J.M.J.
A/N: Thank you so much for reading, and thank you in advance for any follows and/or favorites! Thank you especially to Julie for reviewing chapter 1! I'm glad you're enjoying the story so far!
Chapter II
The "Accident"
"East San Luca?" Johnny looked at the paper that Captain Stanley had written the address of their response on in confusion.
"That's what the man said," Roy replied.
"But that's in 127's area," Johnny reminded him. "It'll take us a good thirty minutes to get there."
"127 must be out on another response," Roy said. "It's not like this is the first time that something like this has happened."
"I just hope the patient can wait that long," John grumbled.
The only information they had was that there was a woman down. This could be anything from a non-threatening faint to a heart attack. If it was the latter, the patient might not last the twenty minutes that it would take them to arrive at the scene. Meanwhile, 127 might be off on a run that didn't amount to anything. This was one of the biggest problems the paramedic program had run into so far – they couldn't triage their patients, and so they couldn't always get to the people who needed them the most first. It was frustrating to know that some patients they might have saved would die because the paramedic unit nearest them was tied up on another case, perhaps even one that wasn't that serious. At the same time, they couldn't discourage people from calling, because the average person without medical training couldn't always tell whether something was serious or not. They could only hope that this response wouldn't turn out badly.
When they had been driving about twenty-five minutes, the dispatcher's voice came over the radio. "Squad 51, what's your ETA?"
Johnny picked up the mic. "LA County, Squad 51. ETA five minutes."
"Squad 51, cancel," the dispatcher said.
Roy switched off the lights and siren, and both paramedics took off their helmets. Roy turned at the next corner to go around the block and head back for Station 51.
"127 must have finished their run and been right in the area," he commented.
Johnny nodded. "Hope they make it in time. It'll have been close to thirty minutes either way."
They were in a part of the city that they weren't terribly familiar with. The street they had turned onto turned out to be one without many cross-streets. Before they reached one, the street made a ninety-degree bend to the left and began snaking up a hill, in exactly the opposite direction the paramedics wanted to go. Roy slowed the squad almost to a stop.
"I'll just turn around in one of these driveways," he said.
"Sure is a quiet neighborhood," Johnny remarked.
They had met less than half a dozen cars since they had entered this neighborhood, and the only pedestrians they had seen were occasional joggers. It was a little chilly this morning, and so no one was on their front porch drinking coffee or reading the morning newspaper.
As Roy was about to turn once again at the intersection where he had first turned off, he saw a car suddenly barrel out of a parking space about ten yards up the street. He slammed on the brakes as the car hurtled toward the intersection, but the front end of the squad was still sticking out into the intersection a few feet. The car swerved around it, but then ducked into its own lane in just enough time to hit a jogger whom Johnny and Roy had not noticed in the crosswalk until just this moment. The driver slowed down for a second or two while he turned around to look back out his window. Then he poured on his gas and sped away.
Johnny let out a cry when he saw the hapless jogger struck down. He grabbed the mic and reported what had happened, requesting an ambulance and police to meet them at the location. Roy switched the lights back on and threw on the parking brake. Then they hastened out of the squad, grabbed the drug box, biophone, and other equipment that they would need, and went to the patient's side.
It didn't look good. The patient, a middle-aged man, had already lost a considerable amount of blood, even in the few seconds that had passed since the accident, and he was completely motionless. Johnny was trying to find a pulse when a police car pulled up.
"We saw what happened," the officer on the passenger side of the car said. "Do you need help?"
"We can take care of things here," Roy replied.
The officer nodded, and immediately the police car went off in pursuit of the fleeing hit-and-run vehicle, which was already out of sight. Roy turned back to Johnny.
"How's he doing?" he asked.
"He's dead." Johnny rocked back on his heels in frustration. He saw a lot of deaths on this job, but it was something he would probably never get used to. A minute ago, this man had been alive and well, just out for a morning jog, and now he was dead. John and Roy had been right there when it had happened, too, and there was nothing they could do. It didn't seem fair.
Roy had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach for all the same reasons, plus one more that was even worse. He couldn't help feeling that he'd caused the accident. After all, the hit-and-run car had been swerving to miss the squad, which had probably hidden the jogger from the driver's view. It was true that the driver had been speeding and had run a stop sign, but none of that could absolve Roy of the part he had played in it, however small it might be.
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"We're about five minutes from the address now," Jim said, watching the names of the cross-streets. "As long as we don't hit any traffic, but this neighborhood's pretty quiet this time of day."
Pete nodded, gearing himself up for what was ahead of him. Dead body calls were usually unpleasant, to say the least. His strategy was to prepare for the worst, take whatever came, and not try to speculate how a call like this might turn out before he got there.
Jim was thinking along the same lines, but making small talk made things easier on him, even if it was just about how far they were from the address or about the traffic. Pete knew about both as well as he did, but talking broke the tension.
"It's faster if you turn at that intersection up ahead," Jim pointed out.
Again, Pete nodded, having already intended to take this street. He had, after all, been patrolling this area longer than Jim, and it wasn't very likely that he wouldn't know it as well.
Pete had just turned the corner when both officers heard a squeal of brakes farther down the block. Up ahead, they saw a county fire department rescue unit stopped a few feet into the next intersection. A blue Chevy Malibu was swerving around its nose, despite having a stop sign. The officers had just looked up in time to see the Malibu strike a man in the crosswalk and drive off, only slowing for a few seconds while the driver glanced out his window. Immediately, Pete switched on the lights and siren and headed for the scene, while Jim grabbed the mic to report to the dispatcher what had happened. It only took them a few seconds to reach the scene of the accident, but already the two firemen paramedics from the rescue unit were at the victim's side with their equipment.
Pete slowed the car just long enough for Jim to roll down the window and say, "We saw what happened. Do you need help?"
"We can take care of things here," one of the firemen replied.
Jim nodded, and Pete took off in pursuit of the Malibu, which had turned the next corner. Naturally, by the time the officers rounded it, the car had made another turn and was still out of sight. They cruised up the street for several blocks, both officers keeping a sharp eye out for any sign of the car. It was nowhere to be seen. Those few seconds that they had taken to slow down at the scene of the accident had cost them more than they had expected.
"Did you get a license number?" Pete asked as he made a U-turn to return to the scene.
Jim shook his head. "It was too far away. I couldn't make it out. All I could see was that they were California plates."
"Same here," Pete replied. "It was a blue '68 Malibu, but that only narrows it down to a few thousand cars."
When they reached the scene of the accident again, they saw right away that the prognosis on the victim wasn't good. Rather than being busily at work trying to save him, one of the paramedics was sitting on the curb with his head in his hands while the other was leaning with his back against the squad and his arms crossed in front of him, looking equally downcast. Pete parked the car, and he and Jim went to talk to the two paramedics.
"How is he?" Pete asked the red-haired one who was leaning against the squad, although he already knew the answer.
"He was killed immediately." The dark-haired paramedic stood up as he said it. "There was nothing we could do. We have an ambulance on the way. For all the good it'll do."
Jim cleared his throat as he took out a pen and pad of paper to start writing down the report. He could still feel that tickle in the back of his throat, but now wasn't the time to worry about it. He held out his hand to the dark-haired fireman. "I'm Officer Jim Reed. This is my partner, Pete Malloy."
The fireman shook his hand. "John Gage. My partner over there is Roy DeSoto."
"We were down the street when the accident happened," Pete explained. "We'll need you two to give your statements."
As was usual procedure, each of them took one of the witnesses out of earshot of the other to question him to make sure his statement wasn't influenced by what the other said. Jim questioned John, while Pete talked to Roy.
"Can you tell me exactly what happened?" Jim asked.
"Yeah." Johnny shook himself, trying to rid himself of the shock, anger, disgust, and empathetic sorrow that he'd been fighting ever since the accident had happened. Getting down to business in the matter would help, but it couldn't all be dispelled in a moment. "We were making a left turn at this intersection here – um, Roy was driving – when all of a sudden that car came barreling down the street. Roy hit the brakes, and the car swerved around us and hit that pedestrian right in the crosswalk. He slowed down for a second, but then he just kept on going."
"Were you on your way to a response at the time or were you coming back from one?" Jim asked, quickly jotting down what John said.
"We had been on a response, but it just got canceled," Johnny replied. "We were just turning around to head back to the station."
"What about the car? Can you describe it?" Jim questioned next.
Johnny nodded. "It was a blue Chevy Malibu. I didn't see what year and I didn't get a good look at the license number. I just saw the first three letters – LRK."
Jim noted that information down eagerly. It would be a big help. "What about the driver? Did you see him at all?"
"No –" Johnny started to say, but then he stopped himself. He turned to face the spot where the car had been as it had driven off and held up both hands to gesture toward it. "Just before he sped off, he slowed down for a second and looked back. I got a pretty good look at his face."
"Can you describe him?" This just might be an easy case after all, Jim thought. When they caught the driver – which shouldn't be too hard between the description of the man, the description of the car, and the partial license plate – it would be a simple thing to make a case against him with John Gage's testimony.
"He was white, dark hair that was kind of long, and he had a narrow face." Johnny tried to think if he had seen anything else, but he couldn't remember anything. "That's about all I saw."
"Do you think you would recognize him again if you saw him?" Jim asked.
"Yeah, I think so." Johnny rubbed his chin as he began to take notice of a thought that had been growing in his mind the last few minutes. He had nothing to lose, broaching the idea to the police officer. It might even help the investigation. "You know, I can't help thinking there was something strange about this accident."
"How so?" Jim looked up intently at the way John had emphasized the word "accident."
Johnny turned again to face the intersection. "That driver had to swerve pretty fast to hit that guy." He used his hand to mimic the car's path. "He should have missed him – unless this wasn't an accident, after all."