Big Sick Heart: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery (17 page)

“What am I supposed to do with the EMTs?” he said,
pointing to them, leaning against the ambulance.

“I can take care of it. Follow me,” I said,
leading Matt over to them. “Guys, I’m real sorry about flipping out like that.
I’m okay, really. Officer Anderson here is gonna do the BAC on me, then run me
over to the hospital.”

The two EMTs looked at Matt skeptically. The
senior one said, “Officer, you wanna do it that way?”

“It’s Moore, right?” he said, reading off his ID
badge hanging from his neck.

“Ronnie Moore.”

“Okay, Ronnie, give her the Denial of Care form.
I’ll take it from here.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll sign it.” The EMT handed me
the clipboard and I scrawled a signature. Matt and I watched as the two EMTs
turned and walked back to their ambulance. “Thanks, again, guys,” I called out
to them. They started the engine, shut down the lights, and pulled away.

I turned to Matt. “Thanks, Matt. I really owe
you.”

“Forget it. You’d do the same for me,” he said.
“Come on over to the squad car. We need to talk before the crew comes to clean
up the mess here.” I followed him over and got in the front seat.

“How do you want to handle this?” he said to me.

“I’m okay. I sprained my wrist, but it’s not
broken,” I said, grimacing as I moved it back and forth. And I got a lump on my
head, but it’s not a concussion.”

“What I meant was, about the BAC.”

“Listen, Matt, if you do it now, I might be over
the limit. Maybe way over. I’m willing to plead to Inattentive Driving, but if
I get a DUI, the chief’ll have my shield.” I started to break down. “My
kid—Tommy?—you never met him. He’s going through a real bad stretch now,
screwing up at school and everything. I just can’t let him read about me getting
fired, causing an accident, hurting a kid … Oh, God. Just give me a little time
to tell him before you write it up, will you?” He was looking at me, his face
impassive. “C’mon, Matt, please. It would mean everything to me.”

Matt looked around at the bystanders, fifteen or
twenty people standing at the intersection, gazing at the busted-up vehicles.
“I’ll tell you what I can do. I need to be able to show I did the BAC on you.
Hold on.” He walked over to his squad car, popped the truck, and pulled out the
BAC kit. He came back over to me. “Okay, you know the drill.”

“No, Matt. Shit, don’t make me do this now.”

“Trust me, will ya? Just blow into it.”

Finally I understood him. “Oh, God, thanks, Matt,”
I said, blowing on the tube for everyone to see. “Anything you want,” I said.
“Anything.”

He packed up the kit, escorting me to his squad
car.

“You gonna bring me to the hospital?” I said,
getting in the front seat. “I gotta check on that girl.”

“I tell you what. They’re not gonna let you see
her. I’ll check on her for you. But if I bring you over to the hospital now,
they’ll ask if I’ve done the BAC. They might want the results. It’d be better
to bring you home, let you sit there for a few hours. Then, you can say you’ve
still got a headache and I can bring you over to the hospital and we can check
on the girl. That way, you’ll be under .08 if they check you. What do you say?”

“You can run me over to the hospital?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna stay with you.”

“No, that’s okay,” I said. “I’ll be able to get to
the hospital myself. I got neighbors with cars.”

“I’m not leaving you alone. In case that head
injury is worse than you think.”

“All right,” I said. “I really appreciate it.” He
started the car and started to pull away.

“No big deal,” he said. “You’ll owe me one.” And
at that moment I understood I’d just made another really bad decision.

Chapter 7

I parked the rental car in
the lot, then shut down the engine and sat there, unable to move. The breeze
had already picked up, bringing some cold down from Canada. It was all over the
news last night: a big high-pressure ridge or front or whatever the hell it was
coming in from the northwest, giving us our first real taste of winter. The
branches at the top of the elms near the hospital entrance brushed back and
forth against the sky. People walked fast toward the hospital entrance, heads
lowered, arms tight across their chests.

The TV stations were in a competition to see which
one could devote the most time to the weather and report on it earliest in the
broadcast. Another soldier from Montana killed. Two people killed in a house
fire. Kid hurt bad in a car accident. But wait, this just in: cold snap on the
way. November in Montana—who’d have seen that coming?

I got out of the car and walked toward the
entrance. A new mother was going home. She sat in the wheelchair, huddled over
the baby, invisible beneath its layers of swaddling clothes. The mother was
adjusting the layers to make a protective cone the baby could breathe through
but remain untouched by the cold. The father was hovering over the scene,
unsure what to do.

The nurse was motioning for him to go get the car;
she would stay there to protect the mother and the new baby during this time of
transition. He looked concerned, but the nurse reassured him, waving him toward
the parking lot. With those three adults on duty, the new cargo would be
protected. But in a moment, it would be just the two adults, and the baby would
be in a car, and then they would be naked and vulnerable.

I stopped at the information desk near the
entrance. I didn’t know where Pediatrics was. I was directed to the fourth
floor. Yes, I knew where the elevators were. Arriving at the fourth floor, I
knew I was in the right place. The walls were covered with giant murals of
children romping through the fields and playing on jungle gyms. Even the dogs
in the murals were smiling, which was creepy enough. Balloons in bright blues,
reds, and yellows were attached to the walls and hung from the ceiling. I
walked toward the nurses’ station, past rooms with tiny patients in beds,
surrounded by adults. Many of the adults looked relieved and cheerful; others
looked frightened or dazed or empty.

The nurse said, “Can I help you?” She was taking
in my injuries: black eye, lump on the forehead. I don’t know if she saw the
bandage on my wrist.

“Detective Karen Seagate, Rawlings Police
Department. Can you give me a room number on Annie Pritchard?”

“She’s in 415, in the ICU.”

“Oh, God, no. ICU?”

“Yes. She had a brain trauma injury. I don’t know
if you knew that.”

“No, I didn’t … Well, I guess I knew. I’m not
sure.”

“Are you all right, Detective?” The nurse stepped
around from behind the nurses’ station and took my hand, looked at my eyes.

“Yeah, I’m all right. I’ll be all right.”

“You sure? You look kinda pale.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I was hoping it wouldn’t be that
bad.”

“She was in a T-bone crash.”

“How badly hurt … Is she gonna be okay?”

“Detective, come over here and sit down. I don’t
like your color,” the nurse said, leading me over to a small couch in the
nurses’ lounge. “Let me get you some water.”

I sat and waited. I took the water and said, “Tell
me how bad she is.”

“Well, she suffered a skull fracture and contusion
to the brain. Then she developed an intracranial hemorrhage, but we drained
that and got it under control. She’s still in a coma.”

“What’s the prognosis?”

“It’s still too early to tell. It’s only been
twelve hours.”

“The coma, what does that mean?”

“It’s fairly common in cases like this. We’re
hoping she’ll come out some time today.”

“Long term?”

“Don’t know. She could be perfectly fine,
everything normal in a month or so.”

“Or?”

“Well, there’s a range of potential problems, but
we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We’re hoping to see progress every
day.”

My shoulders slumped, my head sinking into my
hands. I began to weep quietly. The nurse said, “Detective, are you
investigating what happened to this girl?”

“No,” I said, lifting my head and looking at the
nurse, “I
am
what happened to this girl.”

The nurse said, “I’m so sorry,” and went back to
her post behind the nurses’ station.

I took a tissue out of my bag and wiped at my
eyes, stood up, and walked down the hall to room 415. I looked in the window,
through the half-closed blinds. The mother was sitting on the bed, clutching
the girl’s hand. The mother wore a neck brace. The girl’s head was shaved and
bandaged, with a tube running from the right side of the skull, out under the
bandage.

I walked in slowly. The mother appeared to hear
the door opening but didn’t turn to see who it was. Nurses and doctors were in
and out all the time. I stood there, noiselessly. The woman turned and saw me
but said nothing.

“Mrs. Pritchard, my name is Karen Seagate.” I
didn’t know what to say next. I had no idea whether Mrs. Pritchard knew who was
in the accident. “I’m a police officer with the Rawlings Police Department,” I
said, immediately realizing how that would mislead her.

Mrs. Pritchard placed her daughter’s hand down
gently on the bed and stood. “I’m pleased to meet you. Aubrey Pritchard.” She
walked over, extending her hand to me. Suddenly, her expression clouded as she
noticed the brace on my wrist, then the knot on my forehead. She said, “It’s …
it’s you.”

I said nothing. Aubrey Pritchard’s hand came up
suddenly. I saw it coming but chose not to block it. The slap to my face
knocked me off balance, but I recovered my footing before hitting the wall.
Aubrey Pritchard stared at me as I looked down at the floor. Neither of us said
anything.

After what seemed a long while, Aubrey said,
“Where do you find the nerve?”

I was silent for a moment. “I came to see Annie.
To see if there is anything I can do.” My voice was low and flat.

Aubrey Pritchard said nothing. She walked slowly
over to the bed, sat down in the chair, and then gently took Annie’s hand. I
stood motionless. “Annie is in the second grade at Riverside. She has a
brother, Mike, who is in kindergarten. She says Mike is a real pain, but she is
very protective of him. And she has an older sister, Kathleen, who’s just
starting junior high. Kathleen is pulling away from Annie now that she has
discovered boys. Or, to be more precise, boys have discovered her. And Annie
has a cat, Marmalade, who she promised she would take care of. For the most
part, she has kept her end of the bargain. And Annie has a father, Russell.
Russell and I love Annie very much.”

She was weeping.

“Mrs. Pritchard, I cannot express how sorry I am
this happened.”

“Annie was working on a project at school. She was
going to measure the growth rate of beans. One group of seeds was going to be
placed in the shade all the time. One group was going to get four hours of sun
every day. And one group was going to be placed in the sun all the time. She
was going to measure how high each group grows.”

I let the words hang in the air. “Mrs. Pritchard,
please talk to me. Please. I have done a horrible thing, Mrs. Pritchard. I know
that. I do. But I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. And I will do whatever I
can to make it better. I won’t dispute your version of the accident. I’ll give
you all the money I have. Mrs. Pritchard, please talk to me.”

Aubrey looked up at me. “How did you run that stop
sign?”

It was a few seconds before I could speak. “I
wasn’t paying attention. I … I took my eyes off the road.”

“I was told you were given a Breathalyzer test at
the scene.”

“Yes, that is true.”

“Had you been drinking?”

I swallowed. “I am so sorry, Mrs. Pritchard.” She
turned back to Annie, as if I had already left the room, as if I no longer
existed. I said, “Mrs. Pritchard, may I come to see Annie?”

Aubrey Pritchard turned to me, like she was
surprised I was still there. “No, you may not,” she said softly, turning back
to her daughter.

*  *  *

Ryan was working at his
desk when I walked in to the detectives’ bullpen, hung up my coat, and sat down
at my desk. He looked up. I could see him checking out my busted face. “How’re
you feeling?” he said.

I felt pretty beat up, with new purple bruises
popping up all over my body and everything sore, but I wasn’t even conscious of
my injuries. Before the car crash, I would have been able to answer Ryan’s
question easily. I had a bunch of problems, each of which I could name. This
was shitty and that was shitty, but I knew I could work through it all. I’d
think about my problems, analyze them, put them in categories, go to work on
them, and with time and luck I’d tick them off my list. I’d get through it.

Before, I knew I was a nuisance. The people in my
life—my son, my ex-husband, my partner—had to make allowances for me when I
screwed up, which I was doing with increasing frequency these days. But I was
still functioning. And even though I had long since become a pain in the ass to
everyone in contact with me, I was still doing valuable work. Ryan and I were
making progress on the case.

But when I put that little girl in the hospital,
everything changed. I had hurt her, maybe for life, maybe killed her. I had
become toxic. I was now a poison, seeping out from my own circle of people,
infecting strangers. Clearly, I could no longer be trusted to do my job, to
work with Ryan. Now, the calculations had changed. I could no longer say that,
yes, I had some serious problems, but in the big picture I was doing more good
than harm. No, it was clear I could not say that.

How did I feel? I felt, for the first time in my
life, like I deserved to die. And I wanted to. “I’m sorry, Ryan, what did you
say?”

“I asked you if you’re okay, you know, the
accident?” The accident had happened too late to make the paper.

“I’m fine. Just a little beat up.”

“The wrist broken?”

“No, just sprained.”

“I’ve had that before. It’s a pain because you
keep banging it against things. But it’ll get a little better every day.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that.” I didn’t know whether the
word had gotten out I had been drinking. Maybe Matt didn’t tell anyone,
particularly because of the way he faked the BAC test and drove me back to my
house. Yes, Matt was a shithead, but he wasn’t a stupid shithead. He wasn’t the
kind to jeopardize his own career by talking it up around headquarters.

The way Ryan was treating me supported this. If he
knew I’d been drinking, he wouldn’t have mentioned his own sprained wrist,
talking like this was a routine car accident. But what did it mean that he
didn’t ask whether it was a one-car or a multi-car? I thought he surely would
ask if all he knew was that I was in a car crash. He would ask me how bad I was
hurt, then whether there was anyone else in my car, then whether there was
another car. That’s what anyone would ask. So he must know. Maybe he just
didn’t know I was drunk.

Ryan said, “The chief wants to see you. As soon as
you get in.”

Well, I thought, soon I would know how much
everyone knew. I nodded. “While I’m gone, why don’t you try to find out why
Timothy Sanders went to Milwaukee?”

“Yeah, I’ve got that on my list.”

In the chief’s office, Helen Glenning, the
receptionist, waved me in, wearing an expression that told me most of what I
needed to know. There was no understanding or disappointment or even pity, just
disgust.

I stood in front of the chief’s desk. On a good
day he was likely to make the detectives stand. Today, he sure wasn’t going to
invite me to sit. He kept writing for five seconds, then ten. I didn’t care.
Finally, he looked up.

“Close the door.” I did it. “I talked with the
prosecutor this morning to see what you’re going to be charged with. I was
hoping it would be DUI, because I know you’re a drunk, and then I’d be able to
fire you. Unfortunately, the BAC wasn’t filed early enough. So it looks like
it’s going to be Inattentive Driving, which is a gift. You got lucky.”

“Funny,” I said. “I don’t feel lucky.”

“If the victim dies, of course, then the
prosecutor can re-file for Involuntary Vehicular Manslaughter, which will carry
time.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m aware of that.” He kept
looking at me. “Why did you ask to see me, Chief?”

He shook his head. “Just to let you know where you
stand.”

I knew where I stood. I knew that he had been
gunning for her ever since I had made detective. This might turn out to be his
chance. Good, I thought. Let’s get it over with. If he thought I cared whether
I got in trouble at work, disappointed him, got fired, he didn’t understand me.
I simply no longer cared. I didn’t care about being humiliated in front of Ryan
and everyone else on the force. It didn’t matter. I realized I wasn’t even
ashamed of myself. What could that mean?

It hit me. I wasn’t ashamed of myself because I
hadn’t let myself down. I didn’t do anything I should not have done. I was a
drunk. That’s what drunks do. They drink, then they hurt people. For me to be
ashamed, I would have had to be a better person than that. I would have had to
be in control of myself. I would have had to be responsible. I would have had
to know my actions affected other people. But that would have been too much to
ask of myself. I was just a drunk. I did what drunks do.

“Do you have anything to say?”

I thought for a moment. That I was sorry I
embarrassed the department by getting in a car crash after having too much to
drink? No, that wouldn’t be quite true. That I understood why he wanted to fire
me? No, that was fairly obvious. That I felt an aching pain in my soul that I had
never felt before, that I could not have imagined before? That I wanted to
unholster my service pistol, place the barrel up against my temple, and stop
it? No, I didn’t think I wanted to share that with the chief.