It was a cool evening after a day of late autumn rain. I was outside Hartford Hospital. I remade the stretcher and slid two long boards in the empty slots under the bench. We’d just brought in two patients from a minor motor vehicle accident, both claiming neck pain after being tapped by a Lincoln Continental. I was rolling up a nine foot strap by the supply closet when Troy came out, and said, “Let’s go. We need to go back to the office to change our 02.”
“I changed it this morning,” I said. “We have 1500 in the main. We didn’t even use any on that call.”
“Just head back there,” Troy said.
I got in the ambulance, turned the headlights on, and drove out the back way onto Retreat Avenue. Troy was silent as I turned left onto Washington, then took a right onto New Britain and followed that through traffic all the way to the office.
When we got back to the parking lot, Troy had me stop by his grey Chevy pickup. He took a duffle bag out of the passenger side door.
“What’s that for?”
“You can tell dispatch we’re clear,” he said.
Around ten-thirty, we swung by Capitol and Broad. Troy looked around, but not seeming to find what he was looking for, told me to circle the neighborhood. When he spotted Annie Moore standing in the doorway a few blocks up the street, he told me to pull over. Troy called to her.
“Tonight my lucky night?” she said. “You got five bucks for a girl on her birthday?”
“Your birthday was last month. Get in back.”
“I’m not done drinking,” she said. She showed her forty that had at least ten left in it.
Troy reached into his duffle bag and pulled out a fifth of Southern Comfort which he showed her. “Present from Sidney. Now get in back,” he said.
“This a trick?”
Troy stepped out of the car, and walked around to the back. He opened the door for her. “Sit on the bench. Go on.” He helped her up.
“Head over by the cemetery,” he said to me.
“You’re not going to rape and kill me are you?” Annie called from the back.
“No,” Troy said distractedly.
We drove into the cemetery. Troy helped Annie out, then gave her a blanket, the bottle of Southern Comfort and some crackers. “Go up and keep Sidney company for a couple hours and we’ll be back for you.”
“Oh, I’ll be good company,” she said, quickly taking possession of the bottle.
“You’re still here in a couple hours, I’ll give you fifty bucks.”
“It is my lucky night.”
“Just be here.”
“What are you up too?”
“Just taking care of business,” he said without looking at me.
At eleven thirty, as soon as we’d dropped off a psychiatric patient at Hartford, he told me to drive back to the cemetery. On the way, Troy checked his sugar, and then carefully ate a peanut butter sandwich. At the cemetery, Annie lay not ten yards from where we left her. Troy shined the ambulance spotlight on her. She was out cold, resting against a tombstone. He stepped out of the ambulance then, took off his uniform shirt and handed it to me. He reached in for his backpack, and then threw the backpack over his shoulder.
“Where are you going? What are you doing?”
“We get a call,” he said. “Tell them we just got flagged down for Annie.”
I looked at him closely. He didn’t avoid my eyes.
We stared at each other.
I offered him the radio.
He shook his head.
“I’ll be back after midnight.”
I watched him walk up the hill, and disappear in the darkness.
It was quiet in the city. 473 did an asthma on Westland Street. 456 a chest pain out in Newington. A police siren passed nearby, and then it was quiet. I couldn’t see anything up the hill. Mist rose off the pavement. A dog barked in the distance.
A shape emerged from the night. Troy was back. He wore a Yankee hat. I saw a welt under his eye. We stared at each other. He looked tired, but defiant.
He took off his muddy boots and stowed them in his sack, from which he’d removed another pair. He put his paramedic shirt back on, and then quickly ate a sandwich and drank it down with apple juice. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
“We have to get Annie?”
“All right.”
“482,” I said into the radio. “We’re getting flagged down for a drunk here. Looks like Annie.”
“Okay 82, I’ve got you out.”
Jean Rushen, the triage nurse at Hartford, asked Troy about his eye.
“She clocked him,” I said.
“But she’s out cold.”
“With a bottle in her hand, she’s never out cold.”
“You should get that looked at,” Jean said to Troy.
He didn’t answer.
At four, right before we were supposed to get off, we were sent back to the cemetery. “Possible 78,” dispatch said. “See the PD on scene. Priority Two.”
There were five police cars there when we arrived. One officer told us, “It’s just a presumption.”
Troy slung the monitor over his shoulder and we walked up the hill to where we could make out the flashlights.
Hector Ruiz lay before a grave, his neck twisted at a horrible angle. I looked at the gravestone. Maria Ruiz.
“There was quite a scuffle here,” Denny Creer was saying. He shone his light on footprints. “They fought. The killer chased him around the grave three times, must have caught him, snapped his neck. Stabbed him in the gut. Left the knife in him. I doubt there’s prints on it. Somebody wanted him dead.” He looked at Troy. “You didn’t do it, did you?"
Troy looked at Creer with his dark eyes. I thought for a moment he might answer.
“We were on another call,” I said quickly.
“I was just joking,” Denny said. “Had to be gang-related. They’ve had a hit out on him. Pretty smart, I’d say. They knew he’d be coming here to see his sister. It’s the anniversary of her death. Can’t say as it’s a great loss. It’s a shame though. It’s just going to open up the OK Corral. Wild West time again. Keeps us all employed anyway.”
Troy wrote his name, date of birth and unit number on a piece of paper along with the time of presumption. He handed Denny the paper. Creer thanked him, and then turned to talk to his sergeant. I saw Troy carefully fold the six-second asystole strip he’d recorded and put it in his pocket. Troy looked down at the body. He spat on Hector’s face.
