The Mourning Mail (final release candidate #7)

Chapter 55

As I'd begun shrieking, my hands clasped the side of my face, letting the lid slam shut. I jumped backwards, nearly knocking Marci off her feet. As Marci caught me, her left crutch jammed itself into the soil at an angle, keeping both of us from toppling over.

"My God, Debra Ann, what did you see?!?" Marci asked in surprise, as we steadied each other.

"It's Mark Christensen – I think he's dead!" The pitch of my voice was an octave higher as I pointed to the now-closed box cover. Marci hobbled the few steps toward it with me at her side. As we lifted the lid together, she saw what I'd seen – a man's eyes staring back at her, both wide open but unseeing, from a face spattered with grime and gore. His blue short-sleeved shirt was saturated in dried blood, with several small pools of fresh blood oozing from slashes through his clothing on his chest, stomach, and thighs, with a thick pool of drying blood underneath him. A slow wheezing was escaping from between his lips.

"I need a team of paramedics at the back door, stat! I've got a victim down, multiple stab wounds, bleeding out," Marci yelled into the patio door opening.

"Marci, that's the hotline tipster from Chicago – I interviewed him," I said as Marci stepped back toward me to clear room for the paramedics and their equipment. "I swear he was looking straight through me... I'm sorry for losing it. For all of the things I've seen and reported, this is the first time I've ever discovered a body, or came across one I wasn't expecting. Jesus, all that blood – is he dead?"

"He might still be breathing," Marci replied. "That's what we were hearing when we were sitting there – but he's pretty far gone. The paramedics are going to have to let us know after they've finished working on him."

"What in the world is he doing back here? And why would he be anywhere near Ricky Mason?" I wondered out loud.

"He paid a steep price for whatever he was thinking," Marci observed.

"They're going to need his medical history," I said. "Let me make sure they at least have his name."

I walked over to a paramedic busily inputting information into an iPad, and gave her Mark's identity. I explained that I didn't know much about him, that he had friends in San Diego and that he'd spent the last several months in Chicago. I gave her Dale Newsome's contact information as a source who might know, or could find out, if and where Mark had received medical treatment in Chicago.

The paramedics were swarming around the wooden box, knocking down the sides of it with a fire axe so they could get the man out without having to lift him. Two paramedics rushed through the patio door opening carrying a collapsible gurney. Once they had him safely out of the box and the gurney raised on its wheels, there was a scramble to get his major wounds identified, the blood flow slowed, and low-titer O-positive blood into his system. Once they'd done what they could in the moment, they wheeled their patient back through the patio door opening and to the waiting ambulance parked at the front of the house.

Marci and I watched in hopeful silence, and as the paramedics left, one stepped over to where we were so he could fill us in.

"I thought you might want an update. We can see seven significant wounds; we may find others once we get him into the trauma room where we'll have more resources. He's in pretty rough shape. Our biggest challenge is that he's in no condition to talk to anyone. I think he's got a chance if they can get him to the hospital in time. The fact he's a larger man probably helps, but he'd have been a goner if the rest of this hadn't happened when it did."

In the meantime, Marci had walked over to the nearest uniformed police officer.

"Which of the detectives has the crime scene?" Marci asked.

"Lt. Roe took the lead. He's been working the Brian Pierce homicide, and he's back at the ambulance with the suspect," the officer replied. He jabbed a thumb toward the front door of the residence.

"Would you take a message to him for me?" Marci asked. "He may already know this, but make hm aware that the victim the paramedics just put in the other ambulance is Mark Christensen. Christensen is a material witness who was present at the beating death of Brian Pierce – he's admitted to participating in it. The investigators thought he was in Chicago, and were trying to locate him there. Thank you, officer."

"My pleasure, Sergeant," the officer said as he returned to the living room on his way to the first ambulance.

"Okay, Debra Ann, this is an active crime scene," Marci said, turning back to me and giving me her full attention. "Let's make our way to the front yard."

We both turned to walk in silence around the side of the house, and stopped as we neared the sidewalk.

"You'll need to stay there outside the crime scene tape," Marci said. "A detective will be around to get your statement once they take care of this new victim. Hopefully, it will be Lt. Roe, but it's no big deal; tell them exactly what happened. They'll refer you to the victim's services unit for counseling and follow-up support. You've seen how this works with other witnesses, so you know the drill."

"Got it," I said with a nod.

"I'm going to be unavailable," Marci said. "As soon as Internal Affairs and my union rep get here, I'll have to surrender my weapon and give a statement for the shooting review board."

"Will you get into trouble for shooting him?" I asked, now concerned for Marci.

"Oh, no—who knows, I might get a commendation," Marci said, obviously not worried. "They like it when everyone comes out alive. It's just standard procedure any time an officer discharges their weapon."

"Oh, thank God, I'd feel terrible if you got punished for coming to my rescue," I said, a tear coming to my eye.

"About that, Debra Ann... look, we don't always agree on everything, but we're friends. I am so sorry for giving you a hard time when you called today. When he had that knife at your throat, I thought we could lose you. If I'd let that happen, I could never live with myself. I'm here to serve the public, even the hard-headed, stubborn ones, but more than that, you mean a lot to me. I'd never want you to think I'd let you down for any reason."

Now Marci's eyes were wet, and a tear escaped one corner.

Marci and I hugged tightly for quite a while. The tears were flowing from my eyes as well. I had been so proud of my independence as a contrarian outsider, something I could get away with when I still had Dad's emotional support. But with that as my focus, I'd completely lost sight of my underlying need for acceptance. I'd finally found it in Marci and wanted to immerse myself entirely in that moment.

But the surrounding events were sweeping us along. I swiped my tears outward from under my eyes with my forefingers. I clasped Marci's shoulders with both hands, her hands resting on my hips.

"I am sorry that I am so pigheaded," I said through sniffles as I held her. "I really don't mean to make it so hard for everyone. You are always there for me, and your friendship helps me get back on the right path when I wander too far off."

"Thanks for taking it that way," Marci said, and I could see gratitude in her eyes, which seemed ironically backward considering what she had just done for me.

"But all other things aside, I do have to hand it to you," Marci added as she shifted her weight on her crutches. "Your instincts were spot on this time, and I was wrong. That man in the box has a chance because of what you did today."

"I am glad you think my coming to confront Mason had a positive outcome," I said, realizing now was a good time to be candid. "But honestly, I was just as surprised as you were that Mason had another victim in the backyard. You kept him and me alive by coming in with the cavalry when you did.

"Under those circumstances, a SWAT officer might have killed Mason where he stood. So, if you want to count Ricky Mason, three people are among the living right now because of you. On behalf of everyone still here, thank you for being one damned fine police officer...."

I paused and then couldn't help a broad smile.

"... oh, yeah, and for taking your training at the shooting range seriously. There might have been just a split second there when I wondered how long it had been since you last qualified."