Death Match

NINE

Southern Westchester County Medical Center was a cluster of brick buildings on the outskirts of Rye, just over the New York border. As Lash screeched into the ambulance entrance, he could see that the ER was unusually quiet. Just two vehicles sat together in the shadows beyond the glass admitting doors. One was an ambulance; the other a long, low, hearse-like vehicle bearing the seal of the county medical examiner. The rear doors of the ambulance were open, and as Lash trotted across the blacktop he glanced toward it. An EMS technician was at work with a bucket and sanitizer, swabbing the interior. Even from twenty yards Lash caught the coppery tang of blood.

The smell brought him up short, and he glanced hesitantly up at the building’s dark-red bulk. He had not been inside an emergency room in three years. Then, recalling the urgency in Mauchly’s voice, he forced himself forward once again.

The waiting area seemed subdued. Half a dozen people sat in plastic chairs, staring vacantly at walls or filling out forms. A small knot of policemen stood in one corner, talking among themselves in low tones. Quickly, Lash headed for the door marked SQUAD ROOM, opened it, felt along the wall for the button that opened the automatic doors into the emergency room.

The doors whispered open onto a far different scene. Several orderlies were at work, scrambling with equipment trays. A nurse walked by, liters of blood clutched in her arms. Another followed with a crash cart. Three EMS technicians were standing at the nurses’ station, not speaking. They looked dazed. Two were still wearing pale-green gloves heavily smeared with blood.

Lash scanned the area for a familiar face. Almost instantly he spotted the chief resident, Alfred Chen, walking toward him. Normally, Chen moved with the slow, stately grace of a prophet, a smile on his Buddha-like face. Tonight, Chen was moving quickly, and the smile was gone.

The resident’s eyes were on a metal clipboard in his hands, and he didn’t bother looking up at Lash. As Chen passed, Lash stuck out an arm. “Alfred. How’s it going?”

Chen stared blankly for a moment. “Oh. Chris. Hi.” The smile made a brief appearance. “Could be better. Listen, I—”

“I’m here to see the Wilner couple.”

Chen looked surprised. “That’s where I’m headed. Follow me.”

Lash swung in beside the resident.

“Are they patients of yours?” Chen asked.

“Prospective.”

“How’d you hear about it so fast? They just got here five minutes ago.”

“What happened?”

“Suicide pact, according to police. Pretty thorough job of it, too. Radial vein, opened lengthwise from wrist to forearm.”

“In the bath?”

“That’s the strange part. They were found in bed together. Fully clothed.”

Lash felt the muscles of his jaw tighten. “Who found them?”

“Blood came through the ceiling of the condo below theirs, and the owner called the police. They must have been there for hours.”

“What’s their condition?”

“John Wilner bled out,” Chen puffed. “Dead on the scene. His wife is alive, but just barely.”

“Any kids?”

“No.” Chen glanced down at the sheet. “But Karen Wilner is five months pregnant.”

Ahead, the nurse with the crash cart disappeared behind a drawn curtain. Chen followed, Lash at his heels.

The space beyond was so crowded that at first Lash could not see the bed. Somewhere, an EKG was bleating out a dangerously fast pulse. There was a torrent of voices, talking over each other, calm but urgent.

“Heartbeat’s at 120, out of sinus tach,” a woman said.

“Systolic’s at 70.”

An alarm sounded abruptly, adding its drone to the babel.

“Hang more plasma!” This voice was louder, more insistent.

Lash slipped along behind the blue-garbed figures, back against the curtain, working toward the head of the bed. As he squeezed into position between two racks of diagnostic equipment, Karen Wilner finally became visible.

She was like alabaster, so pale Lash could see an incredible tracery of starved veins around her neck, across her breasts, down the sweep of her arms. Her blouse and bra had been cut away, and her torso swabbed clean, but she was still wearing a skirt and it was here the whiteness ended. The fabric was soaked through with blood. Twin IVs, turned wide open, were notched into her inner elbows: one of plasma, the other of saline. Below these, tourniquets were placed around her forearms, and doctors were at work, trying to suture the ruined veins.

“We’ve got vasospasm,” said a nurse, one hand to the patient’s forehead. Karen Wilner’s eyes remained closed, and she did not respond to the pressure of the nurse’s hand.

Lash slipped in closer, knelt down beside the motionless face.

“Ms. Wilner,” he murmured. “Why? Why did you do it?”

“What are you doing?” the nurse demanded. “Who is this guy?”

The bleat of the EKG machine had slowed to a lazy, irregular rhythm. “Bradycardia!” a voice called. “Pressure’s down to 45 over 20.”

Lash drew closer. “Karen,” he said, more urgently. “I need to know why. Please.”

“Christopher, move away,” Dr. Chen warned from the far side of the bed.

The woman’s eyes fluttered open; closed; opened again. They were dry and even paler than her skin.

“Karen,” Lash repeated, placing a hand on her shoulder. It felt like marble.

“Make it stop,” she said, the words more breath than voice.

“Make what stop?” Lash said.

“That sound,” the woman replied, almost inaudibly. “That sound in my head.”

Her eyes slipped closed again, and her head lolled to one side.

“We’re losing her!” a nurse cried.

“What sound?” Lash said, bending closer. “Karen, what sound?”

He felt a hand land on his shoulder, pull him back. “Away from the bed, mister,” said an orderly. His eyes glittered black above the white gauze of his mask.

Lash retreated between the racks of equipment. The EKG was now droning a high, incessant note. The nurse scrambled forward with the crash cart.

“Charged?” asked Dr. Chen as he took the paddles.

“One hundred joules.”

“Back!” called Chen.

Lash watched Karen Wilner’s body stiffen as electricity coursed through it. The driplines hanging from the IV racks whipsawed violently back and forth.

“Again!” Chen cried, paddles raised in the air. For a moment, his gaze met Lash’s own. Brief as it was, the glance said everything.

With one final, searching look at Karen Wilner, Lash turned and left the emergency bay.