2 Chapter 2
It only took a couple of minutes before the EMTs were back with a gurney. Eight careful hands lifted the young man’s body from the floor. If he was still conscious, he played possum like a champ, but the slow rise and fall of the bloody, tattered T-shirt across his chest proved he still lived.
Once the ambulance shrieked away, Jax took out his camera once more and began to snap pictures. There wasn’t much in the way of physical evidence to collect—except for the savaged bodies and blood. There was plenty of that. Jax knew two crime lab techs would be there any minute to go to work on the wet evidence.
When he finished at the house, Jax drove over to St. Martin’s Hospital. Not that he didn’t trust both Delia and Nat to do their jobs, but he’d learned better than to leave anything to chance. Over the years, he’d seen too many guilty fucking bastards get off on technicalities and sloppy police work. He’d be damned if one would skate because of his failures.
* * * *
Jax ran into Natalie Portman, the deputy ME, right away as he strode into the ER area. She stood maybe five-foot-two in her plain two-inch heeled pumps. She looked like a tween-age girl masquerading in some of mom or big sister’s adult styles, but Jax knew her credentials. An MD and a PhD in organic chemistry were the main ones. She had the bagged clothes they’d taken off the young man—mostly with surgical scissors she told him later—and a case bulging with vials, baggies and other samples.
She flashed a crooked smile at Jax as he approached. “Got everything I could,” she said. “I’ll be up most of the night in the lab. Check first thing tomorrow and I’ll let you know what we’ve got so far.”
If he’d been into girls, he might have found her attractive, although Del would have been more his type. Despite her size, Nat could be intimidating when she trotted out her Latin and formulas. Del, on the other hand, was as down to earth as the ubiquitous west Texas dust. But again, Jax was not into girls.
Actually, he didn’t date or socialize much with anyone. There wasn’t time and after a couple of ugly splits, he’d given up on the idea that “love” would ever come his way. Even lust was often damned scarce. He told himself he didn’t care, didn’t need, want or miss it. For the most part, it was true.
“Del still here?”
Nat shrugged. “I don’t know. Haven’t seen her for a bit. She was hoping to find out if the baby would make it. Apparently, it wasn’t cut, probably just thrown or dropped on the floor pretty hard. No one seemed to know the prognosis.”
“How about the guy?”
“This is really weird,” Nat admitted. “After they washed off all the gore, there was hardly a mark on him. Only injury the ER crew could find was blunt force trauma on the right side of his head. No breaks in the skull according to the x-rays, but a nasty concussion. He’s still out, last I heard, and in the ICU for now, locked up safe for you.”
Jax shook his head. “It doesn’t seem reasonable he could’ve wreaked such carnage. I mean, he can’t be more than about five-six and maybe a hundred and ten or fifteen pounds. Looks young, too. I guess he shaves, but barely.”
He exhaled sharply. “Still, looks can deceive. Like those kids in the sand box that carried bombs and from what I’ve heard they had in ‘Nam, same kind of thing. Most countries don’t coddle their youth like we do. Right now, he’s all we have—have to wait and see what the evidence says.”
Nat nodded, clearly already caught up in the scientific puzzle she faced to unravel all the hidden information in her samples. Jax didn’t envy her the job. He didn’t have the patience and concentration for it. People problems were ugly, painful and never the same twice, but he knew how to deal with them. Science, especially this new DNA and other medical stuff, intimidated him.
Suddenly feeling every one of his thirty-two years doubled, he went in search of the EMTs. With any luck, after that he could go home and get a few hours of sleep. His eyes felt like two over-hard eggs with too much salt. He blinked to try to moisten them.
God, this is such a fuckin’ rotten line of work, but what else could I do? Or would I do if I could? Somehow I need to keep on with the work Pop didn’t get to finish, take over the years he wasn’t allowed to give. Me and Jeff both, doing penance for the fact a lousy, cheap-ass petty criminal took a good man out, one who was the ultimate super-hero to both of us. Shit. Fucking dirty-rotten shit. Life sucks.
