No!
If we were ever going to bring him back I needed to keep his blood flowing. I started chest compressions, but after a few minutes when the paramedics still hadn’t arrived I felt Ralph’s presence beside me, his hand on my shoulder.
“He’s gone.” Ralph’s voice was as gentle as he could make it. “Pat.” He knelt beside me, put a hand on my shoulder. “He’s gone.”
I kept going. Maybe he was wrong.
Two more compressions, three more, four more, but it wasn’t enough, would never be enough. A crew of paramedics streamed into the courtroom, and as they took over trying to revive Grant, I leaned back, out of breath. My heart pounding.
I tried to relax, to calm my breathing, but couldn’t seem to do it.
Throughout the courtroom the spectators and jury members were emerging from their hiding places. Richard Basque stood nearby, watching me. His deep, thoughtful eyes touched me, swept over me, a psychopathic mixture of coolness and warmth. “Thank you, Dr. Bowers.” He spoke just loud enough for me to hear, then let a smile play across his lips. “I owe you my life.”
That’s it.
I rose and started for him.
This time it was Ralph’s turn to hold me back.
“Let it be, Pat.” I strained to get free, but he didn’t let go. “Like you said before, not like this.”
“I’m OK.”
I tried to shake his hands off. Finally, he let go on his own and studied my face.
“I am. I’m all right.”
“That’s good,” he said softly. “Because right now you need to be.” He stayed within reach.
The body and the blood.
Still tense. Still angry.
The EMTs were using a defibrillator on Grant, but by the look on the face of the lead paramedic, I could tell that this was one patient he didn’t expect to bring back.
A grieving father was dead, a remorseless killer was alive, and I’d made a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep.
Everything can change in an instant.
6 minutes later
Giovanni watched the ambulance roll away from the courthouse.
From listening to the police scanner he knew that it carried the body of Grant Sikora rather than that of Richard Basque. And he’d used his credentials to find out from one of the marshals outside the building that Special Agent Patrick Bowers had been the one to stop him.
Well.
Giovanni had expected, of course, that Sikora would be wheeled out of the building with a sheet over his head, but he’d thought that with his background as a gunnery sergeant in the Marines, he would have been able to accomplish his mission first. Of all the family members of the victims, he’d been the best choice.
But he hadn’t been good enough to get past Bowers, which at least confirmed what Giovanni had already suspected-that Special Agent Bowers was the perfect choice for story number ten.
It looked like a slight change of plans was in order.
Time to get back to Denver.
To tell tale number five.
15
My side ached.
My heart ached.
And Grant Sikora didn’t make it.
He’d been pronounced dead upon arrival at St. Francis Medical Center thirty minutes ago. The officer he’d shot would need a little time and physical therapy to heal but would eventually regain full use of his arm, so it looked like even though there’d been one tragedy, one had been averted.
Two, if you counted Basque escaping with his life.
The courtroom we’d been in had become a crime scene, so the bailiff had taken the jurors to the jury room, and all the members of the media and relatives of the victims had been ushered downstairs to the lobby. The medical and law enforcement personnel and a few people such as myself who were involved in the trial had moved to a smaller courtroom across the hall.
I located one of the Chicago police detectives and gave him my statement, although, with more than a hundred witnesses in the courtroom, there wasn’t a whole lot of ambiguity about what had just happened.
Even though this wasn’t the time or the place to sort through all the issues we needed to discuss, after coming so close to being shot, I felt the need to talk to Lien-hua, to hear her voice. I punched in her number, but she didn’t pick up.
I decided not to leave a message.
I left my shirt, still soaked with Grant Sikora’s blood, with one of the crime scene investigators, and while Ralph went to find Calvin to get a change of clothes from my suitcase in his trunk, I asked one of the paramedics to take a look at the bruises on my side.
A quick examination was all it took.
“You’ll need X-rays to see if the ribs are broken,” he said.
I’d been in my share of scuffles, so I already knew that the treatment for a bruised rib and a broken rib is pretty much the same-keep it wrapped, avoid straining yourself, and take lots of Advil. I figured I’d wait and see how much it bothered me before going in for X-rays.
“Thanks,” I said.
He wrapped a snug dressing around my chest and gave me a cold pack to help reduce the swelling. “Take care of that, OK?”
“I will.” As he was stepping away, I saw Ralph approaching, bringing me a fresh shirt and jeans. I accepted the clothes, thanked him, and went to find a restroom to clean up and change.
A few minutes later as I was buckling my belt, my phone came to life and I figured Lien-hua must have seen that she’d missed my call. I answered, “Hey, you.”
“Hello, Pat.” It was Detective Cheyenne Warren. “I heard what happened up there. I’m glad you’re all right.”
“That makes two of us.” I realized that I wasn’t disappointed it was Cheyenne rather than Lien-hua.
She got right to business. “It doesn’t look like Taylor left the recorded message in the mine.”
“What? How do you know?”
“We found him this morning, dead, along with a woman. I should say we think it’s only one woman. It’s hard to tell.”
Her words could mean only one thing. “Dismembered?”
“Yeah. The killer dumped her in the water at the northern swimming beach at Cherry Creek State Park. Killed her at Taylor’s house, though; we matched the blood at the two sites.”
I let her words sink in as I returned to the courtoom. “Taylor had a house in the Denver area?”
“Up in the mountains. Near Evergreen. That’s where he was beheaded-tortured first, though. We’re still looking for his head.”
Unbelievable.
The envelopes had all been mailed within the Denver metroplex, so I’d suspected that Taylor might be living in the region, but still, it was disconcerting to hear that he’d been that close to us and we hadn’t found him.
“Suspects?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
I was considering everything she’d just told me when the bailiff led the jurors into the room. I only had time for a few quick questions. “Besides the dismemberments,” I asked, “are there any evidentiary links to Heather Fain’s death?”
“No physical evidence yet, but there was an anonymous 911 tip, just like with Heather’s body.”
Judge Craddock and the two lead lawyers emerged from the judge’s entrance.
I tried to think of any criminals I’d run into who could have found, overpowered, and killed Taylor, but came up short. “Anything else?”
“We’re going to Taylor’s house in the morning to finish processing the scene. Early: 7:00 a.m. It’s about half an hour from downtown; maybe you can ride with me, reduce our carbon footprint.”
Normally, it annoys me when people try to sound so progressively green by using the “carbon footprint” cliche, but from Cheyenne it just sounded natural.
“I’d come,” I said, “but I’m not scheduled to arrive in Denver until almost noon tomorrow.”
“So change your flight. Come back tonight.”
It was a possibility.
I suspected the judge would call for a mistrial, but I wouldn’t know for a few more minutes. “I will if I can. I’ll call you back when I know more.” Judge Craddock situated himself behind the bench and called for order. I needed to get off the phone. “Do me a favor. Text Agent Ralph Hawkins for me. Fill him in.”