Julia Spencer-Fleming - I Shall Not Want

The ambulance and the cruiser had turned up a skinflint country road and she followed too fast; she skidded, lost her grip on the road, the whole car sliding toward the ditch. She cursed and gave the wheel some slack and trod on the gas, and the tires caught, spinning a shower of shredded Indian paintbrush and buttercups as she surged back onto the asphalt.

She took the turn onto the dirt road a little slower. Roared through a wide-open gate, up and up until she crested and saw the carnival from Hell, ambulances and cop cars and uniforms and guns. Children and trees and peeling clapboards and broken glass. Dust hanging in the air, loud voices, weeping, and the electric-burr sound of radios demanding information.

She hit the brakes and skidded, heeling her car onto the grass at the side of the drive. She leaped out, spun in place, and pointed to Sister Lucia. "Stay here!"

State SWAT team members, ominous in black and armor, stalked across the dooryard and around the house and barn in patterns that made sense only to them. She slowed down, uncertain what was going on, where the center was, the thought dawning that maybe the ambulances were just a precaution, like she had hoped, and she was going to look pretty silly when-then she spotted Kevin Flynn. Standing alone at the bottom of the porch steps. Crying.

Her feet moved her forward even though her head was howling, Run! Run! She had been here before, at this moment. No going back to before. There would only be after. After the diagnosis. After the accident. After hearing whatever terrible thing Kevin was going to tell her.

Hadley Knox ran onto the porch, followed by Eric McCrea. "Flynn!" she yelled, then stared, open-mouthed, at Clare. Movement, voices, behind the officers. McCrea shoved Knox out of the way, and the paramedics emerged, carrying their burden with controlled speed. One of them was rapid-firing unintelligible information into her radio. One of them held a trembling IV bag aloft, and the third balanced a portable heart monitor against the side of the cart, its beep-beep-beep counting out the seconds.

The rest of it she saw as fragments: his sandy hair, the oxygen mask, one boot lolling off the stretcher. Khaki sleeve, blue surgical bandages, red blood. So much blood.

Kevin was sobbing beside her, but she couldn't make a sound. It felt as if her chest was bound and locked.

"Careful, now." Karl, one of the Millers Kill EMTs. "Careful!" They descended the porch stairs, quick and smooth, and as they passed her, she saw his hand, tan, limp, still wearing his wedding ring. Her voice tore free in a wrenching, animal cry.

She lunged after the pallet and Lyle was in the way, more blood, soaked in blood, reeking of it-and he caught her and held her, saying, "Stop it! Stop it," wrapping her and smearing her and marking her with Russ's blood while she howled like a dog.

The steady beep-beep-beep turned into a single warbling alarm. The breath caught in Clare's throat. One of the EMTs swore. They dropped the pallet. Annie ripped a syringe off a Velcro pack and tore it open. Karl threw himself to his knees and began chest compressions, sharp fast pumps that looked like they would snap Russ's already-wounded body in two. The third paramedic moved in, blocking Clare's view, leaving her with only the high, piercing alarm to tell her that Russ was dead.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil .

Dead. How long? Death was a process, not an on-off switch. She knew that.

For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me .

The EMTs communicated in short harsh bursts, microwave information. Annie broke open another syringe.

Thou spreadest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies .

Kevin's sobs fell to gasps. Silence spread around them like ripples from a pond.

Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup overfloweth .

Was it a minute? Two? The alarm began to sound like an inconsolable cry. A wailing for the dead that will not return.

"Surely"-her voice cracked-"thy goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life?"

The alarm blipped. Blipped, beeped, paused, beeped, and settled into a steady rhythm. Clare sagged against Lyle, whose fingers she finally felt cutting into her arms.

"Go, go!" the third man said. They heaved the pallet up and surged toward the open ambulance doors.

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever .

"Christ Jesus Almighty," Lyle said, his voice shaking.

"Amen," she said into his shoulder.

He released her. "You fit to drive to the hospital?"

She nodded. "Where are they taking him? Glens Falls?"

"Washington County. One of their ER docs used to work in New Orleans. He's seen more gunshot cases than anyone else in the area."

The ambulance doors slammed shut. The lights and siren started up.

"Go on," he said. "I need a word with the rest of 'em, then I'll be along."

She took a step toward her car. Turned. "Lyle," she said, "what happened?"

"I had a vest for him. Right in my hand." He stared at the gore running down his fingers. "It was right in my hand. But he had to be a goddam hero." He wiped his face into his upper arm. "If he lives, I swear to God I'm going to kick his ass from here to Fort Ticonderoga."

They were at the scene all day: him and Hadley, Eric and Noble, and four state CSI technicians. Two mortuary vans arrived for the dead gang members and the body of the Children and Family Services caseworker. An assistant DA and a plainclothes investigator from the NYSPD were checking out whether the chief and MacAuley had fired their guns lawfully at the gangbangers. They made Hadley talk to the suit; the rest of the MKPD had bad feelings about state investigators. Emergency counselors from CFS were teary-eyed over the death of their colleague. Relatives came to claim the kids. By phone, an agent from the First District Anti-Gang Task Force and the mayor reminded them they were all eligible for free mental health services after traumatic events. They made Hadley talk to the mayor, too; she had lived in California for fifteen years, and Californians believed in that sort of stuff.

The deputy chief kept them updated with calls to Kevin's cell phone. "He's gone into surgery." That was good. "His heart stopped again." That was bad. "He survived surgery." Hadley and Noble thought that was good. Eric thought it was pretty thin gruel. "Survived?" Eric said. "What's that, the minimal? Like batting.100?"

Kevin didn't say much. Thinking about the chief dying made him feel sick to his stomach. His head was stuffed with death: the sprawled and bloody bodies of the Punta Diablo gang members, the slack-mouthed corpse of the CFS woman, and the mutilated remains of Amado Esfuentes. He couldn't seem to stop tears from rolling down his cheeks at odd moments. One of the staties made a crack, but Eric McCrea dragged him aside and said something to shut him up.

Eventually, they finished. One after another, the counselors and investigators and technicians and morticians rolled away down the drive, until it was only the MKPD and it was time to go.

"Get in the car," Hadley called from behind the wheel of her cruiser.

He was standing in the spot where his squad car had been. "MacAuley took your unit," she went on. "For God's sake, let's get out of here and get something to eat. I'm starving."

He got in. He wasn't sure he could eat anything. He looked out the window while she drove, the green fields, purpled with loosestrife and thistles, the indigo mountains standing against the long western rays of the sun. It didn't seem right, that everything went on, beautiful and oblivious, while people who had been alive this morning lay on cold slabs this evening.