Rick

Vadstalle followed after the ambulance on his motorcycle, his lights flashing. When it got to the hospital, he ditched his bike and followed the paramedics into the building, Javan strapped to the gurney. They rushed inside.

A nurse met them at the door. She held a scanner in her hand, passing it over Javan before admitting her through the doors into the emergency wing. Vadstalle followed after, making sure his badge was out in case anybody stopped him.

They wheeled her down the corridor, past the normal rooms for people with stuffy noses and tick bites, toward the trauma center. Several people in medical scrubs converged around the gurney once it was in one of the trauma rooms. One of them looked back at Vadstalle before shutting the curtain. He stood outside the room, listening to their voices muttering this or that, to things beeping, to the sounds of whirring and buzzing. He got dizzy.

"Whoa there," said one of the nurses. She caught him before he collapsed to the floor. "While you're in the right place for cracking your head on the linoleum, if we can prevent it, we'd like to." She helped him over to a chair before getting him a paper cup filled with ice water. "Drink this," she said. 

He did. When he was done, he looked up at her. "I need to know what's going to happen to Bher," he said, his voice weak.

She patted him on the shoulder. "Patience," she said. "They're miracle workers, but miracles take time."

Vadstalle leaned back in the chair. He tried not to listen to the sounds coming from the trauma room, willing his mind's eye to not fill in the details about what sort of medieval medical devices were making the teeth-jittering sounds behind the curtain.

Then, all the noise stopped. He thought he heard one of the doctors say, "damn." But not like, "damn, we lost her," but more like, "damn, I haven't seen that before." Vadstalle craned his neck, trying to will the curtain to pass so he could get a glimpse of what was going on.

One of the doctors emerged from the room, but he couldn't see past the mass of scrubs. He went up to the nurses station and said something to the nurse who had given him the water. The nurse got on the intercom. "Doctor Vomisa," she said, "to Trauma. Stat."

After what felt like an eternity, a balding man in a white coat and sea-green scrubs stepped up to the desk. The nurse motioned for him to go into Javan's room. He went there. After a few minutes and some indistinguishable barked commands, several of the doctors were wheeling the gurney, draped in a sheet, out of the room and down the hallway.

Vadstalle stood and stepped up to them. The one doctor, presumably Vomisa, saw him, noticed his badge, and stopped him in the hallway. "Please," he said. "We have everything under control." His white lab coat had a few blue stains on it. 

"I need to know what's going on," Vadstalle said.

Vomisa cut him off. "We'll keep in touch," he said. He looked down the hallway, toward the elevator bank. "Now, I must go if we're going to keep your friend operational." He hurried down the hallway just as the others were wheeling the gurney into the elevator. He squeezed in with them.

Vadstalle watched the doors slide shut. After a moment of just standing there, dumbfounded, he turned and looked at the nurse. He stepped up to her and handed her one of his cards. "If anything happens," he said, "please, let me know."

He was in a daze as he stepped back out onto the street. His bike was where he had left it. He picked it up and rode it out of the hospital parking lot. He didn't remember how he got there, but he was standing outside the fire station.

Stepping inside, several of the firemen recognized him. "Hey, Rick," one said. He nodded. "I'm looking for the chief," he muttered. Someone went and got him.

The chief was a burly man with an attention to detail. His eyes were a bit bleary, but he brightened up when he saw Vadstalle. "Hey, Rick," he said.

"Is there any word on the Marney fire?" he asked, cutting straight to the point of his visit.

The chief scratched the back of his neck. "We're still waiting on some lab results," he said, "but we've got it mostly sorted out." He waved for Vadstalle to follow him to his office. "You're lucky," he said as he opened the door. "I was just about to head home for the evening."

His office was cramped and windowless. His bulking form made it look like a room in a dollhouse. He picked up a foldex from off his desk and handed it to Vadstalle. Vadstalle swiped through the documents on it.

"You're probably here because you want to know that it was arson," he said. "Unfortunately, it looks like it's a pretty clear cut case of carelessness. Someone left a burner up too high, walked away, and then the place went up. Marney, being an old-fashioned guy, kept a lot of paperwork, and that caught, sending the whole place up. When it reached the main lab, there were enough combustibles and accelerants to send the place sky-high. It's a miracle only one person was hurt."

Vadstalle cringed when the chief said this.

"Oh, yeah," said the chief. "How is she doing, by the way?"

"I'll let you know when they let me know," Vadstalle said.

The fire chief turned to grab something else off his desk. "If you're interested in arson, though," he said, holding another foldex. When he turned around, Vadstalle was gone. The roar of a motorcycle echoed down the street.

It was starting to rain, and Vadstalle felt the drops running down his cheek like the tears he couldn't cry for Javan. He pulled his bike up to the remains of Marney Chemical, holographic police tape covering the place. He pulled a flashlight from his pocket and focused the beam toward the door.

He walked through the wreckage, and it smelled a bit like an old pit barbecue if you cleaned it with everything in your broom closet before soaking it completely. He wandered the halls, looking for one of those filing cabinets he saw scattered throughout when he was there earlier. He found a few. Marney did a good job of labeling them, as they had neat, hand-lettered signs on the doors: PATENTS, EMPLOYEES, ACCOUNTS PAYABLE, PROJECTS, and ORDERS. He jimmied open the one that said ORDERS.

Some of the folders within were crispy from the heat, and there was some leakage of the fire suppression foam. He flipped through the folders, reading the tabs, each one to a given customer. He pulled the folders out one at a time and flipped through the pages, skimming them for anything worthwhile. It was all jargon to him.

His eyes were starting to get tired. He looked at his watch. It was getting on toward midnight. He bundled up the folders and carried them out through the building. He packed them away in Old Mellie's saddlebags.

"Hold it right there," someone said to him from the darkness. Vadstalle reached for his gun, but found that his belt was empty. He must have left it at home. "Hands where I can see them," said the voice."

Vadstalle raised his hands. The figure stepped into the light, a tasgun leveled at him. Vadstalle almost lost it laughing when he saw who it was. "Hey, man," he said. "I'm a cop, too."

Czeslaw narrowed his eyes. He thought this guy looked familiar. The five-namero coin he had given him earlier still sat in his pocket like a weight. "What are you doing out here so late?" he asked. He lowered his tasgun, returning it to its holster. "My PARD says you're off duty."

Vadstalle shrugged. "Doing a little investigation off the clock," he said. "Inspiration strikes us at such unusual times."

Czeslaw nodded. "You can put your hands down," he said. "But I'm going to have to file a report on this, you know."

Vadstalle shrugged. "Sure thing," he said. He walked over to his bike. "They got you on the graveyard shift now?" he said.

Czeslaw shrugged back. "I'm trying to pick up some overtime. Got a vacation planned in a few weeks." He looked at his watch. "But I'll get to go home soon." He chuckled. "You're the most interesting thing that's happened to me all shift."

Vadstalle laughed back, a practiced sort of laugh that put the other person at ease. "Great," he said. He picked up his bike. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get home." He nodded to Czeslaw before gunning the bike down the street. 

When he got home, he slid his key against the door and stepped inside. He tossed the keys to the bike into the bowl by the door, found himself a drink from the fridge, and collapsed into his couch.

He just sat there in the waning light of the day, when the sunlight turned to neon, and the shadows grew longer.

He looked at the picture on his wall, of him, standing next to another police, both of them in their uniforms, long before he was a plainclothes detective. "Jonesy," he said, his voice barely audible in the silence of his apartment.

It was their first big case, but it was a gearhead bust gone wrong. One of the gearheads was packing, and before Vadstalle knew what was going on, Jonesy was diving in front of him. He took a full clip before landing on the ground. It gave Vadstalle an opportunity to subdue the attacker. Then he held Jonesy in his arms, waiting for the ambulance to arrive. And that was the last thing Jonesy knew before bleeding out his last bit of life.

Vadstalle wasn't sure what time it was when he woke up. The bottle he held in his hands was no longer cold, and still unopened. He got up from his chair, leaving it behind. When his phone rang, he sprang for it. 

"Detective Vadstalle," said the voice on the other line. It sounded like Dr. Vomisa. "Could you please come to the hospital at your earliest convenience?"