They slid the stretcher into the back of the ambulance, with one of the EMTs jumping in first to guide it into place. They were done within seconds. The second EMT slammed the door closed and then quickly entered the cab and started the engine. He backed the vehicle out of the driveway in a single smooth maneuver. John was still impressed, even knowing that it was a much smaller vehicle than the fire engine had been. Its amber lights flashed, but the siren did not sound until the ambulance reached the street.
John turned back toward the stairs, watching as two paramedics exited the apartment. One of them carried several cases of equipment; the other guided a young woman dressed in a thick pale bathrobe down the stairs. Her long hair, appearing to be some kind of darkish red in the weird lighting, was snarled and loose. She was sobbing, but trying to hold it in.
The police sergeant stared meaningfully at his partner, and then nodded toward the stairs. She nodded silently in return, straightened, and then moved toward the stairway. John watched her go, admiring the lines of her buttocks and lines as she walked. He then realized that the sergeant was looking at him. His cheeks burned with embarrassment and he looked away.
Probably time for a discrete exit, he decided. Not much I can do here.
He turned, prepared to leave, when he heard an authoritative voice sound from behind him.
“Hold up, son.”
Even before turning around, John knew it belonged to the police sergeant.
John turned around slowly, automatically careful not to have his hands anywhere near his weapons or his belt. Swallowing against a sudden lump in his throat, he addressed the officer.
“Yes, sir?”
“I’m kind of surprised to see you here, son,” the sergeant said. John really wished he would stop using the word “son”.
“I, um,” he hesitated. “I get around, sir. Wherever they assign me.”
The sergeant studied him closely for a moment.
“So it seems . . .”
The sergeant’s eyes shifted for a moment to where his partner conversed quietly with the young woman, and then turned back to John. He studied John for several long seconds—a period that felt like minutes to John.
“Come with me,” the sergeant told John, gesturing ahead of him. “But touch nothing.”
John hesitated for an instant, his legs unwilling to move. After convincing himself that he had done nothing wrong, he headed toward the sergeant.
The officer began moving toward the apartment before John even reached him. John found that he nearly had to jog in order to keep up with the older man.
The sergeant paused next to his partner. He gave the young woman with her a momentary, if somewhat guarded, sympathetic glance. He then said something to the female officer in quiet tones that John could not quite make out, gesturing with his head up toward the apartment. The female officer nodded and then said something to the young woman. The young woman nodded slowly and the sergeant headed toward the stairs. John took long strides in an effort to catch up with him.
John found the interior of the apartment to be unremarkable. It was perhaps a bit tidier that he had expected, but it was also bit more empty. The main room contained only a single well-worn sofa and a long wide coffee table, clearly from an earlier decade of design. Several stacks of overlarge decorative pillows apparently served as additional seating. On the far side of the room was a narrow dining table that looked it could seat six people. Only three chairs, only two of which clearly matched the set, were positioned around it. John quickly surveyed the space but any additional ones, but did not find any.
The sergeant remained standing just ahead of him, also assessing the room. Everything in his posture and demeanor radiated a mild wariness, but nothing that put John on instant alert. His gaze paused occasionally as it swept the room. By the time John could focus on what it might have been that drawn the older officer’s attention, the sergeant’s eyes was moving again.
Apparently having completed his initial analysis of the situation, the sergeant strode toward the narrow open archway that presumably led to the kitchen. He only glanced inside before turning and heading toward what John presumed was the main bedroom. A second door to its left John guessed was either the bathroom or a second bedroom. The door to it was closed. The sergeant, John noticed, pretty much ignored it, giving it only a quick glance.
John followed him to the bedroom, nearly colliding with him when the officer stopped just inside the doorway. The sergeant studied the room with a fierce intensity that made John found unsettling. The room was in a state of major disarray.
Nothing surprising, John mused. Considering half a dozen emergency personnel just trampled through.
Small indications here and there throughout the room made him think that this space was probably not kept as tidy as the main area had been. He gotten only the briefest glimpse of the kitchen, but it too had looked to be generally well-organized and maintained. Trying to look past the older man, John tried to see what the sergeant might be finding of such interest.
Apparently sensing John’s close proximity, the sergeant took another step into the room and then paused again, looking around. John moved a little further inside, but tried not to crowd the officer again. He stopped, holding his breath suddenly, as he caught the whiff of something foul. He struggled not to cough, but was finally was forced to inhale. He did so cautiously, but it did not help. The odor made him think of a newborn’s diaper left out to ferment in the midsummer afternoon sun. He glanced at the sergeant, but, based on what John could see of his expression, it did not seem to affect him at all.
Probably lost his sense of smell years ago . . .
John fought back the urge to gag. Although the smell was not strong, it was powerful enough to trigger some basic physiological responses.
He followed the sergeant further into the room. Getting a quick glimpse into the attached bathroom, he wished that he had not. The visible surfaces were smeared with large patches of several dark fluids. John recognized some as being blood and feces; a few he guessed were from vomit. The rest . . . he did not want to even guess at their source.
What little control he had managed to regain over his primal nearly failed him completely. John felt bile burning the back of his throat. Somehow, and he was not sure exactly how, he prevented himself from revisiting the fast-food burritos that had been his dinner. Moving deeper into the bedroom, he positioned himself so that he would not accidentally get another peek.
The sergeant slowly walked through the room, pausing to take a closer look inside the bathroom. John noted that even he remained outside it.
Maybe even he has his limits, John considered.
He did wonder, though, about what kind of things the sergeant had witnessed during his years on the police force that might have inured him to a scene like this.
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