Dead On Arrival

Twenty-Four

“Oh, Lord,” I said to Dano. “Buzz will pass out if he has to deal with that Pansy, the evil incarnate, who’s in there.”

Dano chuckled.

“It’s not funny. He’s such a wimp. Why on earth would she want to talk to him? Why would she want to talk to me?” I asked.

“I’m guessing she just relates to you as a female that she knows works for her. A nurse. A new hire, so not involved in the politics of the company,” he said.

Sounded plausible.

“They’re pretty tight, Pansy and Buzz,” he said. “She hired him and kinda took him under her wing. Like a mother figure, if you can believe a Sterling having maternal feelings.” That’s why he was upset when he visited her, I figured.

“Ah.”

Before I could say anything more, Dano had his cell phone out and was ordering Buzz to get his ass over here.

I looked at Jagger. “What?”

He was smiling. “This is gonna be better than Leno’s monologue.”

I punched his arm, turned and punched Dano. “You were thinking the same thing,” I said when he looked all confused.

But in the back of my mind, I worried that poor Buzz Lightyear would not survive on his own.

I needn’t have worried about dear Buzz last night, I thought as I fixed my horrible tea in the TLC lounge. By the time he’d gotten to the hospital-looking much paler than Pansy herself-curiously enough, she’d slipped back into a coma.

Self-induced? Or new complication?

No one could be sure, but darling Buzz and I were off the hook.

Jagger, Dano and I had waited to go in with him and when he came down the hallway with tears in his eyes, I was glad we all had. Those guys were shits at times, but each had a heart of gold, and both would rather kill themselves than admit it.

“Morning, Pauline,” Buzz said, coming up from behind me.

I touched his arm. “Oh, hey, how are you today?”

“I’m fine, ma’am.” He spilled a droplet of coffee on my clog.

We both looked down at the same time to see it spread out like a California wildfire on my white shoe. Before he could do his usual apology, I said, “Don’t worry about it,” but in seconds he was down on all fours wiping away.

Yes, I felt stupid and sorry for him all at the same time.

“Bu…Jeremy.” I touched his shoulder.

He stood up and threw the paper towel toward the trash can.

It landed on ER Dano’s foot.

Yikes. I hurried over and said, “Hey, morning,” so he wouldn’t take it out on poor Buzz, who was now bending down to pick it off Dano’s very worn black boot. Those boots had character and, I’m sure, some stories to tell.

Thank goodness Lilla sashayed into the room at that very moment, before Dano could punt Buzz across the room.

She gave Buzz a big smile.

He seemed more nervous than usual, but they sat down together.

“Talk about the odd couple,” Dano muttered.

I slugged his arm and said, “Shut up,” just as Ambulance #456 was called over the intercom. “Ten fifty-four on 442 Lincoln Street.

Dano, Buzz and I left our mugs on the table and hurried out. Lilla wished us luck (and with her Canadian accent I thought she sounded so cool).

Buzz was blushing from ear to ear when we got to the ambulance, where we all stuck on raingear, since a monsoon had decided the flowers needed watering. Dano insisted on driving-with me up front.

Darling Buzz didn’t argue, and if I wasn’t mistaken, I think the sweetie actually winked at me!

Dano drove #456 like it was a multimillion dollar Rolls. No one could take corners as smoothly or get us to our destination as quickly. On the way, he’d explained to me that the call was a teenager who supposedly was having a panic attack of some sort, according to the caller, a neighbor.

“Might be drugs,” Dano said as we pulled down Lincoln Street.

“Over there,” I said, pointing to an old green-and-beige three-story house with two cop cars parked in front. “Cops?”

Dano jumped out and Buzz already was there, getting the bag. “Neighbors didn’t tell dispatch everything,” he growled.

We ran toward the back of the house where two cops were standing. Just our luck. The rain seemed to pour harder, which seemed impossible. I could barely see with the hood of my yellow slicker up and no windshield wipers to keep my vision clear.

Dano yelled to the cop nearest the door. “What’s up?”

He pointed toward the house. “She’s in there. Be careful.”

Careful? Did he mean that she was in such bad shape that we had to take care not to let her die, or-

Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream followed by ripe cursing came from the house.

Dano shook his head, “Shit. Nutcase.”

I wanted to chastise him, but we didn’t have time. First he yelled to the cops to stay out in front in case any family members came home or neighbors came by to gawk. Then we all went in, slipping and sliding on the hardwood floors.

“You fuckers get the hell out of my house!” The voice came from what must have been the bathroom, because there seemed to be a shower running.

“You think she’s going to commit suicide?” Buzz asked.

Dano looked at him for a second. “If I could see through the freaking walls, I’d let you know.”

The female voice said, “It’s the end.”

Hearing that Dano ran down the hallway and shoved the bathroom door open, shouting, “What’s wrong, ma’am?”

Dano’s shoulder must have hurt, was all I could think as he broke the door open, sending pieces of the frame flying. Damn, but that always looked easier to do on TV.

We all took a step forward and stopped.

There, standing in the middle of the tub with steaming-hot water pulsating down on her, was a teenage girl, about fifteen or sixteen, with her underwear on. She was holding a soggy stuffed Snoopy doll in one hand. Her legs were beet red from the heat. In the other hand she held a knife.

God, how I hated knives. But this one looked like a butter knife, which made me feel a lot better. In seconds, Dano had it out of her hand, and her out of the shower. As I reached over to turn it off, she kicked and screamed, nearly shoving me into the tub, which had the stopper in and was full of hot water.

A hand touched my back and I felt Buzz pulling me up. “You all right, Miss Pauline?”

“Fine.” Just then the girl slugged Dano in the groin and he yelped and let her go-so she took off running down the hallway.

Dano looked at me. “Shit. Why is it that I always attract the whackos?”

Since I didn’t have time to agree with Dano (although I did), we ran out, following Buzz, who was following the patient. I wanted to throw a robe on her, since her underwear had now become quite transparent.

When we got to the back door, there was no sign of the cops. Dano muttered a few curses and said they’d better just be out in front somewhere, where he’d told them to wait.

Buzz was out front running and sliding in the wet grass after the girl like Bambi on ice. The girl, however, seemed to have better traction with her bare feet, which I guessed were very used to going without shoes. Calluses probably helped.

“Leave me the hell alone!” she shouted.

Several neighbors came to the fence and one yelled, “Rebecca is not supposed to even be here. Her old man took her to the mental hospital yesterday. Guess she got out.”

Dano and I looked at each other.

“You go left,” he ordered.

I followed his suggestion, but when I got close enough to grab her, I ended up in a heap on top of Buzz, not even sure what went wrong other than “Rebecca” was slick. And not just because she was wet.

I could see Dano get close enough to her to grab her, but he hesitated. No loose clothing to grab onto. The underwear clung like a second skin and obviously Dano didn’t want to grab just anything.

“Can’t you get one little lady?” the burly cop rounding the corner of the house called out to Dano.

I heard a new curse word this time from Dano and thought the cop was taking his own life into his hands, and I wouldn’t want to be in his black boots once Dano had Rebecca secure on the stretcher.

The other cop came up behind the first one and they started laughing. Dano and Buzz kept trying to grab the girl to no avail-she was like the proverbial greased pig.

“Come on, Nightingale. Get your ass over here!” Dano shouted.

I got up, couldn’t help but wipe some recently cut grass from my raincoat, and ran toward where he pointed, trying to ignore the squish of my shoes and the mud that dotted my outfit. We’d tackled each other numerous times, as if in the fourth quarter of a football game, until we finally came at Rebecca from three directions and all landed in a heap on top of her in the middle of the backyard.

She looked at me and said, “Hey, my name is Rebecca. What’s yours?”

I bit my tongue while Dano took off his raincoat to cover the girl.

Wow. How sweet.

And my heart did a little end-zone touchdown happy dance.

Rebecca had chosen me instead of the males in the group to talk to, just as Pansy had.

We got Rebecca safely to the hospital. Dano followed the ER doctor’s orders en route to medicate her since she’d freaked out. Dano and I took her in while Buzz stayed to clean up the ambulance. While we stood talking to the doctor, he came in and turned in the remaining half vial of medication that had been used on Rebecca, then went back out to the ambulance.

I watched the nurse throw what was left out and give Dano the replacement medication to put in his box. I could hear poor Rebecca screaming in Exam Room 3, and I wanted to go hug her. I did step in and tried to talk to her, but she tried to bite me. With that I looked at the staff, wished them well and was out the door to find the guys.

“Got a chest pain,” Buzz yelled in the doorway.

Dano and I flew out the doorway and off on another run. This job was truly exhausting, and I could see how someone in it year after year could burn out. I’d been there, done that in medicine myself.

One could only take watching the suffering of human beings for so long.

Still, as evidenced by Dano covering up Rebecca, the guy had kept his smarts about him and his heart.

If he stayed at TLC much longer…who knew what he’d end up like?

Thank goodness Jagger had drifted toward helping Lieutenant Shatley with Payne’s homicide and the attempt on Pansy’s life, since I kept getting so tied up on real life-and-death situations. Leaving me to deal with the insurance fraud made sense.

Buzz seemed delighted to be driving, and when we got to the address of the eighty-four-year-old woman with chest pain, he went to call in on the radio. Dano and I jumped out and raced to the front door where an elderly man stood-nearly in tears.

We worked on Helen, the lovely woman who didn’t seem to be in any real distress. I gathered her chest pain was muscular, not cardiac, and the monitor said the same. But we started an IV, gave her oxygen and got her into the ambulance with the cardiac monitor attached.

Helen was a peach. She giggled like she was back in the thirties. After she said the pain was gone, she talked nonstop in the sweetest little-old-lady voice.

And she had a penchant for Dano.

I winked at him a few times while he carried on a conversation with the darling woman.

Thump!

Dano and I looked toward the back, where the sound had come from.

“What the hell?” he said, staring.

A sparrow glared back at him.

Dano and I looked at each other, then at the bird whose wing must have gotten caught in the crack of the doors. Dano banged on the window and told Buzz to stop for a second. Thank goodness Helen didn’t look to be in any distress.

“What’s wrong, Boss?” Buzz asked.

“Stop this thing. There’s a bird caught in the door.”

Dano and I must have thought of the absurdity of the scene at the same time, because we both suddenly broke out into laughter. The bird, too, didn’t seem to be in any distress. I think it grinned.

As usual, Buzz kept up his questioning.

“How do you know?” Buzz asked, still not pulling over. He always had to find out details. Well, I guessed, being a detail man was good for this profession, but I also wondered again if Buzz would survive it.

I thought Dano would explode. “’Cause it’s looking right at me!” he shouted, and then he and I started to laugh uncontrollably again.

Suddenly Helen waved a knobby finger at the two of us. “You two should be ashamed!” She went into a tirade about how we shouldn’t find it humorous that one of God’s creatures was stuck in the door.

Even when I tried to assure her that the bird didn’t look injured, she spat words at me that I don’t think ER Dano even knew. After a few minutes I was ready to medicate Helen with whatever Dano had given Rebecca, just to shut Helen up.

Buzz pulled over.

Dano opened the door.

The sparrow happily flew away.

And we hit the siren and lights to get Helen to the hospital ASAP-or I think Dano would have slugged her.

The sweet little old lady had turned into a tyrant right before our eyes. We dropped her off, restocked, didn’t go say goodbye to her for fear we’d upset her more and headed back to TLC-where I fixed myself a much-needed cup of stale tea.

And when I sat down to sip it, I realized that life was strange, people even stranger, and looking over the room of paramedics and EMTs, I wondered if there was a murderer among us.

Dano, Buzz and I had the worst day on record. After two more calls-one for a child who had a toy hatchet stuck up his nose and couldn’t breathe well, and the other for a construction worker who fell off some scaffolding and broke his back-we drove down through the worst section of Hope Valley with Buzz at the wheel.

He’d bothered Dano so much about being allowed to drive that Dano gave in, I’m sure just to shut up the eager “Sparkie.”

I leaned against the back wall of the ambulance and shut my eyes, trying to think out the case. This one had turned out to be a doozy. Way too many types of fraud to pinpoint anyone right off the bat. And I knew, just knew, that the murder and the attempt on Pansy’s life were related. I also knew money had to be the root of it all. Why else commit the fraud?

I tried to think of what I knew about the employees at TLC and if anyone had new “toys,” like a car, etcetera, that would warrant looking into. Just then, the ambulance lurched and hit something, and my head was jolted forward and back, smacking the wall as we stopped suddenly. “Ouch!”

Buzz’s voice came through the open window. “Did you see that oil truck pull out in front of me?”

“It’s parked, you jerk!” Dano yelled, disgusted.

“Oh,” Buzz mumbled.

I had to smile to myself, knowing we were all right. Dano was already outside looking at the front of the ambulance to assess the damage, so I joined him. I gave him a weak smile, hoping that would help, yet not knowing how the heck it would.

“Just a minor scratch. Get in,” Dano muttered.

We looked around.

No Buzz Lightyear.

“Where the f-?”

I pointed at the house we’d stopped in front of. Through a curtainless window we could see three disreputable-looking guys-and sparkling, wrinkle-free Buzz Lightyear-in what was obviously the “house of crack.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Dano muttered, “they’ll surely kill him once he opens his mouth.” He headed toward the house. “Stay in the back,” he ordered, and I sure didn’t want to get on his bad side right now, so I stayed put.

Soon Buzz, looking very sheepish, came out with Dano right behind, looking as if he wanted to smack Buzz in the back of the head like a father would an unruly son.

Once they were inside the ambulance Dano said, “Why the hell did you go into a crack house?”

“To use the phone.” Buzz sounded as if what he’d just said made perfect sense.

Dano shook his head and decided finally to let it go. “We have a radio in here,” was all he said.

Buzz hesitated.

“What!” Dano said. “Get going! Drive!”

“I can’t just pull out. I need to back up.”

“Then back the hell up,” Dano said.

“The rule is that you-the passenger-are supposed to get out and guide me.”

Oh, boy. I had to give Buzz credit for having the guts to stand up to ER Dano, who wasn’t in a very good mood. Buzz was correct. The other person was supposed to get out to guide the driver.

But Dano turned to him and in a very threatening voice said, “Back this f’n thing up and let’s get back so we can go home today. That’s what you have side-view mirrors for. You need to learn if you’re gonna continue in this job.”

Buzz put the ambulance in reverse.

I looked out the back window to see if I could help. Nothing. Coast clear. Thank the good Lord.

Smash!

There was a moment of silence from the cab of the ambulance. I stood to look out the window, flabbergasted that Buzz had managed to find a cement bollard-like the ones used to tie horses up to in the olden days-and that it was now melded with the back of the ambulance. It had been much lower than my sight line-and obviously Buzz’s too.

I couldn’t even imagine what would happen next.

Once the wrecker got the ambulance free and we were picked up by Ambulance #277, we headed back to TLC. I sat in the lounge waiting for Dano-having second thoughts about it. Maybe I should get the hell out of there before he came out, since I was sure he wasn’t going to be his jolly self.

“Don’t even get close to me,” I heard Dano say.

But-and it didn’t surprise me-I heard Buzz respond, “You didn’t have to do that for me. I’m touched.”

Yikes!

I hurried out into the hallway before Dano really “touched” Buzz.

Dano looked at me. “I’ll call you.” And then he was out the door.

I looked at Buzz. He never took his eyes off Dano’s retreating back. He said, “He covered for me. He said it was his fault, so I wouldn’t get in trouble.” Buzz turned to me. “I’ve had a few close calls before.”

I wanted to say, “Gee, what a surprise,” but knew better. Besides, the kid needed to vent.

“So what happens to him?” I asked.

“He’s so senior around here, they only gave him a day off…without pay.”

Oh…my…God.