Spencer's Law

by Michael Gmoser

Genres: Police Procedurals; Crime Fiction; Legal Thrillers

Synopsis

The second book in the legal thriller about Spencer Tallbridge.  A baby is taken, a mother left to die and Spencer, must go up against the FBI to save a life In this gripping legal thriller, local county prosecutor Spencer Tallbridge interferes with a federal investigation while bringing together evidence and science to solve a horrific crime. Time is of the essence in an effort to save a life and to bring the perpetrators to justice without destroying himself. Once again, in this second novel in a series, Spencer has to balance his oath of office to follow the law and the dictates of country wisdom he learned at his father’s knee.

Release date: July 6, 2021

Publisher: Pike and Powder

Print pages: 285

Sample

 

FRIDAY

 

4:20 P.M.

Chapter One

As Alice Simpson left her ob-gyn’s office, she was relieved that all was well with her first pregnancy. Dr. Thomas told her that she was on schedule for delivery in four weeks and that all tests, including her latest amniocentesis, were normal. His final physical examination was comprehensive – taking all her and the baby’s vital signs, answering all her questions and explained where the baby was positioned. He made a small red mark with a felt-tipped pen, so she could show her husband where the baby’s head was now, and again with the pen where he expected it to be in a month during the anticipated normal delivery. This was her last visit on her own. The doctor told her that after that from now on, driving was simply too dangerous and should be avoided, even though winter was nearly over as far as the calendar was concerned. Making her way to her car, she felt a little stuffy and chilled, but inside the car the bright Friday afternoon sun had warmed the seat and she looked forward to the weekend ahead and a relaxing drive from the city to the country where she lived with her husband, two cats, and a dog named Charlie.

She and her husband, Professor Carl Simpson, looked forward to starting a family with great anticipation. Professor Simpson was a brilliant physicist and was one of those child prodigies often heard about, but seldom seen. Up to now, his professional life centered on his bevy of graduate students at the university where he taught physics and did advanced research on the cosmos. His personal life was simply devotion to Alice who forgave him all his faults as the truly absent-minded professor that he was around their home. She did this because he explained, in the most romantic way, that her existence confirmed the mysteries of the universe he sought so hard to explain. She never could understand his true meaning, but she always knew it was profound from one who should know. That was enough for her. In the constellation of stars that swirled around in his head, she knew her place was in the center, and she accepted her role-to-be as a homemaker and mother. She was well read and educated and, while not the intellectual equal to Carl (no one was), she had artistic talent to complement Carl’s reality-based world, and that appealed to him. Life was good for both, and now it could only get better.

Her drive home took her over sparsely populated country roads with only an occasional farm house and open fields in view. She relaxed as the traffic went from complicated to almost nonexistent. This was always the part of a solitary drive on any occasion that she enjoyed the most. It was a time for reflection and even relaxation in spite of her condition. Spring was fast approaching, and there was a telltale light green cast to the budding trees that fulfilled the promise of the new season to come. “New life”, she thought smiling, “was pushing through,” and she would soon be a part of that great story in her own way.

She knew that when she arrived home Carl might already be there. He had planned to take her to see Dr. Thomas, but his schedule could not be changed, and Dr. Thomas assured them both on her prior visit that she could handle the trip alone. “He was right as usual,” she concluded. She hoped Carl would be home because she knew he would ask if the doctor slipped up, disclosing the gender that she and Carl had decided to keep secret, even from themselves. Still, Carl’s inherent curiosity was getting the best of him, and she would have to joyfully tell him that it was still a part of the great unknown when he pressed her for an answer.

Letting her mind wander on her family-life-to-be, she did not notice a car fast approaching in her rear view mirror. Moments before impact she saw the danger and felt helpless to avoid the crash that sent her into the ditch. She was now stuck in the ditch with the engine still running and her tires spinning uselessly. There was no fire. She felt no pain. She quickly shut off the ignition with the realization that driving out of the ditch was not an option and looked around. The car that hit her had left the scene. “What a jerk! What person does such a thing?” she thought, but there was no time for further reflection. She was remarkably calm considering what just happened and sensed she was not seriously injured, but alone except for a farm tractor that was not far off and plowing away from her. The farmer seemed oblivious to anything around him while sitting in the cab of his gigantic, climate-controlled, and enclosed tractor, except for the path he was plowing ahead on his near mile-long electronic course. With his course set driven by a GPS-controlled autopilot, and with his stereo set on high, not even the sound of the crash could penetrate his office on wheels. Eventually, the farmer would have to turn and perhaps then he might see her and come to her aid. Only minutes before she had been comfortably alone on the country road having survived the crash. Now she felt a sense of desolation and dread.

Calling Carl was her best option, she thought. He needed to know that she was okay and would be late. Before doing that, she would have to find the phone that probably went flying with her purse when she hit the ditch. Her thoughts also quickly turned to her pregnancy, and the possibility of her water breaking. She learned this much in the preceding eight months about how her water may break unexpectedly during her pregnancy, and she was mentally prepared for such an emergency. As far as she could tell, that had not happened. Since the airbag had not deployed, she could at least get out of the car, if necessary, but assessed that it was far better to remain where she was inside the car. Besides, it was getting colder, and it made no sense to trade a warm place for a cold one. With careful twisting and leaning from the driver’s side, she saw the contents of her purse on the floor behind her, but her phone was not there. She was able to reach her purse and what remained in it. Everything else was in view on the floor, she thought, but it did not include her cell phone. Searching for it might take some time, but Carl had installed a new and improved battery that could last for weeks, and it was fully charged. She spilled the remaining contents on the passenger seat, but the cell phone was not there. She felt certain she had it with her when she left the doctor’s office. She used it several times while there to check her emails and it was always in her purse that she kept with her except when the nurse asked for two urine samples. Now it could be anywhere in her car and probably under the seat that she could not reach unless she would have to get out and work her way around the car. The depth of the ditch did not make that thought an appealing option but seemed to be a necessary one.

Just as she was reaching for the door handle, she heard the welcoming sound of a siren. “Someone somewhere must have called it in,” she thought. She waited for whatever it was to pull up behind her and was confident that whoever it was would be able to contact Carl and let him know that all was well. She saw an ambulance slowing down and she could see a driver and at least one passenger in the front seat. The ambulance came to a stop. The passenger, wearing blue nitrile gloves and a turquoise medical mask, approached her. The driver, in the same gloves and mask remained with his hands on the wheel in the driver’s seat. As the passenger walked up to Alice’s car, he signaled her to roll down her window. Since the window wasn’t working, she opened the door to explain her situation.

“Are you okay?” the man asked. He had a slight accent, but all she could see of his face were his dark almost black eyes and a thin visible scar running vertically from his hairline. His eyes and the scar were his only defining characteristics. “We are just coming back from an emergency and trying to maintain sterility. I mean, we wear these masks and gloves to avoid contamination for our patient. Sorry, if we look like Halloween characters,” he said.

“I think I’m fine,” she answered. “Somebody just ran me off the road, and I would really appreciate a call to my husband to let him know I’m all right. I can’t find my phone.”

“No problem. My phone is in the ambulance, and it looks like you are in a family way,” he said with a compassionate tone. “You really ought to let us check you out to make sure. Don’t worry. There’s no charge, and as long as we’re here, and we will be happy to do it while we make a call to your husband.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she said, as she pushed open her door further to assess her footing.

“You better let me help you out of your car. The ground here is really uneven, and you might fall. We don’t want to turn a good deed into a bad one, if you get my meaning.” He carefully assisted her out to a standing position.

“Wow, I feel dizzy now – from standing up. I suppose getting checked out is a good idea, after all. Do I need a mask, too?” she asked looking at his mask.

“In a minute, yes, but don’t worry about it. It won’t take long to check you out.”

As they all arrived at the rear of the ambulance including the driver, the rear door was wide open and a gurney was out just in front of it. A third member of the ambulance squad, whom Alice hadn’t seen earlier, was standing by the gurney. He was also wearing a mask and gloves and forcibly and unceremoniously pushed her on to the gurney. In what seemed only an instant, she felt her arms grasped and held in place, while her hands and legs were tied to the gurney.

“What are you doing?” Alice screamed in disbelief of what was happening. She repeated that simple question several times, until she realized that she was being totally ignored. Her screams meant nothing to the very men she had thought were her rescuers. She was being kidnapped, she realized, but she could not wrap her mind around why it was happening to her. The collapsible gurney was pushed and raised into the ambulance. There were now four squad members standing over her looking down, wearing masks and gloves, and in paramedic uniforms. Alice was able to tell from the voice of one that one was a woman, but with the masks, there was little else that she could tell about them except the one who first spoke to her with an accent, dark eyes and facial scar.

“Let’s get on with it – 72 seconds,” one said, and the other who met her first knelt down beside her. As all this was happening, Alice was paralyzed by fear, and she was not able to comprehend what was happening. She lived a sheltered life, and what was about to happen was beyond her experience. She only knew of trauma and terror from the evening news from events in faraway places. She was now in the middle of both as her clothing over her belly was cut away by the one at her side.

“Stop! Please stop!” she pleaded and struggled against the ties on her wrists and feet. “What are you doing to me? Please, please stop!” she begged.

“Scalpel,” the man beside her demanded, and was handed the surgical blade.

Alice saw the blade and began to scream uncontrollably, trying to break the bonds that held her arms and legs in an effort to get away. Now she not only understood that a kidnapping was in progress, but she also realized her baby was going to be cut out of her. She had a fleeting memory of a report in a Chicago newspaper about a woman and a baby in a similar attack. The woman was murdered in the surgical process and her baby did not survive the kidnapping. That happened in a back alley by amateurs, she recalled, and to her this seemed, at least, to be done by professionals.

“Shut her up.”

“We should just kill her now and make it a lot easier,” a male voice was heard to say as the same person stuffed a rag in her mouth. “88 seconds,” he added.

“No. We can’t risk the trauma to the baby. You know that, but I will kill that son-of-a-bitch, if it’s not a boy. This should be easy. The baby is positioned perfectly for a lateral approach, and we should be outta here on schedule. Everything else ready?”

“Yes.” It was the woman’s voice. “And the temperature is set and checked. No problems. Ready to go.”

Hearing that, the surgeon carefully made a shallow stabbing incision that he swiftly brought across Alice’s midsection, as if he were unzipping a bag. She reacted instantly. Her body arched in staggering pain, and her scream could be heard deep in her throat despite the gag.

Through her tears, Alice suddenly saw her baby being lifted straight up by his ankles and she could see through her tears, that it was unmistakably a boy. She watched as the umbilical cord was cut, saw the baby get a swift slap across his buttocks and heard the expected crying. The baby was handed to the woman who wiped him down and placed him in a container resembling a suitcase.

“Won’t be long now before we’re riding the reptile for a payday,” the timekeeper said. “125.”

“Right. Double check we have everything, and let’s get out of here.”

As the rear door of the ambulance was opened, the farmer could be seen on his tractor headed in their direction, and deliberately working his way toward the ambulance for a closer look.

“What do you want to do about her? – 145,” the timekeeper asked.

“I’ll cut her now. With that farmer coming this way, I’ll make sure she bleeds out.” At that point the surgeon cut both of Alice’s wrists down to her radial arteries – the ones that allow pulse to be felt – resulting in a spray of blood in all directions. He then raised both of his hands grasping the scalpel and brought it straight down into her chest to insure her death. Alice twisted in the ties that held her down. Before drifting into unconsciousness, the last thing she saw was the very brown almost black eyes of her assailant as he thrust the scalpel into her chest. Alice no longer felt pain. She felt nothing.

She had a sensory overload that would not allow her to see, hear, feel or process the horror that she just experienced after her wrists were cut and she was stabbed. She drifted quickly into shock and unconsciousness as a car pulled up directly behind the ambulance. It was a perfectly timed and choreographed scene as all four assailants in the squad, the getaway driver and the baby, cradled in the arms of the woman, sped away.

 

Chapter Two

Joe Walcott saw at a distance that some type of an emergency had occurred on Harris Road when he reversed his GPS course. An ambulance was close to a car in a ditch, and he could see four people hurriedly going to another car he saw arrive. One of them placed a suitcase-like box in the trunk just before the car sped off. Perhaps there was something he could offer to do, and he was willing to help as he pulled his tractor up to the side of his field closest to the ambulance. If the car, or even the ambulance, was stuck, the tractor, he called his Little Green Gant, would be able to pull either of them out. When he got out of his tractor the emergency lights were still flashing on the ambulance, the engine was also running and the rear door was open, but from his line of sight he could not see inside from where he was.

“Hello!” he called out as he neared his fence line. No reply. He called out again without a response and assumed that anyone inside must either be very busy or not there at all considering that a car had just left the scene of the apparent emergency with a number of people. It took some doing, but he was able to climb over his well-made wire fence and looked inside of the ambulance through the rear door to the immediate horror at what he saw. Blood was everywhere, and a woman was still pumping out small streams of blood pulsating from her wrists. Her entire belly was covered in blood, and he had no idea from what he was seeing about what had just taken place.

“Lady, I’m here to help,” he said. The woman was unconscious, but alive. The pulse of blood coming from her wrists told him that, but he felt compelled to tell her anyway. Her breathing was shallow, and he took the movement of her chest also as good sign. He knew he had to stop her bleeding, and for just a moment he was at a loss on where to start.

“Start with the wrists,” talking to himself out loud. He quickly untied the blood-soaked ties and used them to tie tourniquets on each wrist. That seemed to stop the bleeding, but he wondered if it was because she was simply out of blood. He then went to her belly where blood had pooled where her baby had been. Even then, he was unable to tell that her baby had just been cut out and kidnapped. He decided there was little he could do in that area but, amazingly there did not seem to be much active bleeding there that would need some type of first aid compression. The woman had also been stabbed in her chest, but with all the blood from head to toe, and her still being clothed in that area, he did not consider checking her chest for any further wounds that he could not see.

Joe had now done as much as he could do without more trained and professional help. The woman was cold and very pale. He knew from military experience that she was in shock and close to death. He stood up and began to look for anything he could use to keep her warm. Finally, in an overhead storage bin he found a stack of heavy blankets that he shook out and placed over her. He then held her right hand in his.

“Lady, if you can hear me, I have done everything I can. I have to leave you to get help. My phone is in my tractor, and I have to leave you.”

He didn’t expect an answer, but again he felt compelled to tell her something. He hoped that she would neither die nor regain consciousness while he was gone in the short time it would take to get to his phone. As he was leaving, he considered for the first time that whoever did this might be coming back. His heightened sense of fear and urgency mounted rapidly on top of what he already had, and he sprang into action with agility he had not experienced for years. In his tractor was a Winchester 30.06 rifle with a telescopic scope and accurate to 300 yards. He kept it on board to shoot coyotes that had invaded the area over the past several years, and based on what he had just experienced, he knew he would not hesitate to use it on anyone threatening further harm. Fortunately, as he retrieved his phone and called 911, there would be no need for his firearm then or later.

“911. What is your emergency?” the operator questioned.

“This is Joe Wolcott. I am on Harris Road, three miles east of Riggs Road. A woman is in an ambulance, and she has been attacked. She’s badly wounded and still bleeding, I think. I have done what I….”

“You need to slow down,” the operator requested. “Is there an ambulance already there?”

“Yes. She’s in the ambulance, but when I found her, no one else was here. No one. I know that sounds crazy, but she needs help.”

“I am sending a sheriff deputy now, and he should be there in ten minutes. You can explain it all to him when he arrives, and he will make the call for further help.”

“You don’t get it. This is no joke. This lady’s dying. She doesn’t need a damn deputy. She needs a doctor, and she needs one now! If you can’t send medical help, let me talk to your supervisor now and I mean now!” he demanded shouting into his phone.

There was a long pause. “Okay. I am sending an ambulance with medical help. Sorry. I must have misunderstood you about her already being in an ambulance, but an empty one. A squad should be there in less than ten minutes. They will be on the way from Henderson Hospital. Can you tell me where the woman is bleeding from, so I can pass that on?”

“She’s bleeding from her wrists. Both of her wrists have been cut, and there is a lot of blood. I put on tourniquets which I think slowed it down and maybe stopped it. It looks like her belly is cut open, too. I have never seen anything like that before.”

“I want you to stay with me until the squad arrives. Is there any sign of who did this? Is it possible whoever did this is nearby? Are you in any danger?”

“I really don’t know. I don’t think so because I think whoever did this left in a car just before I arrived. I do have a rifle and will use it, if I have to, if that car shows up again. This woman has been butchered. I mean really butchered. She might not make it, and the sheriff needs to be here. I will stay on the line.”

“Okay, stay with me.”

Walcott made it over the fence with less difficulty than before, even with the rifle carried on his shoulder by its sling, and he knelt beside the woman. He held her hand which was cold, damp, and limp, but she was still breathing faintly, and the tourniquets were holding, as far as he could tell. Not long after his call, he could hear sirens coming in both directions. The squad from Henderson Hospital was coming from the east, and a Rutledge County sheriff deputy was coming in from the west. Both arrived almost simultaneously and came to the open rear door of the ambulance.

“Are you the Walcott who called this in?” a squad man asked, looking intently at the rifle Walcott also had at his side.

“I am. Glad you’re here.”

Another squad man went to work directly on the woman and applied a blood pressure cuff to her left arm, then moved on to listening to her heart that also provided immediate information on her respiration before the cuff was inflated. “I need O-2 stat,” the EMT ordered, and an oxygen mask was immediately placed over her face. “Her respiration is weak and shallow. I want her bagged with O-2, eight liters per minute.” Calling for bagging meant that a device for manual resuscitation would be employed that forces a mixture of air and pure oxygen into her lungs at a calculated flow rate by a balloon-looking device, squeezed, in this case, by the EMT and called an Ambu bag. The O-2 mask was replaced with that device and worked continuously by the EMT.

“What you see is what I found after pulling up in my tractor. Her ankles are still strapped down like I found her, but I used the ties that were holding her wrists to make tourniquets,” Walcott volunteered to a physician he saw entering the ambulance.

“I’m Dr. Horvath. I’m an ER trauma doctor, and I heard the call,” he said as he carefully removed the tie to her right wrist to see the extent of the damage to her radial artery. “It’s as bad as I thought it might be. I decided to go out on this one to see if we could save her hands.” Looking over to the squad man, he asked for a hemostat and suture kit. “I think I can do an anastomosis on this one, and hopefully the other one won’t be worse.” An anastomosis is an end-to-end repair of a lacerated artery and usually takes a specialist to do it. Fortunately for the woman, Dr. Horvath had all the skills necessary for such a repair he often had to perform in the emergency room where he worked. “For a farmer, you did pretty well to stop the bleeding,” he said to Walcott, as he moved on to the left wrist injury. It was deep, did not result in a complete laceration and would be easier to repair.

“Farmers have to know a lot more about patching things up than you might think, but I actually learned a lot in Nam. This brought back a lot of bad memories. More nightmares now, I suppose,” Walcott concluded.

“If we save her, it’s your fault,” Dr. Horvath said, smiling with an attempt at ironic humor and gratitude.

“I need the paddles ready, and get on the BP,” he ordered the EMTs who were with him. “She’s in bad shape, and there’s a lot going on here. We’re not going to move her until I make a complete assessment, and I don’t want to start IV fluids until that’s done, but be ready,” anticipating the other’s desire to move her and get her to the hospital along with an almost standard IV for such bloody emergencies. “Looks like a Cesarean. Neat and clean. Someone stole this woman’s baby,” Dr. Horvath remarked in amazement looking back at the deputy. “You need to get a crime team out here ASAP.”

The deputy turned away and went back to his cruiser to call it in, as suggested.

“Did she ever say anything to you when you found her?” the doctor asked Walcott still standing next to him.

“Well, no. I tried to talk to her, but I don’t think she heard me. I told her I was here to help when I found her, but I think she was unconscious and bleeding.”

“Do you have any idea who she is?” the doctor asked while he continued to explore what he was seeing.

“Not a clue. I think it’s her car in the ditch, and that should help the deputy figure that out. When he gets back, I’ll ask him to find out, and maybe he can try to make some contact with her family, if she has one.”

The doctor then asked Walcott to step out. Walcott had done all he could do, and the rest would be in the hands of Dr. Horvath and his team.

With Walcott out, Dr. Horvath pulled up the sweater the woman was wearing and immediately saw the wound to her chest, almost at midline and bleeding slightly with what Dr. Horvath diagnosed as venous blood from its darker red color compared to bright red arterial blood. She was unconscious, and he knew he would have to act with or without anesthesia. Without was the only choice. “This woman was stabbed,” he concluded loudly, and it was a deep penetrating wound probably down to her heart, he thought. “Not good,” he said. “We can’t move her, if I’m right about this. We have to move fast.”

“Do you think it penetrated her heart?” an EMT asked. “BP 60 over 40,” he added.

“No, but if it did, she’d already be a goner. We’ll never repair that in time, even if she’s made it this far. But I think it just cut her vena cava because of the venous blood and location, if she’s lucky, and there’s a cardiac tamponade that’s probably holding the vein together. So far, I think there’s probably a blood clot in the right place, but if it blows out, she’ll bleed out in minutes. I’ve seen this before and we have to work fast. I can’t help but thinking her cut radials may have gotten her this far with the reduced pressure, and I’m holding off with an IV until we find out, in case you’re wondering. We have to go in now. Get on the phone and call in a vascular. I hope to hell she doesn’t wake up.” Dr. Horvath did not need to say surgeon. The EMTs knew what that specialist was and also the meaning of the medical term cardiac tamponade. It meant that even with a cut to the largest vein in her body, other structures at the heart next to the cut, combined with a blood clot, were channeling blood back to the heart. That would not last long, if blood started to take another course of least resistance or the clot broke. Any movement of her body would cause those to happen.

Without being asked, an EMT swabbed the woman’s chest with a deep purple antiseptic solution for the anticipated surgical procedure. With his left index finger, Dr. Horvath felt along the left side of her breastbone for the tightly bound ligamentous joint of each rib attached to it. That is where he began to cut down and open her chest to expose her heart. If he was right and luck was with the woman, he could make a temporary repair suture of her vena cava, start an IV and wait until the vascular surgeon arrived to make a more permanent repair.

After cutting through four rib joints, he called for retractors that the EMTs held ready at hand. Dr. Horvath quickly placed three on each side of the wound he made, and carefully pulled her chest apart putting her slowly beating heart in full view with no apparent injury, but not the vena cava. It was located at the bottom end of her heart, and he could see that there was a large blood clot in line with the stab wound, and it had not broken loose when he opened her chest.

“How long before the vascular gets here?” Dr. Horvath asked.

“Three minutes or less,” was the answer.

“I’m going to wait. If I look under that clot, all hell might break loose, and I want him here to address it. She’s stable enough. If it goes south in the next few minutes, I’ll handle it. I think we are ready for anything and the vascular should appreciate it. Is that the vascular now?” responding to voices outside.

“No, it’s the Rutledge County Sheriff with his crime scene detail.”

“Close the door and keep him out of here,” Dr. Horvath ordered. “We have enough bugs in here without adding more,” he said with a warning of continued germ contamination.

“Dr. Warner just arrived,” an EMT waiting outside announced.

“Great. I know him. Let him in.”

When Dr. Warner stepped into the ambulance, he could not hold back expressing the horror at what was before him. “What the hell happened? Did you crack her for a dissecting aortic aneurysm?” From what he saw, including a traffic accident in the ditch, that was a likely diagnosis. The main artery from the heart is the aorta and is harder than veins. It can break or crack during auto crashes and is often the immediate cause of death in head-on collisions. The term “dissecting” simply means that a crack is not completely through the artery and allows blood to collect between layers of the artery like a blood blister. Eventually, it will break through, and death is inevitable within minutes, unless treated emergently as begun by Dr. Horvath.

“Glad you’re here, Mike,” Dr. Horvath said with relief. “This woman was found by a farmer with both radials ligated, one worse than the other, and I found a stab wound down to what I expect to be her vena cava. I’ve gone as far as I can with her wrists, and I would like you to check my work. BP is steady at 60 over 40, and I have not started fluids.”

“Okay. Go ahead and start an IV,” Dr. Warner said as he stretched on sterile gloves and put on a mask. He first looked at the radials and gave a thumbs-up sign of approval. He then brought his focus down to her open chest. “This is going to be tricky. This clot is holding her back from bleeding out,” he said, pointing to the bottom area of her heart. “When I break the clot, I’m going to have a mess on my hands trying to sew it up, but if it’s not too bad, it might work. These damn veins are not like arteries. They’re more like tissue paper compared to a garden hose, as you know.”

Dr. Warner had a small bag of instruments and he brought out several. One looked like a flat spoon, and the others were various sizes of hemostats. He also pulled out some envelopes containing pre-threaded needles that he opened for quick use.

“You know this is only half the problem. I can’t tell what is going on with the obvious Cesarean, but the bleeders don’t look too active. Do we have enough saline to irrigate when we get to that?” referring to a sterile solution used to clean open wounds.

“I brought plenty,” Dr. Horvath said.

“Good news,” Dr. Warner said when he broke the clot. “Just a small laceration to the vena cava, enough to kill her over time, but the cardiac tamponade, clot and reduced pressure has kept her alive long enough for me to fix it. Good thing nobody moved her or this would have been a coroner’s case. What I also found might account for why she is still with us.”

While he worked around suturing the vena cava, he used a hemostat to reach in and pulled out the broken blade of the scalpel that broke off when it was thrust through the chest wall by her assailant. It caused the remaining blade to veer off its intended deadly course. “This is one lucky woman,” Dr. Warner remarked. “I’m making a temporary closure so I can have a better look after we get some pictures to make sure nothing else is left behind.” Medically, the team in attendance was in agreement, but they could not emotionally feel any sense of good luck for what had happened to the woman in their care.

“BP?” Dr. Warner asked. “Hand me the saline so we can wrap this up and make sure this gets to pathology at Henderson,” looking at the broken scalpel blade and referring to the hospital pathology department where it would be more closely examined and preserved.

“72 over 40. It’s coming up,” an EMT responded.

Dr. Warner took the first bottle and squeezed it like an empty can of soda pop and poured it in completely.

“I need one more,” he requested and poured it in the same way. This time, the void where her baby had been, was becoming more visible.

“Whoever did this knew what he was doing, and I’m assuming it was ‘he’. He may have done a sloppy job trying to kill her, but the surgical technique to take the baby was excellent. Not much for me to do here. The bleeding has all but stopped, and I won’t even try to clean this up and close until we get back. I think it’s safe to move her now as long as we keep her draped and stable. Horvath, I have to give you credit. You sure make it interesting. I think this is one for the books and we’ll see it on the evening news. I’ll leave her in your care for now,” Dr. Warner concluded. “I have to get back but will finish up when you arrive. You are taking her to Rutledge General, right?”

“I’ll look forward to seeing you there,” Dr. Horvath answered. “We’ll get her packed up, and I will stay with her to monitor.”

When the rear door was opened, there were at least a dozen uniformed police officers standing just outside. News reporters had also arrived but were held back by yellow crime scene tape 200 feet away. The Rutledge County sheriff, George McGivney, was talking on his cell phone and saw that the woman was about to be removed from the ambulance. The sheriff got off his call and asked Dr. Warner if he was in charge of the medical situation and hoped for a briefing.

“I’m just the vascular surgeon that was called in, but the patient is stable enough to be moved to Rutledge General, and Dr. Horvath is with her now. I can tell you that by all rights this woman should be dead. But I think she will make it. Did you talk to the farmer that found her?”

“Yes, and we have the number for the woman’s husband. I didn’t want to call him until I heard from you guys. Wasn’t sure if it was going to be bad news. I’m sure you understand that,” McGivney said.

“I’ve had to give bad news more times than I would like to remember. I get it,” Dr. Warner said.

As the gurney was lowered out of the ambulance, the sheriff made his call to Carl.

“Mr. Simpson, this is Sheriff McGivney. I am the Rutledge County sheriff. There has been an accident, but we think your wife is going to be okay.” The sheriff knew from years of experience that he needed to announce her condition generally as quickly, and as innocuously, as possible to avoid the inevitable panic it would cause Carl, if he gave the horrific details all at once. “Yes, that is what the doctor just told me,” responding to Carl’s first question. “She will be taken to Rutledge General Hospital so you can meet me there later.” There was a long pause as Carl asked more questions. “No. I can’t tell you anything more, and I really have to go. I will see you at the hospital,” and the call was ended abruptly.

The sheriff looked over to his second in command, his chief deputy, standing near him and said, “He asked about the baby, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. I hope I can get to him before the press picks this up. He told me that she must have been on her way home from her OB, and I want that followed up.”

“I’m not sure about the press. We’re not talking and the only thing that’s out there is this crazy thing about the ambulance and a butchered woman that went out on the scanner and 911 call. That’s enough to get to anyone out here,” the deputy said. “We do have a lead on the ambulance. It was stolen from Morgan Township. Nobody even knew it was missing. There was some problem with it, and Morgan was using a backup. We’ll search it thoroughly as soon as everyone’s out. We’ll start that search here but will probably have to move it to the impound for final analysis. We’ll work up a timeline with a call to her ob-gyn.”

“Make sure you get good IDs on everyone who went in. From what I can tell, that would be the farmer, the EMTs and the two doctors, right?” the sheriff said more as a statement than as a question.

“Right. The real problem will be getting all the IDs of the Morgan crew, but we’ll handle it,” the deputy said as the sheriff got into his car and left for the hospital. By that time, the transport of Alice was already underway.

Chapter Three

When the sheriff pulled up to the hospital, the reporters were also there in force. “Is it true that a baby was stolen?” a reporter cried out. “Is this a terrorist attack?” yelled another. The sheriff did not answer, but the word was out, and her husband probably knew. The sheriff entered through the emergency room doors where other deputies were holding off the press, and he saw a young man with his head in his hands. Intuitively, the sheriff knew this man was Carl Simpson, the husband of the victim.

“Are you Carl?” the sheriff asked just the same.

“I am,” he answered, looking up to the sheriff. “They just brought Alice in and the doctors are with her. She’s still unconscious.” His voice cracked when he added, “And our baby is gone.” He began to sob. “We don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl!”

“I know your baby’s gone,” the sheriff said. “I did not want to tell you about the baby until I was with you. We are doing everything we can, and we will solve this.”

“Who does something like this?” Carl asked in disbelief of the reality confronting him. “Have you ever had anything like this before?”

“We’ve had kidnappings, but nothing like this. There’s not much I can tell you and, frankly, I won’t be able to say much until we find your baby and the suspects. I can say that this was a well-coordinated team effort, and a farmer saw them leave the scene. The press is all over this, and it might be a good idea not to talk too much about this.”

“I won’t, but why not?” Carl asked.

“It’s so unusual, and I hate to tell you this, but you have to be cleared as a suspect. I’m not looking at you as a suspect; I just have to eliminate you as one, if that makes any sense now.” It was a smart move by the sheriff to tell Carl early. A spouse is always a suspect in a murder or attempted murder case, and if the sheriff waited to open that door, Carl may not see it as merely routine and become uncooperative.

“There is always some reporter that thinks he or she knows more about solving crimes than we do, and there will be wild theories. That probably will not happen early on. You will first get a lot of sympathy, but as time goes by, someone in the press will turn on you. It sells print and airtime. They always put it as a question: ‘Is the husband involved?’ and stuff like that. It will piss you off, but there is nothing you can do about it.”

“What do I have to do to clear myself?” Carl asked. “Do you want me to take a lie detector test? Why can’t I just tell them I’m not involved now? This is horrible.”

“You have enough to worry about without thinking about polygraphs. Down the road, just to appease the press, I might hold you to that, but let’s just see how this plays out. The worst thing you can do now with the press is to deny any involvement if you haven’t been asked. For them, it will be a sure sign that you are. Take it from me; don’t ask for trouble by talking to the press. In the meantime, just concentrate on helping your wife get better. I can’t imagine what life will be like for her when she wakes up.”

“One of the doctors said that won’t happen for a while. She’s still unconscious and they plan to put her in a coma-like state, an ‘induced coma’ they called it, in the intensive care unit later. So, I plan to stay here until she regains consciousness,” Carl offered.

“Take my advice. Go home; you will be called when she comes around. You need to be strong for her, and we need you to be strong for us with any help you can give. This was not a random event, and soon we’ll have to wring you out like a sponge to see if there is something that will help, even if you don’t know what it might be. Will you do that?” the sheriff asked.

“I’ll try, but I have to think this out. I can’t focus on anything beyond helping Alice. We’ve got a couple of cats and a dog, and I can’t even think about taking care of them. I just don’t know where to start to pull myself together.”

“Neither do we for now, but we will find both ends and the middle eventually. It’s what we do, and you have to trust us.” The sheriff held out his hand and helped Carl up. “I’ll walk you out to your car. I promise to call with any developments.”

Just as he was helping Carl stand up, the sheriff’s phone rang again, and he could see it was from his chief deputy, Ed Harper. The sheriff knew he was still at the crime scene and hoped for good news.

“Hello, Ed. I’m with Carl Simpson now at the hospital. What’ve you got?”

“Not much yet. There’s a lot of blood spatter, and it’s going to be a mess to sort out, if there’s more than one contributor. I just took a call from the FBI, and they just heard about it on the news like everyone else. They have Carl’s name, too. It’s out there along with his job at the University. The press says he’s a whiz kid professor, and the FBI wants to talk to him ASAP. Unless the baby’s found dead, they’re coming in.”

“Do they want me to stand down?” the sheriff asked.

“The ASAC is the one who called. His name is John Rollins, and he got the call from upstream. They’re concerned this is a big-time body parts case. You know, kidnapping a baby for body parts, as he explained it to me. You might not want to tell Mr. Simpson that. Rollins said he wants to break it to him. The press hasn’t picked that up yet, but it’ll come out.”

“Okay on all that,” the sheriff said, doing his best to mask any comment on the body parts theory from Carl who was within earshot of the conversation. “So, are we in or out? I would just as soon be out, if the FBI is all in, but we will talk about it when I get back.”

“Like I said, Agent Rollins asked that you have Mr. Simpson call him as soon as possible and also not to take any phone calls until Rollins talks with him. His number is local 801-3404. Rollins said they also have to treat this as a possible ransom case, with Mr. Simpson being some sort of a big-time professor at the University, so ransom is a definite possibility. They want to be ready for any call he might get,” Harper explained and closed the call.

“Well, I have some good news, Professor Simpson,” the sheriff told Carl. “This case has gotten the attention of the FBI all the way to Washington. My chief deputy just got a call from the Assistant Special Agent in Charge with the FBI in this area. That’s the ASAC you might have heard me refer to. The FBI wants to take on this case because of the kidnapping. His name is Rollins, and he asked that you call him as soon as possible. His local number is 801-3401. He doesn’t want you to talk with anyone or take any other calls. Your name got out there. I don’t know how the press got it, but probably the same way we did, with her car license plate at the crash site. The FBI is looking at the possibility that this will be a ransom case, and I know they will have a lot of equipment to set up. I don’t want to be in the way of the FBI, with everything they bring to an investigation, so I might not be involved for long.”

“When will you know for sure?” Carl asked.

“Later tonight. When I get back to the department, I will make a decision after I talk it over with staff. That will take a while, but I should know something tonight and I probably will be out of this for now. I will let the FBI know our decision, and Agent Rollins will tell you how this will all work when he meets you. For now, I want you to just call Agent Rollins, go home, feed the cats and your dog and wait for the FBI. I know from experience they will want to meet you as soon as possible. Do you feel safe to drive? I can have a deputy drive you home.”

“I’ll be okay,” Carl responded.

“Fine. The FBI knows how to do this. They have been solving cases like this for many years. Remember the Charles Lindbergh case? That’s where the FBI got its start on these,” the sheriff said as he shepherded Carl past the shouting reporters, whom both of them ignored, to Carl’s car where the sheriff told him automatically to have a nice day without thinking through how senseless that farewell was to Carl.

As Carl drove out of the hospital parking lot, several TV panel vans fell in behind him and followed him to his home where the FBI agents were already waiting. He had called ahead and hoped they would intercede with the press just as the sheriff had done at the hospital. When he pulled into the driveway leading to the farmhouse where he and Alice lived so happily, an agent was waiting next to a black SUV, and ran interference with the camera crews. They could wait at the entrance but go no further. From that point, Carl belonged to the FBI and their plan to wait for any ransom calls that may come in.

Two black SUVs with government plates were parked near Carl’s front door, and as he got out, so did eight FBI agents, each carrying bags of equipment.

“Hello, Professor Simpson. I’m the agent you spoke to on your way over, and these are agents on what you might call my rapid response team. We call it the VSRT for victim services,” and he quickly flashed Carl his badge and identification as was standard FBI practice. “Have you heard any news reports – maybe on your car radio?”

“No, nothing,” Carl answered, as they all moved into Carl’s home to get down to the business at hand. First, however, Carl poured out food for Charlie, his dog, and the two cats, whom Alice had named Minnie and Mickey, that were anxiously waiting.

Agent Rollins was the first to speak. “I know you will be expecting a call from the hospital, but I have to ask you not to take any calls until we get set up, okay?”

“Okay, am I a suspect?” Carl asked directly, to get that fear of being a suspect out in the open.

“At this time, no, but why do you ask?” Agent Rollins asked.

“The sheriff said that if this is not solved, I will be.”

“Well, I don’t think he meant it that way. And even if I thought you were a suspect, our protocol is to get set up for a possible ransom demand as soon as possible. I’m not here to ask you any questions. That could come later, but not now. I want to explain how this works.”

While Agent Rollins explained how calls would be answered, recording equipment was set up for the landline phone and Carl’s cell phone. Agent Rollins had what amounted to a script of what to say in the event anyone called with a ransom demand. The time it took to say the scripted conversation was as important as the words spoken to keep the caller on the line as long as possible for the trace equipment to work.

“How long does it take to trace a call?” Carl asked.

“Seconds now, versus minutes in the old days. We really had to work at it years ago, but now we do it almost at the speed of light. It’s not perfect, so we need as much time as possible for all the cross-checks these guys make,” referring to the agents setting up the equipment. That was an answer Carl could understand, and he was relieved that something with modern technology may actually work in practice.

Hours passed. There were calls from his colleagues that he quickly dispatched without explanations. The press called, too, and received the same treatment. There were no calls from the hospital. Most of the agent technicians eventually left with just Agent Rollins and two others monitoring the equipment. Carl fought the urge to ask how long it might take before a contact would be made realizing the obvious that only the kidnappers would know that answer. Carl sat and reflected on the quiet solitude he now had that was foreign to the life he shared with Alice and her constant conversation that made their house a home. Only Charlie, who wandered among him and the agents, gave him some sense of normalcy and comfort.

As time passed late into the night and as Carl became more comfortable with Agent Rollins not asking anything alarming, Agent Rollins decided it was time to suggest the horrible outcome that loomed in FBI circles concerning the motive of the crime.

“Carl, I want you to consider something, before you hear it in the press.”

“That I’m a suspect?” Carl interrupted.

“No, much worse than that. It is possible we will never hear from the kidnappers. Yes, we will catch them and bring them to justice, but it is possible that your baby was stolen for its organs.”

“You can’t be serious,” Carl straightened up in disbelief. “Who would do such a thing? Why a baby? What’s a baby got that a grown healthy adult doesn’t have?” he questioned, summoning all his intellectual logic to his questions to avoid an outburst of emotion to the horror of such a consideration.

“We asked the same questions in other cases with stolen babies, and our medical experts tell us it has something to do with the stem cells of babies that are harder to find in adults. These fetal stem cells are used to treat rare diseases or hereditary problems, and there are wealthy people that are willing to kill to get them. They are willing to pay any price to hang on to life, even if it means killing an unborn child.”

“You can’t tell my wife this. You have to promise,” Carl demanded with a sense of urgency and acceptance. “This is just a guess, right?”

“It is just a guess, but I am afraid your wife will hear it and believe it, if we don’t get any contact here,” Agent Rollins said.

“But why is that the only other option? Who says they’re not just stealing a baby to get a baby?”

“Sure, that’s also possible, but not likely. It would be easier to snatch and grab a baby almost anywhere – a park, the grocery store, a parking lot – if it was just about getting a kid. We have those cases, too, and the babies are usually found alive. If dead, the organs are not usually missing. It’s babies like yours that are taken preborn and, if found, are found dead with missing organs. It’s not something you want to hear, but I don’t want you and your wife to be blindsided when she hears about the possibilities,” Agent Rollins explained.

“So, where’s the hope in all this?” Carl asked.

“What we’re doing now is the best hope we have, and we have to ride it out. Even if the motive is to kidnap for organs, the kidnappers might have a change of plans and turn to a ransom demand. At this point, there’s no way to know. Something will happen. It always does. We just have to be patient. For now, I want you to get some sleep, if that’s possible. Looks to me like you are working on adrenalin, and it’s wearing off. When it’s gone, you will crash, I guarantee it, so you are better off to turn in now. We will monitor the phones. Believe me, you’ll be the first to know, if we get that call.”

“Okay. I’ll try,” Carl agreed.

Carl left the room to the agents who were sleeping in shifts on the living room couch. He didn’t believe that sleep was an option or that it would give him a place to escape his anguish, but it was worth a try, he thought, to follow the wisdom and experience of the FBI, if it would help Alice. Sleep did not come easy, but it came.

 

 

MONDAY

 

7:45 a.m.

 

Chapter Four

By the third day after the assault, a limited part of the story of Alice Simpson had broken on the national news. Once again Rutledge County was in the national spotlight. The Rutledge County Prosecutor, Spencer Tallbridge, received national attention a year earlier by becoming the prosecutor after he made an arrest of his boss, Rutledge County Prosecutor Dan Herald, for murder. The arrest came within an hour before the execution of a man Herald had prosecuted for the crime and sent the county and country into a tailspin regarding the death penalty. Spencer became the hero of the anti-death penalty movement and the anti-Christ for those who support it. Spencer had everything going for himself on both sides. On one side, he was young and idealistic and, on the other, he was young and inexperienced. In fact, both applied and, in spite of his lack of experience as a prosecutor, the governor appointed him to take Herald’s place. He had shown exceptional talent as a trial lawyer with instincts and ability that led him down a path stranger than fiction, which could have resulted in his disbarment, but brought Herald to justice. The National Broadcasting Service, NBS, did a program titled “The Farrier’s Son” that followed his life from his childhood as the son of a farrier where he learned country logic from his father to his successful investigation of Herald for aggravated murder. A farrier fits horseshoes to horses, and that’s where Spencer learned an important lesson that followed him throughout his successful trial practice that he always tried to apply: “Grind to the quick, but never grind into the quick, or you just might get kicked in the head.” At twenty-eight years of age, he had avoided that assault.

When Spencer took office, he brought with him a retired police detective, Jake Butler, who kept Spencer on track with questions about evidence that Spencer tried to answer in the investigation leading to his discovery that Herald was a murderer. ...