn’t go away. It wouldn’t stop. Several episodes of choking were clear evidence of the anger and intent of Stephanie’s husband. It was only a matter of time.

“Mrs. Evans.”

Silence.

“Any luck?” Amy Connors looked over the counter at me as I came up beside Lori. “Was she willing to talk about it?” The nurse had told her what was going on and that we might need to make a call to the police.

“She won’t talk about it.” I dropped the clipboard on the countertop. “I tried, but she just won’t talk. But you’re right, Lori. That woman is in trouble. She needs some help.”

“I just don’t get it,” Amy muttered. “If that was me— Wait a minute! That explains it!”

She opened one of the drawers beneath the counter and flipped through a large folder of ER records from the past thirty days.

“Here it is.” She slammed the drawer shut and held up the copy of an info sheet. “Stephanie Evans was in the ER a couple of weeks ago. You guys weren’t here that day, and she saw Dr. Given. She said she had fallen in the bathroom and her X-rays showed two broken ribs. I remember Dr. Given sayin’ things didn’t add up, with what she was sayin’ and what he was seein’. But she stuck to her story, and he sent her home.”

Lori and I looked at each other.

“I’m going to talk with her again.” She was standing behind Amy and turned in the direction of room 4. “I’m going to tell her about Angie.”

Fifteen long minutes later, Lori Davidson walked back up to the nurses’ station. Her eyes were reddened and her face flushed.

“Amy, would you call the police. We need them in room 4.”

From this day forward…

The Locusts

“Hey, Dave,” I called out to the tall, trim, sixty-year-old police officer. “What brings you to the ER this morning?”

Dave Hawkins was walking through the ambulance entrance. He looked over, smiled, and gave me a mock salute. Beside him walked another policeman—one I didn’t recognize. They walked over to the nurses’ station and Hawkins shook my hand.

“We’ve got a couple of people from a fender bender in the waiting room. Nothing serious. Just want to get the investigation done and the paperwork finished.” He turned to the officer beside him. “This is Private Tim Painter, my new partner. First week on the job and I’m showing him the ropes.”

Virginia Granger appeared in the doorway of the medicine room. “You’ve got a good teacher, Officer Painter,” she called out. “Just pay attention to Dave and you’ll do just fine.”

Lori Davidson walked through the triage entrance, leading three slouching teenage boys. When they saw the officers, their heads suddenly ducked and turned away.

“These mine?” Dave asked the nurse.

“Yep,” Lori answered. “Apparently pulled out of the Burger King without looking. I’m taking them back to minor trauma.”

Hawkins and Painter started off behind them. “Good,” Dave said. “We’ll get our part done as fast as we can. Don’t want them to be late for school.”

He winked and gave me another salute.

Virginia sat down behind the counter and passed a notebook to Amy Connors. “These are last month’s admissions.”

Amy nodded, opened a large drawer, and filed it away.

“We just get busier every month.” The head nurse shook her head and looked up at me. “I’m not sure we can see many more people.”

She was right, but I was more interested in Dave Hawkins.

“What do you know about Officer Hawkins? Is he a sergeant or captain? He’s been around since we’ve been in Rock Hill, and that must be almost twenty years.”

“Let’s see,” Amy mused, looking up at the ceiling. “You started here right after the American Revolution, so that would be—”

“Almost twenty years,” I repeated, glaring at the secretary. “Not long before you. Anyway, why is he doing the same thing now as he was then? He seems like the most experienced and levelheaded officer on the force.”

“You’re right about that, Dr. Lesslie.” Virginia nodded. “He’s the best I’ve ever been around. He’s solid and dependable, and he can calm down a volatile situation quicker than anyone I know. But he’s not a sergeant or lieutenant or captain. I think he’s a corporal or something like that. Something just above a private.”

I glanced down the empty hallway, toward minor trauma.

“Why hasn’t he advanced, or been promoted?”

Virginia shook her head. “He’s had plenty of chances, and turned them down every time. He once told me he was doing what he needed to do, to be on the street and to try to make a difference. He said he had a lot to make up and didn’t want to waste any more time.”

“Waste more time?” I was confused. “Waste time doing what?”

Virginia looked straight into my eyes and never blinked.

“Hating.”

Gary Spielman was a local hero. A track and football star at Rock Hill High, he had survived two stints in Vietnam and come home with a Purple Heart and a Silver Star. He wouldn’t talk about the time he’d spent halfway around the world, but the word was he’d saved his platoon of fourteen men, putting himself at risk and receiving several pieces of shrapnel in return.

It seemed only natural that Gary join the police force when he returned to Rock Hill. He was immediately paired with Dave Hawkins, a young
and promising officer who had been on the force a year or two. The two quickly bonded, becoming friends as well as partners. It wasn’t long before they were receiving some of the toughest assignments in the city.

The challenge for Dave was to rein in the impulsiveness of the younger officer. While in Vietnam, Gary had been the first to volunteer for dangerous tasks, frequently taking the point on perilous patrols.

“Somebody’s got to be out there,” he would say. “Might as well be me.”

He had the same attitude on the police force, and was soon known as the go-to guy. Gary wasn’t foolish or careless, though. He was
capable
, and soon had the respect of the entire department.

Hawkins and Spielman had received their assignment for the day and were almost at their patrol car.

“Hold on a minute, Dave,” Sergeant Travers called out, hurrying to catch up to the two men. “I need to give you a heads-up. You’re going to be in the Collier neighborhood today and you need to know that T. Gaither is operating somewhere over there.”

Gary looked at his partner and tilted his head.

“Dave can tell you about Gaither,” Travers said, looking at the younger man. “He’s bad news, and you guys need to be careful. Just a heads-up.”

Tyler Mathew Gaither—“T.”—was well known to the police departments of York and several surrounding counties. If drugs were in the area—cocaine, heroin, PCP, marijuana—that’s where you would find him. And violence wouldn’t be far behind. He was always armed and always dangerous.

“Sounds like my kind of guy,” Gary chuckled, scanning the street from the passenger seat of the patrol car.

“Possible disturbance at 302 Blanton Street. Any available unit respond.”

Spielman grabbed the radio and glanced at his partner.

“We’re close, right?”

Dave nodded, slowed the vehicle, and signaled a right turn. “Two minutes.”

Gary pressed the send button on the radio. “Unit 14 responding.”

He dropped the radio to the console, put his hand on his holstered service weapon, and said, “I wonder what this will be.”

“We’ll see. ‘Possible disturbance’—could be anything.”

Dave flipped on his lights and siren and turned onto Blanton Street. “302, right?”

“That’s right,” Spielman answered, leaning forward and unfastening his seat belt. “Look, Dave—over there!”

Two men were bolting down the front steps of a small brick house. They glanced over their shoulders at the approaching patrol car and disappeared through a hedge of bushes on the far side of the yard.

“That’s the place,” Dave said, pulling into the driveway and cutting off the motor. “I’ll call for backup.”

Gary was already out of the car and heading for the house, weapon drawn.

Dave looked at the radio and then his partner. “Doggone it,” he muttered and jammed the radio into the holder on his leather belt.

He jumped out and hollered at Spielman. “I’m going around back. Give me two minutes before you go in.”

Gary kept his eyes trained on the front door. He crouched low to the ground and waved without a word to Hawkins. He was on the porch before Dave could get to the side of the house.

Hawkins heard the slam of the closing screen door. “Doggone it.”

Two muted
thumps
from inside the house—gunshots—and Hawkins was racing back to the front of the house.

He grabbed his radio and almost dropped it. “This is unit 14—shots fired—repeat—shots fired. We need backup!”

Hawkins took the steps two at a time and burst into the living room, his weapon ready to fire.

“Gary!”

The older officer took a few cautious steps into the cluttered space. There was the crash of breaking glass from the back of the house, and he froze.

“Gary!”

“Over here, Dave.”

Spielman’s voice was faint, weak. It had come from somewhere in a hallway leading from the back of the living room.

Hawkins glanced around the room and moved slowly, carefully toward his partner.

“Over here, Dave.” Weaker this time.

Gary Spielman sat propped against a wall at the end of the hall. His unmoving arms and legs were awkwardly spread on the floor, his weapon lying a few inches from is right hand.

“Sorry, Dave. He had a kid in his arms and I couldn’t…”

Hawkins rushed to his partner and knelt beside him. Two crimson stains on the front of his shirt slowly expanded then melted together, stealing the young man’s life.

A whimper somewhere off to his right, and Dave was pointing his gun, ready to fire.

“The kid.” Gary’s voice was barely audible.

Hawkins peered into a far corner. Huddled against the wall, clutching his knees to his chest, was a three-year-old curly-headed boy. His large, tear-filled eyes stared at the officer.

“It’s the kid.”

Dave sat down beside his partner and put his arms around him.

“Hold on, Gary. Hold on.”

Spielman’s head slumped against his friend’s chest, and he was gone.

T. Gaither showed up in the ER of a neighboring city with suspicious lacerations of his hands and forearms. The back door of 302 Blanton Street had been boarded shut and he had crashed through a window making his escape. He was being sutured when the police arrived and surrounded his stretcher. He never asked about his son, the child he had left behind that morning.