With a Vengeance (7 page)

Seven

“It’s a piece of junk,” Earl said.

Zoe patted him on the shoulder. “Bud Kramer said Medic Two won’t be ready until sometime Monday. If the Brunswick garage hadn’t sent this one out, we’d be down a unit all weekend.”

The late afternoon sun warmed Zoe’s back as they stood in front of the ambulance garage’s open second bay, inspecting Medic Eight. As far as she was concerned, it looked fine. A few years older than their usual ride, but as long as everything worked—and she’d been assured it did—she figured they could survive one shift with it.

Earl, however, wasn’t so easily appeased. “Bud doesn’t want to pay anyone overtime to get the job done.”

“He’s only open until noon on Saturday. It would be a rush job.” Zoe nudged her partner with an elbow. “Aren’t you the one who always asks, ‘Do you want it done fast, or do you want it done right?’”

He grumbled something she couldn’t quite hear.

Zoe didn’t bother asking him to repeat it. She knew full well Earl’s mood had nothing to do with the ambulance. It wasn’t really Medic Two he wanted back.

He extended an arm toward the fill-in ambulance. “Command could have sent us one of their regular units. This one is basically out of commission. They only use it as a last resort.”

“We put in a request for a backup, and this is what they sent,” Zoe said. “No one gave us a selection to choose from.”

He spit out a string of profanities.

“You need to chill,” Zoe said, trying to keep her voice soothing.

“Don’t tell me to chill.” Earl, usually the epitome of calm and reason, kicked a chunk of broken concrete, sending it skittering across the sidewalk.

She crossed her arms and waited for him to regain his composure.

After a few moments, he shook his head. “A guy shouldn’t go to work trying to help people and have to worry about those same people taking potshots at him.”

“Pete and his boys will catch the guy.”

Earl met her gaze. “They damned well better.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he retreated into the office.

Alone in front of the open bay, Zoe eyed the fill-in ambulance. Even when Medic Two returned to service, nothing would be the same again.

Crunching tires made her turn to see a blue Subaru Outback pulling up to the curb. Earl’s wife stepped out from behind the steering wheel.

Zoe strode over to her. “Hey, Olivia. What are you doing here?”

She held up a cell phone. “Earl walked off without this. I’m taking Lilly to cheerleading practice, so I thought I’d bring it to him.”

Zoe leaned over to wave at the young girl strapped into the backseat before holding out a hand. “I can give it to him. He’s a little crabby right now.”

Olivia held onto the phone and rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it. He’s been on edge since last night. Didn’t sleep hardly at all. I had hoped he might be in a better mood after the two of you got back from seeing Curtis, but no such luck.” She turned the phone over in her hand. “Still, I think I’d rather give it to him myself. You know?”

“Yeah.” Zoe didn’t need the blanks filled in.
Just in case
. She aimed a thumb at the office door. “He’s inside. I’ll stay with Lilly.”

Olivia smiled. “Thanks.”

Zoe took a seat behind the Outback’s steering wheel and turned to smile at the small cheerleader. “How’re you doing, Lill?”

“Okay.” The girl’s eyes sparkled. “Daddy says you might come stay with us.”

“Afraid not, kiddo.”

Lilly jutted out her lower lip. “But I hoped you’d bring your cats. I want a kitten.”

Zoe laughed. Once again, Jade and Merlin were the welcomed guests. She was simply the human that came with the package. “I heard you want a pony too.”

“Well, yeah.” Lilly dragged out the word to make it sound more like duh. “But Daddy won’t let me.” She perked up. “Maybe I can come to your farm and ride one of yours?”

Her farm
? The Kroll farm never had been hers, but it used to feel like it. Not that she was going to explain her homeless status to a seven-year-old. “I’ll talk to your dad.”

“Great.” Lilly beamed as though it were a done deal.

They chatted about Lilly’s two older brothers and about the family dog—Lilly made no bones about preferring the dog to the brothers—until Olivia returned.

“Thanks for keeping Lilly company,” she said, reclaiming her seat from Zoe.

“No problem.”

Olivia turned the key, reached to close the door, and paused. She looked up at Zoe, her eyes moist and worried. “Take care of him. Okay?”

The tremor in Olivia’s voice was as uncharacteristic as Earl’s foul mood. Zoe searched for words to comfort her partner’s frightened wife. Finding nothing adequate, she replied, “Of course.”

Zoe watched the Subaru pull away and disappear around the bend. Within less than twenty-four hours, an unknown monster with a gun had taken one life and left another person unconscious in a hospital. But he’d also taken so much more.

She scanned the town around her and wondered who he was and what he had planned next.

Pete punched Wayne Baronick’s number into his cell phone as he parked in front of Sullivan’s mobile home for the second time that day. When the detective picked up, Pete asked, “What’d you find out from EOC?”

“Nothing yet,” Baronick replied. “From the dispatchers I’ve talked to, no one has any connections with, or knowledge of, Snake Sullivan.”

“Keep digging.” Pete eyed the mobile home. A shadow passed in front of a lamp burning inside, but with the curtains closed, he couldn’t tell if it was Snake or his mother. “And while you’re at it, find out if anyone there is friends with Lucy Livingston.”

“Knox’s girlfriend?”

“Ex-girlfriend.” Pete gave Baronick a quick rundown of what Zoe and Hector had told him.

“I’ll ask around and get back to you.”

Pete ended the call and shoved the phone back in his pocket before climbing out of the Explorer. Deep gray clouds had taken over the sky, and the air smelled of rain.

He was being watched. Not only by whoever was inside the Sullivan home, but probably by every other resident of the trailer park. He knocked on the door and noticed a lack of heavy footsteps from inside.

The door swung open to Mrs. Sullivan’s battle-weary face. “Eli’s not here. For real this time. He left an hour ago.”

“All right.” Pete took off his ball cap. “Could I talk to
you
for a few minutes?”

She gave the request a moment of thought before nodding and stepping clear.

The place hadn’t changed since Pete’s earlier visit. “I understand Eli used to date Lucy Livingston.”

Mrs. Sullivan’s eye twitched. “Yeah.”

“What can you tell me about the relationship?”

The woman gave a tired sigh. “I’m not sure what you want to know. They dated for a few months. But he hasn’t seen her in quite a while.”

“Who ended it?”

“The girl did. Eli talked about asking her to marry him.” Mrs. Sullivan laughed without a hint of humor. “Like he could afford a wife. He probably would’ve wanted to move her here and let me pay their bills.”

“Was he upset when Lucy broke up with him?”

“You could say that.” Mrs. Sullivan wandered over to a battered recliner and sank into it as if her legs couldn’t hold her any longer. “He was a brute for a while. Busted a bunch of my stuff. Most of the time he was out getting drunk.” She shot a glance at Pete. “Or high. Frankly, I didn’t care as long as he wasn’t here. I know that’s horrible for a mother to say. But I can’t control him. He’s got a mean streak. Got it from his father.”

Pete felt sorry for the woman. Hauling her son off to prison might be the best thing for her. “Does your son have any friends who work at the 911 center in Brunswick?”

The question seemed to startle her. “I don’t think so. I doubt it. To be honest, I don’t know Eli’s friends, but I seriously doubt any of them can hold down a real job.”

Pete had to agree. “Do you have any idea when Eli will be home?”

She laughed, again without humor. “Probably not until morning, after he’s drunk himself into a stupor and needs to sleep it off.”

“When he does come back, could you ask him to come down to the station first thing tomorrow? I’d like to ask him a few questions.”

“I doubt he’ll talk to you.”

“Tell him life will be easier for him if he does.”

“He’ll just have me call my brother-in-law.”

The attorney. “Fine. Have him come along too.” Pete didn’t really expect to get any direct answers from the kid, with or without Uncle Andy present. But one or the other might just let something slip. Like where Snake was between seven fifteen and eight thirty last night.

“I’ll tell him, but I ain’t making any promises.”

Pete tugged on his ball cap and thanked the woman.

As he made his way down the rickety steps, his cell phone rang. Caller ID showed the station’s number.

“Chief,” Nancy said when he answered, “I was about to leave for the day when Wanda Knox called. Curtis is awake.”

Pete stopped, one hand on the door of his SUV. “That’s great.” He might finally catch a break in this case.

“Do you want me to ask Kevin or Nate to drive into Pittsburgh to talk to him?”

“No.” Pete checked the time. It was already after five. “I’ll go. Is Kevin there?”

“Yeah. He rolled in a half hour ago.”

Pete slid behind the wheel and slammed the door. “Patch him through.”

The television in the crew lounge blared some sporting event that no one was watching. Zoe thumbed through a tattered magazine from a pile somebody had brought in from home. Two years out of date, the smiling celebrity couple on the cover had long since divorced. Not that it mattered. The words could have been written in Greek for all she comprehended.

Earl and the other guys on the crew stared at the TV, their faces blank. Zoe wondered if they would even be able to tell her the score if she asked. She doubted it.

Tossing the magazine aside, Zoe hoisted herself out of the too-soft, too-worn armchair and headed for the office.

Crew Chief Tony DeLuca sat at the desk doing paperwork. A police scanner on the shelf above him squawked with activity from an assortment of emergency response departments around the county.

Zoe crossed to the closed door leading to the ambulance bays. On a warm summer evening, both the outside bay doors and the office door would have stood open to catch a breeze. But the sky had grown dark and ominous.

Through the window, Zoe noticed the wind kicking up, fluttering the awning on the flower shop across the street and sending dust devils scurrying along the sidewalks.

“The weather suits the mood around here, doesn’t it?” Tony said.

Zoe spun to see the crew chief watching her. “I guess it does.”

He tapped the report in front of him with his pen. “I read the same line four times and still can’t tell you what it says.”

“A lot of that going on.”

The Monongahela County EMS radio on the desk crackled to life. “Phillipsburg, this is Control. Medical response requested to two-five-five Franklin Run Road. Seventy-five-year-old male complaining of chest pains.”

Tony snatched the mic. “Ten-four, Control.” He jotted the address down on a slip of paper and aimed a thumb at the doorway to the crew lounge with his free hand. “Zoe, tell Mike and Tracy they’re up.”

A moment later, Medic One roared out of the garage. Zoe and Tony watched from the window.

“I really hate this,” he said. “After last night, I wonder what I’m sending them into.”

Zoe hugged herself against a sudden chill. “I was thinking the same thing.”

Behind them, the phone rang. At the same time, the scanner on the shelf above the desk emitted a series of tones on the county fire channel. Tony blew out a noisy breath. “Sheesh. Is it going to be that kind of night?”

The crew chief reached up to silence the scanner and answer the phone. Zoe watched a woman step out of the flower shop carrying a bundle wrapped in green tissue and duck her head against the breeze as she hurried to her car. Just another day. For some people.

“Thank God,” Tony exclaimed into the receiver. “That’s great news. Thanks for letting us know.”

Zoe turned away from the window as Tony hung up. “What’s great news?”

The crew chief lowered his head, his eyes closed for a moment. When he lifted his head again, he was smiling through tears. “Come on. I’ll tell all of you at once.”

Zoe followed him into the lounge. Earl looked up from the TV.

“Curtis’s mom just called,” Tony said. “He’s awake. His vitals are stable and everything looks like he’s gonna be fine.”

Earl let out a whoop. Zoe slumped against the doorway in relief.

“We should all go see him tomorrow,” Earl said.

Tony chuckled. “We could take him a six-pack and a pizza.”

Earl heartily agreed.

“I hate to burst your bubble,” Zoe said, “but I doubt they’ll allow him to have beer when he’s been on morphine.”

“Curtis can have the pizza,” Tony said. “
We’ll
take care of the beer.”

The shrill ring of the phone pierced their raucous laughter.

Zoe waved off Tony. “I’ll get it.” She left them to planning their hospital keg party and retreated to the office.

“Monongahela EMS. May I help you?” she said into the phone.

Sirens blasted through the earpiece, drowning out the gruff voice on the other end.

The back of Zoe’s neck prickled. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”

“I said, this is Deputy Fire Chief Onderick. We need a medic unit out here,
now
.”

Zoe grabbed a pen and paper. “Give me your address and the nature of the medical emergency.”

“The old Carl Loomis farm,” Onderick shouted above the din. “Shots fired.”

Zoe’s fingers froze on the pen.

Through the receiver, the deputy chief’s voice bordered on hysterical as he added, “We have two men down.”

Eight

“How are you doing?”

Curtis Knox had always been as thin as a marathon runner, but in the hospital bed plugged into IVs and oxygen, he looked frail, almost skeletal. “I’ve been better.”

Pete had sent Wanda down to the cafeteria with orders not to return until she’d had a good meal. He hoped the paramedic might be more willing to share the horrors of his experience without his mother present. “Are you up to answering some questions?”

Curtis shifted in the bed with a pained grimace. “I’ll try.”

Pete pulled a chair closer to the bedside, sat down, and took out his notepad. “What can you tell me about last night’s call?”

Curtis’s eyes clouded with the memory. “It happened so fast.”

“Just do your best.” Pete started for him, “You responded to a report of an ATV accident?”

“Back in the cuts. Yeah. We—me and Barry—” Curtis’s voice cracked.

“Take your time,” Pete said gently.

The paramedic rubbed his nose then readjusted the nasal cannula. “We found an overturned quad on the access road. I should have suspected something was off. The thing was right there on the road. On the level. No reason for it to be tipped over like that.”

Pete waved away his concerns. “You had no reason to expect trouble. Did you see anyone?”

“No. Nobody was near the thing. At least we didn’t see anybody. I radioed in that we were on scene. Barry and I got out…” Curtis’s voice again grew ragged. “We got out and were gonna walk over to the quad.” He fingered the IV tubing. “Then, I don’t know. Things went sideways. There was a crack. Like you hear during hunting season.”

“A rifle,” Pete prompted.

“Yeah.
Boom
. And—Barry went down. For a second, I didn’t know what was going on. I ran around the front of the ambulance. Or started to.” Curtis paused, twisting a handful of sheet into a knot.

Pete remained silent, giving him time. On his notepad, he jotted,
Dickson hit first
.

“Next thing I know, I’m on the ground. I don’t really remember hearing the second shot. And I don’t remember realizing what had happened for a second or two. Then…
man
, everything hurt. Burned like fire.” He touched the bandage on the upper right of his chest.

“Did you see anything? Anyone?”

“No.” Curtis lowered his hand to rest, clenched on the sheet covering him. “I just laid there. Afraid whoever it was would shoot again. So I played dead.” He met Pete’s gaze, his eyes wide with pain and sorrow. “I played dead. Because I was scared. I let Barry die because I was too scared to move.”

Pete reached over to place a comforting hand on Curtis’s uninjured shoulder. “According to the coroner, he bled out fast. The bullet tore him up so bad inside, nothing you could’ve done would have made a difference.”

“I could have kept him from dying alone, lying in the dirt.”

“Or you could have died with him.”

Curtis turned his head away. “Right now, I don’t care.”

Pete withdrew his hand. Survivor’s guilt was a powerful thing. “Okay, but you didn’t die. You’re still here. Help me catch the son of a bitch who did this.”

“I would if I could.” Curtis met Pete’s gaze again. “But I didn’t see shit.”

“Did you
hear
anything?”

“Things got fuzzy pretty quick. I must have passed out from blood loss.” Curtis rubbed his head as if trying to massage away the fog. “But…now that you mention it, yeah. Far off. I remember thinking someone was revving up a chainsaw to cut wood.”

“A chainsaw?”

“I don’t know. Could’ve been a weed whacker. Or a dirt bike.”

“How about another quad?”

“A quad? Yeah.” Curtis nodded. “Yeah. Could be.”

“Anything else?”

He thought for a long moment. “No. Sorry.”

Pete jotted in his notebook. “Can you think of anyone who might’ve wanted to kill you or Barry or anyone else on the ambulance service?”

The question appeared to puzzle him. “No.”

“Has anyone made any threats?”

Curtis shook his head.

“Any disgruntled patients or patients’ families?”

“No.”

“Can you think of any patients you or anyone else with the county EMS lost that maybe you shouldn’t have lost? Or that the family members felt you shouldn’t have lost?”

Curtis’s brow furrowed as he pondered the question. “I can’t think of anyone.”

Pete paused for a moment before asking the next one. “What can you tell me about Snake Sullivan?”

The paramedic stiffened. “Snake?”

Before Curtis could say more, Pete’s cell phone rang. He jerked it from his pocket. Caller ID showed the call was coming from his station. Probably one of the men reporting in with lab results. He pressed
ignore
. “Yeah. Snake,” he said, pocketing the phone.

“He’s an idiot. And he’s mean. Likes to push people around just for fun.”

“I hear he and Barry got into it.”

“It wasn’t a big deal. Snake was running off at the mouth. Saying stuff about…well, just being a jackass. He started pushing Barry around and Barry flattened him with one punch. It was over. Done.”

“Was it?”

“You think Snake did this?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to find out.”

Pete’s phone rang again. Five more minutes. That’s all he needed with Curtis. He yanked out the phone. He hovered his thumb over the ignore button, but paused. It was the station again.

“I should take this,” he told Curtis before answering the call.

“Pete? Where the hell are you?” Sylvia’s voice sounded tight.

“I’m talking to Curtis Knox. What are you doing at the station?”

“All hell has broken loose here, that’s what I’m doing at your station. You need to get back here now. Bruce Yancy’s been shot.”

“You should have stayed back,” Earl said to Zoe as they followed Medic Three along the tarred and chipped country road, approaching the Loomis farm.

Every nerve fiber in her body agreed. The last time they’d responded to the now-abandoned Loomis farm, they’d discovered a burned corpse. “I’ll be fine.” But Carl Loomis’s charred remains weren’t what haunted her. The memory of another burning structure—one she’d been inside—was too fresh, too vivid.

Everyone at the ambulance garage knew about her demons. Tony had offered to let her stay behind and man the radio. He said he could call in someone off-duty to take the call with Earl. But she wouldn’t hear of it. She had to face the monsters lurking in the flames sooner or later.

They topped one last hill and rounded the blind curve leading down the other side. Deep gray smoke, almost the same hue as the rain clouds, billowed over the trees blocking the view.

Less than a minute later, the pair of ambulances turned into the gravel farm lane. Ahead, the barn was ablaze, flames devouring the old wood. A trio of firetrucks, including one tanker—no hydrants out here—were parked near the structure. Men in bunker gear poured water on the inferno.

Their radio hissed as Tony in the lead ambulance radioed that both EMS units were on scene. Control responded with a ten-four and the time. Eighteen twenty-six. Almost six thirty. Zoe noted it on the call report.

Deputy Fire Chief Onderick lumbered toward them, waving his arms. Both Zoe and Earl powered down their windows. A gust of rain-laden wind sliced through the ambulance’s cab. Sirens and blasts of air horns, some distant, some closer, along with the stench of burning wood and hay, filled the air. Onderick shouted something at the guys in the first rig. Zoe couldn’t make it out over the din.

Medic Three pulled forward. Earl followed, and Onderick waved them on rather than repeat whatever orders he’d given.

Zoe caught a glimpse in the rearview mirror of a pair of police cruisers, neither of them Pete’s.

Medic Three parked in the grass alongside the farm lane, leaving room for more fire apparatuses. Earl parked Medic Eight next to the other ambulance as the first fat raindrops splattered on the windshield. Zoe jumped out, instinctively reaching for the rain slicker she kept behind the seat. Except this wasn’t her regular ride. With no time to search for errant weather gear, she tugged on her EMS ball cap and grabbed the jump kit from inside the side patient compartment door.

“We’ll take care of the kid,” Tony bellowed over the diesel rumble of idling fire trucks and the vicious popping crackle of the fire. “You two treat Yancy.”

Zoe and Earl trailed behind at a jog. Zoe was able to keep her eyes averted from the burning barn, but the sounds and smells triggered flashbacks. Trapped in the basement of a doomed farmhouse, waiting for the groaning timbers to collapse onto her. She choked.

Earl slowed and glanced at her. “You gonna be able to do this?”

“Yeah.” She shook it off and nudged him forward. “Go.”

They circled to the front of the rig closest to the fire. Two men were on the ground. Fire Chief Bruce Yancy cradled a young man in his arms. Blood soaked through the junior firefighter’s turnout coat and covered Yancy’s fingers where he bore down on the gunshot wound with his left hand. The chief’s right arm hung limp at his side, more blood saturating a tattered sleeve that was half torn away.

Tears filled the chief’s eyes as he looked up at the paramedics. “Save him,” he pleaded.

“We got him, Yancy,” Tony said. He eased the kid out of the fire chief’s arms.

Yancy winced, his breath a sharp hiss.

Zoe tugged her cap down lower as a gust of wind and rain threatened to rip it from her head. She studied the entrance wound, relatively small compared to the hole in the back of his arm. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“Nope.” Yancy swallowed hard. “Bullet shattered my arm,” he said through clenched teeth.

Earl dug into the jump kit and pulled out a triangular bandage, which was quickly soaked from the rain. He fashioned a makeshift sling to immobilize the arm. “If you can walk on your own, let’s get out of this rain and into the ambulance.”

“I can walk.” Yancy looked over at the other team working on his young charge. “Is Jason gonna be all right?”

“They’re the best. You know that,” Zoe said. Not a real answer, but the best she could offer at the moment.

Zoe helped Earl ease the bandage around the broken arm. A loud crack drew her gaze to the burning barn in time to see the roof give way, disintegrating into the hungry flames. She shivered and looked away, taking a glance at the landscape. Overgrown pastures surrounded the barn, house, and a few other decrepit outbuildings rolling in waves upward to the tree line at the top of the hill.

Was the shooter still out there? Had he sufficiently gotten his jollies, picking off helpless rescue personnel? Or had the rain driven him into hiding?

She caught Earl watching her and guessed he was asking himself the same questions.

They helped the fire chief to his feet. As they trudged back to Medic Eight, Tony caught up to them. “Can one of you give me a hand with the gurney?” From the look on his face, no one needed to ask how the junior firefighter was doing.

“I got Yancy,” Zoe told Earl. “You go.”

Earl and Tony veered away at a slushy jog. Yancy leaned on Zoe with his good arm and they pressed on through the deluge.

She yanked open the ambulance’s back doors and helped him climb in. After pulling the doors closed, the sound of the flames and the diesel engines were muffled, leaving only the drumming of raindrops on the roof.

“Jason’s mother’s gonna kill me for letting her boy get hurt,” Yancy stuttered through chattering teeth as he took a seat on the jump bench.

Zoe pulled her trauma shears from her pants pocket, glad she’d sprung for the heavy duty variety. “It wasn’t your fault.” She wanted to add the boy would be fine, but she had a bad feeling it would be a lie.

Wishing she had Earl’s extra set of hands to help keep Yancy’s arm stabilized, she removed the temporary sling and started cutting the heavy sleeve of the bunker coat.

The fire chief groaned. “You got any good drugs in this meat wagon?”

“I sure do. As soon as I can get this coat off you, I’ll start an IV and slip you something for the pain.”

The going was slow and tough, and Zoe had to use both hands to cut through the layers of fabric.

Yancy watched her work. “You want me to do that?”

“I got it, thanks.”

“You do realize that’s a five-hundred-dollar coat you’re destroying.” He forced a grin that was more of an agonized grimace.

“I think whoever shot you took care of that already.”

He grunted. “This stuff is made to stop projectiles—falling debris, nails and shit. Doesn’t do squat against bullets.”

With the sleeve slit from cuff to shoulder, Zoe helped Yancy ease out of the decimated coat. She tugged a blanket from under the straps on the gurney and settled it over the fire chief’s shoulders.

“You’re soaked to the core,” he said, resisting the blanket as much as he could with only one functioning arm. “You need this more than I do.”

“Forget it, Yancy.” Zoe grabbed a bottle of saline and some clean towels. “Behave yourself. You’re the patient. I’m the boss here.”

He grumbled something she couldn’t make out.

She doused the wound to wash away some of the blood and debris. The entrance wound didn’t look bad at all. But the back of the arm was a ragged mess. Blood soaked through the bandages as fast as she applied them. She hoped the air splint she applied to immobilize the break would also act as a pressure bandage and help stem the bleeding.

She expected a battle from the grizzled old fire warrior when she told him to lie down on the gurney, but he gave her no argument. A check of his blood pressure confirmed what the lack of color in his cheeks already told her. She leaned toward the back doors, trying to spot Earl around the Star of Life emblems plastered to the back windows.

“What’s going on out there?” Yancy asked.

“I can’t see a thing.” Until her partner returned, she was on her own. She flipped open several storage compartment doors and gathered IV and oxygen tubing, a non-rebreather mask, and a bag of fluids. Within minutes, she had her patient on O2 and started him on IV fluids. As she unlatched and opened the portable EKG, a shadow fell over the rain-streaked back window. For a second, she thought Earl had returned, but instead, someone pounded on the door.