Heartshot (8 page)

Chapter 10

Martin Holman walked stolidly toward me. The hard heels of his finely polished boots clicked on the polished hall tiles of Posadas General Hospital. His hands were thrust in his pockets, and he stared at the floor as he walked, ignoring others, letting the few nurses dodge him. I didn’t bother to get up. He stopped a pace in front of my chair and surveyed me with tired, bagged eyes.

“You look like shit,” he said finally.

“Thanks.”

“So what the hell happened?”

“I don’t know yet. Art says Benny Fernandez ran at him. ‘Jumped him’ is how he put it.”

“You got a chance to talk with him, then?” Holman said, relieved.

“Briefly. I didn’t get the whole story. There were at least five witnesses, it looks like. Estelle and Bob Torrez are taking their statements now.”

“Benny Fernandez was killed instantly?”

“Yes.”

“And how does it look for Art Hewitt?”

“I think he’ll be all right.” I glanced at my watch. “He’s in surgery now.”

“Where was he hit?”

I jabbed my right index finger into my side under the ribs. “He was hurting bad, but it’s just about impossible to tell anything, you know. I don’t have any information whatever.”

“We’ll just have to wait,” Holman said. “I called Gallup, by the way. Chief White says the boy’s parents live in Tucson. He said he’d take care of contacts there.”

“That’s good.”

We both fell silent, and after a long moment Holman said, “Hell of a thing.”

“Yes.” A nurse walked by pushing a jingling tray cart. She looked at us and smiled helpfully.

“Hell of a note,” Holman said. I just looked at him. “So Benny Fernandez was killed outright?” he asked.

“Yes. It looked like he’d been shot once in the face.”

Holman winced. “You talked to the widow?” The blank look that settled over my face told Holman all he needed to know. “Christ, Bill, how long’s it been?”

I glanced at the wall clock. “Twenty-five minutes.”

Holman was already on his feet. “I’ll take care of it. You stay here.” I watched him hustle off, and shook my head. I must have figured the dead could wait attendance. I didn’t worry about explaining my preoccupation to Holman. What was going to be tough was explaining why I hadn’t taken the Beretta when it was offered to me.

***

After a while, the hospital didn’t even smell anymore. I didn’t notice the polish on the floor. Holman had returned, and for an hour or more we talked. Now he sat with his hands clasped between his knees, head twisted, slightly to one side, eyes staring without registration at the old issue of
Sports Illustrated
on the table beside him.

Estelle Reyes and Bob Torrez had shifted their operations from the park to the sheriff’s office, and every twenty minutes one or another of them called us and got the same negative answer. At a quarter to five, when there still wasn’t the faintest hint of dawn behind the curtains, Estelle Reyes walked into the waiting room. She looked so goddamned prim, like a grade school teacher ready to lecture the troops…except there was a little fatigue tremor twitching her lower lip.

“Officer Hewitt was apparently talking with the five teenagers,” she said without preamble. “Three of them say he was trying to buy grass. Two of them think he was really after something harder. A couple of the kids were just hangers-on. They don’t know what was going on. One of them said they all thought Hewitt was ‘funny,’ whatever that means. I think they were just hanging out, no particular, cohesive group. If any of them had actually been into drugs, been ready to sell, Hewitt would have suckered them in, that’s for sure.”

“And if all this was going on at midnight or after, where the hell were the village police?” Holman asked bitterly.

“And then Fernandez arrived,” Estelle Reyes continued, ignoring the sheriff’s question. “One of the kids was so shook when the shooting started that he crapped his pants. He ran home. Howard Bishop went to talk to him.”

“Who wouldn’t panic?” I muttered morosely. “I’m surprised it was only one.”

“And then?” Holman said.

“They all say that Benny Fernandez came across the grass like a man possessed. From the east side of the park.”

“Over by the apartments?”

“Right. Now, even in the dim light, Officer Hewitt would have been easy to recognize. The tallest of the five kids was five feet six inches. Hewitt is six-three.” Estelle looked at the paperwork on her clipboard, and took a deep breath.

Holman looked at me. “Did Fernandez ever have a chance to meet Hewitt? Did he know him?”

I shook my head, and Estelle continued, “They agree that Fernandez said something, but none of them understood him. It’s possible it was something in Spanish, who knows. He pushed Hewitt very hard. ‘Violently,’ one of the kids said. Like a football player. Hewitt apparently was caught off guard and stumbled backward and fell. He wasn’t able to catch himself, and went down hard. Two of the kids said that they saw Hewitt’s gun strapped to his ankle as he fell. Apparently, Fernandez did too. One of the five youngsters saw Fernandez pull out a ‘very large automatic.’ That’s how he described it. At that point, three of them agree that Hewitt said something like, ‘Oh, shit.’ Fernandez fired once. None of the kids are sure what happened, but it seems likely that Hewitt tried to roll out of the way. At the same time he pulled his own revolver from his ankle holster. Fernandez fired twice more. One of the youngsters says he heard the bullet hit Hewitt.” Estelle looked pained as she thumbed through her notebook. “‘It sounded awful,’ the kid said. They all agree, and this is important: that Hewitt fired once, while lying on his back, after he was wounded. We’ll get the autopsy report later, but I was just down at the morgue. The bullet hit Benny Fernandez just above his left eyebrow.”

Holman nodded slowly. “You just never know, do you.” He looked at me. “And up on the hill, Fernandez was cogent? Even calm, you said? Rational?”

“All those things,” I replied. “He even seemed relieved to be going home, relieved that it was over.”

“But apparently it wasn’t,” Holman said.

I looked at Estelle Reyes. “None of the five kids saw Fernandez before he started running across the grass toward Hewitt?”

“No, sir. They said that there were several people out all around the park. Apparently the late hour didn’t brother anyone. Certainly not the kids. They said they were getting nervous, though, that the village police might drive by. But they said Hewitt laughed and told them he’d fixed that up good. Something about cross-eyed headlights.”

“He did that, as a matter of fact.”

Holman asked, “Did Hewitt make a buy from any of the kids?”

Estelle Reyes shook her head. “Apparently not. We’ll have to ask him, to be sure. But those kids were scared enough about the whole thing that I think they would have told me. I get the impression they thought he was some kind of big-city freak. He made them nervous.”

“He enjoyed playing the undercover role to the hilt,” I said. “Maybe too much so. He had nowhere near enough experience. We should have realized that. I should have monitored what he was doing much more closely.”

Holman slapped the arm of his chair lightly. “This is no time for self-flagellation, Bill. Sure, maybe he was inexperienced. Maybe you should have confiscated Fernandez’s gun. But that’s all wonderful twenty-twenty hindsight. What we need to know is what triggered Fernandez. When he left you, he was mellowed out and homebound. What, about an hour later? About that? You had time to go out to the airport for a while. An hour later, he dashes into a park, charges into a gang of kids, and blows one of them away. We have to know exactly why.”

“There’s only one person who saw Fernandez before he ran into the park, and that’s Art Hewitt,” I said. “He was able to tell me that he saw a person he thought was Fernandez talking to someone on the sidewalk on the east side of the park. Now, Doc Sprague lives over there, in those new apartments, and he says that he heard the shots. But there was no reason for the doc to be looking out beforehand. He says he didn’t see anyone.”

Holman looked up at Estelle Reyes, and he put his fingers against his lips, deep in thought. We waited, and finally the sheriff said, “But there’s no reason for Hewitt to make something like that up. So what do you plan to do?”

Even though the question wasn’t addressed to me, I was ready to answer, but Estelle put her small notebook back in her pocket and said, “Until we know exactly what happened, we keep digging. There are a lot of people who live around that park. We’ll talk to all of them. And somebody might come to us.” She turned at the sound of footsteps coming up the polished hallway behind her. Dr. Alan Perrone’s gown was blood-spattered, but he was obviously too tired to care. With him was Eva Young, a middle-aged surgical nurse who would manage to look stylish and groomed in the middle of a volcanic eruption.

She nodded at us and headed off toward the nurses’ station.

“We’re transferring Mr. Hewitt to Albuquerque,” Dr. Perrone said. He held a manila envelope in one hand, and motioned down the hall with it. “Come on into the office for a minute.”

The three of us obediently followed, and he closed the door behind us.

“How’s he going to do?” Holman asked, and Perrone pulled out the X ray and snapped it into the wall light.

“We’ve got some real problems,” Perrone said, facing the X ray. “But to give it to you in a nutshell.” He pulled a pen from his pocket and used it as a pointer. “You can easily see the largest fragment in situ way over here, right behind the heart.”

“Christ,” Holman muttered.

“The point of entry was over here, exactly under the last rib on the right side. There was minimal damage to the ascending colon, but considerable to the right kidney. About this point, the bullet began to shatter.” He shot a quick glance at Holman, frowned and turned back to the X ray. “Considerable damage to this lobe of the liver. Then tearing of the central tendon here. The diaphragm.” His index finger traced a diagonal, upward path. “Most worrisome, of course, is the cardiac damage. This is the bullet’s center core and part of the brass jacket. It shows up very plainly. We’ve managed to achieve some stability with the patient, but arrangements have already been made to fly him to Albuquerque. They have far more advanced facilities there, and in addition”—Perrone raised an eyebrow—”they have Dennis Chatman. He’s the best cardiac surgeon I’ve met. Luck was with us because he was in Las Cruces, and he agreed to meet the air ambulance and ride over. That way, he can be with the patient en route.”

“Odds?” Holman asked.

Perrone shrugged. “It’s hard to imagine how a single pistol bullet could have been fired to inflict more damage. But the prompt emergency assistance certainly helped. We were able to stabilize the patient, and he seems to be responding well. He lost an incredible amount of blood, as you can imagine, but by good fortune, our blood bank has an adequate supply of his type.” He made a wry face. “Or at least it did.” He put the pen away and slid the X rays back into the envelope. “One of the Medivacs is in Las Cruces, by good fortune. I imagine it will be here before we have Officer Hewitt transported to the airport. Sheriff Holman, I can’t give you odds. I am optimistic. We have a few things in our favor.”

“A few.”

“That’s right.”

“Is there any chance that we’ll be able to talk to him?”

“That’s very unlikely. He’s just been through almost six hours of surgery. He won’t even be out from under the anesthetic for some time. On the flight north, he’ll…well, you don’t need to know all that, but I can appreciate your concern. I’m also aware of the investigation and the delicacy, no doubt, that is warranted by that. If one of you needs to ride in the airplane, by all means do so. I would suggest to you that they probably have room for only one of you.”

“Bill?” Holman asked, and I nodded.

“You’ll need to be out at the airport now,” Perrone said, glancing at his watch. “Although the patient hasn’t yet left the hospital, it will only be a couple of minutes. They won’t wait for you, believe me.” He nodded at us and left abruptly.

“Let’s move,” I said.

Estelle Reyes paced me out of the building and in the parking lot handed me a small tape recorder. “You might need it if he comes around for a minute or so. We want to know who was standing with Fernandez before the shots were fired.”

“I know what the hell we need, Estelle,” I snapped and climbed into 310.

“Sorry, sir,” Estelle said quietly.

I slammed the door and buzzed down the window, already sorry I’d barked at her. “Have someone come out to the airport and pick up three-ten so it doesn’t get a stone through the windshield,” I said. I tried a smile, but it didn’t work.

“You want me to make arrangements for your trip back?”

“No, I don’t know when or how that’ll be.” I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the ambulance lining up at the hospital’s emergency doorway. At the same time, we could hear the synchronized moan of the air ambulance’s engines as it circled over the mesa and turned toward Posadas County Airport. Such goddamned good timing, I thought. The plane would arrive exactly on time, and would still have its engines idling for a quick transfer. Why was it, I thought, that timing, or fate, or whatever you chose to call it, couldn’t work in our favor beforehand? Why couldn’t Art Hewitt’s frantic roll on the ground to dodge the bullet have been better timed, or Benny Fernandez’s gun hand been less lucky?

“Just don’t miss anything, Estelle. Don’t overlook a goddamned thing,” I said, and then the ambulance began to move. The detective stepped away from the car, and I pulled out onto the street, lights and siren in concert.

Chapter 11

The transfer was flawlessly executed. The ambulance pulled up alongside the airplane as I was trotting across from the patrol car. It took a moment of careful jogging and shifting of the gurney, and then patient, medical staff, and paraphernalia were aboard. The ambulance pulled away promptly. I recognized everyone except a rail-thin nurse and a man who was almost tiny in stature. There was no time for introductions, but I guessed, correctly, it turned out, that the diminutive man was Dr. Chatman. Even as the door locks were thudding into place, the boarding-side engine came back to life.

One of the aircraft officers recited instructions to us about buckle-up, and I noticed that the crew up front was performing whatever checks were needed while the aircraft rolled down the long taxiway. From where I sat, I could turn and see only the right side of Hewitt’s face and neck, down to the white sheet. Tubes and plastic packets of drip joggled and vibrated. Three people were obviously planning to spend their every moment tending and monitoring, and I shifted a little, trying to relax for the takeoff. I must have looked even less assured than I felt, because a hand patted my shoulder and one of the flight officers smiled reassuringly.

“He’ll be fine, Sheriff. We’ll really be hoofin’ it, so it’s only an hour and a half flying time to Albuquerque. And the weatherman promises smooth skies. So relax, huh? He’ll be fine.”

For a good hour, I believed him. And then things fell apart. The first sign was a slight stirring from Hewitt. He hadn’t regained consciousness, but one leg flexed slightly and his head turned to the left. The emergency crew went to work, and I had sense enough to stay out of the way. I had to watch, though. I tried to will their efforts to success. At one point, the EMT officer who accompanied the aircraft slid forward past me.

To the pilot, he said clearly and loudly, “Straight in, Tom. We got a cardiac arrest.”

We were in a gradual descent, and by the high pitch of the engines, it was apparent that the flight crew was taking every advantage of power and gravity, booting that airplane through the sky for all it was worth. In back, I saw those awful electric paddles that come out as a last resort in all the movies and jolt the patient back to life. Chatman vetoed their use this time, though, with a quick shake of the head. At the same time that I saw the doctor plunge an enormous hypodermic into Art Hewitt’s chest, I heard the pilot, just a couple of feet behind my head, say, “Albuquerque approach, Air Ambulance Niner-one-niner is forty south, request change to priority straight on three.”

“Double Alpha niner-one-niner, plan straight in on three. Are you declaring a medical emergency?” The voice of the controller was as calm as ice.

“Niner-one-niner, affirmative.”

“And niner-one-niner, where do you want the ambulance? He’s parked by the Aero Club now.”

“Albuquerque, have him right at the intersection with eight. Can you do that? It’ll save us taxi time.”

“Roger, niner-one-niner. We will hold traffic commencing in five minutes until you’re down.”

“Roger, Albuquerque. Thanks for the expedite.”

“Niner-one-niner, you’re cleared straight in. Report twenty south and then proceed at your discretion. Tower has you.”

I have no idea how fast that Piper Navajo was traveling on the final approach, but any lineup with the runway was done at a dead run. Working at his own dead run was the doctor in back. He had given up the needles and my stomach tightened and churned as I saw him shifting position, face intent and scalpel in hand. With a single, decisive slash, the doctor cut into Art Hewitt’s rib cage. Blood welled up along the eight-inch incision that started just below the left nipple and curved down his side in line with the ribs. The EMT was at Hewitt’s head, working the masks and tubes there, and faintly, over the steady bellow of the plane’s engines, I could hear the click and hiss of the medical machinery. The nurse was hovering beside the physician, and the doctor, sweat now running down his cheeks, had his hand inside Art Hewitt’s chest, rhythmically massaging the young man’s crippled heart. I think, at that point, that the only person breathing in the airplane was Art Hewitt, and that was only by dint of mechanical assistance.

Suddenly the doctor’s face cracked in a grin. “All right!” he cried jubilantly, sounding like a high school football coach after a touchdown. As if in answer, the engines dropped in RPM. I closed my eyes and rested the back of my head against the bulkhead. Alan Perrone had said something about the Albuquerque surgeon’s being the best he’d seen. I wondered how often Dennis Chatman had done cardiac surgery in a plunging aircraft.

The flight officer squirmed forward and then back. “Touchdown in about a minute,” he told the doctor, and the crew made only brief preparations. Everything was already as tied down as it could be. The EMT at Hewitt’s head stayed close and put both hands on the patient’s shoulders. The doctor ignored them all. His patient’s heart was beating. It wouldn’t have mattered to Chatman if they had been in a balloon floating over the Eiffel Tower. He was working to field-dress the incision and was lost in his own world. I heard the engine beat decrease, and seconds later, the transition from air to pavement came as only the slightest jar.

I found out later that runway 3, from the initial touchdown point to the intersection with runway 8, where the ambulance sat waiting, was almost eight thousand feet long. Our pilot used it all. Slow taxi was not in his book. He let the Navajo roll under considerable power. I opened my eyes and saw the big intersection of two other runways flash past. We must have been humping along at close to seventy miles an hour. Finally the nose dipped and we braked, not violently but insistently. Before the aircraft was stopped, the flight officer had the door unlatched. I looked out as we rolled up toward the ambulance and saw that the aircraft engine on that side was already windmilling to a stop.

“Let’s move it,” the doctor snapped, and in seconds the transfer was made. If I had taken time to blink I would have been left behind. I did see the Gallup police car, and the two men in it. I assumed one of them was Chief White. I could have ridden down with them, but I stuck with the ambulance. The explanations could come later.

It wasn’t many minutes to the downtown hospital, but the nurse found thirty seconds to offer me a handful of facial tissues. I mopped the sweat that ran freely on my face.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“The hell with me. How’s he going to be?”

The nurse nodded and smiled slightly.

“I thought we’d lost him back there for a minute,” I said.

She pursed her lips and looked as if she was going to scold me. “Dr. Chatman does not allow that to happen on his airplane,” she said.

“Damn right,” Chatman said without hesitation.

I suppose the logistics of what they had done was simple for them, but all I could do was sit there and wad Kleenex. Punk, I thought, you’re on a roll. Keep those numbers clicking.

Once inside the hospital, all I could do, along with Chief White and Detective Stan Buchanan of Gallup, was sit, talk, and wait.