End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy #3)(3)

The lady in question was sprawled on her back, her legs twisted away from her upper body at an angle that suggested serious trauma. The crotch of her dressy beige slacks was dark with urine. Her face – what remained of it – was smeared with grease. Part of her nose and most of her upper lip had been torn away. Her beautifully capped teeth were bared in an unconscious snarl. Her coat and half of her roll-neck sweater had also been torn away. Great dark bruises were flowering on her neck and shoulder.

Fucking car ran right over her, Rob thought. Squashed her like a chipmunk. He and Jason knelt beside her, snapping on blue gloves. Her purse lay nearby, marked by a partial tire-track. Rob picked it up and heaved it into the back of the ambo, thinking the tire print might turn out to be evidence, or something. And of course the woman would want it.

If she lived, that was.

‘She’s stopped breathing, but I got a pulse,’ Jason said. ‘Weak and thready. Tear down that sweater.’

Rob did it, and half the bra, straps shredded, came with it. He pushed the rest down to get it out of the way, then began chest compressions while Jason started an airway.

‘She going to make it?’ the cop asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Rob said. ‘We got this. You’ve got other problems. If more rescue vehicles come steaming up the drive like we almost did, someone’s gonna get killed.’

‘Ah, man, there are people laying hurt everywhere. It’s like a battlefield.’

‘Help the ones you can.’

‘She’s breathing again,’ Jason said. ‘Get with me, Robbie, let’s save a life here. Hop on the MDT and tell Kiner we’re bringing in a possible neck fracture, spinal trauma, internal injuries, facial injuries, God knows what else. Condition critical. I’ll feed you her vitals.’

Rob made the call from the mobile data terminal while Jason continued squeezing the Ambu bag. Kiner ER answered immediately, the voice on the other end crisp and calm. Kiner was a Level I trauma center, what was sometimes called Presidential Class, and ready for something like this. They trained for it five times a year.

With the call-in made, he got an O2 level (predictably lousy) and then grabbed both the rigid cervical collar and the orange backboard from the ambo. Other rescue vehicles were arriving now, and the fog had begun to lift, making the magnitude of the disaster clear.

All with one car, Rob thought. Who would believe it?

‘Okay,’ Jason said. ‘If she ain’t stable, it’s the best we can do. Let’s get her onboard.’

Careful to keep the backboard perfectly horizontal, they lifted her into the ambo, placed her on the stretcher, and secured her. With her pallid, disfigured face framed by the cervical collar, she looked like one of the ritual female victims in a horror movie … except those were always young and nubile, and this woman looked to be in her forties or early fifties. Too old to be job-hunting, you would have said, and Rob only had to look at her to know she would never go job-hunting again. Or walk, from the look of her. With fantastic luck, she might avoid quadriplegia – assuming she got through this – but Rob guessed that her life from the waist down was over.

Jason knelt, slipped a clear plastic mask over her mouth and nose, and started the oxygen from the tank at the head of the stretcher. The mask fogged up, a good sign.

‘Next thing?’ Rob asked, meaning What else can I do?

‘Find some epi in that junk that flew around, or get it out of my bag. I had a good pulse for awhile there, but it’s gone thready again. Then fire this monkey up. With the injuries she’s sustained, it’s a miracle she’s alive at all.’

Rob found an ampoule of epinephrine under a tumbled box of bandages and handed it over. Then he slammed the back doors, dropped into the driver’s seat, and got cranking. First to the scene at an MCI meant first to the hospital. That would improve this lady’s slim chances just a little bit. Still, it was a fifteen-minute run even in light morning traffic, and he expected her to be dead by the time they got to Ralph M. Kiner Memorial Hospital. Given the extent of her injuries, that might be the best outcome.

But she wasn’t.

At three o’clock that afternoon, long after their shift was over but too wired to even think about going home, Rob and Jason sat in the ready-room of Firehouse 3, watching ESPN on mute. They had made eight runs in all, but the woman had been the worst.

‘Martine Stover, that was her name,’ Jason said at last. ‘She’s still in surgery. I called while you were in the can.’

‘Any idea what her chances are?’

‘No, but they didn’t just let her crater, and that means something. Pretty sure she was there looking for an executive secretary’s position. I went in her purse for ID – got a blood type from her driver’s license – and found a whole sheaf of references. Looks like she was good at her job. Last position was at the Bank of America. Got downsized.’

‘And if she lives? What do you think? Just the legs?’

Jason stared at the TV, where basketball players were running fleetly up the court, and said nothing for a long while. Then: ‘If she lives, she’s gonna be a quad.’

‘For sure?’

‘Ninety-five percent.’

A beer ad came on. Young people dancing up a storm in a bar. Everyone having fun. For Martine Stover, the fun was over. Rob tried to imagine what she would be facing if she pulled through. Life in a motorized wheelchair that she moved by puffing into a tube. Being fed either pureed gluck or through IV tubes. Respirator-assisted breathing. Shitting into a bag. Life in a medical twilight zone.