Chapter 73

The neurosurgeon sat at the computer with Doctor Trammell (the cardiologist) looking over his shoulder. "It's just not there. There's nothing."

Moving the mouse expertly about, he soon had both CAT scans on the screen. "Look, there's the before. See that," he said thumping a fingertip against the screen. "Plain as day. Now over here, nothing," he exclaimed, indicating the same area on the most recent scan. "I ran the fucking scan twice. It just can't be ... I had the radiologist read it, too. He thought I was trying to screw with him. He couldn't see a thing, either."

Trammell chuckled. "Remember what that charge nurse said the other day when a monitor lead detached from a patient and the new nurse was about to have a stroke thinking the patient had suddenly gone into asystole, although the patient was lying there joking with her? Something like, 'treat the patient, not the machine?' Well, treat the patient."

The neurosurgeon sighed and dropped his hands to the desk. "Treat her? What, give her lunch? What the fuck happened in that room? She had a hole approximately forty millimeters (1.57 inches) in the occipital region, which has almost healed. She had a non-acute, but potentially dangerous, subdural hematoma. (An subdural hematoma or SDH is a rapidly clotting blood collection below the inner layer of the dura but external to the brain and arachnoid membrane, with the acute variety being very, very dangerous.) Now the only thing I can find wrong with her is she has a screwed up haircut where we shaved the back of her head, and she's hungry."

"Yeah," Trammell said. "Her heart sounds perfect, her EKG is perfect, and her chest is barely discolored, and only very slightly swollen. (EKG or ECG: electrocardiogram is a graph produced by an electrocardiograph, which records the electrical activity of the heart over time.) How are we going to write this one up for the insurance company? They're either going to think that we screwed up the diagnosis, or we kicked her out of the hospital too early."

The neurosurgeon laughed. "When did you ever get scolded by an insurance company for dismissing your patient too early?"

Trammell grinned. "Yeah, there is that. And besides, she isn't going anywhere, yet."

He slid into a chair beside the neurosurgeon. "Well, we can't keep her in intensive care while she's lying there bitching and eating Whoppers. For whatever reason, that young lady is on her way to being totally well ... Say, this might make a really nice paper..." He stopped himself for a second, then continued, "We lay out our diagnosis, tell about what happened to her, then what do we say? Oh, yeah, she miraculously healed herself a few hours later. Now that would make a great article — for the funny papers, that is."

"Bullshit." The neurosurgeon said, his God complex coming to the fore as he rationalized the healing away. "She would have died without me..." At the cardiologist's frown, the neurosurgeon changed it to, "She would have died without us. Some things you just can't explain. She just healed more quickly than the norm."

Trammell glanced at his buddy and sighed. "Maybe so. Still, I've never seen anything like it." After a moment of contemplation by both doctors, Trammell continued, changing subjects, "I have to go into the office today. How about you?"

"Saturday?" the neurosurgeon asked, incredulously. "You've got to be kidding."

"No. I'm not. I agreed to see one of my regular patients this morning."

"You're shitting me. If he's having problems, tell him to go to the emergency room, or wait until next week."

"Ah, he's a friend of a friend. He says that he's been having some odd feelings in his chest. Says it has been going on for a month or so. I told him I would see him this morning."

The neurosurgeon chuckled. "My tee time is eleven. Besides, with the deputy and the other surgery, I'm okay for the day, anyway," he finished, obviously talking about what he had earned.

"How did the surgery come out?" Trammell asked as he finished the dregs of his coffee and tossed the cup in the trash.

The neurosurgeon picked up his coffee cup, frowned and threw it in the container with Trammell's. "This little old lady decided that she had lived as long as she wanted to. She took an old .38, shot her dog, then put the gun to her temple. When the paramedics got there they found the dead dog, her suicide note with her lying on the bed in a pool of blood. She had an entrance hole in her right temple and an exit hole on the left."

The neurosurgeon pulled another chair out and propped his feet in it, dragging out his story.

"Well?" Trammell said.

"If she doesn't get an infection, she'll probably spend three days in the hospital before going home."

"You're messing with me," Trammell accused.

The neurosurgeon grinned, "The stupid bitch is probably the luckiest person in the world, although I have heard similar accounts. But this is the first time that I have personally seen anything like it. The bullet apparently went in at an angle, ricocheted off something and traveled all the way around the inside of her skull before exiting on the opposite side of her head. As far as we're able to determine, the dura is still intact. Apparently, the bullet never touched her brain. Hell, I did more damage than she did."

"So we have two miracles in one day," Trammell said, a studied frown on his face.

"No, my friend. It's just called the golden touch," the neurosurgeon said, standing. "Let's go play golf. Elliot is bringing his ex sister-in-law. I've only seen her once, but I think I'll see a lot more of her tonight," he said, slapping his buddy on the shoulder and walking (strutting) off.

Trammell chuckled, but his gaze shifted back to the screen. Odd, he thought. I've had a couple of patients that healed quickly, but this is beyond anything that I've ever heard. Intrigued, he sat looking at the two scans, his mind dissecting the events of the last hours.

Pushing the mute button, the house supervisor turned to Lars who was in charge of bed control. "I've got CI's (short for CICU, the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit) charge nurse on the phone. Trammell wants that deputy moved to a floor."

"Well, we've got..."

"Wait, let's think a minute. The last time we had a cop shot there were police coming in and out by the droves. They've pretty much stayed in that extra waiting room we opened for them near CICU so far, but moving her to a floor will change that. Let's put her as close to the elevator as we can. That way they won't be wandering all over the hospital. Do we have one of the new big rooms that is empty, maybe close to the elevator? She'll be wearing a monitor though, (remote heart monitor) so that's going to narrow us down."

"How about 3409? That's only about three rooms from an elevator on a monitor floor, and it's one of the new rooms."

"Great." Un-muting the phone, she told CICU what she had planned. "Lars is on the phone as we speak telling third that they're going to get your patient. They have enough staff to take her right away. He'll call you back in a few minutes."

Joyce had eaten a bland breakfast in CICU. Now in room 3409, she was finally happy. Jeff had arranged for a Whopper, large fries and a chocolate shake. The nurse had smelled the food as soon as she entered the room. She saw the sack, grinned and said she would be back in a few minutes.

Although the hospital staff had tried to transfer Joyce as secretly as they could, the news media had somehow found out, and not all of them were as nice as Gresham had been. However, there was one little problem — well, actually two big problems — both standing at parade rest at Joyce's door.

As the first group of news people got off the elevator, figured out which way 3409 was and turned, each cop took a half step toward the other, blocking the door.

"Family is with her now," one cop said as the group approached. "She needs to rest. The sheriff and doctor Trammell will have an update for you later in the day. Right now, the doctors are only allowing family to visit. Sorry." But he didn't look, nor sound, a bit sorry.

There was a flurry of action as camera people moved into position and questions streamed out, but both cops stood mute staring blankly at the opposite wall, their faces expressionless. After a few minutes of the cops refusing to respond and with the door remaining closed, the charge nurse came by and reiterated what the cops had said.

Joyce's nurse returned also, walking purposely toward the door. At the last second, both cops stepped aside. As soon as she opened the door and walked through, they stepped back, closing the hole, the cops' eyes again locked to a spot on the wall opposite.

The charge nurse stood with her hands on her hips, saying nothing. Finally, looking at the group, she said, "If that were your sister in there, would you expect her to talk to strangers right now, so soon after she almost died? Her doctor says she can't see anyone except family just yet. When he approves, and she says it's okay, we'll be glad to provide a place for you to interview her — if she wants to talk to you. Right now, she's surrounded by family who are probably rejoicing that she is alive. Give her a break, people."

Eventually they all went back to the area provided by the hospital for them.

One cop looked at the other. "I've always wanted to do that shit. You know, like those guys at Buckingham Palace. Crap, it was hard not to laugh when we stepped in front of them, though."

They laughed, then one asked the other, "What do you suppose she wants for dinner? We can get her a steak just as easily as we got that Whopper. Hell, Sarge will have it brought in code three."

"Yeah, that sounds good. When Mr. Matthews comes back out again, we'll see what he says. I like that guy."

"I thought they said he was the deputy's husband. But his name is Matthews and hers is Cramer."

"Yeah. That's right, and that other one with the haughty look acts like his wife."

"Well, she hugged both of us. She doesn't act haughty ... Oh, man. Look what just got off the elevator. They said that Cramer had more family coming, but damn," he finished, whispering as the rest of Jeff's wives approached, then were shortly followed by everyone at the retreat as the second elevator emptied.

One cop turned and quietly rapped three times on the door. When he heard a "come in" from inside, he quickly pushed the door open and held it.

Frank, Bill and Dave stopped just inside the door and waited as the women quickly surrounded Joyce. The cop winked at the men and stepped back to his position, closing the door as he went.

On the six o'clock news, Gresham gave the leader. "Tonight, Deputy Joyce Cramer is in a much improved condition after being shot in the chest early this morning. Sources close to the investigation tell us that she deliberately took a bullet from a .44 Magnum to save the life of someone else." As Gresham continued, now in voice-over, they ran the tape of the helicopter coming in and the cops, doctors and nurses running with the stretcher into the building. The shot faded into Sheriff Tate and Deputy Goodman entering the building, Goodman's blood-drenched shirt obvious. The shot ended with the intense look of anger and determination on Tate's face.

"More when we come back," Gresham finished as a commercial came on.

"Wow!" Arlene said. Her exclamation followed by similar ones from everyone in the room, now including the two cops.

"The computer at home is recording all the local channels," Helen interjected, plus Fox and CNN."

"I don't know whether I can watch this or not," Joyce said. "They're making me out to be a hero, and that's bullshit. I was just trying to keep him from shooting her. The only thing I could think of when he said it was time to kill her was to get him pissed off at me..."

"So you took the bullet that was meant for her," one of the cops said, pride in his voice.

"Well, I was hoping to get my round off before he did," Joyce said. "I'm not into suicide."

The cops looked at each other and grinned — proud.

Gresham, although far from an expert, had received instruction and practiced with handguns several times in the past. Earlier in the day, she had convinced the range master that she was capable of safely firing various handgun rounds into a vest. She explained to the camera that Sheriff Tate had taken his vest off and volunteered it for testing.

The salesman had brought a vest that would fit the news anchor. She spent a few seconds showing how to put it on, and held up one of the "soft" trauma plates that distributed the force of impact if a bullet hit directly over the heart.

They showed Gresham, wearing ear and eye protection, firing a .38, and a 9 mm into Tate's vest at near point blank range after it was mounted on the bust. She explained that the material that the bust was made of mimicked what happened to a person when struck with a bullet while wearing concealable soft body armor.

When she fired the .44 Magnum, Gresham quickly put the revolver down on a table and said, "Oh, crap. That thing kicked," while she unconsciously rubbed her strained right wrist.

As Tate had hoped, the bust toppled over from the impact of the bullet, then overbalanced the small table the bust was sitting on. When Gresham had fired each round, the hole in the vest was marked, the bullet clearly showing imbedded in the Kevlar.

When the bust was put back on the table and the vest removed, the damage by each round was easy to see. And the gaping indentation left in the bust by the .44 was several orders of magnitude greater than that made by any of the other rounds that were fired.

Gresham put her doubled fists in the cavity the .44 made. "This is a representation of the trauma that Deputy Joyce Cramer experienced in the early hours of the morning.

"Deputy Cramer is on the Department's pistol team and is certainly familiar with firearms. She knew exactly what that .44 Magnum round would do to her even with her vest on, yet she took a bullet for someone that she had met for the first time only moments before. Tonight we salute a true heroine.

"Our latest report from the hospital is good news though and extremely encouraging. The doctors now tell us that her prognosis is excellent and that her recovery at this point is nothing less than miraculous." Jeff flinched at the comment, but the cops seemed to have no reaction, having heard the news media use this type of description to overdramatize things many times before. A grin touched Jeff's lips as he realized that he might just get away with this after all.

"We have been unable to interview Deputy Goodman (the tape ran again showing Goodman walking beside the sheriff), but our sources tell us that Deputy Cramer would have died from loss of blood on the scene had it not been for him — and the original complainant on the call. Apparently, Deputy Cramer fell and hit her head on a concrete block when the bullet struck her."

As the station switched back to a close-up of the pretty anchor sitting at her desk, Gresham continued, "Deputy Goodman, off duty, arrived before anyone else and devised a unique pressure bandage to slow the bleeding in the back of her head. The woman who had her car stolen assisted him in doing this, but we have been asked by the Sheriff's Department to not disclose her name at this time.

"As you know, we have always honored requests from law enforcement, and do so again. We have been allowed to say that the woman was also injured and is being treated in a local hospital for a burst eardrum and other injuries, but is expected to recover."

Gresham's voice changed, becoming even more serious. "The burst eardrum shows just how heroic Deputy Cramer was. A retired officer who advises us informs me this means it is almost certain that the perpetrator was holding the .44 to the victim's head, and when he was about to fire, Deputy Cramer somehow got him to shift his aim to her as the only means of saving the victim's life. This was only a matter of inches, and less than a second, so it's almost certain that he fired his gun right next to the victim's ear. Deputy Cramer did this knowing exactly what his .44 round would do to her. We wish you a rapid recovery, Deputy Cramer."

I tape of a warehouse fire came on. "In other local news, there was a large fire..."

Diana hit the mute button on the remote.