Lori Avocato - Dead On Arrival

Buzz seemed delighted to be driving, and when we got to the address of the eighty-four-year-old woman with chest pain, he went to call in on the radio. Dano and I jumped out and raced to the front door where an elderly man stood-nearly in tears.

We worked on Helen, the lovely woman who didn’t seem to be in any real distress. I gathered her chest pain was muscular, not cardiac, and the monitor said the same. But we started an IV, gave her oxygen and got her into the ambulance with the cardiac monitor attached.

Helen was a peach. She giggled like she was back in the thirties. After she said the pain was gone, she talked nonstop in the sweetest little-old-lady voice.

And she had a penchant for Dano.

I winked at him a few times while he carried on a conversation with the darling woman.

Thump!

Dano and I looked toward the back, where the sound had come from.

“What the hell?” he said, staring.

A sparrow glared back at him.

Dano and I looked at each other, then at the bird whose wing must have gotten caught in the crack of the doors. Dano banged on the window and told Buzz to stop for a second. Thank goodness Helen didn’t look to be in any distress.

“What’s wrong, Boss?” Buzz asked.

“Stop this thing. There’s a bird caught in the door.”

Dano and I must have thought of the absurdity of the scene at the same time, because we both suddenly broke out into laughter. The bird, too, didn’t seem to be in any distress. I think it grinned.

As usual, Buzz kept up his questioning.

“How do you know?” Buzz asked, still not pulling over. He always had to find out details. Well, I guessed, being a detail man was good for this profession, but I also wondered again if Buzz would survive it.

I thought Dano would explode. “’Cause it’s looking right at me!” he shouted, and then he and I started to laugh uncontrollably again.

Suddenly Helen waved a knobby finger at the two of us. “You two should be ashamed!” She went into a tirade about how we shouldn’t find it humorous that one of God’s creatures was stuck in the door.

Even when I tried to assure her that the bird didn’t look injured, she spat words at me that I don’t think ER Dano even knew. After a few minutes I was ready to medicate Helen with whatever Dano had given Rebecca, just to shut Helen up.

Buzz pulled over.

Dano opened the door.

The sparrow happily flew away.

And we hit the siren and lights to get Helen to the hospital ASAP-or I think Dano would have slugged her.

The sweet little old lady had turned into a tyrant right before our eyes. We dropped her off, restocked, didn’t go say goodbye to her for fear we’d upset her more and headed back to TLC-where I fixed myself a much-needed cup of stale tea.

And when I sat down to sip it, I realized that life was strange, people even stranger, and looking over the room of paramedics and EMTs, I wondered if there was a murderer among us.

Dano, Buzz and I had the worst day on record. After two more calls-one for a child who had a toy hatchet stuck up his nose and couldn’t breathe well, and the other for a construction worker who fell off some scaffolding and broke his back-we drove down through the worst section of Hope Valley with Buzz at the wheel.

He’d bothered Dano so much about being allowed to drive that Dano gave in, I’m sure just to shut up the eager “Sparkie.”

I leaned against the back wall of the ambulance and shut my eyes, trying to think out the case. This one had turned out to be a doozy. Way too many types of fraud to pinpoint anyone right off the bat. And I knew, just knew, that the murder and the attempt on Pansy’s life were related. I also knew money had to be the root of it all. Why else commit the fraud?

I tried to think of what I knew about the employees at TLC and if anyone had new “toys,” like a car, etcetera, that would warrant looking into. Just then, the ambulance lurched and hit something, and my head was jolted forward and back, smacking the wall as we stopped suddenly. “Ouch!”

Buzz’s voice came through the open window. “Did you see that oil truck pull out in front of me?”

“It’s parked, you jerk!” Dano yelled, disgusted.

“Oh,” Buzz mumbled.

I had to smile to myself, knowing we were all right. Dano was already outside looking at the front of the ambulance to assess the damage, so I joined him. I gave him a weak smile, hoping that would help, yet not knowing how the heck it would.

“Just a minor scratch. Get in,” Dano muttered.

We looked around.

No Buzz Lightyear.

“Where the f-?”

I pointed at the house we’d stopped in front of. Through a curtainless window we could see three disreputable-looking guys-and sparkling, wrinkle-free Buzz Lightyear-in what was obviously the “house of crack.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Dano muttered, “they’ll surely kill him once he opens his mouth.” He headed toward the house. “Stay in the back,” he ordered, and I sure didn’t want to get on his bad side right now, so I stayed put.

Soon Buzz, looking very sheepish, came out with Dano right behind, looking as if he wanted to smack Buzz in the back of the head like a father would an unruly son.

Once they were inside the ambulance Dano said, “Why the hell did you go into a crack house?”

“To use the phone.” Buzz sounded as if what he’d just said made perfect sense.

Dano shook his head and decided finally to let it go. “We have a radio in here,” was all he said.

Buzz hesitated.

“What!” Dano said. “Get going! Drive!”

“I can’t just pull out. I need to back up.”

“Then back the hell up,” Dano said.

“The rule is that you-the passenger-are supposed to get out and guide me.”

Oh, boy. I had to give Buzz credit for having the guts to stand up to ER Dano, who wasn’t in a very good mood. Buzz was correct. The other person was supposed to get out to guide the driver.

But Dano turned to him and in a very threatening voice said, “Back this f’n thing up and let’s get back so we can go home today. That’s what you have side-view mirrors for. You need to learn if you’re gonna continue in this job.”

Buzz put the ambulance in reverse.

I looked out the back window to see if I could help. Nothing. Coast clear. Thank the good Lord.

Smash!

There was a moment of silence from the cab of the ambulance. I stood to look out the window, flabbergasted that Buzz had managed to find a cement bollard-like the ones used to tie horses up to in the olden days-and that it was now melded with the back of the ambulance. It had been much lower than my sight line-and obviously Buzz’s too.

I couldn’t even imagine what would happen next.

Once the wrecker got the ambulance free and we were picked up by Ambulance #277, we headed back to TLC. I sat in the lounge waiting for Dano-having second thoughts about it. Maybe I should get the hell out of there before he came out, since I was sure he wasn’t going to be his jolly self.

“Don’t even get close to me,” I heard Dano say.

But-and it didn’t surprise me-I heard Buzz respond, “You didn’t have to do that for me. I’m touched.”

Yikes!

I hurried out into the hallway before Dano really “touched” Buzz.

Dano looked at me. “I’ll call you.” And then he was out the door.

I looked at Buzz. He never took his eyes off Dano’s retreating back. He said, “He covered for me. He said it was his fault, so I wouldn’t get in trouble.” Buzz turned to me. “I’ve had a few close calls before.”

I wanted to say, “Gee, what a surprise,” but knew better. Besides, the kid needed to vent.

“So what happens to him?” I asked.

“He’s so senior around here, they only gave him a day off…without pay.”