Force of Habit: A Falcone & Driscoll Investigation (24 page)

Ted hefted the other end of the gurney. “Don’t listen to him, miss. Everyone applauds my driving.”

“Yeah, when you stop and they escape intact.” Doug grinned upside-down at Giulia. “I’m the better driver, but he always beats me at arm wrestling. If I only had one of those robotic arms.”

Over the hiss of the sliding glass doors into the emergency room, Giulia heard garbled PA announcements and a high female voice begging for another hit.

“Hey, cop, where’s my sister?” Urnu kicked a green plastic chair the length of the room. “You arrest her, too?”

“Shut up, Falke.” Hogarth
wrestled Urnu into a pink plastic chair. “Doctor, please see to the lady first.”

“Where’s my sister, dammit?” Urnu struggled under Hogarth’s grip.

“Honey, I wish I could say I was happy to see you again.”

Giulia recognized the fuchsia-nailed hands picking up her bandaged ones. “I wish I could, too.” She smiled. “First beer’s on me when you get off shift.”

“Gimme a hit, dammit! I’m gettin’ the shakes. You gotta gimme some.” Two male nurses wrestled a screeching woman past the admissions desk. Giulia smelled body odor and Tabu. Only the thought of how much vomiting would hurt kept her homemade pizza in her stomach.

The uniformed officer’s—Russ’s—voice reached her. “Ms. van Alstyne? This is Officer Colburn calling from Vandermark Memorial Hospital. Mr. Blake Parker... Please, ma’am, calm yourself. Mr. Parker is in no danger. He wondered if you’d be able to drive him home. He’s with the doctor now... Just a few stitches, ma’am. Thank you. I’ll tell—” A cell phone snapped shut. “She hung up, Mr. Parker. I bet she’s going to run every red light between her place and here.”

“Driscoll—” Urnu grunted and another chair hit the floor. “What’d you do with my sister?”

The nurse wheeled Giulia through the double doors into the exam room corridor.

“Dead? No! No, she’s not! No!”

The doors closed and spared Giulia more of Urnu’s hysteria.

“Doctor’ll be here in a minute, honey. No, don’t sit up. What happened to your side?”

“It’s kind of complicated.” Giulia gave her an arch look. “I refuse to say another word until I know your name. ‘Nurse Smith’ is too impersonal.”

Nurse Smith laughed her warm belly laugh. “Mama named us all after operas. I have two sisters, Lucia and Norma. Me, I got Aida.”

Giulia smiled. “I’m very pleased to meet you. I’m Giulia. My grandmother named her five children after the Mysteries of the Rosary.” She started to shake Aida’s hand. “Ow. Let’s treat the handshake as already done.”

The meticulous doctor pushed through double doors at the opposite end of the corridor.

“Room two,” Aida called to him.

Giulia concentrated on his face as he cut through the crusty gauze on her ribs. One of her great-aunts had eyebrows that thin. Not by nature, either.

Aida passed him water, a sponge, and disinfectant.

Giulia hissed when the disinfectant touched her. More institutional smells.
Gack.

“Looks clean, honey.” Aida threw bloody gauze and sponges in the trash can behind her.

“Indeed. I am always pleased when that particular team of emergency medical technicians brings in a patient. They halve my work. Glue, please, nurse.”

Aida twisted off the cap from a small tube and handed it to him.

Giulia raised her eyebrows. “That’s not the glue you buy at the drugstore, right?”

“Everyone asks that, honey. This is the latest thing: surgical glue. Looks like that stuff the guy in the hard hat uses to hang from the girder, and applies the same way. But no stitches, and your body will absorb it in a few days.”

“Steri-strips, nurse.” The doctor taped over the gash in two-inch intervals. “Now the patient’s hands, please.”

He drenched the gauze on her right hand before removing it. “How did this injury occur?”

Giulia had managed to put it out of her conscious mind. Now it threatened to drown her again. Sandra’s screaming face, Urnu’s curses, her arms weaker than Sandra’s, the knife closing in on her...

“Miss?”

She inhaled a long, shuddering breath. “Sorry. Um, a knife. Something like a switchblade.”

“These require stitches.” He swabbed her palm with disinfectant and injected something. “A clean knife? Did you see any rust?”

Oh, yes. Numb hand. Much better.
“No, it was very shiny and scary sharp. After she got my ribs, she came at me from the front. She was a lot taller than me—ouch.”

“I have only a few more stitches to complete, miss. However, if you desire more anesthetic I can accommodate you.”

How could one simple sentence make her feel like such a wuss? “That’s okay. Go ahead.”

Aida’s hand rested on Giulia’s head. Giulia smiled up at her. “I guess I grabbed at my side when she cut it and got blood all over me. When she tried to stab me, I reached for her wrists but my hands slipped and caught the knife blade instead.”

“Yes, that explains the angle of the injury.” He walked around her to her other hand and poured water over that stiff gauze.

“How’d you stop her, honey?” Aida applied antibiotic ointment to Giulia’s hand and wrapped the stitches in a thin layer of fresh gauze.

Giulia looked away from the tiny needle shooting chilled liquid into her sliced palm.

Her mother named her Aida? Well, better than my Aunt Cross-
ifisa. That was some fast-acting anesthetic.
She tried to ignore the weird curved needle and thread playing hide-and-seek with her skin.

“My boss—ex-boss—broke in the door and shot her.” The needle hit the instrument tray, and Giulia stared at her stitched-up hands. “She fell on top of me. I couldn’t get her off because of my hands.”

“Okay, honey. It’s okay. It’s all over now.”

The doctor peeled off his disposable gloves. “The stitches can be removed in approximately ten days. Your primary physician’s office might be a shorter wait than returning here. If you see redness or pus on any of your injuries, return here or contact your primary immediately.” He typed into his laptop as he pushed open the door with his shoulder.

Aida helped Giulia sit up. “How’s the ribs, honey?”

“Ow. They burn a little, but it’s much better. My hands look useless.”

“Not at all. Go ahead and bend them. Not too much. See? Your fingers work fine.”

“Good thing I take the bus to work.” Giulia attempted a penitent expression. “I broke his nose. The guy they brought in with me.”

Aida cocked her head. “You don’t look like the violent type, honey.”

“Remember why I was in here last time? The attempted rape in the park? That was him, too.”

The bright fuchsia lips parted, then grinned. “Honey, I’d high-five you if your hands could take it. How’d you catch him?”

“Long story. That reminds me—I have to tell the police what happened.” Giulia looked at her blue bathrobe, splattered with dried blood. “Not like this.”

“Did your friend bring some clothes for you?”

“Oh—yes. Could I ask you to help me get dressed? I think my fine motor skills are on the fritz.”

Frank opened the door but didn’t look in. “Hey, Giulia, you done yet? Jimmy’s got our statements, and he’s ready for yours.”

Giulia mouthed
Men!
to Aida. “If you could give Nurse Smith my clothes, Frank, I’ll be out there in a few minutes.”

Frank stuck his hands through the opening, Giulia’s clothes and sneakers stacked on them.

Aida waited until the door closed. “Here we go. Underwear first.”

Perhaps it was Aida’s soothing presence, but Giulia wasn’t embarrassed about her nudity. She tried to help, but her awkward fingers only got in the way.

“No bra?”

“It’s bad enough that my boss’s hands were in my underwear drawer. I’d rather bounce a little than picture him holding my bras.” It didn’t matter, though. She didn’t matter.
When Frank hears what Urnu did to me, he’ll surpass himself. He’ll ask me how much I enjoyed it. He’ll...

“Hey, honey. Hey, Giulia.” Aida shook out Giulia’s 5K Run For AIDS Research shirt. “I worked registration for this last year. That makes us old friends, right?”

Giulia suppressed visions of certain public embarrassment. “You bet it does.” She was sure her smile didn’t succeed.
What a weak, useless female I am. I can feel my lips quivering. Well, I’m not going to cry.

“Hold up your arms, honey, and I’ll slip this right over your head.”

Giulia shook her tangled curls free from the neck opening. They acted stiff, like she’d doused them in hair spray. “What’s wrong with my hair?”

“You got some blood on it, that’s all. It’ll wash right out.” Aida tugged Giulia’s socks over her blood-flecked feet and worked her sneakers over them. “You’re not going to cry, honey. You’re stronger than that.”

Giulia made a laughter-like gurgle. “I was just trying to convince myself of that exact same thing.”

“I thought so. Here, stand up.”

Giulia wormed herself off the bed.

“Listen to me.” Aida pulled the sweats over Giulia’s hips and tied the drawstring. “You’re going out into the hall and tell that wooly-bear police captain how you stopped that pig. You’re going to say it proud, and you’re going to look him in the eyes and you will see him respect you.”

Respect. She missed that. The habit once gave her implicit respect. She deserved respect still. Could she look at Frank and still believe that? No... but she could look at Captain Hogarth. He knew she deserved it.

“All right.”

“I knew it.” Aida rolled a wheelchair away from the wall.

Giulia sat in it—which her stitched-up hands made more difficult than she’d expected. Aida wheeled her into the hallway and parked her next to Blake, also in a wheelchair. A gauze pad covered a few inches of his neck.

Captain Hogarth came out of the room facing Giulia and banged shut the door. “Ms. Falcone, I promise to look the other way if you’d like to punch Falke again.” He blew out a long breath. “When he’s not cursing you and Frank, he’s demanding to take possession of his sister’s body. Seems to think he’s his own law.”

“He’s Urnu the Snake.”

Frank propped himself against the wall. “You said that before. What’s it mean?”

“Frank, wait your turn.” Hogarth set his laptop on a supply cart beneath a sprinkler. “Ms. Falcone, can you start at the point where you entered your bedroom this evening?”

Giulia detailed Sandra’s threats and Blake’s incoherent words. Next to her, Blake started to blush, but the greenish walls and fluorescent lighting disguised it.

“When she got... into... seducing Mr. Parker, I thought I could get the knife away from her and get out to call for help. That’s when Urnu the Snake grabbed me.”

Hogarth held up one hand and typed a few more words with the other. “If it’s an alias, it’s not in our database. How is Donald Falke also Urnu—spelled U-r-n-u? How is he Urnu the Snake?”

“It’s his Combat Realm character. He’s the leader of the Raging Death Clan.”

Frank laughed. “You’re kidding. Raging Death? What is he, a teenager who never grew up?”

Blake said, “Sandra told me about it once. He started playing the game when their parents split. She thought it was just an outlet for his anger. He kept with it, though, and gathered a following. They used to meet in this old farmhouse he renovated. She never knew where he got the money for that.”

“He controls them. Maybe he controls their money, too.” Giulia started to wrap her arms around her waist. “Ow. Can’t do that.”

“Let’s get back to this evening, Ms. Falcone. You said Donald Falke grabbed you? Where was he?”

“Hiding in my closet, I guess.”

“Yes, he was.” Blake’s cell phone vibrated. “I’m supposed to turn that off in here, aren’t I?” He opened it, hit
End
without checking the screen, and shut it down. “When they tied me to Ms. Falcone’s bed, I was still high on whatever they gave me, so I didn’t understand what they said to each other. But Don stuck this weird metal thing on the bedroom door, like an extra lock or something, and Sandy knelt down and kissed Don’s snake tattoo. Then she gave him a blow job.”

Giulia inhaled sharply. “Raging Death.”

“Explain, please,” Hogarth said, typing.

“Urnu uses sex for power in his game cult. I saw them in that Net bar on Quaker Circle. The cult likes to show off for their groupies. Scott told me about it.”

“Scott?”

“I had a date Friday. He took me there.”

Frank burst out, “And if you—”

“Frank.” Hogarth’s frown caused Frank to swallow whatever he’d started to say. “Mr. Parker, what did both Falkes do after that?”