Free EBook Samples: Free ebook sample of "Final Sin" by Chelle Cordero

Final Sin

by

Chelle Cordero

Vanilla Heart Publishing

USA

Final Sin

Copyright 2009 Chelle Cordero

Published by: Vanilla Heart Publishing

www.vanillaheartbooksandauthors.com

10121 Evergreen Way, 25-156

Everett, WA 98204 USA

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to places, events, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-935407-13-3

LCCN: 2009924107

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 First Edition

First Printing, May 2009

Printed in the United States of America

Final Sin

by

Chelle Cordero

Dedication

To the heroes that surround me and inspire me daily– my daughter, my son & my husband.

Acknowledgements

I want to acknowledge the commitment and dedication of the members of our emergency services, the people who answer a stranger’s call for help. Some volunteer and some are career; each one puts themselves on the line for another. These are the people who are ready and willing to respond to emergencies 24-hours a day and 7-days a week regardless of the inconvenience and dangers they may face. These heroes make our world a better place.

This book is also in honor of every name on every EMS, Police and Fire Department memorial in our nation.

Once again I need to mention my dad, Auxiliary Police Captain Marcy Cordero of the 52nd precinct in NYC until his death in 1977 – his spirit of community service has served as a wonderful guide for his children and grandchildren.

Thank you again to Kimberlee Williams who keeps encouraging me to write these stories.

PROLOGUE

There wasn’t anyone there who didn’t look like they weren’t ready to heave. Julie felt sorry for the vollies, the members of the local volunteer ambulance corps. At least she and Matt were being paid to be there. Then again, no amount of money was worth witnessing the carnage that was lying there before them.

Matt had done the unwelcome task and already pronounced one of the girls dead. It was obvious death, obvious to anyone. Trying her best not to step into the pool of blood or disturb anything else vital to the crime scene investigation that would follow, she finished preparing the one girl who was still alive for transport.

A young man in his late twenties or early thirties, Julie wasn't sure without reading the patient care report, had been burnt when his shirt had caught fire. He was sitting huddled and guarding his severely burnt arm as Matt treated him. He looked scared and in shock at the events around him and wouldn't look at any of the police officers who had responded. Julie assumed that it was his need to deny the trauma.

A broad shouldered officer came through the door and took command of the scene. He seemed hardened to the butchery, almost as if he had seen too many gruesome scenes just like this one. Dressed in a dark blue baseball jacket, open collar knit shirt and khaki pants, he donned a pair of latex gloves he had carried in his pocket and began an almost detached visual inspection of the room. The springy snap of the elastic gloves stretching to fit his large hands was in sharp contrast to his motionless stance. Other officers at the scene deferred to his judgment and took instructions from him as he calmly took in the entire scene. He was concerned with the best way to collect the pertinent evidence to tell the story of what had happened.

As Julie and one of the ambulance crewmembers moved the surviving girl to the gurney, she risked a quick look at the tall officer’s dark eyes and noted that there was a thinly disguised veil of dismay. He had intrigued her with his stony expression and seeming aloofness to the horrors, and his complete focus on the collection of relevant clues. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, it was a comfort to Julie that the cop was not completely indifferent to this horror or detached from the human cost.

For Matt and Julie, their tour of duty had started out like many others. There had been a call to a minor motor vehicle accident, another for chest pains and one more for a cancer patient who needed to go to the hospital for treatment. Many of the upstate New York communities had contracted with Paramedic services to complement the existing ambulance corps and provide emergency medical response. Whether paid or unpaid, the certified corps always responded with Emergency Medical Technicians who were capable of handling most emergencies. When the Paramedics were dispatched as well, IV drugs and additional hands could often help make critical differences when necessary.

This call had gone out over the radio for a burn victim, so none of the responding police, fire fighters, volunteer ambulance crew nor paramedics were prepared for what they found when they reached this isolated tool shed. From the outside, the grayed wood had seemed serene enough, and the one small window had been caked over with dirt. She didn't think that she would have given the shed a second glance under normal circumstances. But this was far from normal. No one had anticipated the horror scene inside.

Two young women were staked to the dirt floor, both had bled profusely from a variety of wounds. Although one was still alive, barely breathing after severe mutilation and a huge loss of blood, the other had been burned and was only the charred remains of who she once was. Julie wasn’t alone in her prayers that the young woman had died long before the flames had destroyed her body. It didn't look like she had struggled and yet her mouth was open, Julie feared that she might have died screaming. She had still been smoldering when the fire department had arrived and the puddle of water around her had quickly turned into mud.

The young man told them tearfully that he had tried to douse the flames and had been injured when his own shirtsleeves caught fire. If he hadn’t run from the remote little building into the night, none of them might even have been discovered until they had all perished. A passing motorist with a cell phone caught sight of the man running with his clothes on fire and dialed nine-one-one before he got out to help. Apparently a second man, the monster responsible for the imprisonment and torture of these three young people, had already disappeared into the murky darkness.

The police were questioning the male victim while Matt finished cutting away his charred shirtsleeve. He said his name was Andrew and that he and the other man had picked the two girls up in a bar in Westchester. With the two girls in the back seat, Andrew drove into the northern Hudson Valley town following the step-by-step directions of the second man. Andrew said he didn’t know the other man’s name, he had used more than one and Andrew didn’t think any of them were real. They snorted some coke, he assumed it was supplied by the unknown assailant, and had sex. That was when the other man had pulled a gun and forced Andrew to tie the two girls to stakes he pounded into the ground. Then Andrew was led outside and locked in the trunk of the car.

He heard muffled screams, he couldn't tell where they were coming from. He was disoriented and felt like he was suffocating in the trunk of that car, but he said it sounded like the screaming went on for hours. He was finally released and led back into the smokehouse by gunpoint to see the horrible results. It was when the perpetrator doused the first girl with gasoline and lit a match that Andrew finally tried to fight. The man warded off the attack and pushed Andrew to the ground. Then he ran. Andrew stayed behind to try to extinguish the flames and save the poor girl.

Julie used her walkie-talkie to call dispatch and request a chopper to bring her patient to the trauma center. The voice on the radio squawked back that there was a multi-car and multi-patient accident on the local highway, the chopper was already enroute to that scene and wasn’t available for their call, nor was there a second rig available to transport the patients separately. Matt, listening on his own talkie, motioned that they could transport the victims together since his patient, although burned, was stable.

They moved their patients to the ambulance with the surviving girl lying motionless on the gurney. Julie started a line to get some much-needed fluids into her patient. She kept her hands steady as she inserted the first of two large bore IV’s into the young girl’s arm and attached the saline drip. Matt was stepping into the truck as she was carefully inserting a tube down the throat to intubate the girl.

The broad shouldered officer followed Matt to the open rear doors of the rig as he transferred Andrew to the bench in the box rig. Matt made sure that his patient was seat belted in place, his arm had been wrapped in wet gauze. The cop watched quietly as Julie adjusted the rate of drips coming out of the hanging saline bag that fed into the young girl's arm. A bottle of sterile water was placed nearby to keep the burn patient's dressing wet enroute to the hospital.

Obviously there were questions to be asked, but the paramedics and EMT’s had important work to do and the officer discreetly tried to stay out of their way. Finally, as the cop saw Julie turn to jot something onto her clipboard, he stepped into the rig. Matt threw an annoyed territorial look in the direction of the officer at his invasion. The cop had to stoop to accommodate his large six-foot-plus frame. Stepping closer to Julie, he quietly asked her to stop in at the local police station upon her return to help fill in some patient information that he needed for his reports. Even though he worded the suggestion politely like a request, it wasn't really a question. He let her know he would be expecting her later.

Piercing tones squelched over the walkie talkies on the paramedics' belts and the ambulance radio. Matt left to answer the other call for help and left Julie and the two EMT’s in the back of the rig with the patients. He was needed elsewhere. Matt brushed past the man just as the officer backed out of the way and stepped down from the step at the big double doors. Julie reached for the grab bar on one of the doors and the policeman helped by swinging the doors closed. He mouthed the word "later" through the glass panes. The ambulance driver waited for Julie's word before he shifted the truck into gear.

The girl, Andrew had called her Holly, didn’t survive the thirty-five-minute trip to the hospital. Her heart stopped. One of the EMT's started CPR while the second hooked up the leads from the monitor. They shared a hopeful moment as they watched the screen show a normal sinus rhythm only to lose their optimism when CPR was briefly stopped to obtain a true reading. At the same time the EMT took pride in the competent CPR, he was disheartened that the young girl's heart could not maintain the rhythm on its own.

Julie injected epinephrine and sodium bicarb twice in an effort to restart her heart, but they couldn’t get her back. She had lost too much blood and had suffered too many traumas. It was almost as if she was surrendering to the peaceful cloak of death. It was a frustrating twenty-five minutes while the crew worked hard to save the young woman’s life.

Andrew sat quietly on the bench as the ambulance crew worked non-stop, his eyes were brimming with unshed tears.

Julie looked over her shoulder at him and felt sorry for the young man. He was so obviously in pain with his own injuries, but he sat quietly and tried to stay out of the way while they tried in vain to revive Holly. The code was called at the hospital, the doctors hadn't even bothered to transfer the poor girl from the gurney before they pronounced her.

Chapter One

On the way back from the hospital, Julie got banged out on another job. Tones had come across the airwaves to respond to a seven-year old female with an uncontrollable nosebleed. It was just a simple nosebleed caused by a persistent but common cold and aggravated by an overly worried mother. It would have been a waste of resources for Julie to ride this call in. The Emergency Medical Technicians on the rig were well equipped to handle this kind of emergency.

Julie never underestimated the value of the vollies that rode the local rigs. Even though they were unpaid, she had always been lucky to ride with some of the most professional people in the field. They were well trained and they took their commitments seriously. She had ridden as an Emergency Medical Technician for two years with a paid service before she made the decision to begin her Paramedic classes. Julie would never let herself forget who she was or where she came from and she resented those medics who treated the EMT's and other vollies poorly. Many of the ambulance corps members that rode with Julie appreciated the mutual respect between them. Often she had heard that she was specifically requested to cover some of the stations.

She handed patient care over to the BLS crew and continued on her way to the police station. Before she got there, Julie took the Motorola walkie-talkie from her belt and called to Matt for his location. He was on his way to one of the area hospitals aggressively treating a difficulty breathing case in the back of his rig. It would be a while before he finished up the required paperwork at the hospital. Anytime a paramedic had to use IV drugs the paperwork was lengthy and every detail had to be perfect. She told him over the radio that she’d catch up with him later.

The officer met her as soon as she entered the lobby of the police station, he had watched as she pulled up in the van-style medic fly-car on the closed circuit TV. Julie thought that the little lobby seemed even smaller with him in it; she hadn't remembered quite how broad his shoulders were and marveled that he had even been able to fit in the back of the ambulance. She noticed he also had the height to wear those broad shoulders very well. He was wearing a dark blue knit shirt and khaki pants that emphasized his tall, lean build. He was certainly an attractive man, she thought.

“Hi, I didn’t get to introduce myself before, I’m Deputy Sheriff Jacob Carlson. Please call me Jake.” He extended his hand to her in greeting. His hand fully enveloped hers in warmth and his touch sent a tingly pulse racing up her arm.

“Julie Jennings.” She returned his greeting with a slight nod of her head and her own extended hand. His lingering grip was firm and comfortably solid. Julie was struck by the feeling of comfort she had feeling her hand embraced by his. He held her hand just a moment longer than he had meant to.

“Why don’t we go sit inside?” He reminded himself to let go of her hand and motioned for her to walk down the narrow hallway. She couldn’t help but notice again, as she followed him down the corridor, how big a man he was. He looked powerful and muscular, the way he moved was fluid and strong. He moved with a confidence and, despite his large size, a grace few men seemed to radiate. This man was formidable, Julie thought, and was somehow comforted with the thought that he was upholding the law to make her world a little safer.

Stopping by a doorway, he let Julie pass him. “Let me just get the light,” he reached past her to flip the light switch on in the stark interview room. A bare bulb glared from the ceiling fixture. “Can I get you a cup of coffee or something?”

“No thanks.” Julie entered the small room and sat in one of the green padded chairs at the wooden table.

Julie had been at this police station before to check on the welfare of prisoners. She recognized this chamber as one of the interview rooms. Bare except for a small wooden table in ash blonde wood and three metal chairs with green padding, it normally gave her a chill. Somehow though the man who entered the room behind her seemed to warm up the temperature a few notches.

He stood next to her and apologetically picked up what had appeared to be a square plastic sheet from the table. "I need to ask you to let me get your shoeprints since you were at the scene. I'm going to have to call your partner for this, too." He waited for her to acknowledge his request before he crouched in front of her. "Unfortunately there was so much traffic in the cabin, we wanted to be able to isolate any shoeprints that might help us find the perp."

"No problem." Julie stood and stepped on the vinyl sheet he had put down on the floor for her to step on. She noticed he had put on a pair of latex gloves. "Is that it?"

He knelt in front of her and tried very hard not to focus on the delicate curve of her hips. "Yeah." When she stepped back, he carefully picked the sheet up by the corners and covered it with another clear plastic sheet before sliding it into a large manila envelope. He sealed the envelope, picked up a pen to write her name on it and placed it into a wire basket on the table. Julie sat back in the chair.

Jake settled in a chair on the other side of the table and pulled the tight gloves off of his hands. He flexed his fingers to get the circulation going again. Smiling, he looked at her, “I hate those things."

She nodded in complete commiseration.

“I’ve got the names and patient info here.” She pulled a folded paper from the pocket of her uniform shirt. “The girl didn’t make it.” His knit polo shirt was open at the collar just enough to reveal a generous dusting of dark curls. Julie noticed his corded neck muscles tense as she told him of the poor girl's tragic fate.

Jake exhaled loudly and muttered an expletive. “Did the guy…”, he looked down at the paperwork in front of him, “Andrew Larkin tell you anything?”

She shrugged. “Basically just what he told you and the other cops at the scene.” Julie took a moment to replay any conversation that had taken place during the trip to the hospital, being careful not to reveal any confidential patient information. She wanted to help as much as she could. “He did say that he had been the one to, well, he had been with Holly. The other guy, he called him John, at least that was one of the names he had used, had been with Beth. He didn’t know the girls’ last names.”

Jake sat at the opposite side of the table and made a few notes on a yellow pad of paper that was lying there. “It was a real mess.” He tipped his chair back, crossed his muscled arms and studied her.

She looked young. She was of average height and slender, although when he thought about it, nothing about her really was very average. It wasn’t easy to ignore that she definitely had all the right curves. Even with the starched white uniform shirt and shiny EMS badge, the unisex trousers and bulging pockets, she was definitely all-woman, he thought quietly. He silently tried to guess how tall she was, five-five or five-six? She certainly didn't weigh much. Appreciating her figure as only a man could, he admitted to himself that he wouldn't mind picking her up and trying to guess her weight.

Jake silently admonished himself. They were both professionals and he had to curb his male appreciation of her looks before he crossed any boundaries. His imagination had gone into overdrive though, and he found it hard to try not to imagine her out of her uniform. He found it even harder not imagining that he was helping her out of her uniform. When he watched her working so feverishly to try to save that poor girl's life, he couldn't help but think that she was just a kid herself. It was a shock to his normally reserved nature to realize, kid or not, she also was a very attractive woman. Jake thought about the crime scene and admonished himself, of all places to try to make a pick-up.

He continued to study her. “How do you stand it?” Jake was amazed that she seemed so untouched by the brutality they had witnessed. He resisted his natural inclination to offer comfort in his arms. She was so pretty he thought. Her eyes were so full of life and he thought of how many lives she must have seen die in her line of work. It must be nice to view life through the passionate eyes of her youth.

“I try not to think about it.” She began to wonder if he was nearly as hardened as she originally thought. “You know that they scheduled a CISD session in a couple of days, don’t you?" His composed expression gave nothing away. "Are you going to be there?” Her supervisor mandated all of the paramedics to attend critical incident stress debriefing sessions whenever one of their calls was deemed especially unnerving. Julie always went and participated fully; it did help her deal with brutal or tragic cases. The first time she had ever gone was after an entire family was wiped out in a fiery car accident, including kids. It had helped.

“No. They told us about it, but I’ve seen a lot worse. Besides, I’d rather not lose any time when I could be looking for evidence. I want to find the guy who did this. That's my way of coping.” He shrugged his broad shoulders as he looked directly into her eyes. His voice had taken on a steely edge.

“My partner, Matt, never thinks he needs them either.” She gently tried to coax him. “But they do help.”

He shook his head and looked down as he scribbled something on the pad in front of him. “Nah, if I needed it, I’d go. I’m really not trying to be any macho man.” He kept looking at the pad of paper. Julie was sure that if he had looked up, she would have seen the telltale dismay in his eyes that she had glimpsed earlier.

They were both silent for a few moments. “Well, is there anything else I can help you with?” Julie pushed her chair back and started to stand.

Jake quickly stood and came to his full height. He stammered for something to say to keep her there longer. He didn't want her to leave yet. She fascinated him. He didn't know why, but he needed to reach out to her. His eyes had lingered on her even at that bloody scene earlier. “How long have you been a paramedic?” He wondered how long the auburn hair she had braided into a bun was. The bun, he realized, was probably her choice of style not only for its utilitarian purposes but also because it might make her look older. Jake had to fight the urge to loosen the bun. The youthfulness she tried to disguise pulled at him in a primitive way.

“Two years.”

“So, that makes you… twenty-two?… twenty-three?” He looked at her full lips and surprised himself by wondering how they would taste. Oh man get a grip, he chastised himself silently. He tried telling himself once again that she was just a kid, she was much too young for the things he was thinking.

“I’m twenty-four.” She was thrown off balance by his personal questions.

He glanced at her left hand and was happy to see that there wasn’t any ring. “I’m thirty-seven”, thirteen years older than you, he thought to himself. I must be overtired because I’m finding it too easy to be distracted by her. Thirteen years, it isn't such a big deal, is it he wondered? Jake tried to think of something else to say, something that wouldn’t sound too inane.

Julie realized that she really didn’t mind spending time with him. He intrigued her enough to want to know more about him. But she still checked her watch discreetly; she couldn't stay there very long. “How long have you been a cop?”

“Fourteen years”

“Here?” She was surprised. She didn’t recognize him and she thought she had met most of the town cops at the various jobs she had responded to. Julie definitely would have remembered him, especially his very broad shoulders. They looked like strong shoulders. She chuckled quietly, she always did have a weakness for big men. His wavy chestnut brown hair barely brushed the back of his shirt collar and tempted her to touch it.

“No, I’m with the Sheriff’s department in B.C.I.” At her puzzled expression, he explained, “Bureau of Criminal Investigations. We go mostly to crime scenes, homicides, arsons, things like that.”

She chuckled out loud suddenly and he paused. “And you wondered how I handle it?”

Jake knew that she’d be insulted if he let her know he thought she looked too pretty to be caught up in such ugliness. He had been at enough accident and crime scenes to have a pretty good idea of the things Julie saw when she responded to an ambulance call and he marveled at her composure. At a loss of what to say, he merely shrugged and Julie could see the fabric of his knit shirt straining as the muscles in his upper arms flexed. She tried not to stare.

“In case I need any more information, can I have your phone number?” He pulled out a notepad from his shirt pocket and waited with his pen poised.

She stood. “You can always reach me through Town Hall. We’re in and out of the medic station so often, at least there you can leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

“Well,” he took a step around the desk, “Can I have your phone number anyway?” He knew very well that he could reach her through the town. He also knew very well that he wanted her number for himself. The hell with propriety, he thought, the hell with age. He was a man and she was definitely a woman.

Julie looked into his dark brown eyes and was surprised to see a definite softening in them. He had a few fine creases at the corners of his eyes and Julie enviously noted how full his lashes were. Jake waited and smiled. He looked almost hopeful.

She didn't let him down.



He wondered why it had taken him so long to realize that she was the one. Usually he was able to tell with just a glance, but then he had been wrong before and had chosen women that had disappointed him terribly. It was so hard to suffer when they let him down.

It was only after he had thought about her while he watched another ambulance crew bring their patient in that he realized how gently she had tended to her patients, how light her touch had seemed, that he knew for sure. He knew that she had been sent to him for one purpose.

She really cared.

She was the one.



He entered the autopsy suite passing the heavy wooden sign next to the door. It said, “Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae”. Once before when Jake had been here, he had asked for a translation of the Latin words and was told, “This is the place where death rejoices to teach those who live.” He was anxious to learn and he hoped Holly would be anxious to teach. He had high hopes that they could learn something, anything that would lead them to the murderer. Two men were waiting for him as he donned a surgical gown and protective eyewear.

Holly’s body was already lying on the shiny, aluminum dissection table. The table, a little more than waist high, was edged with an aluminum channel to allow blood and fluids to drain away from the body. The room was uncluttered and glaringly bright. It was a stark reminder of the lifelessness of the cadavers stored in the drawers along the wall. Soft music played from a radio on the counter in contrast to the harsh reality of the body lying motionless on the sterile looking table. Jake was always impressed with the clean up after an autopsy, the table always looked totally fresh and unused in time for the next patient. And there was always a next patient to fill the spot. That supply never seemed to end.

Dr. Ramos, the pathologist in charge of the lab, explained that one of his residents had already taken care of Beth, the charred corpse, early in the morning. He would complete his report and get it to Jake as promptly as possible. The first-year-resident assigned to assist Ramos with this autopsy was looking ever so proper in his starched white lab coat and was nervously readying a number of quart-sized jars for organ tissue samples to be sent to the lab for toxicology tests.

The doctor donned clean gloves before adjusting his goggles. “Pretty messy scene last night, huh?” Ramos spoke with ease, almost as if he was chatting with a familiar friend over a card game. Well into his sixties, the study of body parts and what they could tell you about how a person lived and died had always fascinated the doctor. He was well accomplished in his field and his word was highly respected in all the circles of investigation and trial. The doctor lived by the words on the door and truly believed that the dead rejoiced in communicating with him.

Although it was Ramos’ responsibility as Medical Examiner to pen all final autopsy reports, in recent years he had often allowed younger pathologists and first and second year residents to perform the more mundane procedures. He was personally overseeing this autopsy on Holly as a favor to Jake and to help speed along the findings and bring closure to his investigation. Dr. Ramos had the utmost respect for Jake Carlson, he had always been a man of his word who always sought the truth and justice for the victims. Ramos also got a special kick out of Jake’s interest in the autopsies and his own regard for listening to what the dead had to say.

It was a shame, mused Ramos that Jake hadn’t chosen medicine as his career, but then again, he was very good at what he did. If he weren't so good, he never would have made it to the rank of Commander, especially as early as he did. Carlson had certainly been a few years younger than his two most recent predecessors had been when they earned their titles. In the good doctor's opinion, if that old goat sitting in the Chief's chair ever decided to retire, Jacob Carlson would probably find himself heading up his department.

Jake sighed. “Yeah. Unfortunately, with all the people who responded, all the trampling through the place, I can’t shake the gut feeling that we missed something.”

A crime scene should remain undisturbed, victim’s bodies should remain where they’re found, there shouldn’t be any bloody footprints belonging to rescuers. While so many of the EMS and fire personnel were careful not to disturb any more of the scene than they needed to, it had been impossible to maintain the complete integrity of the scene. Too many shoeprints to get anything clean, too many clothing fibers left by responding police and rescue workers, and the fire department destroyed evidence as it put out the fire.

It made Jake feel more than a little guilty and certainly sinister that he would have preferred no survivors that had to be removed from the cabin. Of course he wanted survivors, he corrected his thoughts silently, he just wished they had all been outside of the cabin when they were found. "Now we'll have to waste time getting shoeprints and all from everyone who was there."

“I’ve already begun my external examination. We’ve recorded the height and weight, her clothing and the general appearance.” The girl had been dressed in a torn, gauzy white shroud similar in shape to a judge’s robe, or graduation gown, and it had emphasized her youth.

The gray-haired doctor motioned that he was once again turning on the tape recorder to dictate his findings. “We have multiple lacerations and avulsions of both breasts, while there was profuse bleeding, no arteries or veins were compromised. This appears to be a non-fatal injury. There are also severe contusions and rope burns circling both wrists and ankles, these appear to be consistent with a struggle. There was no evidence of tissue samples under the victim’s nails. Some light bruising around the mouth and laterally on both cheeks are in conformity with the type of gag the police report described.”

“The pattern of the lacerations and the tearing of the breasts seem to have been done with a common variety garden tool. We are comparing the markings to some of the hand tools found at the scene.” The abandoned tool shed was located at the perimeter of an old farm that had been sold to a developer for new housing. Like most of the suburbs, active farms and open land was giving way to an increased population.

Dr. Ramos removed the thin white sheet that had covered the young girl’s body. “I noted the absence of any body hair on the trunk, including the pubic area. She seems to have been freshly shaved. There also appears to have been vaginal bleeding.” He gently inserted a speculum into the cadaver’s vagina and adjusted the light behind him. Jake was impressed with the respect Dr. Ramos showed in his handling of the young victim’s remains.

“There appears to be several lacerations and contusions along the inner membranes. My impression is that a hard object penetrated the victim, possibly something jagged. I am going to swab the vaginal canal for any evidence of fluids.” If any semen was present, then the DNA would be run through the computers.

Remembering that Julie had told him about Andrew Larkin telling her he had sex with Holly, Jake made a mental note to have Larkin called in for a DNA sample for comparison. He watched as several swabs were bagged and labeled for the lab. He spotted a small amount of a white chalky substance on the side of Holly’s knee. “Doc, what’s this?” Jake pointed making sure not to touch and contaminate the body.

“I don’t know." Ramos walked around the table to Jake’s side. “Only one way to find out.” The doctor scraped the white substance with a cotton swab and dropped it into another plastic specimen bag to send to the lab.

Dr. Ramos finished his examination of the outer body. Then he picked up a shiny knife and cut a large Y-shaped incision into the girl’s chest with a sharp, long blade and separated the fractured ribs that were not uncommon after CPR compressions. Since dead people didn't bleed, there was only minimal oozing along the incision.

After cutting the cartilage that held the remaining ribs to the sternum, Ramos folded back the skin to expose Holly’s heart and lungs. “This girl was a heavy smoker.” He directed Jake’s attention to the less than pink lung tissue he had just sliced into. “Her heart is somewhat enlarged and shows some signs of cardiomyopathy,” he looked up at Jake to explain, “that’s a muscle weakness."

"After the heart is weighed, I’m going to have some tissue samples sent to histology. Since the police report indicated that there had been cocaine use reported, I’ll ask them to look for some amounts of Benzoylecgonine in her body.” Benzoylecgonine was a telltale and lasting ingredient found in cocaine, an element that sometimes could be found up to a few weeks after its use in a person’s bladder.

The examination continued with an ongoing litany for the tape recorder. Ramos indicated that, since the girl’s stomach was nearly empty, death had been several hours following her last meal, possibly a full day or more. The information bothered Jake, but he wasn’t sure how important it was or not. Larkin had indicated meeting the girls in a bar, Jake figured they’d have ingested at least drinks, pretzels or popcorn. If she had been a frequent cocaine user, that could explain why she hadn’t eaten recently.

"She appears to have a small needle puncture in her antecubital fossa," the doctor pointed towards the crook of the girl's right elbow. "But there are no track marks or other visible punctures to suggest any illicit needle drug use."

A little bit more than two hours after Jake had entered the room Dr. Ramos and the resident had returned the bulk of the organs to Holly’s body cavity and the resident was busy sewing up the Y-incision. Various samples of tissue were packaged and on their way to the lab for study. “Based on my initial examination, the apparent cause of death was cardiac arrest. Contributing factors would include an enlarged and weakened heart and severe blood loss.”

Dr. Ramos let the resident finish sewing the cadaver closed and preparing the body for release while he went to wash up. “So Jake, are you up joining me for lunch?”



The morning had been emotionally brutal for Julie. She attended the CISD session that her supervisor had scheduled. She was very affected by the poignant words of one of the volunteers who had witnessed the horrible carnage. He haltingly told the group and the counselor leading it about the recurring and terrifying nightmares he had when he closed his eyes to sleep. He alternately envisioned each of the women in his family as a mutilated victim, including his lovely teen-age daughter. It was heart-rending to hear him retelling his terror as he woke to check on the safety of his wife and daughter in his home. Empathy was often such an enemy for emergency workers who saw things you only imagined in gory horror movies.

Each of the participants started out by replaying the scenes that were the most prominent in their minds. The counselors had called it a mental videotape. When this man started to talk, you could hear the catch in his voice.

Julie, like so many of the other participants, found herself at a loss for the right words to reassure the man. Even though it wasn’t her role to comfort him during that session, it was frustrating to Julie whenever someone was in pain. There were times when Julie needed to console herself because she couldn’t heal everyone whether physically or emotionally.

In some ways, Julie knew that had been her underlying reason for becoming a paramedic, so she wouldn’t feel so frustrated by a child’s crying or an adult’s anguish. Since her brothers were much older than her, she had only been a teen-ager when the first nieces and nephews were born. It was always a struggle not to go pick up a crying baby at the first whimper, and she was always chided by one of her sister-in-laws for giving in to the infants too easily. And those were just simple tears. Matt always warned her that her altruistic nature would eventually do her more harm than good. She ignored his criticism and complained about his cynicism in dealing with the tragedies they came across.

She was in a hurry when she got home to take a quick shower before changing into her work clothes and reporting for her four-to-midnight shift. Her skin was still uncomfortably damp as she pulled her EMS trousers on. The shrill ring of the phone startled her as she buttoned a freshly starched uniform shirt. She balanced the receiver on her shoulder as she continued to pin her paramedic badge in place.

Her curt hello was greeted by a deep baritone voice. She really hadn't expected to hear that voice again.

Jake invited her to join him for coffee at a local diner that night. After a brief hesitation, she agreed to meet him at the all-night diner for coffee after her shift. Julie noted with some amusement that he hadn’t even been put off by her blunt greeting. It was as if he was so determined to ask her out for coffee that he hadn’t taken the time to listen for anything else. Despite the fact that they had only just met, Julie felt an odd but pleasant anticipation about seeing him again.

Matt and she were busy during their entire tour. They got banged out on a variety of calls ranging from a possible fractured ankle to the beginnings of an AMI, Acute Myocardial Infarction more commonly referred to as a heart attack. Most of the calls they responded to went as ALS ride-a-longs and she and Matt took turns responding with the BLS crews.

It had worked out conveniently that Julie wound up taking the juvenile with the broken arm while Matt dealt with the angry subject of a bar fight. While both Matt and Julie felt perfectly competent to handle any kinds of cases that came their way, they agreed the patient usually received it better when Julie handled pediatrics and females. Even though Julie could handle herself with a feisty patient, Matt's larger size usually proved to be a deterrent from any unexpected outbursts.

They responded to a spousal abuse case. The husband had beaten the wife and she was terrified of the man Understandably she didn't look comfortable with any of the men that responded to the emergency either. Although she had come to, she had lost consciousness during the beating – it was a definite call for an ALS ride-a-long. Julie took the ride.

Tempting though it was, Julie bit her tongue when the patient tearfully asked her for advice during the ride. The only thing Julie would say to her was to take advantage of the social workers that could point out her list of options.

Treating without prejudice was one of the harder things to learn when Julie first started riding an ambulance even before she became a paramedic. There were times she found herself treating an apparently guilty party of an assault, the drunk driver responsible for a fatal crash, the self-destructive overdose patient or the spouse that kept on returning to the abuse. While not having to recite the well-known doctors' Hippocratic Oath, EMT's and Paramedics had to remain professional and treat to the best of their ability and training.

As was common in many of the smaller towns, BLS crews consisting of well-trained Emergency Medical Technicians and Certified First Responders were mostly volunteers. The local towns had contracted with Paramedic Services to provide Advanced Life Support care where more advanced skills like IV drugs and intubations were necessary. When ALS was needed on a call, a paramedic would ride in the vollies’ ambulance and administer care.

Julie thought it would be a bad idea to talk about Jake in front of Matt. As the night wore on and they got summoned on yet another late call near the end of their shift, she was sure that Matt sensed her anxiety building. Even when he began to pry she refused to say anything; she knew that Matt wouldn't approve. When they finally returned to base after their last call, she briefly greeted the new team on duty and excused herself claiming a terrible headache. She left Matt to re-stock most of the medications and equipment after reminding him that she had done the same for him many times before.

She was late getting there. Jake was sitting in the booth nursing a cup of coffee while he waited. He checked his watch again as the waitress smiled in his direction. The diner was simple but met the needs of night owls and graveyard shift workers with its twenty-four hour convenience. Reminiscent of a fifties diner, it was complete with jukebox and neon lights. Jake dropped a few coins into the mini-jukebox at the booth and chose some quiet melodies that weren’t too brash for the late hour. Feeling nervous, he hoped she wasn't going to stand him up.

Chapter Two

When Jake looked up to see Julie enter the diner, his eyes lit up and he smiled broadly. She had changed out of her uniform into faded jeans and a striped Yankees baseball jersey with the number 21 on the back. He couldn’t help but appreciate the gentle sway of her hips as she walked towards him. Her jeans revealed so much more of her curves than the unisex style EMS pants she wore on duty. He stood as she reached the table and waited for her to sit before he sat back down.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” Julie slid into the booth and thanked the waitress when she appeared with a fresh cup and a steaming pot of coffee.

The waitress stopped by to freshen Jake’s coffee. “Hungry?” Jake asked before the waitress had a chance to retreat.

Julie shrugged. “A cheese danish would be nice.” She took a moment to put her head back and closed her eyes briefly.

Jake added a roast beef sandwich order for himself and the waitress left the table. Julie opened her eyes and apologized for her lateness again.

He smiled for her benefit and tried to sound casual. “In my line of work, I’m used to dealing with last minute emergencies. I figured you just got hung up at work.” Jake sounded a lot more cavalier than he felt just a few minutes before. He didn’t understand why the thought of her backing out of meeting him was so disturbing. All day since dialing her number he had hoped that he hadn’t misread her willingness to give it to him. It had been a challenge not to call her as soon as he woke up that morning, but he didn’t want to lose the opportunity all together.

“Busy day?” Jake watched her eyes, he could see that she was tired. He watched as she politely stifled a yawn. For some inexplicable reason he felt very content just to look at her. Although he was sure he had seen prettier women in his lifetime, none of them were ever emblazoned in his mind the way this lady was. Even at that gruesome scene in the shed, her image, her face, her tender hands… she stood out. Somehow she comforted everyone with just her mere presence and compassion. Ever since she left the police station last night, he missed her. It certainly wasn’t often that Jake was so taken by a female that he couldn’t forget her for even an hour.

“Yeah, but thank goodness nothing like that horror scene straight out of Freddy Kruger.” She rolled her eyes and shook slightly as if to emphasize her relief. She thought about her patients, especially the wife that had been abused. Chuckling lightly, she mentioned just the highlight of a few of her calls. "Toddler broke his arm leaning out of the open window of a pick-up truck, thankfully it was parked in the driveway. A woman angered her bully of a husband. A drunk found a reason to punch out another bar patron. Simple stuff."

He noticed that her eyes seemed to flash as she thought about her day. Her eyes were green. His ex-wife’s eyes were green, but not like this, there was no comparison at all. No, she was infinitely more beautiful, he mused.

“I guess you never know what you'll find when you're dispatched.” Jake told Julie a little bit about the investigation, whatever he was at liberty to say anyway. He hadn’t meant to talk about the case, but suddenly his throat felt dry. He didn’t know what else to say. It wasn’t usual for him to feel so tongue-tied with a woman. "Tell me the one thing you like the most about being a paramedic."

She laughed. "One thing, huh? Okay, I like the fact that people know you're there to help them." She fiddled with her napkin. "I mean, even when you lose a patient, they know they weren't alone. Somebody was trying to help them. I like to think that's a comfort." She let her eyes rest on his strong jaw line and the open V of his shirt.

"I never thought of it that way." He admired her for her answer. Jake usually tended to be cynical and figured that most times someone said something good about their job, it was usually just so much well-rehearsed wordiness. Somehow he could tell that Julie was totally sincere. "Okay, is there something you don't like?"

Julie thought silently for a few moments. She smiled at him. "Actually, it's not so much that I dislike responding to a call with a real young kid, it's just more difficult. You know, I can get to a scene where a baby is sick and I have to waste time trying to get a hold of the kid to treat."

"What do you mean?"

"Parents don't like to pass care for their kid off to someone else, you usually have to convince them that it's best for the child. I once responded to a call for a baby who stopped breathing…"

"Damn. That's got to be tough."

"It's the kind of call you don't waste time getting to. Anyway, by the time the first cop and I hit the door we heard the sweetest sound of the baby crying. The poor thing was all congested and mom kind of panicked about the baby not being able to catch her breath."

"That's understandable, I guess."

"Oh yeah. I would have probably freaked out if it were my kid. Anyway, I get in to the house and all the adults there were really upset. They were literally running around carrying the kid and passing her off to each other. I had to chase the kid down and finally asked the cop to help me get a hold of her." She chuckled. "It actually would've been pretty funny if it were just a scene in some comedy show."

He nodded understandingly. "Sometimes family members are so upset at scenes I go to, they get in the way and they don't realize they are only making it worse." Jake took a sip of his coffee. "So, tell me more about you?"

Continue reading this ebook at Smashwords.
Purchase this book or download sample versions for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-37 show above.)