* * *
I get the hospital’s name from the EMTs and hurry back to my car. Do I follow or head home and change?
Allie is spending the month at summer camp as a junior counselor with her friends, which at least gives me time to unravel the disaster that just happened.
I follow the ambulance to the hospital, not that I’m allowed in via the ambulance bay or double doors. I give what information I have to the hospital and am told to wait in the waiting room. I should go home and shower. Blood is caked to my jeans and stains my shirt.
At least it’s not my blood.
Two police officers speak with the desk clerk before pointing at me. I press my lips together and inhale sharply on their approach.
“Ma’am, you were at the scene of the shooting?” the officer asks.
I stand, wanting to be at their level or closer as I answer their questions. “I heard gunshots,” I say. I’m not comfortable divulging anything further. I don’t know what happened and I’m not about to get mixed up in some war among thieves and dangerous men.
He is dangerous. I can sense it and should have bailed for my house the first opportunity I had after calling 9-1-1.
I’m not a monster. I wouldn’t leave a man to die like the man in the vehicle. I can only assume it had been a man, unless it was a lover’s quarrel that ended in attempted murder.
“Did you see anything?” the officer asks, taking out his notepad and pen to document my account.
“No.”
“Do you know the gentleman’s name who was shot?”
I shake my head. “No. I’ve never seen him before today.”
“How many gunshots did you hear?” the officer asks.
“Two,” I say, and the two officers exchange a silent glance. Only one has been speaking the entire time. The other appears younger, like he might be a rookie in training.
“And you didn’t see any other victims or the perpetrator?”
“What? No.” Had someone else been shot? Could it have been the driver who left the gentleman to die?
“What about a vehicle?” the officer asks. He taps the top of his pen on his notepad.
“A black SUV. It was dark and far away. It could have been navy,” I recount, not remembering all that well. Tires squealed, and it had taken off hastily.
He jots that down and hands me his card. “If you think of anything else.”
The two officers return to the front desk, say something to the woman, and then the double doors open and they are allowed into the back.
Are they intending to interrogate the stranger in the forest? I doubt he’s capable of saying much, given his condition.
I sit back down in the scratchy, upholstered hospital waiting room chairs. There’s a television on; the audio is muted, but closed caption is running. I can barely string two words together on the screen. My mind is in a haze.
An hour later, or maybe two hours, time seems to drift together, a doctor comes out behind the double doors. “Are you here with John Doe brought in earlier?” he asks, glancing at me.
The blood on my clothes is quite an indicator. “Yeah,” I say.
The doctor approaches, and I inhale sharply.
Is it bad news?
Is he going to tell me that he didn’t make it?
“We managed to remove the bullet, but given the swelling in his brain and fever, we’ve induced a coma. We’ll continue to monitor his vitals and brain activity. He’s not out of the woods just yet.” The doctor grimaces at his remark. “Might I suggest you go home and shower if you plan on sticking around? We won’t know anything for quite some time.”