Chapter 24
Johnny lay in his bed with the head slightly raised, his knees bent. His heart continued to pound out a rhythm that had become familiar to him. He had figured out over the years that he needed to learn to self-soothe when these symptoms of his cowardice presented. He closed his eyes, propped his arm over his eyes, and began to work to deliberately slow down his breathing. He thought of himself as an eagle, soaring high above the landscape, conquering the world with the wind beneath its wings. Perhaps that was why he never feared high-rise rescues. It was where he felt strangely comfortable, at peace.
Beverly was the first person to enter his room, but when she saw him, his chest rising and falling rapidly, she understood what was going on. Quickly, she held up her hand, stopping the others from following her into the room.
"Give me a minute," she whispered to the others, shutting the door behind her.
Johnny heard the door open and removed his arm from over his eyes. "W-wha'?" the anxious man gasped. "I... thought you... were the nurse."
Beverly set the folded scrubs down in the empty chair, then walked over to the hospital bed.
"Are you okay?" she asked, seeing his rapid inhalations. "John, slow down your breathing."
Johnny cocked one eyebrow at her, then lay his head back against the pillow, sighing. "Fine... Jus' ready to leave... this place," he responded. He knew that she had already spent hours caring for him. The last thing he wanted was to feel even more indebted to her.
"Well, the nurse gave me those clothes for you to wear home," she said, pointing at the clothing in the chair, even though she knew he wasn't watching. "Roy's gonna take out the IV when he comes in, but I wanted to talk to you for a minute, first. You, ah... seem to be upset."
He shifted his position and gave her an exaggerated glare.
"Okay... Johnny, you're sweating and hyperventilating..."
"I'll be a'right... as soon as I can... get out o' here," he panted, still trying to lessen his symptoms.
"No... I don't think you will. John... I think I know how you're feeling. Did Iris say something that... that made you feel like this... suddenly?" Beverly asked. She often had similar experiences when she heard eighteen wheelers blaring their horns. The sound would send her mind back to the many truck stops she had worked as a young teenager, even though it had been years since she had sold her body to a cross-country truck driver in search of a little carnal pleasure.
"Please, Beverly... Jus' leave me... alone, 'kay?'
"You feel panicky, don't you? Anxious? Sweaty with heart palpitations; am I right?"
Johnny was unnerved by what he was hearing. How could she know that?
"The same thing happens to me sometimes." She bit her bottom lip for a moment, hesitating before she explained what she meant. "See, I used to be forced to, ah... work at truck stops. So whenever I hear one of those big trucks blowing their horn, it seems like I'm that scared fifteen year old girl. It... It terrifies me, John. I get shaky and weak, my stomach hurts, and I feel like I can't breathe." When she saw him staring at her intently, she continued. "My therapist called them flashbacks. I swear I thought I was going crazy for years... until somebody explained it to me."
"How did you make it stop?" he asked, eyeing her suspiciously.
"They still haven't gone away completely, but with professional help, they don't happen nearly as much." Beverly hoped she was getting through to him.
"So you think I'm crazy too, huh?"
"I could ask you the same question, John," Beverly said, her face a mixture of compassion and frustration. "Do you think I'm crazy?"
Johnny merely shook his head. He had dealt with enough veterans who came back from Vietnam with what was referred to as shell shock, but he had never served in the military, so how could he have a war-related illness? Yet, he knew that trauma had a way of causing pain long after the physical wounds had healed. He rubbed his temple, feeling the throbbing of his growing headache increasing.
"I don't know what you and Iris discussed, and I don't want to know. It's none of my business. You deserve your privacy and I respect that. But... there's a group of people in the hallway who really want to talk to you. They brought you in here, stayed with you during the worst of all of this. They deserve the chance to see that you're better... and to tell you how they feel about you."
"Ugh! I can't... I," Johnny's voice cracked. "I can't... face 'em," he said, swallowing hard. He hated the taste of bile that seemed to rise in his throat when he got upset.
Beverly stood up, walking towards the door. He was basically trapped inside his room, and she knew it. Now that his respiration rate was lower, she felt that he was ready for the others to join her. "It won't take long," she said, opening up the door. She waved the others inside, leading them back to the place where Johnny lay.
Johnny glanced at the group behind her as they entered his room and surrounded his bed. His dark eyes never connected with anyone until they landed on the forlorn face of Lily. The fact that she was sitting in a wheelchair, looking weak and frail, made his heart leap into his throat. He longed to hold her in his arms, to take her out of this hospital and start a new life with her, but how could he?
His feelings for Lily were now conflicted. How could he expect her to want to have a relationship with him when she didn't even trust him to help bring down Father Hiram? Would she even want to? He knew that she had loved him at one time, but did she now? Had she been lying to him for the last few weeks, using the ruse of love to draw him further into the group? He had no way of knowing... Actually, he was afraid of the answer. He had grown accustomed to being rejected by beautiful women after a very short relationship, sometimes after only one date. Yet, Lily was the woman who had stolen his heart when he was just a teenager. In fact, she was his first love, his first intimate experience. And he was her first, as well. Were those feelings still there, buried beneath the layers of false teachings that Father Hiram had covered her with over the last few years? And how could he dismiss the fact that she had lied to him about Gretchen's miscarriage in order to guilt him into joining The Family, and then given him an opioid overdose, even if it had been unintentional?
Johnny waited for Lily to look up at him, but when she didn't, he closed his eyes. "I'd like... to be alone," he said, forcing back the bile in his throat.
"Well, you aren't going to be," Beverly stated, taking a seat on the edge of Johnny's bed.
"Please, Beverly...," he said, his breathing ragged. "Jus'..."
"Just nothing," she snapped back, interrupting him. "I've got..." She looked around at the others, "We've got something to say to you, John Gage, and you're going to listen... Whether you want to, or not." She was being forceful, but she needed to push him. She knew he wasn't going to agree to talk to them, and he needed to hear what they had to say. It was the only way he was going to get better.
"Ugh," he groaned, scrubbing his face with the palm of his right hand. His legs began to fidget again as his agitation grew.
Beverly knew that the group was waiting on her, and the enormity of the responsibility weighed heavily on her shoulders. She wished she had more psychological training, but at the moment, she was the most qualified person available to take on this challenge. Maybe one day, she thought, she would be a real therapist. She knew she needed more training, and right now, she felt inadequate for the job at hand. So she put herself in John's place, deciding to say to him what she wished someone had said to her when she had reached her lowest point.
"I know exactly how you feel, John, because I've been through some pretty rough stuff in my life, too." When she saw him pressing his lips into a thin line, she knew he was listening. "Look at me, please." When he didn't comply, she repeated the directive with more force. This time, she watched him shift his face slightly towards her.
With trembling hands, she reached up to her neck and slowly removed the scarf she had been wearing, folding it neatly across her lap, then unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse.
"W-what are... ya doin'," Johnny asked, worriedly.
Without a word, she opened up the collar of the blouse to reveal a couple of large, angry scars.
"I wanted to show you these," she said. When she pointed to the long scar across her neck, she looked directly into Johnny's brown eyes. "This is where one... um, particularly sadistic buyer tried to kill me. He cut my throat and left me in an alley to bleed to death. That was my first experience with a fireman; he was off duty when he found me and saved my life."
Johnny gulped. He had been told the story, but he had never actually seen her scar. She normally wore a high collar or a scarf. He assumed it was to hide the mark.
"But this," she began, running her right index finger over the raised blister-like scar below her collarbone at the top of her left breast. "This is where my second pimp branded me, marking me as his property."
Johnny felt his mouth go dry. "Ohmygod... I'm... so sorry."
Quickly, Beverly buttoned up her blouse and replaced her scarf. "I don't want your pity, John. I just wanted to show you my scars... A couple of them, anyway."
"Why?" he asked in a husky whisper.
"Because I wanted to show you that I know what it's like to be scarred. My scars are physical... Yours aren't... But they're every bit as real as mine." Beverly could see Lily out of the corner of her eye and it appeared that the young woman was weeping. Beverly knew that John wasn't the only person in the room who had emotional scars.
"No... They aren't," Johnny replied, staring at the ceiling to avoid looking at Beverly and the others in the room.
"John," she said, reaching for the bed controller and raising the head of his bed higher, so that he would be looking at her. "Yes... You do have emotional scars, very... real... scars. I can't ever get rid of my disfigurements. Every time I look in a mirror, I'm reminded of what I once was... a hooker, a prostitute, a streetwalker. I'm reminded of what was done to me when I was younger... the rapes, the beatings, the... tortures. But I'm also reminded that these," she said, pointing in the general direction of her neck, "don't define who I am now... Nor do they define who I can be. I've come to terms with my past. I no longer think of myself as a tramp, or a whore." She felt Marco rest his hands on her shoulders in a show of support, and his touch brought tears to her eyes. She knew he didn't like hearing her use those words.
"Why are you... tellin' me... this?" Johnny asked softly, not making eye contact with her.
"You see... I've used the bad things that happened to me to help me help other women like me. It's how I was able to help Lexi and Bri... and many others. What other people meant as harm to me, I was able to turn into something good for others. It's like the ultimate defeat of those men who hurt me. John... You've done the same thing with your life. There was a time when you weren't able to help someone... and that person died. But you decided to get the training you needed... and save so many mo-"
"Yea... right," he spat out, sarcastically, interrupting her.
The counselor narrowed her eyes at him. "How many lives have you saved?"
Johnny felt the familiar lump rising in his throat. He had saved lives, many lives, but the one he didn't even try to save was the one still haunting him day and night.
"How many, John?"
"Dunno," he mumbled, picking at the blanket.
"Think about it."
"I don't WANT to think about it," he shot back.
"One? Two? Twelve? Forty-five?" she asked, pushing him to consider the results of his career as a fireman and paramedic.
"It doesn't matter," he muttered.
"It matters to them... to their families. YOU matter to them, to their families, and to YOUR families. You have multiple families you're a part of, John... Most of them are represented in this room right now. You have a station family and these are your brothers. You're an uncle to the DeSoto kids. You have a surrogate family," she said, looking over at Lily and Iris, "and your birth family, too."
Beverly knew she was getting to him. She saw his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed hard, watched him pressing his lips together, saw him batting his long eyelashes to stave off the flow of tears.
Johnny struggled to accept what the counselor was telling him. Maybe he had once mattered to his 'families,' but not anymore. How could they continue to think of him as a brother, uncle, friend, or even son after what he had done?
"I'm one of those lives," Chet said, remembering how Johnny and his other station brothers had stayed with him after his own unintentional overdose.
Johnny, uncomfortable with the praises of Chet and Beverly, changed the subject.
"I... should've... stopped 'em," Johnny said in a voice full of emotion. "I should've... done somethin' to help Phillip."
"And I should've run away from my pimp," Beverly added, realizing that he was taking the conversation exactly where she wanted it to go. "But I stayed... and accepted what he and the others did to me. I never even fought back."
"You were jus'... a young girl and... he would've... killed ya."
"And you were just a kid, too. And you know they would've killed you if you had tried to intervene, John."
"I was almost... grown," Johnny stammered, realizing that she had trapped him with his own words. "A young man."
"Is that what you would say to Chris," Roy asked, "if this were to happen to him in a few years?"
Johnny jerked his head up at the name of his surrogate nephew. "This isn't about Chris... It's about... me."
"It's about a scared young boy... Caught in the middle of... a horrific situation," Roy added, watching as Johnny's respiration rate increased. "You were just a kid, Johnny; just a scared kid watching something happen that most grown men couldn't handle if they had witnessed it!"
"Damn you," Johnny cursed, angry that his partner was raising his voice at him.
"Damn me? Johnny, all I'm doing is pointing out the obvious! Why do you expect so much more of yourself than you do of everyone else?"
"I DON'T!" Johnny yelled at Roy.
"I get it, man," Marco spoke up. "Feel like you've got to be twice as good as everyone else just to be considered equal. To the ladies in the room, I apologize, but, Johnny, that's bullshit."
"Lay off, Lopez," Johnny retorted, leaving Marco taken aback, but not completely surprised by the outburst. Beverly had warned them that she was going to try to pull some type of an emotional response out of Johnny. He had withdrawn too deeply inside of himself, and Beverly had needed to do something to get him to come out – even if he came out fighting.
Beverly saw Johnny make eye contact with Marco. It was the start she was hoping for. He was connecting with his shiftmates again, even if the connection was an angry one.
"You weren't there," Johnny ranted. "None of you were there, so don't judge me!"
"Don't judge you?" Roy questioned. "You're judging yourself! You've decided that you have no value, no worth because you COULDN'T stop a murder."
"I didn't even try! Don't you get it? I'm just a fuckin' coward!"
"JOHN!" Iris chastised loudly, disliking his language.
Johnny cowered down in the bed. "Sorry," the upset man muttered, apologetically.
Chet's eyes widened. "Oh man, Gage, you are the last one of us that I would consider a coward. You're the FIRST one to run towards danger. You ain't normal, but I mean that in a good way. I... I admire you, Johnny... Always have," the junior lineman mumbled, shrugging his shoulders as he looked down at the floor.
"He's right, John," Hank added. "Never thought I'd be agreeing with Kelly," he snickered. "None of you men are cowards, in fact, I know you're just the opposite. The five of you are five of LA's finest, and it's truly an honor to be your captain. I have to admit, you twits keep me frustrated a lot, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I... I love you fellas. You men were there for me...," he hesitated, looking over at his junior lineman, "even when my behavior was unbecoming of a captain." He looked over at his second in command. "I put you all, especially you, Mike, in a terrible situation. You had every right... EVERY right... to file a grievance against me. And I should've been fired...but..." Hank's eyes grew misty as his thoughts returned to that fateful shift. "But you men gave me another chance... I'll... I'll never forget that. And because of you... ALL of you, John... I still have... my family." His voice choked on the lump in his throat, but he pushed past it. "And I can't wait to get everyone back on shift. I know it's selfish of me, but... I want all my station brothers back together, again."
"I resigned, Cap," Johnny said, cutting his eyes at Iris, accusatorily. "I guess you didn't get the letter."
"Ahem... Actually," Hank began, "Iris offered me the letter, but I never read it. In fact, I didn't even accept it."
Johnny looked to Iris for confirmation, which he got in the form of a faint head nod. When he returned his eyes to his captain, Hank continued.
"You can't resign by proxy. If you want to leave the department, then I won't try to stop you. You're the only one who knows what you want... But do you REALLY want that?" He saw Johnny's jaw muscles flexing and knew he was thinking about it. "Some of the best advice I was ever given was that I shouldn't make a decision about resigning under extreme stress. That extreme stress involved watching a man die on my watch... following orders that I had given him. THIS," Hank said, waving his arms around the hospital room and the impending trial... It's all extreme stress, John. I won't accept your resignation right now. Take some time to think about it... Really think about it... Then we'll talk in a couple of weeks."
Johnny felt the familiar stinging in his eyes. He gave a slow nod to his captain; he often felt a sense of awe and respect for his superior officer.
"But, I'm... an embarrassment... to the department," he whispered. "Everyone... includin' the brass... is gonna know what... happened."
"An embarrassment to the department? Never," Chet chuckled, nervously. "I'm the screw up in this crew, Gage. I'm the one who lied about an on-the-job injury and nearly killed myself because I mixed pain pills with alcohol," he held up his hand to silence the comments he knew Johnny was about to make. "Even though I knew better." He looked at Johnny with sincerity in his blue eyes. "If anyone is an embarrassment, it's me... It sure as hell ain't you."
"Everyone is going to understand why you became a rescue man and paramedic," Mike said, thinking about his own recent involvement with the top officials of the department. "Our administration is made up of good men, Johnny. They were fair to me, even when it looked like I was guilty of arson. What you're talking about isn't something that you did wrong, and it happened long before you joined the department. This has NO impact on your career... unless you allow it to make you quit."
"Stoker doesn't talk much, but when he does, he says a lot," Chet stated, while his worried blue eyes shifted from Mike back to Johnny. "I have an idea of what it's like to feel like your whole life is just a... I mean that you are a... a mistake," he said, knowing Johnny would understand what he meant.
"C'mon, Chet... You're not a mistake. You just... didn't realize how much your parents loved each other," Johnny responded, remembering the internal struggle the junior lineman had endured when he thought that the man who had raised him wasn't his biological father.
"I know that now, Gage, but I didn't at the time." Chet shoved his hands into his pockets, looking more like a shy schoolboy than a fireman. "I'm just sayin' that... I know how it feels to... to make mistakes and... knowin' that you can't ever take those things back... can't change the past," Chet said, remembering lying to his captain about his injury and getting caught. "Maybe that's how you're feelin' now, huh?"
Hank jumped in before Johnny could answer Chet's question. "I know I felt that way. I felt so responsible for Carrigan's death that it made me do things... I'd never have done, otherwise. I felt responsible, guilty for... for what felt like... the biggest mistake of my career, but you men... You, ah... brought me back from the brink."
Johnny clenched his teeth together.
"And I know what it feels like to be ashamed," Marco chimed in. "I was embarrassed by what Lexi had done." His hand still rested on Beverly's shoulder, and he felt himself relax when she reached up and grasped his hand. "Beverly taught me that... that what I had assumed all these years... wasn't true. Lexi had been trapped... enslaved... It wasn't her choice to sell her body on the streets. I wish I had known all of that when she first left home. Maybe... Maybe I would've felt like I could talk to you fellas about it. Instead, I just... I kept it to myself and... and suffered in silence. Johnny, you don't have to do what I did. You can trust us, you know that. We all trust each other with our lives on every shift. None of us will betray your trust."
"And I understand how it feels to be... betrayed," Roy commented, his voice cracking. "I was so sure that Joanne was having an affair... in front of our children, that... it turned me into... a man that I wasn't... A man who... who almost made the biggest mistake of his life," he commented, thinking about how close he came to cheating on Joanne with Gretchen. "I know what it's like to... to feel every part of your life is spiraling out of control... Like you've lost everything." The senior medic pinched the bridge of his nose, then ran his hand down his face. "And then to blame yourself for it." He exhaled a cleansing breath. "Johnny, you didn't do anything wrong. Don't shut out the people who care about you the most because you're carrying around guilt that...," his voice was choked off by emotions as he thought back over his own dark circumstances. "Guilt that isn't yours. Johnny, you... you're always there for the rest of us. Why not let us be there for you this time?"
Beverly watched as the men took turns encouraging Johnny by recalling how they made it through their own darkest hour. As each one spoke, he moved a little closer to Johnny until the paramedic's bed was surrounded by his brothers. Beverly reached out to Iris and Lily, holding their hands as they watched Johnny's emotional wall begin to crumble, but the emotions that came tumbling out included both resignation and rage.
"Okay, okay... OKAY!" the fuming paramedic shouted, not liking the comparisons the other men were making between their lives and his. To Johnny, nothing they had been through compared to what he had been enduring for the last decade. "You jus' don't get it, do you? Okay, so all o' you dealt with some tough shit and all of you made it through. That's jus' great... wonderful. I'm happy for ya, but you are NOT ME! You don't know how it feels to BE ME!" he lamented.
"John," Hank said sternly, knowing he needed to stop the Johnny rant that was forming.
"Nu-uh, Cap, this time I'm right. I'm jus' so... screwed... up," he gasped, his breathing becoming ragged, his words airy and barely audible. "None of ya know how it feels... to... to feel...," he ran his hands through his hair, leaving long tufts sticking out all over his head. "I feel like I'm jus' some... moth... flyin' along... mindin' my own business... and then it happened," he said, his eyes growing glassy as he stared at the blanket covering his legs. "I... I flew right into a big ol' spider web..." The left side of his mouth tugged upwards with a snort, and his eyes held a sadness like his friends had never seen. "And I've been... stuck... strugglin' to get out o' this mess, but... the more I struggle... the more trapped I get... I'm jus'... jus' waitin' on that spider to..."
Chet's heart leaped into his throat when he heard his friend mention dying. "Johnny, don't say-"
"Why not? 's true," Johnny said, his voice raspy and broken. "It's been goin' on so long... I jus'... kinda wanna get it over with... I'm tired... Tired of hidin', worrin', and... jus' plain tired... Jus' like that moth... he struggles to get free... and gets more entangled..."
Hank felt a stab of pain in his heart. Johnny's analogy seemed desperate. He knitted his eyebrows together, trying to decide how to address the comments made by his junior medic. He dared a glance in Roy's direction. He could tell by the look on the senior medic's face that he was worried about the same thing.
Johnny's lower lip began to tremble. Beverly heard him sniffle, and watched as he rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. His voice was a breathy whisper, but the counselor was able to discern what he was saying. "I... can't... testify," he rasped out. "It's...too...late." Johnny looked at Iris and Lily, guilt causing his shoulders to slump in defeat. He knew that the others didn't know the real reason why he couldn't testify in Selma.
"As long as you're still breathing, it's never too late," Roy spoke up, placing a comforting hand on his partner's shoulder. "You were there for me when Jo and I went through a really rough patch, remember?"
Johnny nodded, closing his eyes as he remembered the physical altercation he and Roy had had in the DeSotos' living room. It seemed to have been the lowest point in Roy's life, and Johnny wasn't going to stand by and let his friend lose everything without a fight, even if that fight was literally an assault on each other.
"I also remember... my best friend," Roy sniffled, shuffling his feet, nervously. "My best friend was so concerned about me, that he... he intervened on my behalf. I," Roy continued, reaching for Johnny's left wrist. He slowly and carefully began removing the tape from around the IV insertion site.
Johnny didn't pull his hand away from Roy's touch. He felt the gentle ministrations of his partner, and he appreciated the efforts the other man was putting forth. He had seen the supplies in Roy's hand when he walked in, so he knew what was happening.
Roy continued talking as he folded up the gauze, preparing to create a bandage for the removal of the IV. "I didn't appreciate it then, but later on... when I had my family back together, I sure did. And I promised myself... that I'd be there for you... anytime, day or night, that you might need me," he said, feeling Johnny's trembling hand. Roy pressed the gauze tightly against Johnny's skin. Carefully, he withdrew the IV cannula, holding pressure against Johnny's bleeding wound. "None of us wanted to kidnap you, Johnny... But we didn't know any other way. Crockett had gotten word about the raid and... Gretchen told us about the... the members who tried to leave... We didn't want to risk losing you."
"Yea," Chet said, his own voice a throaty whisper. "We never leave a brother behind."
As if on cue, Crockett quietly slipped through the doorway. Iris felt a warmth spread throughout her being at the sight of the man who had helped her get her daughter back. She took a step closer to him, noticing the startled look that covered his face.
"Everything okay?" Iris whispered.
He nodded slightly, clearing his throat to announce his presence. "Ahem... John?"
Johnny's red swollen eyes shifted to the doorway.
"I just heard back from Quantico, and-"
"Quantico? The FBI headquarters?" Johnny asked worriedly.
Crockett, kicking himself for forgetting that Johnny didn't know where his roll of film had been sent, explained why the film had been sent to the FBI headquarters for processing.
"Oh," Johnny responded, pulling the sheet higher with his newly bandaged hand.
"They couldn't process all of the pictures you took, but... John, there were a few pictures that... Well, I'm not sure how to say this...," he looked around at the curious faces of the others in the room. "Why didn't you tell me... or at least say something to Iris?"
Iris knitted her eyebrows together in confusion.
"Tell you w-what?" Johnny asked, squirming nervously.
"That Phillip wasn't the only victim that morning. And William Waite was one of THREE perpetrators."
"WHAT?" Iris gasped, her voice the loudest among the mumbling voices of disbelief.
Johnny seemed to be as stunned as the others by what he was hearing. "H-how? W-ho? I was... there! I was THERE! I... but..." Johnny ran his hands through his mussed up shaggy hair, staring at the blanket. His legs began to tremble and he was squirming about in his bed. How could there have been another victim without him knowing it? He thought about the Sheriff driving into Kizzy's yard that night, and he heard Kizzy's agonizing screams of anguish at the news that her son had been murdered... But there had never been any mention of another victim. At least, not that he recalled... but there was a lot that Johnny couldn't recall...
"Take it easy, Johnny. Just settle down. We believe you, but you have the proof! You CAN'T let them get away with it," the detective pleaded. "You've got to go back to Selma and testify." Ron knew he was becoming too emotionally involved in this case, but he couldn't help it. He was as much a social worker as he was a law enforcement officer. Injustice – whether social or criminal – incensed him. Using his fingers, Crockett wiped the sweat beads from his upper lip and exhaled in an effort to calm himself down. He hated it when he became so emotionally involved in a case that he became easily riled up.
"I... c-can't," Johnny said, his voice shaky.
"Why not? Johnny, BOTH victims deserve justice!"
"I... Just... CAN'T!" Johnny shouted, his chest heaving. Unbidden images of that fateful morning assaulted Johnny's memory. He could see the fog floating beneath the bridge, hear the voices in the distance, and smell the musty scent of the water of the Alabama River as it meandered lazily towards the Gulf of Mexico. The echoes of the physical assault taking place along the distant shore made his own body ache. For Johnny, it was as if it were happening all over again.
"Your pictures recorded it all, John. Now Waite is an invalid and his cohort is dead!" Crockett stated, growing frustrated with Johnny. "We just need to know the identity of the Sheriff's Deputy who was involved, and your pictures will help us do that. You'll be protected, man! They... CAN'T... hurt you!"
"I KNOW that!" Johnny shouted. "Don't you think I KNOW that? I'm... I'm not AFRAID of them!"
"Then why won't you testify?" Crockett asked again.
"Because... 'cause I...I CAN'T REMEMBER! Argh!" Johnny's shouts were followed by a strangled groan. His eyes were a mixture of fear, anger, and embarrassment. "I... I can't remember what... what I saw."
"But you took pictures and-"
"I KNOW that, Crockett! Damn it, I KNOW THAT! But my brain is... It's just... It's BLANK! I can't testify because I can't remember what I saw. I can... I can HEAR it... I still hear... in here," he said, pointing to his head. He began to suck in his breath in a gasping manner. "But I.. I can't SEE anything that happened... while it was goin' on. I... I can't even... remember other voices, or... it's all... blank."
A light sheen of sweat broke out over his face and chest, and his eyes became glassy. His lips began to tingle and he knew he was hyperventilating, but he couldn't stop it. "I can't... remember seein'... a damn thing!"
"Easy, Johnny," Roy said, rubbing Johnny's shoulder in an attempt to calm him. "Slow down your breathing, pally."
"I... I can hear... everything... but I... know they're gonna... want me to... testify to... what I saw. But... I don't know... what I saw. I... I just can't... remember!" Johnny cried, his body fidgeting beneath the covers.
Beverly knew exactly what was happening to Johnny and she stepped forward to offer her assistance. "John... It's called disassociation. You've blocked out the memories that are too painful, or too traumatic to remember. It's your own brain's way of protecting itself."
"So... I really am fu-, uh, screwed up, huh?" Johnny replied, his body gradually responding to Beverly's soothing melodic voice and Roy's touch. His breathing slowed, but the perspiration continued.
"No," she answered, understanding how he felt. "You're having a NORMAL reaction to an ABNORMAL situation."
"There's nothin' normal 'bout me," he said with a hint of sarcasm. "You're wrong, Beverly. You've got it all wrong. It's what happens when you're scared! SCARED! Yes, I admit it. I was SCARED! Jus' a... a coward!"
"Johnny," Roy spoke up. "Remember how I felt paralyzed on that ledge at Rampart after that patient dove through the window? You had to help me get back inside because I was... afraid of... falling off. Fear can be a healthy thing. It keeps us alive. It does NOT make us a coward."
"Bullshit!"
"Oh, so now I'M a coward, huh?" Roy questioned, knowing he was trapping his partner. "Well, thanks a lot, Pally. I'll remember that next time we have a victim eighty feet in the air. I'll just tell Cap that he's got to call in another squad because ours is out of service due to cowardice!"
"Go to hell," Johnny mumbled, knowing what Roy was doing.
"Been there already, Junior," he said, thinking about his difficulties in his marriage. "Been where you are now, and I survived, and with my family still intact. And so will you."
"Humph!" Johnny pulled a few tissues from the box on his bedside table, using them to dry his face. Beverly and Roy had made their point. He wasn't going to win this battle so he decided to let the matter drop. They hadn't made him change his mind entirely, but... perhaps there was a little truth in what they were trying to tell him. His thoughts returned to the second victim. "Ah, who... was it?" he asked of the detective.
"Johnny, I'm sorry that I upset you. I didn't mean to do that," Crockett apologized. "I've talked to Slim, my buddy back in Selma. I called him when I got off the phone with Quantico. I told him about the pictures and he told me who he thought was involved... and the most likely identity of the second victim. The second man in the pictures had blonde hair and was wearing a clerical collar."
"A... A white man... A priest?" the confused paramedic asked.
"Yes... Slim thinks the man is Father Mitchell, the Catholic priest who allegedly committed suicide by jumping off the Edmund Pettus Bridge the night of Bloody Sunday. The deputy who reported seeing a priest leap from the bridge was a man named Dennis Clark. If the deputy's squad car that's partially visible in your photographs is proven to be Clark's, then... Then we'll know that Father Mitchell most likely didn't jump off that bridge like Deputy Clark reported. If anything, he was probably thrown off of it."
"Sweet Jesus," Marco mumbled. He glanced around the group, seeing nothing but stunned faces.
"WHAT?" Johnny questioned, loudly. "I was standing beneath that bridge. Nobody got thrown off of it. Hell, I was right there, remember?"
"Easy, Pal," Crockett said, raising his hands. "I didn't mean that the man got thrown off the bridge that morning. I'm sure it was under the cover of darkness. They wouldn't have wanted anyone to see a dead priest floating down the Alabama River during the march, you know? Too many news cameras around recording the whole scene that afternoon. No, men like Waite and Clark, they do things covertly... Just like they hide behind those damn white hoods." Crockett ran his hands over his head and down his neck, kneading away some of the tension. "Anyway, based on one of the pictures, it looks like his body might have been placed in the trunk of the patrol care... then disposed of later, but... Slim said they couldn't be sure."
"Ron, the rest of us are lost here. If this priest was killed in the pictures on the MORNING of Bloody Sunday, then wouldn't he have been reported missing by someone?"
"Not necessarily, Iris," Crockett explained. "No one remembered seeing Father Mitchell during the events of that march. No one remembers seeing him during the melee, or at the hospital helping treat the victims. Things were so chaotic, that everyone just assumed that he was there... somewhere."
"But... What's in the pictures that the FBI developed?" Iris asked, vaguely remembering the reports that a priest, and leader of the Edmundite Mission Charity Organization in Selma, had allegedly committed suicide after being threatened by the Ku Klux Klan for allowing the victims of Bloody Sunday to be treated at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma. His body had been recovered a couple of weeks later by fishermen near Old Cahaba, several miles down-river from Selma. By that time, his body was so badly decomposed that the cause of death couldn't be determined. Everyone had assumed it was suicide, based on Deputy Clark's report. Now it sounded like that might not have been the case. It also explained why an immediate search of the area hadn't turned up any sign of the young priest.
Crockett explained what he knew about the case. When he was finished, he looked over at the upset paramedic. He felt badly for having caused Johnny to react so strongly to the news, but his knowledge of legal matters allowed him to offer Johnny a bit of a reprieve.
"John... Really, the only testimony they'll need from you is to verify that the pictures were taken by you," he stated, watching as Johnny looked up with hopeful eyes. "The pictures tell the story."
"How will that help? If they... know what happened... by looking at the pictures... why do they need me to be there?" Johnny asked, his voice still ragged.
"If you can verify the date and time you took the pictures and the fact that the film remained in your custody until Iris took it out of the camera bag a few days ago, then that's as good as an eyewitness testimony. In fact, it's even better than an eye witness account," Crockett said as a short-lived smile crossed his lips. "Just prove that the pictures weren't tampered with and confirm the date you took them... The case should be a slam dunk."
Iris saw Johnny look down into his lap and she knew he was contemplating his options. She stepped closer to his bed, running her hand through his hair in a motherly manner. "I'll testify, Johnny. I'll tell them that I took the film out of your camera bag and gave it to Ron."
Silence filled the room as everyone waited for Johnny's response.
"I'd... I'd like to talk to... to Iris and Lily privately, for a minute... please?"
Roy gave his partner's shoulder a gentle squeeze. "When you're finished, I'll come back and help you get dressed." The red-haired man briefly locked eyes with Lily, giving her a barely-detectable approving nod.
"We'll be right outside, John," Beverly assured him.
"Thanks," he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.