Dennis Lehane - Gone, Baby, Gone

One of the reporters on the expressway recognized Broussard, and then the rest of them did, and pretty soon we felt like galley slaves as they shouted down to us.

“Detective, where is Amanda McCready?”

“Is she dead?”

“Is she in the quarry?”

“Where’s your partner?”

“Is it true Amanda McCready’s kidnappers were shot last night?”

“Is there any truth to the rumor that ransom money was lost?”

“Was Amanda’s body retrieved from the quarry? Is that why you’re not wearing shoes, ma’am?”

As if on cue, a trooper crossed Pritchett Street with a paper bag and handed it to Angie. “Your stuff, ma’am. They sent it down with some pancake slugs.”

Angie kept her head down and thanked him, removed her Doc Martens from the bag, and put them on.

“The sweatshirt’s going to be a harder act to pull off,” Broussard said, with a small smile.

“Yeah?” Angie slid off the hood and turned her back to the reporters as one of them tried to vault the guardrail and a trooper pushed him back with an extended nightstick.

Angie dropped the blanket and raincoat off her shoulders, and several cameras swung our way at the news of her bare flesh and black bra straps.

She looked at me. “Should I do a slow strip, move my hips a bit?”

“It’s your show,” I said. “I think you have everybody’s attention.”

“Got mine,” Broussard said, staring openly at the press of Angie’s breasts against black lace.

“Oh, joy.” She grimaced and pulled the sweatshirt over her head, pulled it down her torso.

Someone on the expressway applauded, and someone else whistled. Angie kept her back to them as she pulled thick strands of her hair from the collar.

“My show?” she said to me, with a sad smile and small shake of her head. “It’s their show, man. All theirs.”

Poole’s status was changed from critical to guarded shortly after sunrise, and, with nothing to do but wait, we left Pritchett Street and followed Broussard’s Taurus over to Milton Hospital.

At the hospital, we argued with the admitting nurse over how many of us could go into ICU when none of us were Poole ’s blood relatives. A doctor passed us and took one look at Angie and said, “Are you aware your skin is blue?”

After another small argument, Angie followed the doctor behind a curtain to be checked for hypothermia, and the admitting nurse grudgingly allowed us into ICU to see Poole.

“Myocardial infarction,” he said, as he propped himself up on the pillows. “Hell of a word, huh?”

“It’s two words,” Broussard said, and reached out awkwardly and gave Poole ’s arm a small squeeze.

“Whatever. Friggin’ heart attack was what it was.” He hissed against a sudden pain as he shifted again.

“Relax,” Broussard said. “Christ’s sake.”

“The fuck happened up there?” Poole said.

We told him the little we knew.

“Two shooters in the woods and one on the ground?” he said when we finished.

“That’s the way it’s looking,” Broussard said. “Or one shooter with two rifles in the woods and one on the widow’s walk.”

Poole made a face like he bought that theory about as much as he believed JFK was killed by a lone gunman. He moved his head on the pillow, looked at me. “You definitely saw two rifles get dumped over the cliff?”

“I’m pretty sure,” I said. “It was nuts out there.” I shrugged, then nodded. “No, I’m sure. Two rifles.”

“And the shooter at the mill leaves his gun behind?”

“Yup.”

“But not the shell casings.”

“Right.”

“And the shooter or shooters in the woods get rid of the rifles but leave shell casings everywhere.”

“That is correct, sir,” Broussard said.

“Christ,” he said. “I don’t get this.”

Angie came into the ward then, dabbing at her arm with a cotton swab, flexing the forearm up against the biceps. She came over to Poole ’s bed and smiled down at him.

“What’d the doctor say?” Broussard asked.

“Low-grade hypothermia.” She shrugged. “He shot me up with chicken soup or something, said I’d keep my fingers and toes.”

Color had returned to her flesh-not nearly as much as usual, but enough. She sat on the bed beside Poole and said, “The two of us, Poole -we look like a couple of ghosts.”

His lips cracked when he smiled. “I hear you emulated the famous cliff divers of the Galapagos Islands, my dear.”

“ Acapulco,” Broussard said. “There are no cliff divers in the Galapagos.”

“ Fiji, then,” Poole said, “and stop correcting me. Again, kids, what the hell is going on?”

Angie patted his cheek lightly. “You tell us. What happened to you?”

He pursed his lips for a moment. “I’m not real sure. For whatever reason, I found myself walking down the hill. Problem was, I left my walkie-talkie and my flashlight behind.” He raised his eyebrows. “Bright, wouldn’t you say? And when I heard all the gunfire, I tried to head back up to where I’d come from, but no matter what I did, it seemed like I kept moving away from the noise, instead of toward it. Woods,” he said with a shake of his head. “Next thing I know I’m at the corner of Quarry Street and the off-ramp from the expressway, and I see the Lexus shoot by. So I walk after it. Time I get there, our friends have received their head taps and I’m feeling kind of dizzy.”

“You remember calling it in?” Broussard asked.

“I did?”

Broussard nodded. “On the car phone.”

“Wow,” Poole said. “I’m pretty smart, huh?”

Angie smiled and took a handkerchief from the cart by Poole ’s bed, wiped his forehead with it.

“Christ,” Poole said, his tongue thick.

“What?”

His eyes rolled away from us for a moment, then snapped back. “Huh? Nothing, just these drugs they got in me. Hard to concentrate.”

The admitting nurse parted the curtain by Broussard. “You have to go. Please.”

“What happened up there?” Poole slurred.

“Now,” the nurse said, as Poole ’s eyes rolled to the left and he smacked his dry lips, batted his eyelashes. “Mr. Raftopoulos is not up to this.”

“No,” Poole said. “Wait.”

Broussard patted his arm. “We’ll be back, buddy. Don’t you worry.”

“What happened?” Poole asked again, his voice fading into sleep as we stepped back from the bed.

Good question, I thought, as we walked out of ICU.

As soon as we got back to the apartment, Angie hopped in a warm shower and I called Bubba.

“What?” he answered.

“Tell me you have her.”

“What? Patrick?”

“Tell me you have Amanda McCready.”

“No. What? Why would I have her?”

“You took out Gutierrez and-”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Bubba,” I said, “you did. You had to.”

“Gutierrez and Mullen? No way, dude. I spent two hours with my face in the dirt at Cunningham Park.”

“You weren’t even there?”

“I got hit. Someone was waiting, Patrick. I took a fucking sledgehammer or something in the back of my head, knocked me cold. I never even made it out of the park.”

“All right,” I said, and felt clouds of oil swimming through my head, “tell me again. Slow. You got to Cunningham Park -”

“At about six-thirty. I take my gear, I cut through the park toward the trees. I’m just about to go into the trees and make my way to the hills when I hear something. I start to turn my head and fucking-crack-someone hits me in the back of the head. Which, you know, just annoys me at first, but fucks up my vision too, and I’m starting to duck and turn, and crack again. I go to one knee, and I take a third hit. I think there might have been a fourth, but next thing I know I’m waking up in a pile of blood and it’s like eight-thirty. Time I get into the trees again, the woods are crawling with Staties. I go back, go to Giggle Doc’s.”