Dead On Arrival

Twenty-Five

Buzz was so upset that he couldn’t drive home. Dano had peeled out of the parking lot at high speed and neither Jagger nor Lilla were in sight, so I volunteered to give Buzz a lift. The poor guy needed a friend, and I was like a flame to a moth for poor souls. My darn nurturing nurse’s nature kicked in, and I found myself sitting in the driveway of an adorable little yellow Victorian house with white trim.

“You wanna come in?” Buzz asked.

I did, but only out of curiosity-like a rubbernecker. What kind of house would Buzz Lightyear live in? Thinking it rude though, I said, “No, hon. I’m tired. Better get home.”

Buzz turned to me. I’d seen that look before in the eyes of my nephews when I’d disappointed them-mostly by buying the wrong toys as Christmas presents. Hey, I was childless!

Before I knew it, I was standing in the foyer of the house from Leave It to Beaver, only much smaller and in color-a bit brighter but nonetheless odd and bordering on retro.

Buzz offered me a glass of iced tea, which I politely accepted. He brought me a pink glass, and the iced tea looked pink too. I only hoped Red #40 food dye didn’t cause me to become hyper.

“Here you go,” Buzz said.

“Thanks. I really can’t stay long.”

I wondered if I could drink with my mouth agape. Looking around this place caused just that.

Then a woman came in the back door. “Hello, my honey!” she called in a bright voice.

“Hi, Mommy. I’m home with a friend.”

If I’d been in mid-swallow, I’d have spewed tea out on the braided rug beneath my feet. A friend! Mommy! “Hey, don’t want to make Lilla jealous,” I teased.

Buzz looked rather serious. “She is a friend too.”

Whoa, boy. Must have been trouble in Eden. I smiled and followed him into the kitchen. Now, I really wasn’t one to judge, since Stella Sokol’s kitchen was a retro throwback, but this place, all done in pink, and I mean all done in pink, was circa 1960. And all the pink was plastic. The blender. The phone and its cord, and the toaster. Pink. Pink. Pink.

I vowed I would never wear pink or take Pepto-Bismol again.

“Did you show your friend your room?” Buzz’s mother asked.

What? Actually, she hadn’t said it in any sexual way. Nope. It was more like we’d come home for recess and my buddy Buzz would show me his prize trophies.

Well, I wasn’t far off, I thought, when Buzz led me to his room.

It was small, with a single bed with a brown plaid bedspread, but what struck me most were the walls. They were covered in posters of ambulances. On one bookshelf was a stack of EMT magazines-well read I might add-and there were little ambulances on all the other shelves.

I looked at the window and noticed the tiny red crosses on the curtains.

“What do you think, Miss Pauline?”

“Wow,” was all I could manage, and then quickly came to my senses and looked at my watch. “Oh, geez. I have to run. This place is great! You’re great!”

Before he could say a word, I was out of there, and I think I forgot to say goodbye to his mom, and I still had the glass of tea in my hand.

I spent the evening with Goldie and Miles, who kept insisting that I’d made up all the stories of the day. I told them that I really wanted Buzz to succeed as an EMT but had my doubts, and that my imagination wasn’t so good that I could make all that up.

Buzz was a veritable magnet for accidents, as ER Dano was a magnet for whacko patients, we’d all concluded. Then again, only Dano could handle some of them.

After much consideration, I decided not to call Dano, but to give him his space. He didn’t phone me either, so I went to sleep with a rather empty feeling inside; but when I woke and dressed for a new day, I decided Dano could probably use the rest anyway, and I’m sure a day without pay wouldn’t affect him as it would have affected Buzz, who would have lost his job.

I had more respect for Dano now, and a bit more feelings too. I could feel myself blush as I walked into the lounge at TLC.

Jagger was sitting on the couch with Jennifer. My mind tried to head toward jealousy, but then I thought of Dano, and that Jagger and I were coworkers and there was damn Airbrush Lady to think about. Guess I’d purposely put her out of my mind.

Suddenly my name was called over the intercom. I had a helicopter run to take. Almost glad that it’d get me out of here and my mind off Dano’s absence, I waved to Jagger and walked out the door.

At the helipad, I put on my helmet and noticed someone already in the back, strapped in. Mario, taking a catnap yet again.

Sky was at the controls and turned to wave at me as I got in. Over the microphone he told me about the case, and I stepped into the back and sat down, grabbing my harness from the wall. With Mario along, I figured I need not worry about Sky’s guilt or no guilt.

We picked up the patient at Saint Greg’s and safely dropped him off at Yale New Haven Hospital.

Mario never took his helmet off, and I guessed he was now fast asleep next to me. A little nap wasn’t such a bad idea. But then I saw him looking at me, and I gave him a thumbs-up.

Wait a minute. Mario didn’t have such long skinny legs. He was more muscular. Hmm. I leaned over to him. “Hey,” I said into my microphone.

“Hello, Miss Pauline.”

Buzz Lightyear.

Oh, geez. I only hoped this wasn’t going to be a repeat of yesterday. I mean, bumping a cement bollard with an ambulance was one thing, but would darling Buzz bring bad luck to a flying tin can that had rotary blades only held on by one “Jesus nut?”

Thank goodness we’d gotten the patient safely to his destination. I had no idea that Buzz did helicopter runs, but figured, what did I know? I hadn’t been at TLC all that long.

After a few prayers that we’d stay airborne, I leaned back in my seat and shut my eyes. A seemingly uneventful trip, even with Buzz Lightyear aboard. I started to relax.

While in my groggy state, I felt a thud. My eyelids flew open and my heart now thudded. “What’s going on?” I yelled.

But Sky didn’t answer. He didn’t say a thing as to why we had just landed on a beach. It looked like Long Island Sound!

For a few seconds, I sat there and told myself I must be dreaming. I blinked several times and the scenery didn’t change.

The helicopter, in fact, sat on a beach. I knew it was Long Island Sound now, but a rather secluded section. No cottages nearby. No boardwalk like at Hammonasset State Beach. Not sure where we were or why, I unhooked myself and saw the door already open.

I stepped out onto the sand and called, “Sky? Buzz? Sky? Did we break down or something?”

Over my helmet microphone I heard, “You had to ruin everything. She was going to make me rich. She owed me.”

What the hell?

Despite the static, I figured out the voice belonged to Buzz. Rich? She?

“And how the hell…What the hell did you do to Mario?” Sky asked.

I froze.

“Just a matter of a little left-over medication from a psych teen yesterday. He’ll sleep it off in the locker room.” Buzz laughed…eerily. “No one will pay attention since Mario sleeps so much.”

Oh…my…God!

I got back in the helicopter to call 911 on the radio. When I grabbed the microphone, the entire wiring system came with it.

Someone had pulled it out.

Buzz.

I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket, but it said No service. I frantically pushed buttons to no avail. Shoot!

“Sky?” I yelled. I started to take off my helmet so I could go find someone to help. But before I lifted it all the way off, I recognized Sky’s voice again.

“I loved her, you loser. She’d never do shit for you. She should have given you up for adoption at birth. You loser-”

I heard shuffling and no more voices. Before I could turn and run, I noticed Sky and Buzz near a sand dune. Buzz had something that sparkled in his hand, and I ran toward them and screamed, “No!”

And while they scuffled, he plunged it into Sky’s back!

“Stop that!” I picked up a piece of driftwood and ran at him swinging it like a star baseball player. “Leave him alone! What is wrong with you, Buzz?”

When he turned, I knew.

It was clearly in his eyes. Hatred. Mental illness. A mind that had snapped.

The clumsy, lovable Buzz Lightyear had turned into a monster. The crisp, clean-cut guy who had looked as if he’d stepped out of a brand-new toy box had vanished, and now a villain stood holding a bloody knife-and Sky lay on the ground.

From here I couldn’t tell if he was breathing, but the wound was in his shoulder, much higher than any vital organs. Hopefully he was just playing dead or had passed out from shock and pain.

Buzz was on me in seconds. He tackled me to the ground and held the knife at my throat before I could run for help.

I had this thing about anyone touching my throat.

I hated it.

Just as much as I hated knives.

And now I knew that I hated a knife at my throat.

“Buzz, hon, let me get up and help Sky. I’m sure it was just an accident. Like the ambulance yesterday. No one will blame you.” That is if I lived to tell them.

He looked at me and laughed. “You are one smart nurse, Sokol, but dumb as shit for a broad.”

I lifted my knee with as much force as I could, landing it in his groin, but he merely cursed and pulled the knife across my neck.

“Oh!” The pain wasn’t as bad as the fear. My first instinct was to reach up and touch the cut, which was merely a flesh wound. But I felt the warm blood and trembled. He could have cut deeper, but didn’t. Most likely to just scare me.

Buzz Lightyear was no one to take lightly.

And, yeah, I was scared out of my mind, but knew I had to keep in control of myself in order to live and save Sky.

“You killed Payne,” I said, learning from past cases that the murderer always liked to brag before he…finished off his victim.

Buzz laughed. “The asshole deserved it. He was never the father he should have been.”

Father. Father? “Payne was your father?”

“And Pansy, the sicko, my mother. She’ll rot in hell with him when I get done with her.”

He was so nervous at the hospital because he must have come there to finish her off. That’s why he’d stayed behind. When Lilla and I had made a noise, it scared him off and saved Pansy’s life.

“But the woman at your house-” I said, trying to distract him and get as much information out of him that I could. I only prayed that I’d be alive to tell someone.

“She’s my housekeeper. I pay her extra to play the role of mommy. She gets a kick out of it-if you know what I mean.” He grinned. An evil grin.

I swallowed hard despite my neck and thought that human behavior would never cease to amaze me.

Evil was pure evil.

“But Pansy and Payne were brother and sister.” As if that’d make it impossible to have a child. Well, in my Catholic conscience it did.

He looked at me. “Don’t be stupid, Sokol. Incest between those two crazies was a given. I mean, they were like shadows of each other. No wonder they produced a weirdo like me!” He laughed.

But I felt his pain. What a life it must have been for him growing up. The theory that siblings produce mentally challenged offspring was valid in my eyes, no matter what the studies said.

“But why kill them?”

“I didn’t kill Mommy…yet.” He pushed the knife into my neck a bit more.

“Did you make threatening phone calls to me?”

He laughed. “I used you as a guinea pig since you were new, but then I lost interest when the opportunity arose for me to complete my plan. I told Mommy you were bad and that you knew about the fraud. That’s why she didn’t trust you.”

When he leaned closer, I noticed the radio on his shoulder and started to scream. It might cost me another scratch but maybe save Sky and I in the end. I flailed my arms about and hit the button as I did.

Saint T was with me. Not noticing the microphone was on, Buzz kept shouting louder and louder. I heard the static and started to shout our location, that Buzz was the killer and to send help, but I said it all in a way as if repeating his words so he wouldn’t be suspicious and kill me right then.

The more I fought him, the angrier he grew, and suddenly I realized-it wasn’t aimed at me.

Buzz began to go on about his childhood, and how could I do that to him and why didn’t I abort him. And if he couldn’t have love, he’d have money. All of it.

He’d envisioned me now as Pansy, his mother, and began to confess how he set up all the fraud at TLC to make a fortune-but Daddy got greedy and was going to cut into Buzz’s profits, so he had to be taken care of.

Buzz was not immune to murder, I reminded myself.

I kept repeating our location, what was happening and that Sky was down. Buzz, now in his own world, didn’t pay me any attention. He merely remained above me.

Hope Valley was only a half-hour drive from the shoreline, so the local police could drive to the beach in minutes, and hopefully, Jagger and Lieutenant Shatley could fly down soon after. I knew Jagger would have everything under control when he realized how late we were in getting back and when dispatch heard my frantic, albeit confusing, radio calls.

I decided to use my nurturing nurse’s nature on Buzz although I would rather have kicked him where it hurt several times. I knew he had me in the weight and strength department, so I had to go with my brains, since, being injured, I wasn’t sure I had the strength to use my self-defense techniques. Especially since he had me pinned down and the knife still near my throat.

Sky was starting to stir. Once he looked at me in a very painful, groggy stare. I winked at him and motioned for him to stay put.

Hopefully he wouldn’t try to be a macho pilot.

I’m sure he wanted to get up and kick the shit out of Buzz, since Sky apparently did love Pansy and hopefully to help me.

Oh what a tangled web we weave…

I leaned back in the helicopter and Jagger put his arm around me. Sky lay on the stretcher and crazy, pathetic, handcuffed Buzz had been taken back to Hope Valley in the police cruiser. The helicopter was flown by one of the part-time pilots.

“How sad,” I muttered.

Jagger looked at me.

“I know. I know. I can’t do my job if I feel sorry for the criminals.”

“Yep. No matter how nice they appear, how interesting or sad their lives are or how beautiful they are, they are still criminals.”

My forehead wrinkled. “Beautiful?”

His hold tightened. “Oh, I wrapped up a case yesterday. Real looker. Real con artist.”

“He was?”

“She was. You saw us at dinner the other night. Remember?”

Airbrush Lady! Jagger hadn’t been on a date, but working another case. Oh, how Jaggerlike.

And apparently oh-how Pauline-like to suspect that a guy was bowled over by a pretty face.

Guess I’d forgotten this was Jagger I was talking about. Now it made sense that he wasn’t around as much as usual. He had been helping Shatley, but also working another case and keeping tabs on me trying to solve mine.

“Interesting. But, in Buzz’s case, I do feel sorry that a life was so wasted because two people made a mistake.”

Jagger made some kind of guttural sound. “A big mistake.”

It was disgusting to think about, yet sad too. Pansy and Payne were products of their environment. Sky had told us that the two grew up without any friends or other family around. They’d pretty much been ostracized by all the kids because they looked so much alike and were so weird to boot.

Without any choice, they were kinda thrown together. Almost molded into one. Twins had special bonds, but these two were something very different. Their parents had messed them up good by treating them like clones.

It seemed as if they were going to make a go of TLC once they’d inherited it, but that’s when Buzz, who’d apparently trained as an EMT just to get the job, came back into their lives with his plan for revenge and money. Probably Buzz had lived away from Hope Valley but came back when he saw the big news about them inheriting TLC. Pansy had felt guilty and hired him, but wouldn’t let him live with her. Thus the housekeeper “mommy.”

I wondered if Buzz’s clumsy behavior was phony, but Sky assured me the guy couldn’t fake all that had happened to him. He just drew problems to himself. And these last ones were doozies.

Sky had insisted that he really did love Pansy, and it wasn’t just an affair. She’d always presented herself as asexual, which she had been after she and Payne had conceived Buzz. But Sky’d gotten her to open her heart just a bit… then it was too late. Sheepishly he’d admitted he’d gotten her what I called the “sex chair” on a trip he’d taken over to Europe-and it had helped-so they designed the room for…themselves.

Jagger suddenly tugged at my arm. We’d landed at Saint Greg’s. Sky, who would be fine, was taken off the copter by the staff, and we flew back to TLC.

When the helicopter set down, I got up and stepped out. ER Dano stood by the helipad, waiting. The police must have called him. I felt something touch my back.

A gentle nudge from…Jagger.

At first a thread of disappointment spread throughout me. He had pushed me forward. Jagger had actually pushed me toward Dano.

But in a heartbeat I found my way into Dano’s arms.

He held me tightly and over his shoulder I could see Jagger standing there… and, in that moment, that horrible moment, I realized he hadn’t nudged me forward at all…