The Keys Are In It (Part Ten)
Herein are several people whose lives at first do not seem connected. Their paths converge unexpectedly. This is Part Ten.
Part Ten
Cooper and Hunter ran between the few cars that had straggled into the intersection. Traffic sat still at all four lights. Some motorists honked their horns and yelled for others to get out of the way. “Haven’t you ever seen a wreck before, idiots?” a man shouted.
Not one quite like that, Cooper guessed. At least not the way he and his friend had seen it, anyway.
“That was totally messed up, Coop! That just ain’t right.” Hunter yelled, a frightened edge in his voice that Cooper didn’t recognize coming from him. He stopped in the corner convenience store’s parking lot and leaned over to vomit between his shoes. Rainwater carried it away.
Cooper, unsure whether he was short of breath from exertion or terror, took a moment to slow his breathing. “I know, man.”
“That guy is some kind of monster,” Hunter said and spit repeatedly to clear his mouth. “He ripped his neck apart with his teeth.”
“I’m never going joyriding again. This proves we shouldn’t have done it.”
“So, you think that was some kind of punishment?”
“First we have a crash, then a guy with a gun takes us hostage. But, and this is the kicker, we’re saved by a vampire or whatever the hell that was,” Cooper said.
The boys sat on a curb near a bright yellow, coin-operated machine. On it was a coiled black hose and large black letters spelling, “AIR.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s God’s retribution.”
“You know what that word means?”
“Shut up, Coop. This is no time to be a superior prick.”
“Fine.”
As quickly as it had begun, the rain stopped.
Cooper turned his head and took in the scene. The man who had killed the gunman still lay still under the afghan, but the ladies with him kept their distance. The family from the minivan sat on the sidewalk across the way, caddycorner, and watched what was happening. The hurt guy with them was talking, but he didn’t look so good. The kid wasn’t crying anymore. That helped a little.
A police cruiser pulled into the lot and screeched to a stop so close that Cooper felt the heat from its engine. The officer from the driver’s side bobbled a bullhorn and held it up to his mouth. Squealing feedback echoed off the surrounding buildings. He fiddled with a knob on the device and tried again. “Please, all those involved in the accident, stay where you are. Everybody else, please clear the area.”
His partner, the heavier of the two, lumbered from the passenger’s side and shot the boys a severe look. “Damn, Bennet, try not to hurt yourself with that thing. You already almost ran over these kids.” He then strode stiffly to the center of the intersection, where he directed traffic around the accident victims and damaged cars.
Sirens approached from the left and from behind. Fire trucks, ambulances. Cooper didn’t know. Things that rescue people.
——-
Doug was in pain, but he had felt worse. The storm clouds had moved in at just the right time, so he most likely would survive, but now that his secret was out he wasn’t sure how much of a life that would be. He opened his eyes.
He was in a stark white room without windows, tucked into crisp white sheets on a bed with metal rails. A television, turned off, hung from a hinged metallic arm on the wall. He smelled disinfectants and latex. “Hospital. Shit.”
Doug found and depressed the call button. A nurse skittered in moments later. With a professional yet warm demeanor she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his left arm and pulled her stethoscope up to her ears. She placed the other end of the stethoscope against the inside of his arm just below the cuff and gave a black rubber bulb several quick squeezes. The cuff tightened.
“Could you please tell me what’s going on?” Doug said.
She held up her index finger indicating for him to wait. The cuff gradually loosened while she concentrated. When it went completely slack she noisily opened it and pulled it off his arm.
“I only know that you were brought here by EMT’s earlier today. We couldn’t make out your blood type so it’s a good thing you didn’t need any. Strangest thing, though. Usually that’s so easy to tell,” she said.
“I’m pretty much a universal recipient.”
Doug considered again her words. “I was injured?” he said. “In the crash?”
“I don’t think so. Turned out we didn’t find any open wounds, so that blood on you wasn’t yours. It’s amazing how fast your skin healed from the burns.”
“What else do you know?” What did any of them know?
“About what happened? Nothing. But, there’s a policeman standing watch outside your door. Probably on account of that blood not being yours. And, a young lady has been asking to see you, but he won’t let her.”
Doug suspected the nurse wasn’t telling him everything. The doctors probably found his blood very unusual and it would be only a matter of time before he was being poked and prodded in ways he preferred not to imagine. If not by doctors, then certainly by the inmates wherever he ended up after his inevitable murder conviction. He hoped maybe he could avoid the latter by claiming his actions were heroic. That would leave him battling only the doctors.
——-
Detective Wallace Davies sat on an orange plastic chair in the surgery waiting room, next to two frightened parents and their toddler son. It was his first homicide case as the lead investigator, and it had started out weird.
“So, Mr. and Mrs. Cody, you don’t know why the victim was allegedly chasing your friend, Blake Leftkowitz?”
“Neighbor,” Mrs. Cody said. “He was just our neighbor. And, please, call me Liz.” She pointed to her husband, who was pinching their son’s nose. “He’s Alex.”
They were sitting in a hospital waiting for him, but he wasn’t a friend? “Okay, your neighbor. Any ideas why someone might come after him?” Davies said.
Alex spoke up. “He demanded that we take him to Defensor. Said Blake could get him inside.”
“Were you aware of the sensitive nature of Mr. Leftkowitz’s job?”
“No. We knew where he worked, but last I heard from him he didn’t have any security clearance yet. Like Liz said, though, we barely knew him,” Alex said.
“But you opened his vehicle door and turned off the headlights and the ignition?”
“I’m a good neighbor and I didn’t want his battery to go dead.”
“But you left the keys in the vehicle?”
“I feel awful about that.”
“Well, if the stories I’ve heard are true, that was the best thing you did all day.”
(to be continued)
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:26 am
Hmm, I didn’t even know this was up (this episode)… now I’m wondering where it’s going.