Vertical Coffin

Chapter 39

Jo didn't speak again and lapsed into unconsciousness. I was holding her in my lap, watching the life leak out of her. Finally I heard the ambulance siren arrive out front, and the EMTs pulled into the drive. I yelled out and they quickly found us in the back.

The rest was a blur. I wandered around in the backyard trying to keep my wits about me as they loaded her on a gurney and set up an IV bag. I felt weak and nauseous. I was shaking, beginning to come unstrapped.

They lifted Jo into the ambulance and I hitched a ride, sitting in the front seat of the rescue unit with Jo's black leather purse in my lap.

"Get this thing moving," I snapped at the driver who was slowly edging the big ambulance out onto the street.

Then we were speeding out of Inglewood on the way to the L. A. County King/Drew Medical Center, which was only five miles away. The siren heehawed, clearing traffic all the way down Crenshaw Boulevard to the hospital.

I found a spot in the E. R. waiting room as anxious surgeons ran down from the O. R. upstairs. Finally, I opened Jo's purse and used her cell phone to call her office. I told her lieutenant supervisor what happened, then hung up and scrolled through the numbers. I found a listing for bollinger, br. Bridget? I pushed dial and in a moment I had Sheedy, Long, and Bollinger Advertising.

"Is Bridget Bollinger there?"

"Ms. Bollinger? Just a minute," the operator said. Then I was connected with some guy in New Accounts.

"I'm trying to speak with Bridget Bollinger," I told him.

"Who may I say is calling?"

"I'm a friend of Josephine Brickhouse's."

"Moment, please," he said and put me on hold. I was listening to an inane muffler shop jingle.

He came back on a minute later.

"Ms. Bollinger cannot be disturbed. She's with an account," he said.

"Hey, Sonny-this is Sergeant Scully, LAPD, and it's a police matter. You tell Ms. Bollinger to get her ass on the phone right now or I'll come down there and put the whole building in cuffs."

I was shaking, my nerves and emotions in a boil. Calm down, I lectured myself. This isn't the way you get results. I was back on hold. Then a minute later I heard a female voice that was smooth and coldly inquisitive.

"What's this concerning?" she asked.

I pictured the pretty, black-haired woman with the high cheekbones and structured face.

"Ms. Bollinger, I'm Sergeant Scully, LAPD. Jo Brickhouse and I have been working a case together. She was shot this afternoon. She's in critical condition in L. A. County King/Drew Hospital. I thought you might like to know."

"Oh, my God!" Bridget said, attitude replaced by anguish. "Where is the hospital?"

"Wilmington Avenue, south of the one-oh-five."

"Is she… is she going to be…"

"I don't know. She was hit in the chest, lost a lot of blood. She's in a coma. To be honest, it doesn't look too good. If you want to see her, you'd better get here quick." I hung up.

They moved Jo upstairs to an O. R.

I waited on the surgical floor while the docs opened her chest and started picking out bullet fragments. The asshole had shot her at point-blank range, using a hollow point, which broke up on impact. They were desperately trying to tie off the bleeders and fix the mess inside her.

I called Alexa and told her what happened.

"Oh my God, Shane. I'm sorry," she said.

"I tried to get there to warn her. She didn't know about Vincent. She thought she was going to see his sister Susan. He came to the door in a wig, shot her, and took off in a black Dodge truck. I don't know what happened after that, whether they caught him or not. Two blues crashed their unit, so they borrowed my car and went after him.

"I'll find out. Keep your phone on." She hung up.

Ten minutes later she called back.

"You won't believe it," she said, "but the two guys from A-twenty-two tried to bust through an intersection against a red light and got broadsided by a city bus. Both of them are in Baldwin Hills Emergency. Your car is totaled."

"And Smiley got away?"

"Looks like it," she said.

Ten or fifteen minutes later people from the Sheriff's Department started showing up. Among them was Jo's boss at IAD and the undersheriff, a nice looking guy with silver hair, named Bert Clausen.

They began filtering in one by one, some in uniform, others in civvies, off-duty officers and civilian personnel. I wondered if they were sorry now that they had been dogging her all week for just doing her job. As more of them arrived, I was pushed to the side and ended up sitting alone on a vinyl sofa trying to keep my chin up.

If only I hadn't told her to turn off her cell.

Why didn't I go out there with her?

Ifs and whys. Questions that never get answered.

Twenty minutes later Bridget arrived looking drawn and nervous. I saw her come off the elevator and I went to intercept her.

"I'm Shane," I said.

"Thank you for calling me." Her voice was faint, almost a whisper.

I didn't respond. I was all out of pleasantries.

"Is she…"

"In trouble."

You can generally tell how bad it is by the way people move in the hall outside the operating theatre. Too many nurses were running to suit me.

Bridget looked like she was about to break.

"We were having-she and I…"

"Look, Bridget, that's between you guys."

"No-I mean-I walked out. I've wanted to call her half a dozen times since then. It's just-Jo can be so definite. She's not someone who lets you get too close."

She sank down onto the sofa. Her face crumpled, her eyes brimmed with tears. I reached over and took her hand.

"You're wrong. She's not definite, and she wants to let you in. She's just scared. It's how she covers it."

"She thinks I don't care, but that's not the problem. The problem is I care too much."

"Bridget, she needs you now. She needs somebody to sit with her. I can't stay. I've got to catch the guy who did this. But somebody needs to protect her from the mistakes that can happen in big medical factories like this one."

"I can do that," she said valiantly.

"And she needs somebody to hold her hand. Somebody to pray for her and-"

I stopped because suddenly I was on the verge of tears, myself.

"You really care for her, don't you?" Bridget said.

"Yes," I said. "I really do." Then I thought for a minute before I went on.

"Jo is one of a kind. She makes her own rules. You gotta love someone who walks their own trail, no matter the consequences."

"I do," Bridget said softly, and from the sound of her voice, she meant it.

Ten minutes later the surgeon came out and told us that Jo was critical and had been moved to ICU.

"The next forty-eight hours will tell the story," he said.

I decided to put them to good use. I couldn't help Jo sitting around here. I was going to even the score, get some payback for Josephine Brickhouse. I'd failed Jo just at the moment I realized how special she really was.

I was going to catch this son-of-a-bitch or die trying.