Laughing, the second cop replied, “You the man, Stan. I think you oughta seriously consider doing that stand-up comedy club open-mic night deal.”
“Who the hell's got rehearsal time?”
“Hell with that! You think Andy Kaufman rehearsed? Jim Carrey?”
“Look! Here… come with me! Look!” Milos, holding his hands crossed in a supplicating gesture against the chest wall, a kind of unconscious prayer to reduce the pain now shooting through his chest and shoulder and down his left arm. He guided them to the bodies and the woman in pain.
“Holy Mother of God,” said the one called Stan, crossing himself.
“Jesus, Stan,” said Dean, “we've lucked out here, buddy. You know what we've got here? Those two missing feds! Victims now of that crazy son of a bitch the feds chased here from Milwaukee.”
“Geez, you think, Dean?”
“Their fucking backs are cut open like deer kill, Stan. Yeah, now this is stand-up comedy material for sure, Stan.”
“Shut up, Dean.”
“Catching this case… This could mean a rank up, pal. Luck of the draw.”
“Will you fucking shut up, Dean?”
“I tell you it's that Spine Thief killer, the one all over the tube, the one in the composite we got today that-”
“The bastard's cut out their spines, and he was working on the woman but didn't finish.”
“I think… I interrupt… him,” said Milos. “She needs hospital… doctors.”
“You don't look so good yourself, Mister.”
“Milos… know other man… caretaker.”
“Grab him, Stan!”
Milos went over in a dead faint.
“Christ but we got our hands full here, Dean,” said Stan, his arms full with the big Greek. “You think we ought to administer mouth to mouth?”
“I’ll see to the woman.” Dean left Milos in Stan's care, going for the woman. He bent over the helpless form, afraid to touch her, unsure if he should not wait for the experts. “We're here now, Agent… ahhh… Agent Petersaul? Are you Petersaul?”
“Cates? Is he… is he dead?”
“I–I think he may just make it, Agent,” Dean lied to keep her spirits up as much as possible. “Ambulance is on its way.”
The ambulance pulled in alongside them as he said this, the lumbering thing like a panting pachyderm where it sat idling and bouncing at once.
“Take care of Cates first. I–I got him into this,” Petersaul said before passing out again.
The paramedics pushed in, taking over, shouting for Dean to get out of the way. Another team worked on Milos with a defibrillator and a hypodermic filled with something they called “eppie” and then the man closely examining Petersaul's back said to Dean Rodriquez, “Man, thank God you didn't move this one. Had you rolled her over, this entire block of her flesh would've fallen away.”
Dean breathed deeply, fighting back an unfamiliar feeling of nausea. He hadn't wanted to throw up on the job in years.
“Tom, we've got a real problem here,” shouted the paramedic to his partner. “She needs massive injections of antibiotics. This wound's gotta already be infected.”
“Gotcha, yeah.” The paramedic named Tom kneeled beside Petersaul. “Jesusgodalmighty, Bill, what the fuck did this?”
“All I knows we can't put her on her back, but we have to keep her flat and still.”
“She's in need of major, major help at the ER.”
“Let's get her evac'ed then as soon as possible.”
“But she'll die at Hope General. We need to airlift her to Northwestern. She won't make it anywhere else. Trust me.”
“All right, Bill. You know best. I'll call for the chopper.”
“And you, Officer!” he shouted to Dean. “Clear this whole courtyard of cars to make plenty of room for the chopper.”
“All right but we can't move the suspect vehicle. It's a crime scene within a crime scene for now.”
“Understood.”
“And as for the two dead, they gotta stay put, too. They're also the crime scene.”
“Do you mind our taking this one to the ER, or is she part of your fucking crime scene, too?” Bill Waldron shot back, not expecting an answer.
“I'll just clear the way for the MedEvac chopper.”
Just then another car tore into the courtyard. The police ban airwaves were abuzz with the discovery. Emerging from this unmarked car, stepped Jessica Coran, Richard Sharpe and Chief Laughlin.
Jessica rushed in to see about Petersaul, and to determine the extent of her wounds. The bloody matted hair spoke of a gunshot wound to the head, but when Jessica probed with
her gloved fingers, she announced, “The wound to the head is superficial. No penetration.”
She next examined the wound to the back, withholding a sense of rage and tears and stomach wrenching sickness. She wondered if Gahran had done these killings just to seed her interest in putting an end to him, just to taunt her and as a warning. If so, his mother had been right about one thing- it'd be his father's way. Just like Matisak.
Paramedic Bill Waldron brought her up to date as he and his partner placed Petersaul on a stretcher. As they did so, Jessica watched the boat of cutaway flesh down her back shake like Jell-O.
“She's in good hands, Jess,” said Sharpe, placing his strong arm around her as the helicopter descended.
Dean and Stan had by now gotten all the various vehicles out of the chopper's way.
“Caretaker's had a heart attack. The second guy cut open was a pal of his, I gather,” said Dean to the feds. “We've already thrown up a perimeter search, a ten-block grid. The old man”-he indicated Milos, where he was being placed in an ambulance-”says he thinks he saw someone slinking off as he drove up. Says maybe some guy squeezed through the gate end where a thin man or boy could fit.”
“How's the old-timer doing?” asked Sharpe.
“He's regained consciousness. That shot to the heart hit him good.”
“Epinephrine,” Jessica said. “Did he say it was Gahran when you showed him the composite?”
“Said he was just a shadow. Said he wasn't even sure at first he'd really seen anything, just a trick of light, until he saw the bodies. Nice old guy. Only wants to know if the girl will live. No thought to himself except to call the wife.”
“I want this cemetery combed, men and dogs, the works,” said Jessica. “He's at home in such places, just like his father.”
She recalled the games Mad Matthew Matisak had played in New Orleans, how he had had her canvassing a Metairie Cemetery at midnight on the promise he would be there for her, a ruse as it turned out, another dead end. This could also end in a dead end in a cemetery, or another death if not the arrest of Mad Matisak's crazed kid.
“Sun'll be up soon,” said Stan, the uniformed cop. “If he's within these walls, or tries to climb over them, we'll get him.”
Dean added, “We've got squad cars encircling the place from here to Petersen and Western. Got the North Side wall covered, too.”
She stared in through the bars where the sonofabitch of all sonsofbitches had possibly escaped. Already they had given him too much time. She disbelieved he'd be foolish enough to still be in the area. However, he'd obviously lost the usual disciplinary controls he had maintained over himself all the years since Millbrook. His newfound madness, likely a response to his having learned who his father was, may have triggered the belief that he was invincible. If Gahran thought for a moment of coming back to finish his carving and raising of Petersaul's spine-the thing he apparently, madly and wantonly had to have in numbers now-the flood of need beyond any control he had once exercised-he might have hesitated long enough to find himself surrounded by the quick response of the
