Dead on Arrival (20 page)

Buzz's voice came through the open window with, “Did you see that oil truck pull out in front of me?”

Dano's disgusted voice yelled, “It's parked, you jerk!”

“Oh,” Buzz mumbled.

I had to smile to myself, knowing we were alright. I got out to see Dano already looking at the front of the ambulance to assess the damage.

He turned to me, and I gave him a weak smile hoping that would help, yet not knowing what the heck it would help. “Just a minor scratch. Get in,” Dano muttered. We looked around.

No Buzz Lightyear.

Dano cursed. “Where the f—”

I pointed to the window in the house we'd “stopped” in front of. Through the curtainless window, we could see three disreputable looking guys—and sparkling, wrinkle-free Buzz Lightyear in the house of crack.

“Oh, Jesus,” Dano muttered, “they'll surely kill him once he opens his mouth.” Then he turned to walk toward the house. “Stay in the back,” he ordered, and I sure didn't want to get on his bad side right now.

Soon Buzz, looking very sheepish, came out with Dano right behind, looking as if he wanted to smack Buzz in the back of the head like a father and son.

Once they were safely inside, Dano said, “Why the hell would you have gone into a crack house?”

“To use the phone.” I thought Buzz sounded as if what he'd just said made perfect sense.

I could see Dano shake his head and decided to stay out of it. “We have a radio in here,” was all he said.

Buzz hesitated.

“What?” Dano said. “Get going!”

“I can't just pull out. I need to back up.”

“Then back the hell up,” Dano said very gruffly.

“The rule is that you, the passenger, are supposed to get out and guide me.”

Oh boy. I had to give Buzz credit for having guts to stand up to ER Dano, who wasn't in a very good mood, but Buzz was correct. The other person was supposed to get out to guide the driver.

But Dano turned to him and in a very threatening voice said, “Back this f'n thing up and let's get back so we can go home
today
. That's what you have side view mirrors for. You need to learn if you're gonna continue in this job.”

Buzz put the ambulance in reverse.

I looked out the back window to see if I could help. Nothing. Coast clear. Thank the good Lord.

Smash
!

There was a moment of silence from the cab of the ambulance. I stood to look out the window, flabbergasted that Buzz managed to find a cement pole, ones that were used to tie horses up to in the olden days and was now melded with the back of the ambulance. It had been much lower than my original sight of vision—and obviously Buzz's too.

I couldn't even imagine what would happen next.

Once the wrecker got the ambulance free, and once we were picked up by ambulance #277 and taken back to TLC, I sat in the lounge waiting for Dano—but I also had second thoughts about that one. Maybe I should get the hell out of there before he came out, since I was sure he wasn't going to be his jolly self.

“Don't even get close to me,” I heard Dano say.

But, and it didn't surprise me, I also heard Buzz's voice, “You didn't have to do that for me. I'm touched.”

Yikes!

I hurried out into the hallway before Dano really “touched” Buzz.

Dano looked at me. “I'll call you.” And then he was out the door.

I looked at Buzz.

He never took his eyes off of Dano's back. “He covered for me. He said it was his fault, so I wouldn't get in trouble.” Buzz turned to me. “I've had a few close calls before.”

I wanted to say, “Gee, what a surprise,” but knew better. Besides, the kid needed to vent. “So what happens to him?”

Buzz turned to me. “He's so senior around here, they only gave him a day off…without pay.”

Oh…my…god.

Buzz was so upset that he couldn't drive home. Since Dano had peeled out of the parking lot at high speed, and neither Jagger nor Lilla were in sight, I volunteered to give Buzz a lift. The poor guy needed a friend, and I was like a flame to a moth for poor souls. My darn nurturing nurse's nature kicked in, and I found myself sitting in the driveway of an adorable little yellow with white trimmed Victorian house.

“You wanna come in?” Buzz asked.

I did, but only out of curiosity—like a rubbernecker. What kind of house would Buzz Lightyear live in? Thinking it rude though, I said, “No, hon. I'm tired. Better get home.”

Buzz turned to me. I'd seen that look before in the eyes of my nephews when I'd disappointed them—mostly by buying the wrong toys for Christmas presents. Hey, I was childless!

Before I knew it, I was standing in the foyer of the house from
Leave It to Beaver
, only much smaller, in color, a bit brighter, but nonetheless odd.

Buzz offered me a glass of tea, which I politely accepted. I wondered if I could drink with my mouth agape. Looking around this place caused just that. Then I told myself to stop these crazy thoughts and cut this guy some slack. It was then that a woman came in the backdoor.

“Hello my honey!” she called in a bright voice.

“Hi, mommy. I'm home with a friend.”

If I'd been drinking any tea, I'd have spewed it out on the braided rug beneath my feet. A friend! “Hey, don't want to make Lilla jealous,” I teased.

Buzz looked rather serious. “She is a
friend
too.”

Whoa boy. Must have been trouble in Eden. I smiled and followed him into the kitchen. Now I really wasn't one to judge since Stella Sokol's kitchen was a retro throwback, but this place, all done in pink, and I mean all done in pink, was circa 1960. And all the pink was plastic. The blender. The phone with a cord and the toaster. Pink. Pink. Pink.

I vowed I would never wear pink or drink Pepto-Bismol again.

“Here you go,” Buzz said.

I looked to see him handing me a glass of iced tea. A pink glass and the iced tea looked pink too. I only hoped Red-40 food dye didn't cause me to become hyper. “Thanks. I really can't stay long.”

“Did you show your friend your room?” Buzz's mother asked.

What? Actually, she hadn't said it in any sexual way. Nope. It was more like we'd come home for recess and my buddy, Buzz, would show me his prize trophies.

Well, I wasn't far off
, I thought when Buzz stepped aside to show me his room.

It was small with a twin bed with a brown, plaid bedspread, but what struck me most were the walls. They were covered in posters of ambulances. On one bookshelf was a stack of EMT magazines, well-read I might add, and several little ambulances on all the shelves.

I looked to the window and noticed the tiny red crosses on the curtains.

“What do you think, Miss Pauline?”

“Wow,” was all I could manage, then quickly came to my senses and looked at my watch. “Oh, Geez. I have to run. This place is great! You're great!”

Before he could say a word, I was out of there, and I think I forgot to say goodbye to his mom, and I still had the glass of tea in my hand.

I spent the evening with Goldie and Miles, who kept insisting that I'd made up all the stories of the day. I told them I really wanted Buzz to succeed as an EMT but had my doubts, and my imagination wasn't that good that I could make all that up.

Buzz was a veritable magnet for accidents just as ER Dano was a magnet for whacko patients we'd all concluded. Then again, only he could handle some of them.

After much consideration, I decided not to call Dano and to give him his space. He didn't phone me either, so I went to sleep with a rather empty feeling inside.

But when I woke and dressed for a new day, I decided Dano could probably use the rest anyway, and I'm sure a day without pay wouldn't affect him, as it would have affected Buzz if he lost his job.

Actaully I had more respect for Dano now—and a bit more feelings too. I could feel myself blush as I walked into the lounge at TLC.

Jagger was sitting on the couch with Jennifer. My mind tried to head toward jealousy, but then I thought of Dano, and that Jagger and I were co-workers, and there was damn Airbrush Lady to think about. Guess I'd purposely put her out of my mind.

But not right now as my name was called over the intercom. I had a helicopter run to take. Almost glad that it'd get me out of here since there was no Dano today, I waved to Jagger and walked out the door.

At the helipad, I started to put on my helmet and noticed someone already in the back strapped in. Mario, taking a catnap yet again.

Sky was at the controls and turned to wave at me. Over the microphone he told me about the case, and I stepped into the back and sat down, grabbing my harness from the wall.

We picked up the patient at Saint Greg's and safely dropped him off at Yale New Haven Hospital.

Since Mario never took his helmet off, I guessed he'd been fast asleep next to me, and a little nap wasn't such a bad idea.

I gave a thumbs up when I caught Mario looking at me. But wait a minute. Mario didn't have such long legs. He was built, but more muscular. Hm. I leaned near. “Hey,” I said into my microphone.

“Hello, Miss Pauline.”

Buzz Lightyear.

Oh, geez. I only hoped this wasn't going to be a repeat of yesterday. I mean, bumping a cement pole with an ambulance was one thing, but would darling Buzz bring bad luck to a flying tin can that had rotary blades only held on by one “Jesus nut?”

Thank goodness we'd gotten the patient safely to his destination. I had no idea that Buzz did helicopter runs, but figured what did I know? I hadn't been at TLC all that long.

After a few prayers that we'd stay airborne, I leaned back in my seat and shut my eyes. An uneventful trip, even with Buzz Lightyear aboard, had me start to relax.

In my groggy state, I felt a thud. My eyelids flew open, and my heart now thudded. “What's going on?” I yelled.

But Sky didn't answer. He didn't say a thing as to why we had just landed on the beach of what looked like Long Island Sound!

For a few seconds, I sat there and told myself I must be dreaming. I blinked several times, and the scenery didn't change.

The helicopter, in fact, sat on a beach. I knew it was Long Island Sound now, but a rather secluded section. No cottages nearby. No boardwalk like at Hammonasset State Beach. Not sure where we were or why, I unhooked myself and looked to see the door already opened.

I stepped out into the sand and called, “Sky? Buzz? Sky? Did we break down or something?”

Over my helmet microphone I heard, “You had to ruin everything. She was going to make me rich. She owed me.”

What the hell?

Despite the static, I figured out the voice belonged to Buzz. Rich? She?

“And how the hell…what the hell did you do to Mario?” Sky asked.

I froze.

“Just a matter of a little left over medication from a psych teen yesterday. He'll sleep it off in the locker room.” Buzz laughed…eerily.

Oh…my…god!

I hurried back toward the helicopter to call 911 on the radio. When I grabbed the microphone, the entire wiring system came with it.

Someone had pulled it out.

Buzz.

I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket, but it said no service. I frantically pushed buttons but to no avail. Shoot!

“Sky?” I yelled then started to take off my helmet so I could go find someone to help.

Before I lifted it all the way off, I recognized Sky's voice again. “I loved her, you loser. She'd never do shit for you. She should have given you up for adoption at birth. You loser—”

I heard shuffling and no more voices. Before I could turn and run, I noticed Sky and Buzz near a sand dune. Buzz had something that sparkled in his hand, and I ran toward them and screamed, “No!”

And while they scuffled, he plunged it into Sky's back!

“Stop that!” I picked up a piece of driftwood and ran forward swinging it like a star baseball player. “Leave him alone! What is wrong with you, Buzz?”

When he turned, I knew.

It was clearly in his eyes. Hatred. Mental illness. A mind that had snapped.

The clumsy, lovable Buzz Lightyear had turned into a monster. The crispy, clean-cut guy who had looked as if he'd stepped out of a brand-new toy box had vanished, and now a villain stood holding a bloody knife—and Sky lay on the ground.

From here I couldn't tell if he was breathing, but the wound looked like it'd hit him in the shoulder, much higher than any vital organs. Hopefully he was just playing dead or had passed out from shock and pain.

When I turned to run for help, Buzz was on me in seconds. He'd tackled me to the ground and held the knife at my throat.

I had this thing about anyone touching my throat.

I hated it.

Just as much as I hated
knives
.

“Buzz, hon, let me get up and help Sky. I'm sure it was just an accident. Like the ambulance yesterday. No one will blame you.” That is if I lived to tell them.

He looked at me and laughed. “You are one smart nurse, Sokol, but dumb as shit for a broad.”

I lifted my knee with as much force as I could, landing it in his groin, but he merely cursed and pulled the knife across my neck.

“Oh!” The pain wasn't as bad as the fear. My first instinct was to reach up and touch the cut, which was merely a flesh wound. Most likely to scare me.

Buzz Lightyear was no one to take lightly.

And, yeah, I was scared out of my mind but knew I had to keep control of myself in order to live and save Sky.

“You killed Payne,” I said, learning from past cases that the murderer always liked to brag before he…finished off his victim.

Buzz laughed. “The asshole deserved it. He was never the father he should have been.”

Father.
Father
? “Payne was your father?”

“And Pansy, the sicko, my mother. She'll rot in hell with him when I get done with her.”

He was so nervous at the hospital because he must have come there to finish her off. That's why he stayed behind. When Lilla and I had made a noise, it scared him off and saved Pansy's life—for then.

“But the woman at your house—” I said, trying to distract him and get as much information out of him that I could. I only prayed that I'd be alive to tell someone soon.

“She's my housekeeper. I pay her extra to play the roll of mommy. She gets a kick out of it—if you know what I mean.” He grinned. An evil grin.

I swallowed hard despite my neck and thought that human behavior would never cease to amaze me.

Evil was pure evil.

“But Pansy and Payne were brother and sister.” As if that'd make it impossible to have a child. Well, in my Catholic conscience it did.

He looked at me. “Don't be stupid, Sokol. Incest between those two crazies was a gimmee. I mean they were like shadows of each other. No wonder they produced a weirdo like me!” He laughed.

But I felt his pain. What a life it must have been for him growing up. The theory of siblings producing mentally challenged offspring was evident before my eyes no matter what the studies said.

“But why kill them?”

“I didn't kill mommy…yet.” He pushed the knife into my neck a bit more.

“Did you make threatening phone calls to me?”

He laughed. “I used you as a guinea pig since you were new, but then I lost interest when the opportunity arose for me to complete my plan.”

When he leaned closer, I noticed the radio on his shoulder and started to scream. It might cost me another scratch but maybe save Sky and me in the end. I flailed my arms about and hit the button as I did.

Saint T was with me when Buzz kept shouting louder and louder so that he didn't notice the microphone was on. I heard the static and started to shout our location, that Buzz was the killer, and to send help, but I said it all in a way as if repeating his words so he wouldn't be suspicious and kill me right then.

The more I fought him, the more anger grew in him, and suddenly I realized—it wasn't aimed at me.

Buzz began to go on about his childhood, and how could I do that to him and why didn't I abort him. And if he couldn't have love he'd have money. All of it.

He'd envisioned me now as Pansy, his mother, and began to confess how he set up all the fraud at TLC to make a fortune—but daddy got greedy and was going to cut into Buzz's profits, so he had to be taken care of.

Buzz was not immune to murder
, I reminded myself.

I kept repeating our location, what was happening, and that Sky was down. Buzz, now in his own world, didn't pay me any attention.

Hope Valley was only a half-hour drive from the shoreline, so police from here could drive to the beach in minutes, and hopefully Jagger and Lieutenant Shatley could fly down soon after. I knew Jagger would have everything under control when he realized how late we were in getting back and when dispatch heard my frantic, albeit confusing, radio calls.

I decided to use my nurturing nurse's nature on Buzz, although I would have liked to have kicked him where it hurt several times. I knew he had me in the weight and strength department, so I had to go with my brains, since being injured, I wasn't sure I had the strength to use my self-defense techniques. Especially since he had me pinned down and the knife still near my throat.

Every few minutes I'd look at Sky who was starting to stir. Once he looked at me in a very painful, groggy stare. I winked at him and motioned for him to stay put.

Hopefully he wouldn't try to be a macho pilot.

I'm sure he wanted to get up and kick the shit out of Buzz, since Sky apparently did love Pansy and to help me.

Oh what a tangled web we weave….

I leaned back in the helicopter, and Jagger put his arm around me. This time a wounded Sky lay on the stretcher, and crazy, pathetic, handcuffed Buzz had been taken back to Hope Valley in the police cruiser. The helicopter was flown by one of the part-time pilots.