Part 20 (2/2)

”It was an accident!” she screamed, the gun waving wildly in her trembling hand.

I took my hands out from under Crawford's armpits and positioned him so that he wouldn't fall out of the chair, his head and upper torso resting on the table. If I was going to get killed, I didn't want it to appear that I had been using his body as a s.h.i.+eld. I looked over Fiona's shoulder and saw through the windows of my office that a virtual phalanx of police officers were running down the stairs behind the building, but I kept my eyes on her and the gun.

”Give me the gun, Fiona,” I said, starting toward her slowly.

She was sobbing. ”I didn't mean to do that,” she said, pointing the gun at Crawford.

I nodded like I understood. I held my hand out to her. ”The police are here.”

Her face crumpled, and she let out a gut-wrenching sob. She put the gun to her head.

”No, Fiona!”

The window in my office exploded as three officers, dressed in head-to-toe black and wearing riot gear, burst through the gla.s.s. They were through the windows and by Fiona's side in seconds. They all screamed simultaneously for Fiona to drop the gun and for me to hit the floor. We both obliged.

Fiona began sobbing as two of the officers surrounded her and pointed large automatic weapons at her. The other officer, a woman, checked all of the offices and called out ”All clear!” The main office door opened and Wyatt ran in, his gun pointed into the room. He ran to Crawford's side and checked his neck for a pulse. ”Get the EMTs in here!” he shouted to the door, and, immediately, three EMTs entered with a stretcher. Within seconds, they had Crawford on a stretcher, his s.h.i.+rt off, and an IV in his arm. One of the EMTs set about cutting Crawford's pants off and I looked away, knowing that he would want me to. After they covered him with a sheet, I took one last look: he was still unconscious and looked about as close to a corpse as someone with a pulse can get.

”Multiple stab wounds, thready pulse, blood loss,” one technician shouted into a walkie-talkie, ”BP is ninety over sixty.” He continued talking as the stretcher was brought to waist height on wheels and removed from the room. The EMT called ”Mercy” to Wyatt, who nodded.

Cops swarmed the room. With one of their own on a stretcher and headed to the hospital, the mood was solemn but charged with anger. I was actually worried about Fiona's safety. Fiona was on her knees with her hands laced on her head, a female cop standing over her with her gun drawn. After a few minutes, Sally Hiney came over, pulled Fiona's arms off her head, and tightly cuffed her hands behind her back. Sally, roughly twice Fiona's size, dragged her through the chaos. Fiona turned and looked at me. ”I'm sorry,” she cried, as another officer by the door joined in hauling her out, lifting her by her armpits so that her feet were a few inches off the floor.

Wyatt bent down and picked up Crawford's b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+rt and my slip. He held the slip/tourniquet aloft and looked at me, one eyebrow raised. ”What's this?”

”He was bleeding and I needed something to stop it,” I explained.

”Good thinking, Nurse McSmartypants.” He opened a Ziploc bag and put the s.h.i.+rt in it. He got another bag and put the slip in there, marking both of them as evidence.

I looked at him. I had told Crawford about my alter ego; he must have pa.s.sed this information on to Fred. I let it go. ”She killed Kathy Miceli.”

As if on cue, I heard Fiona's voice in the stairwell protesting to someone else. ”It was an accident!” she screamed.

I pointed to the paper, still a bit caked with train muck.

Wyatt picked the paper up between the tips of his thumb and index fingers of his gloved hand. ”You puke on this, too?”

Instead of laughing, I burst into tears. Wyatt muttered, ”Oh, jeez,” and took my arm, steering me toward the open door of one of my colleague's offices, which was on the other side of the office area, and the farthest away from the action.

I fell into the plush office chair in front of the desk and rolled back a few inches. Wyatt pulled up one of the chairs that was used for students visiting during office hours, his immense frame filling it. He leaned in, his hands hanging down between his legs. I think he was waiting for me to stop crying. As a precaution, he took the waste can from under the desk and put it by my feet.

Connie Burns is another English professor and the most meticulous person I have ever met. Her office was neat, orderly, and clean. A full box of tissues sat at the edge of her desk, right next to the picture of her neat, orderly, and clean children. I pulled out six or seven tissues and blew my nose loudly. She would be disinfecting for days.

”You all right?” he asked.

”I'm fine,” I said, pulling more tissues out of the box and wiping my eyes. I balled all of them up until they resembled a wad of papier-mache and threw them in the spotless waste can.

”Tell me what happened.”

”Where do you want me to start?” I asked.

”Start with why you're here tonight and end with how my partner ended up stabbed.” There was an edge to his voice that told me that given the chance, he might tear Fiona apart, limb from limb. He took a small notebook from his back pocket and from Connie's desk grabbed a pen that I knew she would never see again.

I started my story. He stopped me a few times for more details, but I finished a complete retelling in under ten minutes.

”That it?” he asked.

I nodded.

He snapped the notebook shut. ”That's a shame,” he said, and shook his head. The tough veneer crumbled, and he wiped his hands over his face, rubbing his eyes. He stayed silent, composing himself. I looked away, focusing on Connie's desk-the datebook, the stack of papers on top of a grade book, and her calendar of meaningless aphorisms. Today's was from Oscar Wilde: ”Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.”

Wyatt looked at me. ”You're friends with Father Kevin, right? Call the padre. Tell him to meet me at Mercy Hospital.”

I picked up Connie's phone; it smelled like disinfectant. I called Kevin and, giving him the shortened version of the horrible story, asked him to meet Wyatt at the hospital. Kevin is used to calls like this; he didn't ask questions and hung up quickly.

I took a couple of more tissues and blew my nose again. ”Can I go, too?”

Wyatt pondered my question for a few minutes. He looked at his watch. ”I guess now is as good a time as any.” He stopped himself. ”Sure. Let's go.”

There was a knock at the door, and Wyatt reached back around him and opened it. A young man, whom I vaguely recognized, stood in the doorway, his blue NYPD uniform throwing me off momentarily. When my head cleared, I recognized him as the skateboarder who called me ”ma'am” at the Starbucks a few weeks earlier. I did a double take, and he smiled sheepishly at me.

”Ma'am,” he said, and gave me a little salute.

”You're a cop?”

He gave a little shrug. ”Yes, ma'am.”

Wyatt laughed. ”Derek was on your tail for a few days. Good undercover work, huh?”

I continued to stare at him. With the uniform on, he looked slightly older than the eighteen years I had given him when we first met, but not much. ”Excellent undercover work.”

Derek cleared his throat. ”Detective? We need you.”

We left Connie's office and went back into the main area. Max was standing by Dottie's desk, her arms folded across her chest, chewing the inside of her mouth nervously. When she saw me, she ran down the length of the office and threw her arms around me. ”What the . . . ?” she yelled, at a loss for words. She was so loud that the officers in the room stopped and looked at her. ”Are you OK?”

”I'm fine, Max,” I said. Never forgetting my manners, even in times of extreme stress, I turned to Wyatt. ”You remember my friend, Max Rayfield?” I forgot that they had spent some time together the night before.

He was back to normal. He peered down at Max from behind his gla.s.ses. ”Who could forget you, Ms. Rayfield?” he said, rather charmingly and without any sarcasm.

She blushed, something I had never seen Max do. Blus.h.i.+ng was my department. ”Call me Max.”

He held out his hand. ”Call me Fred.”

”Is that your real name or just what you want me to call you?” Max said, smiling.

”Real name.”

I cleared my throat. Apparently, I had become invisible. ”I'd like to go to the hospital, Detective.”

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