Who's Sorry Now? (18 page)

“I'll be delighted to help this way. And my wife will be proud of me for getting even with him for messing up that dress. She was really angry about that.”

Henry set out to borrow Jack's car. He was happy to oblige when he knew the reason why Mr. White needed it. Henry went home, told his wife what he was doing, and put on his old patched dungarees and an old plaid shirt with one elbow out. These were his gardening clothes.

He drove to Cold Spring with the cup in its paper bag and parked around the corner a block away from the tailor's shop. He went around the corner, holding the cup by its handle, and rushed into the shop. "My wife's horribly sick. She forgot to take her medicine this morning. Could you fill this cup with water for
me?”

He'd said this so hysterically and looked so badly dressed that the tailor grabbed the cup, filled it, and watched with relief as Henry called "Thanks!" over his shoulder and fled back up the street. He'd tipped out the water as soon as he was out of sight from the shop for fear the water would slop out and wash away the fingerprints. He didn't know much about such things. He drove hell for leather, grinning, back to the Voorburg jail and handed over the paper bag.

“That was sort of fun," he admitted.

Walker looked over the way he was dressed and laughed. "You sure put on a trashy set of clothes."

“I'd have spoken as if I were from West Virginia if I had the accent down right. I've got to get Jack's car back to him and get home to tell Edith all about it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Monday, May
29

“
I DON'T WANT TO WAIT in case this man happens to see a copy of the Voorburg
Times.
It's unlikely. But I don't want to let him do a bolt," Howard Walker said to Deputy Parker. "We need backup though. He's likely to be violent. I'm going to call Chief Colling and
see
if he can give me two extra people. He has a much larger staff than I do. I'm glad I hand-delivered that cup and waited for the results.”

The call was made, an explanation followed, and Colling agreed to send two of his biggest, strongest deputies. "I can have them there by noon with their own cars. I've been following this case in your local newspaper." The other two deputies from Chief Colling's office arrived promptly at noon. Walker gave them a brief account
of why
he
thought he needed them. "He's a violent and hateful person. Though he's small, he's mean and overcame a man substantially taller and stronger than himself and strangled him with a piece of wire that has tiny teeth that's meant to saw rings off fingers. All because the victim saw him return a can of paint he'd stolen.”

All he heard at first was a disgusted sigh from both of them.

Walker said, "Deputy Parker and I will lead and you follow us to Cold Spring. Finding places to park on the main road is going to be difficult for three cars. So we'll wait up the street somewhere and all go in at the same time.”

Everybody followed the directions, and they all walked into the tailor's shop together. The tailor merely looked at them complacently. Walker was astonished at how much he looked like Deputy Parker's drawing.

It was a shabby, dark front room with a long counter with spaces at the sides, and a few dusty tools scattered around on it. A shelf behind held disorderly bundles of ugly fabrics. Everything was dusty and smelled of cheap hair oil.

“
Sir, what is your name?" Howard asked.

“What's it to you?" he said.

“
We're here to arrest you. We'd like to have a name to attach to the paperwork."

“
Homer Wilson.”

It wasn't the name used on any of the library checkouts and might or might not be true. Walker really didn't care what the man's name was. Just that they got him charged and jailed.

Walker walked around the right side of the counter with handcuffs in his left hand. Suddenly the tailor lunged forward with open scissors in his hand and stabbed Walker in his upper arm. Walker quickly backed away, looking down at the blood gushing over his hand and the handcuffs. Ron Parker grabbed Walker's right arm. Walker had turned pale and was about to fall over, staggering to find something to hold on to to keep himself upright.

The other men ran around the left end of the counter, knocked the man to the floor, and there were gargling yelps of pain from painful kicks.

Parker heaved the bloody handcuffs over the counter and said, "One of you use these and hold him down, the other call an ambulance.”

Then he stripped off Walker's jacket and shirt and lowered him carefully to the floor. Ripping apart a piece of his shirt he wrapped it tightly around Walker's left arm above the gaping, gushing bloody hole. Walker had turned even paler, his mouth a grimace of pain before he fainted.

“
Give me something to twist this tighter," Ron said.

One of the officers, with all his weight holding down the tailor with his feet, rummaged around on the table and found a wooden mallet, while the other one was yelling at the tailor and giving him another kick. "Don't you dare try to get up, you murderer.”

Ron said to them, "Take that man to Matteawan after the ambulance comes to take my boss to the hospital in Poughkeepsie. I'm going with him. I only have two jail cells and can't deal with him. The State Hospital for the Criminally Insane can handle him.”

Parker checked Walker's pulse in his bloody left wrist. As far as Parker could gauge, it was a bit slow, but not dangerously so.

The sound of the ambulance wailing got louder and louder and a crowd had formed on the opposite side of the street as the tailor was dragged out, kicking and screaming obscenities.

Two men stopped in the middle of the road and ran inside with a gurney.

“Treat him gently. He's lost a lot of blood," Ron said, his voice firm.

“We can see that," one of them said softly.

“I'm coming with you."

“There's no need, and no room for you."

“
He's my boss. He's a good man. I'm coming with you.

He didn't even notice that some part of the crowd had started seeping across the street behind the ambulance, trying to look in the back door and then moving furtively closer to the shop to see what had happened. A local officer had turned up to keep the snoops out of the shop. Parker grabbed Walker's uniform jacket, then ran into the street and climbed into the ambulance.

There was only a corner where Parker could cram himself into as the ambulance backed into a parking lot, turned around, and screamed off at a terrific speed up the steep main road.

“You did a good job with this tourniquet," the attendant shouted over the noise of the siren. "But it needs to be loosened occasionally."

“I knew that," Ron said. "I took a Red Cross First Aid course at the police college.”

It seemed to take forever to get to Poughkeepsie even though they were going almost dangerously fast on Route 9. All Ron could do was to take Howard's shoes off and massage his feet, hoping it might bring him around. Finally he felt a toe move slightly.

“He's coming around slowly," the attendant yelled.

Ron thought the attendant sounded as if he was smiling. They suddenly took a turn so sharp that Ron bumped
his shoulder hard against the framework of the vehicle. With a subsequent slowing and stopping, the siren died and the back door was jerked open. Two other men in white were waiting. They pulled out the gurney and locked the collapsing structure with the wheels in place. Ron stayed where he was until the process was completed and the men started running through the open doors of the hospital. Then Ron jumped out the back, clutching Walker's uniform jacket and his shoes, and ran after them.

A police officer guarding the door grabbed Ron's arm. "You can't go with him."

“I must!"

“They'll let you sit outside while they're working on him, if you behave. Is he a cop, too?"

“He's Howard Walker, the chief of police of Voorburg. My boss."

“I know him," the man said. `A good man.”

Releasing his grip slightly, he added, "Come along. I'll show you where you can wash up. There's blood all over your hands and you'll scare patients and their visitors. Then I'll show you where you can sit and wait. I'll get a message through to the surgery room and tell them who he is, and to treat him well and that you're waiting to know how he is. Do you need me to sit with you? I could call somebody else to guard the emergency entrance."

“
No. I'll be fine after I clean up. But please try to make somebody come tell me how he's doing."

“For Walker's sake, I'll do that."Deputy Parker, sitting with Walker's shoes and jacket on the chair beside him, waited a full two hours and fifteen minutes before a middle-aged man with a bloody face mask pulled back over the top of his head sat down on the other side of Parker and turned toward him.

“
You're Walker's deputy, aren't you?"

“I am. Is he alive?"

“He is. By the way, I'm Dr. McCoy and I did the surgery. Chief Walker has a good chance of recovering completely if an infection doesn't set in. And I'm told that a piece of his shirt and the mallet are your work."

“They were," Ron said and told him about the Red Cross lessons. "Would you explain what you did in there?" Parker asked, gesturing toward the room where the surgery had taken place.

Dr. McCoy said, "It's like this—there is an artery that goes down the outside of your arm. For a short while, it's fairly close to the surface, then it ducks under muscles
an
d
goes down the rest of your arm. It isn't the main artery, but you need both. His attacker only cut halfway through it. If he'd cut clear through it, we couldn't have found both ends of it and your boss would have had to have half of his arm amputated, even if he didn't exsanguinate."

“
What does that word mean?"

“Bleed to death before he got here. Oh dear, put your head down between your knees. I don't want you fainting on me," Dr. McCoy said.

Ron did so for a few minutes, then sat back up. "Sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

“You're entitled to ask. You're the hero here. We put him out, pulled back the skin and fat, let it bleed out a little to wash out any germs. Then we put our own tourniquet back on, to stop the blood flow. Blotted the blood all out, sewed up the cut in the artery with lots of little stitches, shook sulfa into the wound, sewed back the skin, and put gauze around it."

“
When can I see him?"

“
Not until tomorrow at least. He won't completely awaken until morning. Go home and get some rest."

“
I have no way to go home. I came in the ambulance."

“
In that case, I'll write up an order to give you a room here tonight and a chit for the hospital cafeteria. It's not very good, but it's healthy. I'll have a nurse show you to a room. There's a shower room on each wing with towels, soap, and robes. I'll walk you to the desk to find a nurse if you're ready."

“
I'm fine now."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

WHEN THEY GOT TO THE NURSING STATION,
Dr. McCoy introduced Deputy Ron Parker to the head nurse. "He's a hero. He saved Chief of Police Howard Walker's life."

“No, I didn't. God and you did, Dr. McCoy."

“Don't be so modest."

“
Deputy Parker," the nurse said. "I've had four calls for you from a Jack Summer, desperately asking to speak to you as soon as I could find you.”

She looked around furtively for a moment. "You can call him from back here if you make it a very short call.”

“I will.”

He asked for the Voorburg exchange and was answered by one of the operators who never listened in. "Connect me to Jack Summer, please," he said.

Jack picked up on the first ring. "Ron! I've heard from
Colling's officers that Howard Walker's been stabbed and you're with him. Is he alive?"

“Yes, and likely to recover. I'm trapped here. Could you drive down around noon tomorrow? Someone has to be at the jail office while I'm gone."

“That's already taken care of," Jack replied. "One of Colling's men who was there is here now. I'll run over to the jail to tell him Walker's alive. He'll be relieved to hear it.”

Ron said, "I have to hang up fast. I'm long distance against the rules. Be here at noon. Maybe we can both see him. And I can explain a lot more.”

He hung up quickly and the nurse thanked him for being so fast. "I'll claim I had to make that call when the bill comes.”

Dr. McCoy said, "Nurse Hawkin, brave Deputy Parker has no way to get back to Voorburg today, and he's exhausted. I'm authorizing a room with a private bath for him and a free dinner and breakfast here."

“The room will be a good one. I have two of the private ones available. But the food here is awful," Nurse Hawkin said.

“But nourishing," Dr. McCoy reminded her. Then he said to Parker, "Get a good long hot shower and even a nap if you can manage it. I'll eat here with you at six if you think of more questions you want to ask. Now follow Nurse Hawkin.”

Ron did as he was told. Nurse Hawkin wanted to show him both available rooms, but Parker said she should choose. Either one would be fine with him.

She complimented him on being such a good young man and said to ring down to her if he needed anything. "I could find you some magazines to read if you want."