Raw Vengeance (The Rich Fordham Series) (10 page)

“
How about we get the reaction of students?” Gabe suggested. Rich continued to give his side of the events as they walked and rolled video. He wanted to find an over-the-top, emotional girl for his segment. He spied a petite girl wearing pink flip-flops and gym shorts bawling her eyes out.

“
Excuse me,” he said to the girl. “You in the pink—what’s your name?” Rich lowered the microphone so she could speak. “Why are you crying? Did you see anything?”

“
Mmm-mmm,” she mumbled with her arms crossed over her chest. Her feelings got the best of her, and she cried into the chest of a friend standing nearby.

Rich found another student more composed than the first and asked him, “Did you hear or see anything?”

The boy’s voice quivered with nervousness as he spoke. “There were gunshots, at least ten to twenty. I lost count after five, but I know it was a lot. It happened before the lunch bell rang. I thought it was firecrackers at first because it happened so quick, and then it went silent.”

“
Where were you when it happened?”

“
I was in English class so I didn’t see nothing.”

“
Thanks so much.” He turned to face the camera directly, “I’m Rich Fordham. We’ll keep updating you live on the scene. We have to go to a commercial break, but keep tuned in for more information as we continue our live coverage on the shootings at Loring High School. Stay with us.”

CHAPTER 14

As hard as she tried, Dr. Ally Lacey found it impossible to stay in control of the chaos ensuing inside the emergency room. The amount of family members and students congregating in the hallways and the waiting area began to overwhelm her and her staff. She rolled up her sleeves and tied her long auburn hair into a knot. “Hey, people, if we have to work on him another hour, we’ll do it,” she commanded her team of doctors and nurses. The petite, twenty-five-year veteran supervised each shooting victim, helped wheel them into the hospital, and made sure they received the proper treatment. As the senior ER physician, she knew right away that the cases would have political and racial implications. Out of the six cases, two were life threatening, and the others were superficial and would recover in a few weeks.

Mitchell Clinic, a Level I trauma center located on the outskirts of downtown Chicago, was under a Code Orange, meaning that it was potentially dealing with an external disaster with mass casualties. It was the only one equipped to deal with multiple gunshot victims. The fifteen-story facility drew patients and world-class surgeons from around the country. The all-white facade was in stark contrast to its all-natural-looking interior painted in muted tones.

The other doctors kept up chest compressions and had already administered the A.E.D. five times in the last twenty minutes in an attempt to get Labron’s heart pumping again. With his clothing removed, he looked like any other teenager, with the exception of his diamond earring and tattoos. His body lay lifelessly on the operating table, making it hard to determine if he was the provocateur or the victim. The doctors didn’t care; they were only interested in saving the young man’s life.

Flat-line. The EKG hadn’t changed, and it wasn’t going to change. Two bullets had penetrated his torso and one had severed his spine. “Time of death: 2:32 p.m.,” Ally said in a monotone.
Damn it all to hell.

Watching from less than ten feet away, Labron’s mother looked on in horror as her baby quit his fight for life. The announcement by doctors of Labron’s death acted as a catalyst for disaster. As if on cue, the mother of the boy erupted with an emotional outcry and demanded the doctors not to give up.

“
That’s my baby! Don’t you give up on him, you hear me!” she howled.

“
We’ve done everything we can,” said Ally.

“
No, you don’t. Don’t you stop!” she seethed as she grabbed Ally’s arm.

“
Let go of me,” Ally commanded as she shook her off. “Take a moment to be with him, but there’s nothing else I can do. I’m sorry.”

Although she saw death every day, watching a teenager die was always difficult, even for a veteran. She hurried her way to the adjoining room where a team had finished a case who was dead on arrival with a bullet hole in his chest cavity and a nicked aortic artery. He had bled out in the school’s hallway and never had a chance. Ally went over to a metal tray with all of his personal belongings and retrieved the wallet. Under a plastic cover she read:

Deon Taylor, Chicago, Illinois

D.O.B. April 23, 1983

The kid was only eighteen. “Two deceased. Let’s keep it that way,” she said under her breath.

Jamal and Jadyn fared better. They were sent into the OR for surgery and were listed in critical, but stable condition. Dan had a GSW to his upper right shoulder and was being operated on. Tyler came out unscathed physically, but emotionally damaged. After a psychiatric evaluation, he had to give a verbal and written statement to the police. As far as the police were concerned, it was a classic case of self-defense. However, any time a shooting was involved, it was up to the county prosecutor to decide whether to press charges or to release the suspect.

Guilt, anger, pride, and other emotions often played into the minds of doctors when working on sensitive cases such as those. True to her calling, Ally was just as methodical and stoic as the others and had the ability to shove any negative feelings down into the recesses of her consciousness when operating on a patient.

*****

For visitors to access the upper floors and the ER, they needed to pass through a metal detector and show proper identification. The adjoining waiting room turned ugly as family members and friends grew impatient. Word spread to the football team, and twenty guys stood in support of Dan, looking for a fight. The family and friends of the four boys made their presence known. Like putting two drag queens in a shoe store with only one pair of ten-inch heels left—sooner or later there was going to be bloodshed.

Tension began to rise after a rumor circulated about Dan being ganged up on by four black thugs. Parents speculated that the popular white jock didn’t like black people and killed out of hate and racism. No one in the general public knew about the relationship between Dan and Tyler. The only people with a whiff of their bond were dead or hospitalized.

One of the jocks, a red-haired, six-foot-one defensive end, knocked into a black woman as he walked past her to get a soda out of the vending machine.

She turned and said, “Watch where you going, cracka,” loud enough so the others in her group could hear.

“
Well, if your fat ass wasn’t in the way I wouldn’t have knocked into—”

A black man even larger than the jock overheard the commotion. He raced over between the two and wedged his body against the player until he was nose-to-nose with him. “What’s your mother-fucking problem, snow-white? You got a problem with me, because I’ll make you my prob—”

Knowing that half the football team was there to back him up, the player heaved a sucker punch to the left side of the man’s face, dislocating his jaw and breaking his own knuckle. The impact sent the man backward into the woman he was defending, toppling them both like bowling pins. In a split second, the entire room erupted into violence, black against white. In many fights, onlookers will step in to try to stop the fighting. Not this time. Not a single person was sitting; a free-for-all of bodies fell and tripped over each other. Blood, sweat, and adrenaline flowed like a raging river through the room.

“
Break it up!” the uniformed guard said. The command issued by the leader of the four guards manning the metal detectors went ignored. He unclipped his walkie-talkie and spoke into it, “This is unit one. We have a riot in the waiting room. Request immediate backup, lock this place down, and shut down the ventilation to the waiting room. I repeat, lock it down, and cut the ventilation.”

The leader led his team into the entryway and positioned them toward the wall on the right side so they weren’t blocking the exit. “Form a line,” he said to the other guards. They did as he instructed and waited for his next command. “In three seconds, aim for the far side, away from the door.” The four unloaded streams of pepper spray into the center of the fight, batons in hand if the fighters retaliated.

The effect was immediate; people screamed for help as the stinging and temporary blindness took effect. Several people saw the spray, panicked, and hightailed it for the exit. Those closest to the door gave up the fight and ran for the exit as they attempted to breathe through their shirts.

Despite broken bones, spilt lips, and the burn of the pepper spray, the two who started the fight refused to give up. They continued rolling around on the floor until the jock finally got the upper hand and had the black man pinned beneath him. Like a crazed beast, he walloped the side of the man’s head until he felt something poke him–he never noticed the red dot on his chest. An instant later, his muscles contracted involuntarily, and he lost all control of his movements as the Taser incapacitated him. He fell to the side and landed with a slight thud. The guards rolled him onto his stomach and placed flex cuffs around his wrists.

As they evacuated, two dozen officers appeared and assisted the four with making arrests. Within three minutes, the entire room was empty and the hospital was placed into lockdown indefinitely. No one could come in or out.

CHAPTER 15

“
I know you’ve been through a lot, but we need to run through this from the beginning.” Officer Bruce Lure did his best to be sympathetic, but he grew impatient with Tyler’s silence. Child psychologist Lori Barnes understood the officer’s need to get a statement, but she also didn’t want Tyler to be scarred for life. Tyler stared straight ahead out the window with eyes wide in shock.

“
Can you come back later? I’ll stay with him and let you know when he’s ready, okay?”

Bruce reluctantly agreed. “Here’s my number. Call me when he’s ready.” He handed her his number and left.

Tyler continued to stare out the window, rocking backward and forward while sitting on the bed. The physical bruises showed signs of fading. His silence perplexed her.

Lori sat on a chair adjacent to him wearing a red blouse and a conservative black business blazer. Her tight-fitting black skirt barely came down to the top of her knee, showing off her long, toned legs. She fidgeted with a strand of her curly blond hair as she studied the teen.

“
Tyler?”

He continued his silent stare.

“
Tyler, you’re safe now. Do you know where you are?” She caught only the slightest head nod. “Tyler, my name is Dr. Barnes, but you can call me Dr. Lori. I know it hurts to think about it, but do you remember what happened at school?” Again he gave a slight nod. “Can I get you anything to make you more comfortable? Maybe a snack or a Coke?”

“
Wa…” His voice was barely a whisper.

Lori leaned in so she could hear better. “What? You want water?”

He nodded. “I… I sh… I” he stammered.

“
Easy does it, Tyler. One word at a time.”

“
I… can’t.” His face was expressionless.

“
You can’t what?” The question was too much too soon.

“
I just can’t tell you.”

“
Tyler, if you want me to help you, you need to tell me what happened.”

He glanced at the floor before speaking. “They kept pushing me and pushing me. What was I supposed to do?”

“
Tyler, who is ‘they’? Did they bully you?”

He nodded. “For the past month, they been giving me shit. I thought we were going to die. Deon pulled a gun, but Dan wrestled it from him. It dropped, so I picked it up and I... Labron shot at me, but hit Dan instead. That’s what happened.”

Lori scribbled notes and thought of a line of questioning. “You were bullied. Was Dan there to protect you?”

He nodded weakly. “Dan said if I helped him with his homework, he’d back me up and would teach me how to defend myself. I guess it worked.”

She couldn’t tell if the last statement was an attempt at dry humor or a poor choice of words.

Instead of analyzing the statement, she changed the subject to something more pleasant. “Your friend Dan is okay,” she said and studied him for a reaction. Tyler remained unmoved. “He was shot in the shoulder, but he should be okay.” For the first time, she watched Tyler transform into his natural self.

Tyler glanced toward her and made eye contact. “I want to see him.”

CHAPTER 16

“
It’s messed up, man; that’s what it is. Kids shooting kids. It ain’t right.” Every so often, Gabe would go on a rant after witnessing something traumatic. Rich could empathize, but sought the bigger picture. He’d never admit it, but he felt his partner in crime got too emotionally wrapped up over their stories. After his conversation with Ted Burke, Rich consciously strived to remain detached and not let his emotions hijack his reasoning and interfere with his objectivity. So far, his newfound perspective allowed him to see both sides of an issue with more clarity.

The twenty-minute drive to Mitchell Hospital proved mostly uneventful. Halfway there, Rich’s cell rang and vibrated, indicating a text message. He pulled it out and read the text message from Officer Andy Porter: