Superstalker: A Lady G Thriller

Chapter 25 - Ashes

We were messed up from the drop but still among the breathing when the EMS van took Doc and me to Roosevelt Hospital. We'd crawled away from the tree and the burning house to begin, as Doc put it, life in the lame lane.

The emergency room waiting area was crowded with what I guessed were mostly folks who didn't have emergencies but were sick and didn't have insurance and couldn't afford their own doctor - mainly immigrant parents with sick kids. Same story at most city hospitals.

Doc had a bad cut on his leg, maybe a broken bone in it, so they put him on a table right away. The EMS guys had bandaged him in the van, but he was going to need stitches, probably a lot, and maybe a cast. My head that I'd conked had me woozy so I took a seat to try to let it clear. Some of my cuts had been bandaged too, including the gash on my scalp that I was fiddling with now. One of the nurses came over and pulled my hand away.

"Leave it alone, we'll get to it next." The nurse was Agnes Marselli. "You're lucky to be here, from what I'm hearing."

"You're right about that," I said. "How did you know it was us?"

"I have my ways."

Actually, she'd been on duty, had heard over the EMS radio that they were bringing people in from the burning house, had gotten more details from the medics when they offloaded us.

"Let me go see about Doc," she said, and started for the room where they were working on him. "I'll be right back."

It would only be natural that he'd ask if she was on duty, the two going back like they did. And, him being a doctor (not getting into the revoked license part), a staffer had gone and found her right away for him. I didn't learn until later his reason for wanting her here so quick.

The fetus.

He'd taken it out of his freezer before he jumped from the house and had stuck it inside his shirt. It survived the fall, but now he had to get rid of it before they stripped him and put him in one of those flimsy hospital gowns.

He was able to make the handoff to Agnes who came back out to where I was sitting about five minutes later.

"I have to take care of something," she said, skipping the details, folks nearby not needing to hear, and disappeared again.

Things have a way of coming full circle. 

She took the fetus to one of the lab rooms to stick it in the refrigerator until she could get it back to her apartment again. The lab was in the same section as the autopsy room where they'd taken the fetus out of Tanya.

# # #

The next morning I stood with Patty and Ms. McG and the other girls and looked at the burnt-out house that had been their home. Our home. There wasn't much left - just a pile of charcoal timbers and incinerated furnishings, all of it heaped at the bottom of a brownstone that was just a black shell now. The tree in back that had saved Doc and me was half burnt away.

Doc was still in the hospital, doing OK, but his leg would be in a walking cast for a few weeks. There weren't any other injured house folk (my cuts and stuff turned out to be minor, except for the head gash that took some stitches). Most of the girls had been out of here, at Gaga's service for Simone and the reception after.

Gaga was on her way over (I'd called her), would later be taking the girls under her wing to find them places to stay. I knew Curly Sasso would pitch in too.

I could see by their fidgeting and talking to each other that the girls were anxious to start sifting through the ashes and rubble, to see if they could salvage any of whatever belongings they had. But there were still hot spots in there and the fire inspectors and Bomb Squad guys were keeping everyone back.