Making Faces (37 page)

“I'm sorry sir. I can't hear you.”

“There is a woman, her name is Rita Marsden .
. . Rita Garth. She's unconscious in her husband's vehicle. He's
hit her before, and I think he's done something to her. The truck
is parked in front of Jerry's Joint on Main. The husband's name is
Becker Garth. Her two-year-old son was there with her. I heard him
crying. I have the kid but I don't dare stay with Rita, because her
husband could come out any second. And I don't want him to run and
take the baby.”

“Does the woman have a pulse?”

“I don't know!” Bailey cried helplessly. “I
couldn't reach her.” He could tell the 911 operator was confused.
“Look, I'm in a wheel-chair. I can't raise my arms. I'm lucky I was
able to get her child out of the truck. Please send the police and
an ambulance!”

“What is the license plate on the
vehicle?”

“I don't know! I'm not there anymore!” Bailey
slowed and turned the chair slightly, wondering if he should go
back for the answers the operator was seeking. What he saw behind
him made his heart seize in his chest. He was maybe two blocks away
from the bar but there were lights pulling out of the lot. It
looked like Becker's truck.

“He's coming!” Bailey shrieked, increasing
his speed, roaring down the street as fast as he could. He needed
to cross over, but that would put him in Becker's headlights. And
the headlights were bearing down on him. Tyler was screaming,
sensing Bailey's panic. The 911 operator was trying to get him to
answer questions and “remain calm.”

“He's coming! My name is Bailey Sheen, and I
am holding Tyler Garth on my lap. I'm in a wheelchair driving down
Main toward Center in Hannah Lake. Becker Garth hurt his wife and
he's coming toward us. I need help!”

Somehow, miraculously, Becker Garth drove
right past. He obviously didn't expect the guy in the wheelchair to
be any sort of threat. Of course, he'd always underestimated
Bailey. Bailey's heart leaped in relief. And then Becker hit his
brakes and spun his truck around.

He sped back toward Bailey, and Bailey knew
there was no way Becker wasn't going to notice the child on his
lap. Bailey shot across the two-lane street, veering right in front
of the oncoming truck, knowing his only chance was to get to Bob's
and relative safety.

Wheels squealed behind him as Becker's truck
flew past him again and tried to brake, not expecting Bailey's wild
maneuvering.

“I'm turning down Center toward Bob's Speedy
Mart!” Bailey screamed, hoping the 911 operator was hearing what he
said. Ty had lungs and he was terrified. At least he was clinging
to Bailey like a baby chimp, making it easier for Bailey to hold
onto him.

There was certainly no way Bailey could hide.
Ty's screams would give them away. There was no time anyway. Becker
Garth had flipped around and was coming down Center, pinning them
in his lights once more. The black 4X4 rolled up along Bailey's
left side. Bailey could see that the passenger side window was
down, but he didn't look at Becker. His attention stayed riveted on
the road in front of him.

“Sheen! Where the hell do you think you're
going with my kid?”

Bailey kept pushing his controls, flying
along the darkened street, praying he wouldn't hit any potholes.
Hannah Lake had more potholes than streetlights, and the
combination was dangerous, especially in a wheelchair.

“Pull over, you little shit!”

Bailey kept moving.

The 4X4 veered over, and Bailey screamed and
pulled right on his controls. His chair lurched wildly and Bailey
thought for sure it would tip, but it righted itself once
again.

“He's trying to run me off the road!” he
screamed at the 911 operator. “I am holding his kid and he's trying
to freakin' run me off the road!”

The 911 operator was yelling something but
Bailey couldn't hear through the roaring in his ears. Becker Garth
was drunk or crazy or both, and Bailey knew he and little Ty were
in serious trouble. He was not going to live through this.

And then, in the midst of the fear, a sense
of calm overtook him. Deliberately, carefully, he slowed the
wheelchair to a crawl. His job was to keep Ty safe for as long as
possible. He couldn't outrun Becker anyway, so he might as well
travel at a safer speed. Becker seemed confused by his sudden
decision to slow down and shot past him once more before he punched
on his brakes, making his truck spin out on the gravely shoulder of
the road. Bailey didn't want to think about what Becker's driving
was doing to Rita, unconscious and unrestrained on the passenger
side.

And then Becker was coming toward him again,
this time in reverse, his slanted taillights like demon eyes
hurtling straight for him. Bailey veered right again, but he had
run out of road and his chair bumped and slid down the muddy
incline into the irrigation ditch that ran parallel to the road. He
wasn't going very fast, but that was irrelevant as the chair
pitched and wobbled and then fell forward into the murky water that
had collected in the bottom of the canal. Tyler was thrown from his
arms, landing somewhere in the thick grass on the opposite side of
the narrow embankment.

Bailey found himself face down in the water,
his hands folded beneath his chest. His right pinky was pinned back
and the pain surprised him, making him hyper-aware of the beating
of his heart, a beat that was echoed by the throbbing in his
finger. But Bailey knew a broken finger was the least of his
problems. There was only a foot of water in the ditch. Only a foot,
at the most. But it covered Bailey's head. He struggled, trying to
push up with his hands. But he couldn't push himself up, and he
couldn't roll over. He couldn't sit up or climb out.

He thought he heard Ty crying. The sound was
distorted by the water, but Bailey's reaction was one of relief. If
Ty was crying he was still alive. And then a door slammed and Ty's
cries became distant and disappeared. The rumble of Becker's truck,
the loud, souped-up roar that sounded a bit like the ocean in
Bailey's ears, receded as well. Bailey's lungs screamed and his
nose and mouth filled with mud as he tried to breathe. And the
throbbing in his finger faded with the beating of his heart.

Two police cars and an ambulance raced by,
sirens blaring, as Fern pedaled home around 12:00 that night. Her
mind was on Ambrose, as usual, when the cacophony of emergency
vehicles whooshed past.

“Dan Gable must be stuck in a tree again,”
she said to herself. She giggled at the thought, although the
ambulance for a cat might be a first, even in Hannah Lake. Last
time it had been the fire truck. Bailey had seriously enjoyed every
minute of it and had praised Dan Gable for days afterward. Maybe
that was why Bailey never showed up at the store. Fern flew down
2nd East and turned onto Center, wondering where the excitement
was. To her surprise, there were more police cars than Fern had
ever seen at one time lining the road. Cops on foot were spread up
and down the street with flashlights in hand. The lights swung back
and forth in a purposeful swath, like the officers were canvassing
the area in search of something. Or someone, she supposed,
curiously.

As Fern headed down the road, a cry went up
and officers began running toward the beckoning call.

“I've got him! I've got him!”

Fern slowed and got off her bike, not wanting
to be anywhere near whoever “he” was if the police had just
captured someone dangerous. The ambulance was frantically waved
down and before it had even come to a complete stop, the back doors
flung open and two EMTs scampered out and ran down the embankment
beyond Fern's line of sight.

Fern waited, her eyes pinned to the spot
where the ambulance workers had disappeared. Nobody came back up
for several minutes. Then, when Fern had almost convinced herself
to get back on her bike and permanently remove herself from the
scene, an officer pushed something up out of the ditch. It was a
wheelchair.

“That's weird,” Fern mused aloud, wrinkling
her nose skeptically. “I thought they would use a gurney.”

But the wheelchair was empty, and it was
coming up the embankment, not being brought down.

And then she knew. She knew that it was
Bailey's chair. And she dropped her bike and ran, screaming his
name, oblivious of the shocked reactions around her, to the
officers who scrambled to assess the threat, to the arms that
reached out to keep her from the scene.

“Bailey!” she screamed, fighting through a
sea of uniformed arms to get to him.

“Miss! Stop! You need to stay back!”

“It's my cousin! It's Bailey, isn't it?” Fern
looked frantically from face to face and stopped on Landon Knudsen.
Landon was a squeaky new recruit to Hannah Lake's Sheriff's
department. His pink cheeks and blond curls gave him a cherubic
appearance, completely at odds with his stiff uniform and the
holster around his hips.

“Landon! Is he okay? What happened? Can I
please see him?” Fern didn't wait for him to respond to one
question before she asked another, needing the answers but knowing
that once he spoke she would wish she'd never asked.

And then the EMTs were pushing the gurney
back up the hill, rushing to the open doors of the waiting
ambulance. There were too many people around the gurney and Fern
was still too far away to make out who occupied the stretcher. Her
eyes met Landon's again. “Tell me!”

“We're not sure exactly what has happened.
But, yeah, Fern. It's Bailey,” Landon said, his face lined with
apology.

Landon Knudsen and another officer that Fern
didn't know, an older man who was obviously Landon's senior
partner, took Fern to Bailey's house and there informed Mike and
Angie that Bailey had been taken by ambulance to Clairmont County
Hospital. It was after midnight. Angie was in her pajamas and Mike
was rumpled from falling asleep in his recliner, but both were in
the old blue van in two minutes flat. Fern climbed in with them and
called her parents on the way. They wouldn't be far behind. And
then she called Ambrose. In very few words, sanitized and shortened
because Angie and Mike were listening, she told him something had
happened to Bailey and that they were going to the hospital in
Seely.

The police gave them no details but escorted
them to the hospital about half an hour north of Hannah Lake with
sirens flashing, hastening the journey. It was still the longest
half hour of Fern's life. The three of them didn't speak.
Speculation was too terrifying, so they sat in silence, Mike Sheen
behind the wheel, Angie clutching his right hand, Fern trembling in
the single back seat that was positioned behind the empty space
designed for Bailey's chair. Fern didn't tell them she'd seen the
wheelchair. She didn't tell them that it had been in the ditch. She
didn't tell them that she thought it was too late. She just told
herself, over and over, that she was wrong.