Exit Wounds - J. A. Jance [64]
Joanna had no idea how much time had passed since her own arrival on the scene, but now the sun was definitely setting. It was still hot, but in the increasingly dark shadow of the mountains it was already noticeably cooler.
The K-9 unit arrived and sought Joanna out. “We’re here, Sheriff Brady,” Terry Gregovich announced. “Now what can Spike and I do to help?”
“Find the asshole driver who caused this mess,” Joanna ordered. “According to witnesses, he was wearing a seat belt, so he wasn’t ejected along with everyone else. I’m told he took off into the desert, and I want him found.”
Nodding, Terry headed for the wrecked Suburban with Spike. Not wanting to interfere with their work, Joanna let them go. Instead, she walked to the far end of the debris field, hoping that, by looking at the trajectory the vehicle had followed through the Jersey barriers, she would gain a better understanding of exactly how and why the accident had occurred.
As she turned around to examine the scene, her eye was drawn to a splotch of white barely visible beneath a nearby mesquite tree. She hurried over and was appalled to see a child lying there—the wounded woman’s missing baby. Pushing her way through the mesquite, Joanna saw that the toddler wore a diaper and nothing else. One look at the unnaturally still body and at the blood pooled around the back of his dark-haired head was enough to tell Joanna that he was probably beyond help. Dropping to her knees, she felt for a pulse, but there was nothing—not even the smallest flutter.
For a few moments, Joanna wavered in a maelstrom of indecision. The boy was dead. In terms of crime scene investigation procedure, dead victims are to be left where they’re found until the scene can be properly documented—measured, photographed, and recorded—before being packed off to the icy chill of a morgue.
But the desperate cries of the injured woman as she had called for her missing child still echoed in Joanna’s heart. Dead or alive, that mother wanted her child—needed her child—to be with her. As a police officer, Joanna was obliged to leave the dead baby where he was. As a woman and mother, she wanted to return him to his mother. A fierce skirmish shook Joanna’s very soul. In the end, motherhood won out.
Gently, Joanna lifted the limp child. With one arm supporting the boy’s bloodied head, she carried his still body through the rocky underbrush and stumbled with him up the steep embankment.
“Where’s the woman with the baby?” she demanded of the first EMT she saw. He gave her a blank shrug and a dismissive look that made Joanna wish she were still wearing her uniform. And her badge. She went on to the next EMT and to the next and to the one after that. Finally she found a medic she had never seen before but who at least knew what she meant.
“Oh, her,” the medic said. “I think she took off in that last helicopter. They’re taking her to Bisbee.”
“Call them back,” Joanna said.
“But, lady…”
“My name’s Brady,” Joanna snarled back at him. “Sheriff Joanna Brady, and I said call them back! Do it now!”
The EMT backed warily away from her and reached for his radio. After his summons, the helicopter was back within minutes. By then Joanna’s shoulders ached from the strain of holding the lifeless form, but she was unwilling to relinquish her burden to anyone else. When the door of the helicopter flew open, she alone carried the little boy through the sand and grit raised by the whirling blades. With muddied tears streaming down her own face, she handed her precious burden over to his mother’s outstretched arms and then fled from the helicopter. She didn’t want to be within earshot when the mother learned her baby was dead.
But at least, Joanna thought as she darted once more through the whirling sea of dirt and grit, at least she can hold him one last time. At least she can say good-bye.
Moments later Joanna found herself leaning heavily against the front fender of the nearest ambulance, barfing into a clump of sun-dried verbena that had grown