Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel (2 page)

I’m not doing a very good job of keeping my troubles at bay, and I find myself falling back into another old habit I acquired from my days on patrol: wishing for a little chaos. A bar fight would do. Or maybe a domestic dispute. Sans serious injury, of course. I don’t know what it says about me that I’d rather face off with a couple of pissed-off drunks than look too hard at the things going on in my own life.

I’ve just pulled into the parking lot of LaDonna’s Diner for a BLT and a cup of dark roast to go when the voice of my second shift dispatcher cracks over the radio.

“Six two three.”

I pick up my mike. “What do you have, Jodie?”

“Chief, I just took a nine one one from Andy Welbaum. He says there’s a bad wreck on Delisle Road at CR 14.”

“Anyone hurt?” Dinner forgotten, I glance in my rearview mirror and make a U-turn in the gravel lot.

“There’s a buggy involved. He says it’s bad.”

“Get an ambulance out there. Notify Holmes County.” Cursing, I make a left on Main, hit my emergency lights and siren. The engine groans as I crank the speedometer up to fifty. “I’m ten seventy-six.”

I’m doing sixty by the time I leave the corporation limit of Painters Mill. Within seconds, the radio lights up as the call goes out to the Holmes County sheriff’s office. I make a left on Delisle Road, a twisty stretch of asphalt that cuts through thick woods. It’s a scenic drive during the day, but treacherous as hell at night, especially with so many deer in the area.

County Road 14 intersects a mile down the road. The Explorer’s engine groans as I crank the speedometer to seventy. Mailboxes and the black trunks of trees fly by outside my window. I crest a hill and spot the headlights of a single vehicle ahead. No ambulance or sheriff’s cruiser yet; I’m first on scene.

I’m twenty yards from the intersection when I recognize Andy Welbaum’s pickup truck. He lives a few miles from here. Probably coming home from work at the plant in Millersburg. The truck is parked at a haphazard angle on the shoulder, as if he came to an abrupt and unexpected stop. The headlights are trained on what looks like the shattered remains of a four-wheeled buggy. There’s no horse in sight; either it ran home or it’s down. Judging from the condition of the buggy, I’m betting on the latter.

“Shit.” I brake hard. My tires skid on the gravel shoulder. Leaving my emergency lights flashing, I hit my high beams for light and jam the Explorer into park. Quickly, I grab a couple of flares from the back, snatch up my Maglite, and then I’m out of the vehicle. Snapping open the flares, I scatter them on the road to alert oncoming traffic. Then I start toward the buggy.

My senses go into hyperalert as I approach, several details striking me at once. A sorrel horse lies on its side on the southwest corner of the intersection, still harnessed but unmoving. Thirty feet away, a badly damaged buggy has been flipped onto its side. It’s been broken in half, but it’s not a clean break. I see splintered wood, two missing wheels, and a ten-yard-wide swath of debris—pieces of fiberglass and wood scattered about. I take in other details, too. A child’s shoe. A flat-brimmed hat lying amid brown grass and dried leaves …

My mind registers all of this in a fraction of a second, and I know it’s going to be bad. Worse than bad. It will be a miracle if anyone survived.

I’m midway to the buggy when I spot the first casualty. It’s a child, I realize, and everything grinds to a halt, as if someone threw a switch inside my head and the world winds down into slow motion.

“Fuck.
Fuck.
” I rush to the victim, drop to my knees. It’s a little girl. Six or seven years old. She’s wearing a blue dress. Her
kapp
is askew and soaked with blood and I think:
head injury.

“Sweetheart.” The word comes out as a strangled whisper.

The child lies in a supine position with her arms splayed. Her pudgy hands are open and relaxed. Her face is so serene she might have been sleeping. But her skin is gray. Blue lips are open, revealing tiny baby teeth. Already her eyes are cloudy and unfocused. I see bare feet and I realize the force of the impact tore off her shoes.

Working on autopilot, I hit my lapel mike, put out the call for a 10-50F. A fatality accident. I stand, aware that my legs are shaking. My stomach seesaws, and I swallow something that tastes like vinegar. Around me, the night is so quiet I hear the ticking of the truck’s engine a few yards away. Even the crickets and night birds have gone silent as if in reverence to the violence that transpired here scant minutes before.

Insects fly in the beams of the headlights. In the periphery of my thoughts, I’m aware of someone crying. I shine my beam in the direction of the sound, and spot Andy Welbaum sitting on the ground near the truck with his face in his hands, sobbing. His chest heaves, and sounds I barely recognize as human emanate from his mouth.

I call out to him. “Andy, are you hurt?”

He looks up at me, as if wondering why I would ask him such a thing. “No.”

“How many in the buggy? Did you check?” I’m on my feet and looking around for more passengers, when I spot another victim.

I don’t hear Andy’s response as I start toward the Amish man lying on the grassy shoulder. He’s in a prone position with his head turned to one side. He’s wearing a black coat and dark trousers. I try not to look at the ocean of blood that has soaked into the grass around him or the way his left leg is twisted with the foot pointing in the wrong direction. He’s conscious and watches me approach with one eye.

I kneel at his side. “Everything’s going to be okay,” I tell him. “You’ve been in an accident. I’m here to help you.”

His mouth opens. His lips quiver. His full beard tells me he’s married, and I wonder if his wife is lying somewhere nearby.

I set my hand on his. Cold flesh beneath my fingertips. “How many other people on board the buggy?”

“Three … children.”

Something inside me sinks. I don’t want to find any more dead children. I pat his hand. “Help is on the way.”

His gaze meets mine. “Katie…”

The sound of my name coming from that bloody mouth shocks me. I know that voice. That face. Recognition impacts me solidly. It’s been years, but there are some things—some people—you never forget. Paul Borntrager is one of them. “Paul.” Even as I say his name, I steel myself against the emotional force of it.

He tries to speak, but ends up spitting blood. I see more on his teeth. But it’s his eye that’s so damn difficult to look at. One is gone completely; the other is cognizant and filled with pain. I know the person trapped inside that broken body. I know his wife. I know at least one of his kids is dead, and I’m terrified he’ll see that awful truth in my face.

“Don’t try to talk,” I tell him. “I’m going to check the children.”

Tears fill his eye. I feel his stare burning into me as I rise and move away. Quickly, I sweep my beam along the ground, looking for victims. I’m aware of sirens in the distance and relief slips through me that help is on the way. I know it’s a cowardly response, but I don’t want to deal with this alone.

I think of Paul’s wife, Mattie. A lifetime ago, she was my best friend. We haven’t spoken in twenty years; she may be a stranger to me now, but I honestly don’t think I could bear it if she died here tonight.

Mud sucks at my boots as I cross the ditch. On the other side, I spot a tiny figure curled against the massive trunk of a maple tree. A boy of about four years of age. He looks like a little doll, small and vulnerable and fragile. Hope jumps through me when I see steam rising into the cold night air. At first, I think it’s vapor from his breath. But as I draw closer I realize with a burgeoning sense of horror that it’s not a sign of life, but death. He’s bled out and the steam is coming from the blood as it cools.

I go to him anyway, kneel at his side, and all I can think when I look at his battered face is that this should never happen to a child. His eyes and mouth are open. A wound the size of my fist has peeled back the flesh on one side of his head.

Sickened, I close my eyes. “Goddammit,” I choke as I get to my feet.

I stand there for a moment, surrounded by the dead and dying, overwhelmed, repulsed by the bloodshed, and filled with impotent anger because this kind of carnage shouldn’t happen and yet it has, in my town, on my watch, and there’s not a damn thing I can do to save any of them.

Trying hard to step back into myself and do my job, I run my beam around the scene. A breeze rattles the tree branches above me and a smattering of leaves float down. Fingers of fog rise within the thick underbrush and I find myself thinking of souls leaving bodies.

A whimper yanks me from my stasis. I spin, jerk my beam left. I see something tangled against the tumbling wire fence that runs along the tree line. Another child. I break into a run. From twenty feet away I see it’s a boy. Eight or nine years old. Hope surges inside me when I hear him groan. It’s a pitiful sound that echoes through me like the electric pain of a broken bone. But it’s a good sound, too, because it tells me he’s alive.

I drop to my knees at his side, set my flashlight on the ground beside me. The child is lying on his side with his left arm stretched over his head and twisted at a terrible angle.
Dislocated shoulder,
I think. Broken arm, maybe. Survivable, but I’ve worked enough accidents to know it’s usually the injuries you can’t see that end up being the worst.

One side of his face is visible. His eyes are open; I can see the curl of lashes against his cheek as he blinks. Flecks of blood cover his chin and throat and the front of his coat. There’s blood on his face, but I don’t know where it’s coming from; I can’t pinpoint the source.

Tentatively, I reach out and run my fingertips over the top of his hand, hoping the contact will comfort him. “Honey, can you hear me?”

He moans. I hear his breaths rushing in and out between clenched teeth. He’s breathing hard. Hyperventilating. His hand twitches beneath mine and he cries out.

“Don’t try to move, sweetie,” I say. “You were in an accident, but you’re going to be okay.” As I speak, I try to put myself in his shoes, conjure words that will comfort him. “My name’s Katie. I’m here to help you. Your
datt
’s okay. And the doctor is coming. Just be still and try to relax for me, okay?”

His small body heaves. He chokes out a sound and flecks of blood spew from his mouth. I hear gurgling in his chest, and close my eyes tightly, fighting to stay calm.
Don’t you dare take this one, too,
a little voice inside my head snaps.

The urge to gather him into my arms and pull him from the fence in which he’s tangled is powerful. But I know better than to move an accident victim. If he sustained a head or spinal injury, moving him could cause even more damage. Or kill him.

The boy stares straight ahead, blinking. Still breathing hard. Chest rattling. He doesn’t move, doesn’t try to look at me. “… Sampson…” he whispers.

I don’t know who that is; I’m not even sure I heard him right or if he’s cognizant and knows what he’s saying. It doesn’t matter. I rub my thumb over the top of his hand. “Shhh.” I lean close. “Don’t try to talk.”

He shifts slightly, turns his head. His eyes find mine. They’re gray.
Like Mattie’s,
I realize. In their depths I see fear and the kind of pain no child should ever have to bear. His lips tremble. Tears stream from his eyes. “Hurts…”

“Everything’s going to be okay.” I force a smile, but my lips feel like barbed wire.

A faint smile touches his mouth and then his expression goes slack. Beneath my hand, I feel his body relax. His stare goes vacant.

“Hey.” I squeeze his hand, willing him not to slip away. “Stay with me, buddy.”

He doesn’t answer.

The sirens are closer now. I hear the rumble of the diesel engine as a fire truck arrives on scene. The hiss of tires against the wet pavement as more vehicles pull onto the shoulder. The shouts of the first responders as they disembark.

“Over here!” I yell. “I’ve got an injured child!”

I stay with the boy until the first paramedic comes up behind me. “We’ll take it from here, Chief.”

He’s about my age, with a crew cut and blue jacket inscribed with the Holmes County Rescue insignia. He looks competent and well trained, with a trauma kit slung over his shoulder and a cervical collar beneath his arm.

“He was conscious a minute ago,” I tell the paramedic.

“We’ll take good care of him, Chief.”

Rising, I take a step back to get out of the way.

He kneels at the child’s side. “I need a backboard over here!” he shouts over his shoulder.

Close on his heels, a young firefighter snaps open a reflective thermal blanket and goes around to the other side of the boy. A third paramedic trots through the ditch with a bright yellow backboard in tow.

I leave them to their work and hit my lapel mike. “Jodie, can you ten seventy-nine?”
Notify coroner.

“Roger that.”

I glance over my shoulder to the place where I left Paul Borntrager. A firefighter kneels at his side, assessing him. I can’t see the Amish man’s face, but he’s not moving.

Firefighters and paramedics swarm the area, treating the injured and looking for more victims. Any cop that has ever worked patrol knows that passengers who don’t utilize safety belts—which is always the case with a buggy—can be ejected a long distance, especially if speed is a factor. When I was a rookie in Columbus, I worked an accident in which a semi truck went off the road and flipped end over end down a one-hundred-foot ravine. The driver, who’d been belted in, was seriously injured, but survived. His wife, who hadn’t been wearing her safety belt, was ejected over two hundred feet. The officers on scene—me included—didn’t find her for nearly twenty minutes. Afterward, the coroner told me that if we’d gotten to her sooner, she might have survived. Nobody ever talked about that accident again. But it stayed with me, and I never forgot the lesson it taught.

Wondering if Mattie was a passenger, I establish a mental grid of the scene. Starting at the point of impact, I walk the area, looking for casualties, working my way outward in all directions. I don’t find any more victims.