Fallen (10 page)

“Any of ours hurt?”

“Manning took a shot to the vest.” He wore a communication device in his ear, enabling him to converse with other team members. “They’ve got him lying down. He should be all right. Paramedics are on the way.” He nodded to the dead body. “So’s the ME.”

The gun on the floor near the thug’s hand wasn’t the make they were looking for. A SWAT officer went about its careful removal from the area for safety purposes.

“Is Pooch here?” Ryan directed the question to one of the kneeling gang members. So far, he hadn’t seen him. The kid screwed up his mouth indolently, refusing to speak.

“Fuck you,” another, more vocal, arrestee intoned.

He was met with a sharp jab in the shoulder blades from one of the SWAT team. “Shut up.”

“That you, Winter?” Antoine Clark, one of the senior Narcotics detectives, called to him from a rear room.

Ryan pushed through the officers controlling the scene and went down a thin hallway with a floor slanted by age. Raucous barking coming from outside indicated the pit bull was chained up somewhere behind the house. He entered a back room that contained an assortment of weapons—eleven handguns, an assault rifle—as well as a cardboard box full of most likely stolen iPhones and small bags containing pills. A bare bulb hanging from the ceiling by a cord emitted a filmy light. He noted the Smith & Wesson 9 mm, what they were looking for, among the handguns. Ryan felt a flare of hope, although it would be up to ballistics to determine if they had the murder weapon.

“Know what that is?” Antoine pointed to stacked cases of beer on a card table. A tall, lanky African American who had played basketball at the University of Georgia in the mid-eighties, he also spearheaded the APD’s gang task force. He was an expert in the street trade.

“Beer?”

“Liquid meth—dissolved in water to disguise it for transport in beer bottles—or tequila bottles, if it’s coming out of Mexico.”

Wearing latex gloves, he pulled out one of the bottles and peered at its contents through the amber glass, his forehead wrinkling in concentration. “Oh, yeah. That’s what we’ve got here. And those pills are Oxycodone, already divvied up for sale on the street.”

“Some arsenal.” Mateo gave a low whistle as he entered and checked out the assortment of weapons. Spotting the nine mil, he exchanged a victorious glance with Ryan.

“I’ll give Forensics a heads up.” Mateo dug into his pocket for his cell phone, then glanced sharply upward at the heavy tread of feet in flight. “What the hell?”

All three men withdrew their weapons and aimed them upward in case shots were fired by whoever was above them on the roof. Ryan called out, alerting the SWAT officers.

“There must be a way up,” he yelled. “Look for a loose panel in the ceiling!”

In his peripheral vision, he saw something large fall outside the room’s single window. He spun toward it as something else plunged past.
A human form?
The window exploded, and he ducked, instinctively covering his face in reaction to the roaring discharge of a gun.

He rushed to the shattered window. One of the gang members lay on the ground below, writhing in pain. But the other one was on his feet and moving. They’d jumped from the roof—a daredevil stunt—a nearly thirty-foot drop their escape route. Ryan recognized the one running. Pooch, wearing only jeans. He clenched a gun in one hand as he looked back over his shoulder. Unbelievably, he’d managed to fire into the room on the way down.

“Antoine’s hit!” Mateo yelled behind him.

On the ground, an officer advanced from the property’s rear, shouting orders to drop the weapon. Pooch began shooting, and the officer dove for cover behind a line of overflowing trashcans. Knocking away the remaining glass and leaning out the window, Ryan took aim. He fired and missed, but succeeded in drawing Pooch’s attention away from the pinned-down cop. Scowling up at him, he swung the gun’s barrel in retaliation and released several rounds. Ryan jumped back, bullets splintering the wooden window frame an inch from his head.

The gunfire had set off a car alarm, which shrieked amid the chaos, joining forces with the canine’s frenetic barks. At the same time more footsteps sounded overhead, indicating the way up to the roof had been found.

Pooch had taken off like a jackrabbit through a narrow alleyway formed by the pressed-together backs of ramshackle row houses on Purvis and the adjacent street. Ryan had a rapidly deteriorating view of him. But it still wasn’t light enough, the shot too risky with civilians inside the thin-walled homes. With a curse, he yelled to the SWAT officers who were now outside swarming the yard. “Through the alley!”

He turned from the window, breathing hard.

“I’m okay,” Antoine said through gritted teeth, although he didn’t look it. He sat on the battered hardwood floor, eyes closed, his back against the wall and blood staining the shoulder of his navy APD windbreaker. Mateo was on his knees beside him, trying to assess the damage.

Moving his Glock from his right hand to his left, Ryan went to the room’s threshold, calling down to the floor below. “We need paramedics up here, now! Officer down!”

When he turned again, Mateo’s eyes were on him, his hands pressed over Antoine’s wound. His partner’s face paled.

“Goddammit. Ry … you’re hit, too.”

Only then did he become aware of the blood trickling down his forearm.

Chapter Eight

Lydia conducted rounds
inside the ER with Amanda Jeoung, one of the third-year residents. The early hour was made apparent by the shallow light entering through the plate-glass windows they passed in the corridor.

“Caucasian male, early seventies, I’m thinking. No ID and refuses to give his name,” Amanda rattled off in her usual efficient manner as they prepared to enter one of the curtained exam bays. She wore horn-rimmed, cat-eye glasses that nearly overwhelmed her fine features. “Paramedics brought him in after 9-1-1 received reports of a man in front of the Capitol building wandering in traffic.”

An elderly man with a thinning comb-over sat on the edge of the exam table, muttering to himself and jiggling one leg in obvious agitation. Lydia looked over his chart on her electronic tablet.

“Sir, can you tell me your name?”

“He’s been going on about aliens watching him,” Amanda said under her breath. “And I don’t mean the
illegal
kind.”

He appeared too well fed to be an addict, and his clothes were reasonably clean and in good condition, probably ruling out homelessness, Lydia thought. He’d also had a recent shave.
He belongs to someone
. Considering the time, she wondered sympathetically if he’d been out all night. She attempted to examine his eyes with a penlight, but he recoiled and batted her hand away.

“Are you on any medication, sir? Is there someone we can call for you?”

He pointed a finger, his faded eyes narrowing at her. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? Doe-eyed little thing. You don’t fool me!”

He began an angry diatribe against the government. Repressing a sigh, Lydia dropped the penlight back into the pocket of the lab coat she’d pulled on over her scrubs, a barrier against the hospital’s too-cool air conditioning. “Wait here, sir, all right?”

Amanda followed her out as she gave instructions. “Altered mental status, possibly dementia with paranoia. Get Psych down here for a consult and check with the police to see if anyone’s reported a missing person fitting his description. Then try to get a CBC and chem seven. In the meantime, give him five milligrams of Lorazepam to calm him down—”

Amanda startled as a tray inside the bay crashed to the floor. The man’s railing grew louder.

“Dr. Rossman,” Lydia called, halting the burly male resident as he went past. “Drop what you’re doing and give Dr. Jeoung a hand with bay two. She’s going to need help.”

She returned her attention to Amanda. “Who’s next?”

“Bay four, an MVA victim. Minor fender bender, but he’s complaining of neck pain. Paramedics put him in a cervical collar that hasn’t been removed yet—”

“Dr. Kelley’s available. Get him to have a look?” Lydia’s gaze had fallen on the farthest of the bays. Its curtain stood partially open, revealing a woman who sat huddled on an exam table. She was in her early thirties, strikingly pretty and well dressed, her blond hair pulled into a long ponytail. Lydia recognized her. Elise Brandt.

“Mrs. Brandt?” she said, entering the bay and closing the curtain behind her. Lydia had treated her a few months earlier for a fractured wrist. She remembered because the X-ray had revealed another, older fracture in the radius of the same arm that hadn’t healed well. There had also been some suspicious bruises, but when questioned, Elise had quickly attributed her injuries to in-line skating in Piedmont Park.

She appeared pale. A bruise shadowed the right side of her jaw, which was also a little swollen, and she held one arm protectively against her midsection. She seemed nervous, avoiding Lydia’s eyes.

“I’m Dr. Costa, Mrs. Brandt. I treated you before—”

“I’m already being seen by someone,” she interjected tensely. “He was just here.”

Lydia consulted the woman’s chart on the tablet. She noted her blood pressure was low. “An intern took your vitals. I’m the attending physician this morning.”

The woman said nothing, instead twisting her wedding band, which held a large diamond surrounded by sapphires. Lydia examined the bruise on her face. It was fresh, maybe a few hours old, but she didn’t think her jaw was broken. Looking at the woman’s anxious expression, her instincts spoke to her just as they had the last time.

“It’s a little early for skating, isn’t it?” she asked pointedly, trying to get a reaction.

“I-I took a fall in the house, on the stairs,” Elise stammered. “I can be so clumsy.”

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“I think maybe I broke a rib. It hurts to breathe.”

“Lie back on the gurney for me, please.”

She did as requested, her movement slow and careful. Elise grimaced and bit her lip as Lydia pressed carefully on her rib cage, her hands then moving farther down her abdomen. Her belly seemed a little rigid to the touch, possibly indicating an internal bleed. It might explain the low blood pressure. “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the pain?”

“An eight, maybe.”

“I’m going to have a look, all right?”

She caught Lydia’s wrist, halting her from lifting her top. “Is that necessary? I mean … I’d rather you not.”

“I need to conduct a full examination. I can have a nurse come in with us if you’re uncomfortable?”

Elise finally shook her head. She swallowed heavily and laid her hand back on the gurney, staring up at the ceiling tiles.

Raising the woman’s blouse, Lydia felt a quiet anger spread through her. A purple contusion splotched the skin over Elise’s lower right ribs, just beneath the elastic band of her bra. But there were other bruises also visible on her abdomen, their shades ranging from blue to sickly green and pale yellow. Their variation indicated they hadn’t been caused at the same time. Some were days, some weeks old. When she’d last seen Elise, she had given her a protective splint for her wrist and a prescription for pain meds before discharging her. Still, she’d thought about her after she had left the ER, wondering if she should have probed harder. She should have.

Lydia lowered Elise’s shirt. Her voice was gentle but firm. “I don’t think you fell down the stairs, Mrs. Brandt.”

The woman looked away, her lower lip trembling. “I
did
.”

“Someone’s hurting you. Is it your husband?”

Her voice shook as she sat up. “Please, I just need something for the pain. I shouldn’t have come in. I asked not to see you again—”

“You understand I have an obligation to contact the police about non-accidental or intentional injuries—”

“Please,”
she repeated. A tear slipped down her cheek, and she brushed it away. “I-I just want to go home, all right?”

Lydia felt tension tighten her shoulders. It was always a difficult decision. Involving law enforcement could put the victim at greater risk from her abuser, especially if she refused to leave him. She took in the woman’s expensive clothing and jewelry, her designer handbag and perfect manicure. Lydia wondered if, despite appearances, she had the resources to leave.

“I can put you in touch with a women’s shelter,” she offered, touching her shoulder. “Or maybe you have friends or family you could go to?”

“You don’t even know who my husband is, do you?” Elise whispered.

Lydia released a contemplative breath. “I’m going to admit you to the hospital, Mrs. Brandt—”

Her eyes widened fearfully. “For how long?”

“That depends. We need to X-ray your ribs and conduct a trauma panel and ultrasound to rule out internal bleeding.”

“No. I can’t stay—”

Lydia lowered her voice. “If you
are
bleeding on the inside, it can be very serious. Let’s just run the tests and see what we’re dealing with first, all right? You can
rest
here.”

Elise appeared exhausted. After a long moment, she squeezed her eyes closed and nodded faintly, again twisting her wedding rings. The large diamond glinted like fire under the fluorescent lighting.