Fatal Trauma Read online

  Kelly cinched her robe more tightly closed, then opened the door. She gestured him inside, still unsure of what to say, then locked the door behind him.

  They stood awkwardly for a moment, then each reached out for the other, and the embrace that followed seemed to last forever. Kelly found there was a lump in her throat that made speaking difficult. “I’m . . . I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said.

  “I know it’s late, but I’m having a hard time unwinding, and I wondered if you were, too.”

  “I was trying, but without much success,” Kelly admitted.

  “I knew I couldn’t sleep until I talked this out with someone.”

  Kelly’s heart thudded in her chest. Would the things Mark wanted to say be the same ones that had kept her awake tonight? She motioned him to the sofa and eased down beside him. “Then why don’t you tell me?” Kelly looked into his eyes and held her breath.

  3

  Mark sat on the side of his bed, groggy with lackof sleep after thrashing about for most of the night, unable to rest and emotionally wrung out. He’d left Kelly’s house about a quarter to two. Right now she’d be getting ready for church, but she’d promised to call him after the services. Until then, he was on his own.

  After the shooting, Eric had offered to take Mark’s Sunday evening shift in the ER, and Mark readily accepted the offer. At that point, he felt like he never wanted to see the inside of a hospital again. Now, less than twelve hours later, he wondered what he’d do to occupy himself if he didn’t go to work tonight. There was a time when his life revolved around his shifts in the ER: sleep, eat, go to work, come home, eat, sleep, repeat the cycle. Since he’d started dating Kelly, the pattern had expanded to include time with her, plus an occasional dinner with Anna for variety. One of those relationships might eventually demand more of his time. He knew which one, but he didn’t want to think about that right now.

  Last night had changed a lot of things. Mark’s thoughts seemed to be stuck on the shooting—and his emotions while it was going down. He hung his head, closed his eyes, and wondered why he hadn’t confessed to Kelly. Maybe today . . .

  The buzzing of his cell phone startled him. He picked it up and frowned when the caller ID showed “anonymous caller.” Could it be a reporter? None had managed to find him last night, but he had no doubt they’d remedy that today. Surely a telephone solicitor wouldn’t be calling at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning.

  Oh, well. He had nothing better to do. Might as well answer it. “Dr. Baker.”

  “Doctor, this is Detective Jackson.”

  Mark wished he could clear the cobwebs from his brain. Like slogging through mud, the synapses slowly clicked. Jackson was the lead detective investigating the shooting. Mark had met him and his partner, Detective Ames, last night—or, more accurately, early this morning. His mental picture of Jackson was of a short, stocky African-American in a wrinkled suit, the almost laser-like intensity behind his dark eyes a warning not to mistake a disheveled appearance for carelessness. Mark had decided to walk carefully around Jackson.

  “Doctor, are you there?”

  Mark sat up and swiveled around to perch on the bedside. “Uh, yeah. What can I do for you?”

  “I thought you might want to know that we’ve ID’d the two victims of last night’s shooting.”

  ID’d the victims? He already knew who the chief victim was: Sergeant Purvis. Then Mark realized the detective was talking about the gunman and the man—didn’t he call him his brother?—the man who’d been essentially dead on arrival in the ER. “Okay.”

  “They were brothers,” Detective Jackson said. “The older was Hector Garcia. The gunman was his younger brother, Ignacio, aka ‘Nacho.’”

  The names meant nothing to Mark. “Who?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure the names aren’t familiar,” Jackson said, “but this may help you. They were members of the Zeta drug cartel.”

  That information opened Mark’s eyes like a cup of strong coffee. Generally, his newspaper reading was confined to the sports section, but almost everyone in Texas knew that the Zetas were the most feared drug cartel in Mexico. Even the Mexican police and military walked carefully around the Zetas. He’d heard they were operating in the state, but he figured it would be further south, near the border. On the contrary, these men had been in Drayton, right in the heart of north Texas.

  “I wanted to let you know,” Jackson went on. “Since Ed Purvis shot Nacho, we’re going to give some protection to the Purvis family for a while. We can’t do that for everyone involved in the incident, but I thought I should at least warn you. The Zetas have a strong sense of revenge, and you might want to be extra careful yourself.”

  “What about Kelly?”

  “Who? Oh, the nurse who first interacted with Nacho.” There was a rustle of paper. “She’s next on my list to contact.”

  “I’ll do it,” Mark said. “We’re supposed to talk later today.” He paused. “I don’t guess the people in the OR attending to Sergeant Purvis are at risk, though.”

  “We don’t think so, but you can never tell what kind of twisted logic these people have about getting even,” Jackson said. “Anyway, I’ve got to get going. I’ll call if we need anything more from you.”

  “Detective, one thing before you go. I know you generally keep information like this confidential, but would you give me Sergeant Purvis’s address? I want to go by later today and personally express my condolences to the family.”

  “Did you talk with them last night?”

  “Only briefly, and frankly after Mrs. Purvis heard about her husband’s death, I don’t think she took in anything I or the other surgeon had to say.”

  It took a good bit of cajoling, but eventually Jackson gave Mark the information he needed. “But be sensitive,” the detective cautioned.

  “I will be.” Mark remembered how it was when his brother died. There were a slew of people in and out of the house. Most were well-meaning and helpful, but some just wanted to focus on assigning blame. To Mark and his family, it didn’t matter that the other driver was drunk, was driving with an invalid license. Joe was still dead, and his family needed sympathy and support. Mark figured the Purvis family was in the same situation.

  After ending the call, Mark shuffled into the kitchen and put on a pot of extra-strong coffee. He had a hunch he’d need it—it promised to be a long day.

  ***

  “Shouldn’t you be home?” Tracy Orton asked.

  “Why? To worry about what’s already happened?” Kelly said. “No, it’s Sunday, and I wanted to be in church this morning. Actually, I needed to be here.”

  The two women stood in a relatively quiet corner of the Drayton Community Church, out of the traffic pattern of people exiting after the Sunday morning service. Tracy’s dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Her makeup was understated. She wore very little jewelry. Her dress was a simple white sheath. But, as always, what most people noticed first was the hint of mischief that gleamed in the eyes of Kelly’s best friend.

  “Well, how about some lunch?” Tracy asked. “We can lust over the menu items we can’t have because they’re fattening, and you can tell me about last night.”

  Despite her somber mood, Kelly smiled. “I’m not sure about the lusting, but . . . yes, I think I’d like to talk to somebody about what happened.” She paused, considering her next words carefully. “And there’s something else I’d like to run by you.”

  “Want to ride with me?”

  “No, I’d better go in my car. I’ll meet you there,” Kelly said.

  They turned to go, but stopped when a voice behind them said, “Kelly. Surprised to see you here today, but I’m glad you’ve come. I’ve been praying for you and Mark.”

  Kelly turned slowly to face the pastor. “I’m glad I came. The sermon was just what I needed to hear this morning. And thank you for your prayers.”

  “Is Mark okay?” the pastor asked.

  “We talked late last night. He w
as pretty shaken, but I think he’ll be okay.” No need to go into details with the pastor beyond what she’d shared with him last night.

  “Well, keep me posted on developments.” He smiled and moved away.

  Kelly nodded. I will . . . with some of them. But not all of them. Not right now.

  ***

  Kelly was already seated in a booth at the back of their favorite little cafe when Tracy walked in. “I ordered iced tea for both of us.”

  “Great.” Tracy sat down opposite Kelly and dropped her purse on the seat beside her.

  They made small talk until after the waitress took their order. Then Tracy said, “So, the account in the paper was pretty sketchy, and the TV reports didn’t tell me much more. I want to hear all about what happened.”

  Kelly was surprised that it took so little time to relate last evening’s sequence of events. “Mark got the gunman to back up toward the door of the trauma room,” she said in conclusion. “Sergeant Purvis burst through, knocking the man off balance, ordering him to drop the gun. Instead he fired, and we ducked. When we looked up, the gunman was dead, and Mark was calling for a gurney to take Purvis to the OR, where he died.”

  “Wow!” Tracy reached across and covered her friend’s hand with her own. “What was going through your mind when all this was happening?”

  “I tried to be calm, tell myself that if he pulled the trigger I’d end up in a better place. Of course, I'm not sure the same could be said for Mark, and I didn’t have any idea where the aide stood.”

  “So you prayed for them?”

  Kelly bit her lip. “Actually, no. Instead, I found myself thinking, ‘Mark can’t die not knowing.’”

  “Not knowing what?”

  “Not knowing that I’m falling in love with him.”

  ***

  Mark hadn’t been to visit a family in mourning since a college friend died years ago. At that time, he and three of his fraternity brothers had driven almost an hour each way to pay their respects. He didn’t remember much about the experience, except that he was glad he had someone with him. The sickly-sweet scent of flowers, the people conversing in hushed tones, all made him wish he could hurry and get out of the house.

  A year later, his own brother had been killed in an auto accident, his life snuffed out by a drunk driver. Mark had virtually sleepwalked through that experience, letting his parents deal with the people who came by. A few of Joe’s friends wanted to talk, but Mark tried to avoid them. He didn’t want to talk about what had happened to his brother. He wanted it all to be a bad dream, and if that wasn’t possible, he just wanted to get through the experience.

  Since that time, the closest Mark had come to death was in the emergency room. Visiting the bereaved and attending funerals weren’t on his list. Nevertheless, for reasons he couldn’t explain, Mark felt the need to express his sympathy to Sergeant Purvis’s family in person. He figured that most people there would be dressed informally, but after he’d donned khakis and an open neck knit shirt, Mark decided that felt wrong. He wasn’t the average person coming to say, “Sorry for your loss.” No, Mark was there to say, “I’m responsible for your husband getting shot.” Somehow, it seemed that called for him to wear something different.

  He pulled his dark suit from the closet. He found a clean white shirt in his dresser drawer. His stock of ties was laughably small, but he finally found a muted maroon-and-gold striped one that should be solemn enough. Mark looked in the mirror and decided that he was as dressed for the occasion as possible. If he ended up going to the funeral—and that was a very big “if”—he’d wear the same thing. He doubted that the Purvis family was going to notice much about his attire, either today or later. No, they had other things on their mind.

  As Mark turned the key in the ignition of his white Toyota Camry, he wondered if he really should make this visit. Would Purvis’s widow even talk with him? Would the family be in church this morning? No, it was more likely that if they weren’t home they’d be at the funeral home, making final arrangements.

  Mark decided that if he didn’t do it now, he’d worry about it until the visit was behind him. He punched the address he’d wheedled from Detective Jackson into his car’s GPS and pulled away from the curb. Suddenly, his collar was too tight. His throat was dry. He adjusted the car’s climate control, but still he felt rivulets of perspiration running down his back.

  Mark wished he could believe that praying would help. No, it had been too long since he’d even tried. Instead, he called on a meditation exercise he’d learned from a med school classmate. In a few moments, he decided that it—like so many other things in his life—wasn’t working.

  ***

  As soon as her declaration that she was falling in love with Mark was out of Kelly’s mouth, the waitress served their lunches. Tracy was almost beside herself by the time the dishes were on the table and the waitress gone. She ignored her food, leaning forward toward Kelly and dropping her voice. “You’re in love with him? Are you sure?”

  Kelly picked up a half of her tuna sandwich, then returned it to the plate. “Pretty sure.”

  “And you suddenly decided this last night while a man was holding you and Mark at gunpoint?”

  “I know,” Kelly said. “It sounds crazy. Mark and I have been dating for several months. I knew I was growing fond of him, but finally, last night, when our lives were in danger, I discovered . . .” She grimaced. “This is hard to say out loud, to hear myself admit it.”

  Tracy met her gaze but remained silent.

  “I couldn’t imagine life without him.”

  “Does he—?”

  “No. I haven’t said anything to him yet. Last night, he came by my house sometime after one. He was having a hard time coming down from the experience, and frankly, so was I. We talked for almost an hour about what we’d gone through, just letting our feelings out. Mainly we kept on rehashing the situation, saying the same things again and again until we finally ran down like a train engine out of steam. A couple of times he seemed as though he wanted to say something more, but each time it was like he hit an emotional wall and clammed up. And I couldn’t bring myself to tell him what I was feeling, either.”

  “I see.” Tracy shoved her salad aside. “Well, do you want some advice?”

  Kelly shook her head. “Not really. I just had to share this with someone I could trust to keep my secret.”

  “Well, I’ll give you my advice, whether you want it or not.” Tracy paused to drink deeply from her iced tea. “Tell Mark how you feel.”

  Kelly felt her stomach twisting. She didn’t want to hear this. “But what if he doesn’t feel the same way?”

  Tracy shrugged. “Only one way to find out. You know what your feelings are. Dollars to donuts, Mark hasn’t examined his own. The only way to help him do this is to tell him what you discovered last night.”

  “But—”

  “I know. He may not feel the same way. But you need to let him know where you stand, so he can figure out how he feels. You’ve got to make this a two-way street.”

  Kelly looked down at the almost-untouched sandwich on her plate. She knew Tracy was right. But another factor that no one had mentioned—the elephant in the room, so to speak—was Mark’s dating Dr. Anna King. How serious was that? How foolish would Kelly feel if she told Mark how she felt, only to have him say that he had feelings for Anna.

  Maybe Kelly did need to make this a two-way street, but what if she discovered that she’d missed a directional sign and was on her way to a head-on collision?

  4

  Cars, pickups, and SUVs lined both sides of the street in front of the Purvis house, a number of them Drayton Police Department vehicles. Mark saw uniformed members of the police department, a strip of black tape across their badges, interspersed with the others moving in and out of the front door of the little house.

  The door bore a navy and maroon wreath, and was opened by a middle-aged woman with casually styled blonde hair. She gestured with an
arm loaded with bracelets, their jangling a discordant accompaniment to her husky voice. “Hi, I’m Shirley McCoy, Clara’s neighbor. She’s in the living room.”

  Mark moved through the crowd and found the widow seated on a sofa next to a younger version of Ed Purvis. Mrs. Purvis wore a simple black dress, with no jewelry except a plain gold wedding ring. The young man beside her appeared to be in his late teens. When Mark looked at him closely, it was easy to see the resemblance to Ed Purvis. He wore faded jeans and a dark blue tee shirt imprinted with the insignia of the Grateful Dead. Although this was probably young Purvis’s idea of somber clothing, the graphics made Mark wince.

  Mark hung back until the clot of people around the widow moved away, then eased forward, extended his hand, and said, “Mrs. Purvis, I’m Dr. Mark Baker. We met briefly in the OR waiting room after your husband . . . when he was shot. I want you to know that I owe my life to him, and I’m so sorry that Dr. King and I weren’t able to save him.”

  Mrs. Purvis dabbed at her eyes with a sodden facial tissue. “Thank you.” She cast her eyes down, obviously ready to end the conversation.

  Mark turned to the son, but before he could speak, the young man glared at him, then leaned in and put his hand on his mother’s shoulder, murmuring something Mark couldn’t decipher. Apparently there was nothing to be gained by prolonging the conversation. Besides, a new group of people was forming up behind Mark to pay their respects.

  At the door, Mark squeezed by a police officer, an older man who, in addition to a taped badge, wore a double row of medals on his dark shirt and four neatly spaced stars on his collar. “Chief Green,” Mark mumbled as he passed the man and edged on out the door. He’d met the chief once before, when a critically wounded police officer had been brought into the ER. Today the chief showed no sign that he remembered meeting Mark. Understandable. Chief Green met so many people, why should he recall one ER doctor?