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49
Savich said, “Chief, you know Duvall had to be in pain from his gunshot wound by the time he got in there, his only hope that Dr. Hodges could fix him up and he’d get out of there fast. The first thing he’d have asked for is some pain meds, morphine from the doctor’s medical cabinet, once the doctor started treating his wound. It would have been enough to make him woozy, and that gives us a chance. Chief, do you have plans to the building?”
Collette nodded. “Marvin brought them over. They’re in my patrol car. I’ll show you.”
Collette took the rolled-up plans from a young man with oversize glasses falling down his nose, thin as a Popsicle stick, his uniform perfectly pressed. Collette said, “This is Marvin, my right hand, young enough to keep my brain on track. He’s the one who thought to bring the plans.” Collette spread them out on top of his Crown Vic. Sherlock pointed at a small electrical room. Savich nodded, but he wasn’t looking at that. He stepped back and stared at the medical building. Sherlock opened her mouth to ask him what he was thinking when Chief Collette laid three photographs on top of the plans.
“Here are the hostages. This is Teddy, the young idiot who wanted to play cowboy. This is Dr. Milton Hodges, an older man who’s not so spry anymore, near retirement, but still a good doctor. And this is his new nurse, Jenny Connors. She’s twenty-six, married two months, husband’s an EMT.”
Savich said, “Make sure to circulate those photos to the SWAT team when they arrive.”
“Will do. You put out the BOLO, so Duvall is part of an FBI case? What can you tell me?”
Sherlock said, “Duvall was hired to murder a witness, a loose end, if you will, and got himself shot instead. We don’t know how badly he was wounded, only that there was a lot of blood.”
Savich said, “We need to speak to Eliza, your negotiator.”
Chief Collette introduced the three of them to Sergeant Eliza Crumb. They saw she topped out at no more than five feet tall on a good day. The Kevlar vest she was wearing over her black turtleneck made her look like a tough sort of dumpling. She was remarkably pretty, with big liquid gray eyes, and when she spoke, she sounded six feet tall. She said right away to all of them, “I keep trying to engage him, but he either screams at me or curses up a blue streak and hangs up. He claims he didn’t shoot anyone, says it was a warning. I heard a woman’s scream, and it had to be Jenny Connors. He sounds drugged up to his eyeballs but he still knows what he’s doing. Guys, I’m scared he’s going to lose it if anything sets him off.”
Savich said, “Do you think you could call him again? I’d like to hear his voice.”
Eliza set her cell to speaker, punched in the number, and drew a deep breath, slowly letting it out. She nodded to Savich and said, “Mr. Duvall, we were all concerned when we heard Jenny scream and you fired off that shot. Are you sure Jenny’s all right? Are Dr. Hodges and Officer Janko all right?”
“Shut up about her. Ain’t none of your business what I do with these yahoos.”
Eliza talked over him. “Why did you fire your weapon, Gary?”
Hot silence, then, “I wanted to see if the sucker still worked. It belonged to my granddad, and he always said his old Colt wouldn’t fail me.” He laughed, a manic laugh. “He was right.”
“Are you ready to talk to me again, let us resolve this situation so no one gets hurt?”
“You sound like one of those idiot shrinks at Red Onion, the brainless dicks. You want me to pour out my guts to you, keep me busy so you can get cops in here before I kill these cockroaches. Ain’t going to happen. I’m running this show.” He muttered to himself, then said, his voice calmer, “I’ve made up my mind. I want out of this place, it stinks like antiseptic. I want fifty thousand dollars and a helicopter here in thirty minutes or you’ll have three dead folk, none of them worth anything to me, but maybe something to you. Move it, bitch, or you’ll hear three gunshots, not one. Hey, sweet Jenny, they want to know you’re all right. Do you want to say hi to hubby?”
They heard a young woman’s fierce voice clearly over Eliza’s cell. “You’re crazy up in your head, you know that? My hubby will twist your skinny neck off and stuff your brains down your pants. That wall is thin, only a painted wallboard partition, what with us dividing up the one exam room into two, so he’ll hear you if you try anything with me.”
They heard him hiss out curses, fast and loud as a machine gun, but nothing else. No gunshots.
Savich grinned like a bandit. Thank you, Jenny.
“That’s my girl,” Eliza whispered to Collette. “Guts and grit.” She said calmly into the cell in her negotiator voice, “Gary, we can get the money, but you know it takes time to get a helicopter here, has to fly in from Andrews Air Force Base.”
“Don’t you lie to me.”
“No, Gary, I’m not lying. I need at least an hour to get the helicopter here.”
They heard him arguing with himself, then, “Forty minutes and that’s it. I’ll shoot these bozos or maybe stab young Jenny in her belly with one of the doctor’s scalpels here? Stick it in deep, then rip it out, you know? Let her watch her blood pour out through her fingers.
“I’m thinking I might take the boy cop with me, make sure none of his buddies lose it.” Duvall’s voice had gone from mocking and flat to colder than death.
Eliza said, her voice firm as a hanging judge, “No, you will not take Officer Janko with you. That’s non-negotiable. Look, Gary, I’ll call the authorities, see what we can do to speed them up. But let me make myself perfectly clear. If you kill any of the hostages, you won’t be leaving; you’ll be killed. You know that, don’t you?”
He hung up on her.
Eliza said, “He sounds high as a kite, but you can hear he’s getting desperate, and under it all, coldness and meanness. When he finds out there won’t be any helicopter, we’re going to have three dead hostages, three dead friends.”
Savich knew they’d reached critical mass. He said, “Eliza, when you dial up Duvall again, assure him the helicopter’s on its way. Remind him we’ll blow his head off if he kills any of the hostages.”
“But what—” Collette said.
