Cries in the Night (7 page)

Julie and the cop watched and waited as the paramedics disappeared inside the car. Several minutes later, they climbed back out … without the boys. Julie knew what that meant even before the lead paramedic called out, “Call the ME. There’s nothing we can do.” He handed the cop the car’s registration. “This is probably one of their parents.”

The cop looked at the piece of paper and shook his head. Without saying a word, he walked away, dialing the medical examiner as he went. One of the firefighters set the hydraulic cutter he had been holding on the ground and took off his helmet and face shield, and she saw that it was Rusty. He looked up and saw Julie, still standing off to the side and headed toward her. He stopped directly in front of her with his back to the car.

“Hey, sorry I got them to call you out for this.” He dragged his fingers through his hair, darkened by sweat to almost black. Streaks of grease marked his forehead and, in spite of the cool air, water beaded on his face. “I saw it was kids, and I thought …” His shoulders drooped. There was no sign of the cheerful, teasing man she had been with on Friday night.

Impulsively, she reached out and rested her hand on his arm. “I don’t mind. I was hoping I would be staying with them until their parents arrived.”

He glanced back at the car, then returned his gaze to her. “They were probably out joyriding. They shouldn’t die just because they did something stupid. Hell, I’d have been dead a long time ago.”

Julie was profoundly touched by the grief written on his haggard face. “It’s tragic, especially when they’re so young. I’m sure there was nothing you could have done to save them.”

“Maybe if we’d gotten here faster or we’d gotten into the car sooner …”

She squeezed his arm. “Don’t. It was likely already too late. It doesn’t look like they were wearing seat belts, and few people survive banging around in a car like that.” She had seen the bloody marks on the broken windshield that had indicated both of the front seat occupants’ heads had crashed into it. “Looks like it rolled a couple times.”

He nodded. “At least twice. The airbags deployed but after the initial hit, they didn’t help much.” He sighed. “Kids think they’re invincible.”

Her eyes searched out his. “Sort of like firefighters, huh?”

One corner of his mouth lifted. He couldn’t disagree.

“I know it’s a cliché,” she continued, “but you can’t save them all.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t try.”

“So do I. But you have a much better percentage of success than I do.” Her dark eyes reflected her disappointment in herself, especially when it came to helping abused partners get away and stay away from their abusers.

He reached over and covered her hand with his much larger one. He was about to say something else when the ME’s van arrived, along with three hearses. The empty ambulances had already left. It was standard policy that they transported only living patients. The city was responsible for transporting bodies to the morgue.

“I’d better get back to it,” Rusty said. “He’s going to want us to extricate the bodies for him.”

“I’ll check with the cops and see if the parents have been notified or if they want me to go with them to notify.” Julie moved her hand away, and for a split second, he didn’t let it go.

His eyes continued to stare into hers for a moment longer, then he stepped back and walked toward the car.

Julie watched him, a little shaken by the intimacy in that last lingering look. Her first impression of him had been that he was an emotional lightweight. But he had clearly been upset by the accident which showed her a whole new side of him. She suspected it was not a side he let many people see. It gave them a strange connection, one that she wasn’t sure she welcomed.

 

Rusty didn’t want to be alone. He picked up his cell phone and flipped through his Contacts list.
Amanda, Ava, Becki, Carly, Denise, Emily, Fiona,
Ginger, Heather, Kim, Pam, Rachel, Stacy, Tamara, Tawny.
None of them stirred anything in him. Nothing.

It had been a tough shift. The day had started with the car accident. He had barely gotten back and cleaned up when there was a fire on the third floor of an office building downtown. Papers, furniture and the typical chemicals generally found in an office had provided enough fuel to turn that one into a roaring inferno, but everyone had safely evacuated. It had taken several hours to completely extinguish the fire and make sure it hadn’t spread. Luckily it had been a quiet night after they returned from that one. But the shift had been exhausting, both physically and emotionally.

He’d gotten a few hours of sleep at the station. His, and all his fellow firefighters, worked a 24/48 schedule which meant he worked twenty-four hours, from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m., then was off forty-eight hours. Unless he was out all night on a fire, he preferred to not go to bed as soon as he got home in the morning, but to try to keep to a regular nightly sleeping schedule.

That narrowed down who he could spend his days off with because most non-fellow emergency responders worked normal eight-to-five hours. He didn’t really want to spend time with his brothers either. Besides, they probably had other plans.

He popped the top on a can of beer and plopped down on his recliner. He selected an episode of a popular TV drama that he had recorded on his DVR. For several minutes he stared at the screen, the plot not capturing his attention. Instead, for some reason, his thoughts wandered to Julie.

The deaths of the three teenage boys had shaken him to his core. It was awful when an adult didn’t survive, but it was always worse when there were kids involved. They hadn’t had time to really experience life and love or to make their mark on their futures. No one would ever know if they would have discovered a cure for cancer or some other remarkable invention. So much potential lost.

And Julie had understood. As they stood together at the accident scene yesterday morning, she had comforted him with more than words. He had felt her empathy. Every day she walked in his shoes and saw the same tragedies he did and shared the anguish of loss or the thrill of success. Like him, she went on calls without knowing what to expect on the other end. Like him, she dealt with it on a daily basis.

What he didn’t know was what sort of support system she had at home.

He’d heard rumors. She wasn’t married. Or she was married, but no one had ever met her husband. Or she was gay … or straight. No one knew for sure.

Julie was sort of an enigma in the department. The only things that were known by all were that she didn’t have any kids, she worked hard, but didn’t socialize with her co-workers … and she didn’t date cops. But what was her policy on firefighters?

Rusty smiled. Where did that thought come from? There were enough women to choose from. He, too, had a personal policy of not dating people he worked with. Now that women in the firehouse were common, it just wasn’t good for long-term relationships to get involved with any of them sexually. Workplace romances were ripe for disaster.

Julie didn’t fall far outside that circle.

He took a drink and rested his head on the back of the chair. Why was that thought so depressing? He sighed. It had been a rough day. Maybe tomorrow he would drive into the mountains for a little skiing. Yeah, that’s what he needed … some R&R. Maybe a hot snow bunny would lift his spirits. Maybe lift more than his spirits.

And yet, as his eyes drifted closed, an image of Julie, her black hair pulled back into a severe ponytail and her chocolate brown eyes warm with compassion hovered behind his lids. She wasn’t beautiful, in a classic sense, but it wasn’t her looks that made her memorable. It was something far less common and tangible. She had an understanding and generous heart. Definitely not assets that were usually on his list.

CHAPTER FIVE

The week was going well, or as well as any week could go. There were the usual numbers of rapes, wrecks and abusive situations. But everyone on her staff was working their scheduled shifts, and Julie was able to catch up on her paperwork and the follow-ups. She liked to call as many of the victims as possible, even those where she hadn’t been the first contact. It wasn’t a step required by the department, but one that Julie felt was important. Her hope was that that one extra point of contact would be the final brick in the wall of someone’s commitment to make the changes needed to move them out of danger. Or it could simply be a kind voice at a time when someone’s spirits were low. Hers was not a position of power, but it could offer support and a path to positive change.

Gloria was not one of the people she had been able to talk to because her mother had followed through with relocating her out of state. Her husband Carlos was still in the wind, and Julie hoped that didn’t mean that he had found his wife. She knew that this transgression might be the one that Carlos couldn’t forgive.

She believed what she did in the office was necessary and important, but she missed being out in the field. These people needed someone to help them, whether it was to get a list of funeral homes or lawyers or counselors or addiction support, or just to have someone’s shoulder to cry on, a stranger who could share their load, at least for a moment. Julie loved to help and to feel like she was making a difference.

But she had a good staff who received regular training. It simply wasn’t practical or even possible for one person to handle it all. Almost every event was emotional, and a single person couldn’t absorb the constant drain. Soon they would have nothing left to give.

So Julie looked on these days in the office as her way of recharging her batteries so she could handle the busy weekend evenings. She completed her current batch of reports, scanned them and forwarded them to the chief of police who would review them, then forward them to the City of Denver. She had no idea what they did with them, but she kept the paper moving on her end of the chain.

As usual, the scanner was on in the background taking the place of the typical office Muzak. Julie turned her attention to the pile of call sheets for her
follow-up calls and had the receiver in her hand, ready to dial when she heard the alert tone.

The dispatcher calmly gave out the address of a fire at a neighborhood nearby. Julie listened, but there was no request for a VA. Her gaze wandered to the calendar on her desk. It was Friday, so Rusty was probably on his way to the fire. She didn’t stop to question why she should have remembered his 24/48 schedule or even why his name had popped into her mind. He was just one firefighter out of many she worked with. Just another colleague. Just another civil servant doing his job while she did hers.

Julie dialed in the number on the call report and listened while the phone rang on the other end.

“
Hello
,” a soft voice answered.

“Hello. This is Julie Lawrence with the Denver Police Department Victim’s Advocate department. Is this Sandy Johnson?” Julie asked. She knew Sandy’s husband had been killed in a car accident and that the funeral had been last week. If Sandy’s experience was like most, she had been surrounded by family and friends from the time of the accident until the day after the funeral. Once relatives returned to their homes and friends resumed their busy lives, Sandy would be left with the vacuum left by her husband’s death. Her life would never return to the normal it had been before. And the quiet could be deafening.

“
Yes, it is
.”

“Mrs. Johnson, I was just calling to see how you’re doing.”

“
I’m fine,
” the woman replied.

Julie could tell that the answer had been repeated so often, it was automatic … and probably not truthful. “Is your daughter still staying with you?”

“
Oh no. She had to go back to Omaha. She has a very important job, you know.
”

Julie didn’t know, but she said, “I’m sure she does. Maybe it would be a good idea for you to go stay with her for a while. I’m sure your grandkids would love to have their grandmother there for Christmas.”

“
That would be nice, but I have to stay here. Who would take care of the mail and the bills …?
” Her voice trailed off. “
Frank used to do all that.
” Her voice caught.

“Mrs. Johnson, may I call you Sandy?”