Excerpt Excerpt
Chapter One
Questions
"Give it up, Paula. He's toast."
"Count. Don't talk."
"Five." Mace paused for her to blow another breath through the mask and resumed the cadence. "One and two and three and four and five."
What am I doing here, Paula, asked herself. Lack of oxygen was causing her vision to gray out and her attention to wander. I turn fifty-six in two months and here I am on a jail cell floor at a quarter past midnight trying to breathe for two while a deputy uses trite, cop-movie dialogue with utter sincerity because, to him, it's the way real cops talk. Another breath already?
She blew through the mask's one-way valve.
Was the lightheadedness getting worse, she asked herself, or were Mace's compressions speeding up?
Another breath.
I can't even straighten up to get a breath. Definitely too fast.
"Slow down, Mace. One per second."
He nodded. "... and five."
Breath.
"Count one thousand one," she gasped.
Another nod. "... and three and one thousand four and one thousand five."
Better, she thought. Not perfect but at least the heart's got enough time to fill between compressions.
She sat up and took a deep breath. Her head cleared a little. Unhurried, hard-soled feet sounded in the hall outside the cell.
Paramedics? she asked herself. They're sure taking their time.
Impeccably shined, black Corfam shoes stopped at the door. Paula looked up through the bars that formed the security barrier of this Disciplinary Isolation cell to confirm who filled the shoes, though there was little doubt. Sgt. Benjamin Harris was the only one in the jail who wore them. Every deputy with more than a week's experience on the job reserved his Corfams for dress occasions because they just weren't practical for regular work. Scuffs could not be buffed out. Worse, they didn't breathe like real leather, so the deputy's feet lived in a sauna. The one and only advantage these completely man-made shoes had was that they could be polished to a mirror shine unattainable with a leather shoe. This made them perfect at the academy where, for some inexplicable reason, the quality of one's shoe shine dictated in large measure one's level of success there.
Sgt. Harris, however felt that it was his duty to personally uphold the highest, brightest, and shiniest image of the department under all circumstances. In his pursuit of that goal he always managed to avoid having to do anything that might scuff, wrinkle, or ruffle the perfection of his uniform.
"Paramedics?" Paula gasped.
"Just coming through Reception. What's your situation, Mrs. McKenzie?"
Paula ignored his question and huffed another breath through the mask. Mace started to answer, forgetting to restart his compressions.
"Five more and do a pulse check," Paula said.
Mace grudgingly pumped five quick, mostly worthless compressions, and sat back on his heels to catch his breath and wipe his streaming brow. Paula forced another breath in and checked the man's carotid pulse. Was there something there? She pressed a little deeper. Nope. Just hope. No pulse.
"Continue."
"One thousand one and one thousand two and..."
Harris nodded and stepped back into the hall. While he could be quite dense at times, the situation here was obvious enough even for him to grasp. He decided that waiting at the elevator to escort the paramedics would be the most helpful thing he could do at the moment, even though they already had an escort. It didn't occur to him that either of the rescuers might need relief, or that he should send another deputy or two to the scene to assist. Two people were all that were required to give CPR. And since one of them was a nurse, no one else was needed. Well, other than paramedics to transport the inmate to the hospital. It also never occurred to him that he should offer any assistance himself. He was the sergeant, second in command of the jail on this shift. The sergeant's job was to guide and direct the efforts of his deputies, which he couldn't do huddled over a dead inmate, soiling his uniform while giving CPR.
The pulse check had given Paula and Mace both a ten second break, but that was not enough to make much of a difference after a couple more series of compressions. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is hard work. When it has to be continued for more than a few minutes, it is exhausting. Doing it in this small,, overheated, airless, stench-filled, dingy space made it debilitating.
Mace's compressions flagged, losing their depth and force despite his excellent physical conditioning. Paula was having trouble keeping track of Mace's count. Each breath forced through the one way valve in the safety mask increased the floating feeling in her head and darkened her vision. She had passed the point where an extra breath for herself once or twice a minute was doing any good.
The rattle of the elevator's door, echoing down the concrete hall signaled relief, she hoped, not another looky-loo. The first person through the door was a redheaded woman in a paramedic's dark blue jumpsuit, carrying an Ambu-Bag. She dropped beside Paula and smoothly took over respirations. Squeezing the soft, blue football-like rubber bladder with its plastic mask on one end, she forced the next breath into the man immediately after Mace's five count. A male paramedic knelt across from Mace and called for a pulse check after the current set of compressions. Mace rocked forward one last time, sat back on his heels, and tried to wipe the sweat out of his eyes. The redhead pumped two breaths in, checked the pulse, shook her head at the firefighter, and the two of them began the next series of compressions and breaths. Both silently noted the inmate's pallor and the hint of cyanosis in his cheeks. His pupils, which the second paramedic had checked during the pulse check, still reacted to light, though sluggishly, indicating there was still some brain activity.
Paula scooted out of the way and stood up unsteadily. A paramedic bringing in the heart monitor/defibrillator grabbed her arm and helped her through the barred gate. She slid down the wall next to the door, feet splayed in front of her like a carelessly discarded doll. She nodded vaguely to his, "You okay?" He left her to set up the monitor.
Mace stood up and walked into the hall where he leaned his buffed body against the wall. Harris came over to him and asked for a report. Wiping his streaming face again, Mace said, "Still dead."
The Watch Commander, Lt. Robert Davies, who had brought the medics through the series of double gates and up the elevator, walked up behind Harris and asked, "You found him?"
Mace nodded.
"What'd he use to hang himself?"
"Towel. Torn in strips."
"Tied to the bars?" Harris asked.
Mace shook his head. "Looped it over the top cross bar." He paused, waving his hand in a give-me-a-minute gesture, and leaned over with his hands on his knees. After half a dozen deep breaths, he resumed. "He pulled on it just as I was looking in the window. It was like he was waiting for me. He looked right at me when he did it."
"So how come he's dead?" Harris asked, "You should have been able to get it off of him in a couple of seconds."
"That's what I thought, too. I opened the door and the gate and was in there in no more than five, ten seconds. But I couldn't get the knot loose. He yanked it so hard that the towel cinched down real tight. Couldn't get it loose at all. That towel stuff just binds up and won't come loose. I called for Paula on the phone, then went back to untie the knot. No go. Just couldn't get it. When she got here he was blue as my old Chevy and we had the worst time hacking through that stuff. All she had were these old, dull scissors. Next to worthless. Musta taken us three, four minutes to cut him free. 'Course by then he's toast, but we gotta start doing CPR anyway, right? That's when I called it in."
"But you didn't identify the emergency." Harris said. "Central had no idea it was a Code Delta situation. He notified me there was some kind of problem in D.I. that required the medic and that was all."
"Sorry. I was just too busy trying to get that noose off. I kept thinkin' if I can get it off, he'll be okay. But it just wouldn't come loose and Paula wasn't gettin' anywhere cuttin' through it. That's when I came back out here and called in the Delta."
"Sorry isn't good enough, Mr. Mason," Harris said. "That man is dead because--"
"--No, he's not."
All three men turned to look at Paula who stood in the doorway, drenched in sweat, one hand against the frame for support. She hoped her bra wasn't showing through her soaked clothing, not that her eighty-seven pound frame had all that much to show, but she didn't need any leering looks right now. That was the trouble with having to buy your shirts in the same department where ten year old boys got theirs. Besides being white, which accentuated her deeply tanned skin, the shirt material was considerably lighter than the men's khaki shirts. When wet, it became gauzily transparent. She just hoped the thin, white t-shirts she got in the same department made as good a camisole when wet as they did when dry.
"They got a rhythm and he's breathing," she said. Her short, salt and pepper hair dripped sweat into her dark brown eyes. She swiped at her face with her free hand. It just created a clean path for the next wave to roll over her forehead and into her eyes. "Took four hits with the defibrillator and a bucket of epinephrine, but they got him back."
"That's great," Mace said.
"I'm not so sure it is," she said, walking over to Davies. "He was anoxic for a long time. Long enough for some brain damage. How bad I can't say for sure, but he's not responsive. Far as I can tell, he's in a deep coma. We'll have to wait for a complete neuro eval, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's permanent."
"But he's alive, right? So that's good for us." Harris said.
"I think it's a little early to be passing out cigars," Davies said, shifting the ever present one in his mouth from left to right. "He still managed to do a really good job of trying to kill himself, and we managed to do a fairly poor job of responding to it." He looked at Mace. "Understandable under the circumstances for most people, but we aren't allowed the luxury of being most people. I don't know that it would have made much difference, but Sgt. Harris is right, you should have called in a Code Delta when you first saw him pull the cord. Then you'd have had more help and the paramedics might have made it here sooner."
"But the damage was already done, Bob," Paula said. "That towel was so tight, and it took so long for us to cut through it, that by the time we were able to start CPR, he was quite likely brain damaged from anoxia. All we did was keep him perfused long enough for the paramedics to revive his heart function. I can't see that Mace's delay made any real difference in the outcome."
"Excuse us, we're ready to transport," the redhead said. "You have our escort ready?"
"They're downstairs waiting beside your unit, ready to roll," Davies said.
Paula followed the paramedics down to the loading dock and watched them place the man in the ambulance. His neck still bore the dark red bruise of his noose. His respirations were still shallow and one of the paramedics hovered with the Ambu-Bag should they fail again. She had no doubt he would be placed on a ventilator within minutes of reaching the emergency room.
Chilled by the cold night air congealing the sweat on her skin, she turned around and hurried back into the building. Lt. Davies followed her inside.
"Good job, Paula."
She turned around, looked up his six-foot-three frame from her four-foot-nine height, and rubbed her arms. "I don't know about that, Bob. I'm not sure I did him any favors."
He nodded his understanding. He wouldn't want to live like that. And waking up might even be worse.
"Don't bother pulling your own incident number. Use Mace's, and start from when you were first notified. Write it as a supplemental to his report. No need to rush it. Get some dry clothes and do your rounds. We can go over it at breakfast. By the way, his name was Avery. Ring any bells?"
"No. And he isn't a was. He's still alive and, God willing, my prognosis is way too pessimistic."
"Point taken. Doesn't ring any bells with me either, but I thought you might know him. Help to explain why he did it."
"Sorry. Can't help you there. See you at breakfast." She checked her watch. It was one o'clock which meant she had three hours to change, catch up on everything she would have routinely had done by now, and write the report. No problem. As long as nothing else happened.