Miracles in the ER (14 page)

“What is it? What’s so funny?”

Lori put the full specimen cup on the counter. “We won’t need to be checking her urine. It’s going to be completely normal.”

“How can you be so sure? How can—”

“I’ve made the diagnosis, Dr. Lesslie. I know what’s causing the swelling in Adele’s legs.”

Mrs. Hoskins was standing beside Adele’s stretcher, gently stroking the girl’s long brown hair. She looked up as I walked into the room.

“Adele, let’s go over a couple of things.” I pulled a stool up and sat down, her clipboard in my lap. “Tell me about this knee pain you’ve been having.”

The teenager’s eyes widened and she looked over at her mother.

Mrs. Hoskins spoke. “She was having some pain in her knees—growing pains—that’s all. Didn’t fall or anything, and I told her to take some ibuprofen. That helped—didn’t it, honey?”

Adele was staring at her mother. She nodded, then looked at the floor and shook her head.

I cleared my throat and shifted a little on the stool. “What have you been doing for your knee pain?” Mrs. Hoskins stopped stroking the girl’s hair. She stood ramrod straight, tilted her head to one side, and stared at her daughter.

“I’ve been…” Adele looked up at her mother, then suddenly fell silent.

“Tell the doctor, child. What have you been doing?”

“I’ve been wrapping my knees up at night, right before I go to bed. I found some Ace bandages in the bathroom and I’ve been using those.” She sighed and slumped against the wall behind her.

“Have you been putting those bandages on tight?” I knew the answer, but needed to hear it.

“As tight as I could. And it helped. The pain was gone in the morning, but my legs were all swollen.”

Mrs. Hoskins stood with her hands on her hips, mouth gaping, shaking her head in silence.

“You’ve been doing this every night?” I placed a hand on one of her swollen ankles. The Ace bandages had acted like tourniquets. Causing fluid to collect in her legs overnight.

“Uh-huh.”

I glanced over at her mother and then back down at Adele.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.”

I hadn’t seen Adele or her mother in the intervening eight years and never heard what happened with the girl’s “swole” legs.

“Like I said, Dr. Lesslie, Adele is fine now. Completely normal. No more swelling after that day. And it was all thanks to you. If you hadn’t have figured out about those Ace bandages, who knows what would have happened.”

She needed to know the truth here—that Lori Davidson had been the diagnostician. “Mrs. Hoskins, I—”

She shushed me with a waving index finger.

“Nope, none of that. I just wanted to thank you for helping Adele. It was amazing. No, it was a…”

Little Children, Fools, and Drunks

“EMS 2, respond code 3 to a 10-50, 1492 Orchard Road. Presumed PI’s.”

Denton Roberts and his partner, Rob Flynn, were wolfing down a couple of Wendy’s cheeseburgers. Several nearby customers glanced at the squawking radio sitting on the paramedics’ table. Denton picked it up and pressed a large red button.

“This is EMS 2. We’ll be en route in one minute.”

Rob looked at the burger in his hand, shook his head, wrapped it in a couple of napkins, and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.

“You sure about that?” Denton was already headed to the door.

“Hey, a man’s gotta eat. And what’s this about an auto accident with ‘presumed PI’s’? Either there’re personal injuries or there’re not.”

“Beats me. I guess we’ll find out.”

Orchard Road was a good ten minutes out in the country, even at maximum safe speed. The ambulance’s halogen headlights pierced the dark, moonless night, and its flashing blue-and-red lights bounced off trees and road signs as the paramedics sped to the accident.

Dispatch had informed them that a police unit was on its way and should arrive moments after they did.

“You think the driver left the scene?” Rob shifted in his seat and stuck his hand into his jacket pocket. “That might explain the ‘presumed PI’ business. What th—” He held his hand under the interior dome light. It was covered with ketchup and decorated with a few streaks of mustard and one lonely pickle to boot.

“I was a little worried about that.” Denton chuckled, looking at his partner’s hand. “But you know, a man’s gotta eat. Right?”

“Now you listen—”

“Look, there it is—1492.” Denton braked the ambulance and pointed to a mailbox on the right side of the road.

Rob wiped his hand on his pants and looked out his window. “Mighty dark out there. You see anything?”

They pulled onto a graveled driveway and the beams of their headlights found a small, one-story brick house. The front porch was screened, its door closed.

Denton rolled down his window as they slowly approached the house. He switched off the siren, its strident wail replaced by the quiet crunching of gravel beneath the ambulance’s tires.

The porch lights turned on, painting the front of the house with a pale yellow hue.

“Look—over there.”

Denton was pointing toward a large live oak. Its limbs spread spiderlike, almost touching the ground in places. Under one of these low-hanging boughs, lying on its side, was a late-model Ford truck. The motor was still running and one of the back wheels was uselessly spinning in the night air.

The porch door slammed and a middle-aged man walked toward them. He was barefoot, and his undersized T-shirt barely covered half of his oversized belly.

“You got here pretty quick, boys.” He walked up to Denton’s side of the ambulance and held out his hand. “Ernie Brakefield. This here’s my place.”

Rob Flynn was already out of the vehicle and sprinting toward the overturned truck.

“Any idea how this happened?” Denton opened the door, jumped down, and reached behind his seat for the emergency box.

“What? The wreck?” Ernie looked over at the truck and then out to the highway. “Best as I can figure out, the driver was going pretty fast and didn’t see the curve over there.” He was pointing somewhere off to the left, invisible in the pitch-black darkness. “He plowed through my yard and hit the drainage ditch. That’s what must have flipped him over—probably a couple of times. Then he come to rest underneath that oak tree.”

He had gracefully traced the presumed path of the truck, looping his hand in the air a few times before finally pointing to its resting place.

Denton turned and hurried over to his partner. Ernie huffed along behind them, struggling to keep up.

“Got anything?” Denton called out.

“Nothing yet.” Rob’s voice was coming from somewhere behind the truck, his body invisible.

“Not gonna find anything, either,” Ernie got out between labored breaths.

They came to a stop beside the Ford, and Denton turned to the man. “You never saw the driver? Never saw anyone?”

“Nope. Not a soul. And I was out here one, maybe two minutes after it happened. I looked all around the truck and in the ditch. Even out in the road. Thought maybe the driver’d bailed out when he realized what was about to happen. But nothing. Not a trace. Whoever was behind the wheel just vanished.”

A loud barking broke the silence of the quickly chilling nightfall. Denton looked over in the direction of the sudden noise and saw a young golden retriever sitting just inside the porch door, its tail sweeping the floor in long, graceful arcs.

“Hush up, Moses! Stop that barking.” Ernie shook his head. “That dog’s been all excited ever since this happened. Just keeps pacin’ around the porch and barkin’ his head off. About to drive me crazy.”

The dog barked again, not paying attention to his master.

“Moses!” Ernie was growling at the dog, and this time he fell silent.

“Key’s still in the ignition,” Rob called out. “I’m gonna turn it off before something blows.”

Flynn’s flashlight cast powerful beams in and around the truck. No sign of any movement or any body.

“How much did you look around, Mr. Brakefield?” Denton set the heavy box on the ground and took his own flashlight from his belt.

“I walked around a good bit.” Ernie waved his arm in a wide circle. “Like I said, I looked out by the road and way beyond the tree. I was thinkin’ maybe the driver got thrown through the windshield, but there ain’t no broken glass. Nothin’s broke that I can see, except the front left headlight. That’s hard to believe, considerin’ all the noise this thing made as it plowed through my yard.”

Moses started barking again, and pacing up and down in the porch.

“Moses, don’t make me come over there!”

“Denton, come take a look.” Rob was standing on the other side of the truck, his flashlight pointing into the vehicle.

Denton stepped through some tall grass and weeds and around to where his partner stood.

“What do you make of that?” Rob held his light in one hand and pointed to the side of the open passenger window with his other.

Denton stooped over, almost pressing his nose to the metal post. He reached out and rubbed something between his thumb and index finger.

“Feels like pants material to me—blue jeans. Looks like it was torn or ripped off.”

“That’s what I thought too.” Rob leaned close, tracing the window frame with his flashlight. “But there’s no blood anywhere.”

Moses barked louder now, and without saying a word Ernie headed in the direction of the dog.

“Mr. Brakefield, hold on there.” Denton straightened up and took off after the man.

Ernie spun around, looking into Denton’s light. He blinked a couple of times and shielded his eyes with a stubby hand.

“What? What’s the matter?”

“Has Moses been out in the yard since this happened?”

Ernie looked over his shoulder, then back at the paramedic. “No, I’ve kept him on the porch. He’s young and too excited. Why?”

Rob walked up beside Denton and they looked at each other.

“Why don’t we let Moses loose and see what he does?” Denton pointed his beam at the porch. “Maybe he can find something.”

“Listen! What’s that?” Ernie stood as still as a fence post and stared up into the night sky.

Rob cocked his head and strained his ears. The thick darkness was broken by the faint but unmistakable wail of a siren.

“Good,” Rob said. “The police should be here in a few minutes.”

They turned in the direction of the porch. Moses was still pacing, still barking.

“Might as well give him a try. Can’t hurt anything.” Ernie stumped off toward the house with Rob and Denton close behind.

They reached the porch door. The retriever was ready to explode out. He was whining now, his body a mass of wriggling muscle.

“Better back up,” Ernie warned. “He don’t know his own strength.”

Brakefield opened the porch door and jumped out of the way. Moses bounded through the opening and straight over to the truck. He circled
it once, sniffing the ground, stopped still as a statue, and held his nose in the air.

The three men watched as the dog’s tail began to slowly swish.

“Look. He’s got somethin’,” Ernie whispered.

Moses was looking up into the tree, still sniffing the night air. His head turned to the house and he took a couple of cautious steps toward the porch.

He stopped once more, uttered a low growl, then let forth a couple of thunderous barks.

Denton and Rob jumped backward, their lights focused on the dog.

“Look, I told you he had somethin’.”

Moses looked up at the roof of the house and started to pace back and forth in front of the porch.

Rob trained his flashlight on the edge of the weathered gutter and carefully followed it, starting at the right-hand corner.

The beam of light froze halfway down the porch.

“Look! Do you see that?” Rob stepped closer to this house, his light not wavering from the spot.

Denton was peering at the edge of the roof, his light joining Rob’s. “It looks like a—”

“It’s a foot!” Ernie hurried over to the house, pointing at the gutter. Moses was right beside him, jumping up and down and agreeing with sharp, nervous yelps.