Donald Harstad: Code 61

I was over there in two steps. I peered down into the narrow space, and saw a crumpled body in a pair of pink polka-dotted cotton pajama bottoms and a blue T-shirt. The body was on its left side, facing the wall, and the knees were drawn up toward the chest, and the right arm was bent over the head, the elbow covering the face, in a familiar protective posture. The left arm wasn't visible. There was quite a bit of blood, mostly dried.

The purplish red hair told me it was Melissa.

I put my gun in my holster, and leaned gingerly on the bed, reached down, and felt for a carotid pulse. She flinched, startling me, and filling me with relief at the same time.

“Melissa,” I said, “it's me, Houseman. We're here. It's going to be all right.” There was a slight movement, and her left hand moved, just a bit. She made a weak “thumbs up” sign.

“Sally!”

I unclipped my walkie-talkie from my belt, and called Dispatch, as Sally entered the room, and hurried over.

“Comm, Three, ten-thirty-three.”

Because we'd prerequested help, the dispatch center was unusually alert.

“Three, go,” came snapping back.

“Comm, we're at the Mansion, we have a civilian down, multiple injuries, need a ten-fifty-two. This is ten-thirty-three.”

It never hurts to repeat the 10–33.

“Ten-four, Three.”

I shoved the walkie-talkie in my back pocket, and watched as Sally lay on the bed, reached down, and took Melissa's pulse. We couldn't move her, in case there was a spinal or severe internal injury, until we got help and some equipment.

“I can't see my watch,” said Sally. To read her watch and take Melissa's pulse, she had to have both arms down into the small space that contained the victim. It was too dark in that crack to see the hands. “Tell me to 'go' and 'stop' when fifteen seconds are up.”

I looked at my watch. When the second hand reached the numeral six, I said “Go!” I watched it sweep through fifteen seconds. “Stop!”

“Okay, when the fifty-two goes ten-eight,” said Sally, “tell Comm to relay we have rapid, shallow breathing, weak pulse of ninety-five.”

I did. “Comm, Three, when the ambulance starts to roll, tell 'em victim has rapid, shallow breathing, weak pulse of ninety-five.” They had me repeat it, and I complied.

I didn't want to leave Melissa, but we didn't know what else we had going on. I checked her bathroom, found nobody, and came back into the bedroom. I took a second to study the scene more closely, and tapped Sally on the shoulder.

She looked up from Melissa. “Yeah?”

“Looks like the door was kicked in fast. While she was sleeping. Looks like she tried to escape out the window and he got in too fast. See?”

Sally looked around. “Yeah.”

“And he slammed her head into the wall,” I said, indicating the dents. “Twice, at least.” I didn't say it, but it looked as if he'd shoved the back of her head into the wall the first time, and the face into it the second, as there didn't seem to have been much blood on the back of her head. “How's she doing?”

“No heavy bleeding I can see,” Sally said. “You might take a look out in the hall. Just past this door. I noticed it while I was waiting. A heck of a dent in the wall, across the hall,” she said. She bent back over the small space containing Melissa.

I went to the door and looked. The dent was very similar to the head impressions on Melissa's wall. I stepped back into the bedroom.

“That doesn't add up,” I said.

“How are you doing?” said Sally to Melissa. I heard a response, but couldn't make it out. Sally looked up, and said, “She says fine.” She mouthed the word “shock.”

I nodded. “Ask her where Huck is, if you can… ” and pulled my walkie-talkie out again. “Comm, Three?”

“Three?”

“Yeah, how we comin' with the ten-fifty-two?”

“Ambulance is ten-eight, ten-seventy-six your location. ETA less than five.”

“Ten-four.” At least, when the ambulance got to us, we could move Melissa. I was about to ask if we had anybody close to escort them, when I heard a squeak of tires outside. I looked out the window, and saw the Freiberg PD car in the drive. Byng. He'd be able to help the ambulance crew.

It took the ambulance another three minutes to make it up the drive, but it seemed like an hour. I contacted them on my walkie-talkie, and told them we were in the house, and not to come in unescorted. As I looked out the window, I could see two white sheriff's cars, and a black state patrol car around the drive.

I tapped Sally on the shoulder again.

“Yeah?”

“I'm gonna look for the rest of 'em. Our boy has to be here somewhere. He's probably high on meth or ecstasy, or both. Draw your weapon. If Peale comes into the room, if you think you have time, tell him to stop.”

She nodded.

“If you don't think you have time, shoot the fucker. Shoot until your gun is empty. You understand?”

“Yeah, but… ”

“Just do it. You gotta protect her, too,” I said, mo tioning toward Melissa.

My trip down the hall was a little tense. I entered each room in turn, and found nobody home. No evidence of a struggle. Nothing. That left the third floor.

I hustled back down the hall to Sally.

“Sally? It's me!” I said that very deliberately before I stuck my head in the door.

“Okay,” she said. As I looked in, I saw that she had both hands on her pistol. Good.

“I'm going upstairs. Nothing on this floor but us folks.”

She nodded. “Melissa says that Huck tried to help her. She doesn't know where she is.”

I hate going up a stair when I believe there's somebody at the top who wants to kill me. I really, really hate that. But if Huck was alive, odds were that she was up there, too.

I figured I might as well go up in a hurry. I had my gun in my right hand, and tried the door with my left. It opened easily. A bad sign. It should have been locked, I thought, unless Dan Peale had gone up with a key.

I took two deep breaths, and then just ran up the damned stair.

The upper floor turned out to be just as empty as it was the day we searched it. I double checked, even under the bed and in the little slot between the refrigerator and the wall. Empty. So was the back stair leading down to the kitchen. And that door turned out to be locked.

I went back to check Sally and Melissa, and found a real crowd.

An ambulance crew of two women and one man were there, just getting started. We moved the bed away from Melissa while the smaller of the women EMTs wedged herself into the widening space, and began taking vitals. The only sound in the room was the puffing of the blood pressure collar.

“Nobody on three,” I said to Sally. “Back door's locked.”

“Where…?”

“I don't know,” I said.

“Okay,” said an EMT, “cervical collar.”

She was handed one, and she pushed the bed away from the wall another foot. In a few seconds, she looked up, and said, “Backboard.”

We shoved the bed back about five feet; they slipped a backboard against Melissa, tightened the straps, and gently rolled her over onto her back.

She looked like hell, with her left eye swollen out almost as far as her nose, and her left ear had a vertical tear in it that split the upper portion in half. That could have been from her head hitting the wall. That hard, she had to have at least a concussion. There was a lot of blood clotted on her face, her nose looked broken, and her lower lip was split. She opened her right eye, and said something. Sally leaned in, to try to hear over the rasp of opening Velcro and the tearing of bandage packs.

“What?”

Melissa said something again. Sally answered her with, “We will, don't worry, we will.” Melissa spoke again, and I heard the words “Huck,” and “stop.”