If it hadn’t been for Mr. Redding, I might still have been standing up and looking around in confusion. “Thanks,” I said, but my voice came out in a gasp.
“Been a long time, but you don’t forget that sound,” he said. Obviously, crouching was painful for the elderly man, and the shock had not been good for him. His breathing was harsh.
“I need to get back in to my daughter,” Mr. Redding said, and began to pull up on the door handle of the SUV, struggling to stand. His cane lay on the ground, forgotten.
“No sir,” Cathy said. “The hospital is locked down now, no one in or out. Your daughter’s much safer than we are.”
I tried to regain control of myself.
Cathy had clipped her radio to her belt. She held her gun with both hands. I couldn’t see anyone else moving. A car alarm went off. The persistent honk was maddening. When it stopped, I let out a deep breath. After that, the parking lot, which had been full of people coming and going minutes earlier, fell still.
There was another crack! It seemed to echo in the silence.
Then a woman began screaming, screaming as if she would never stop. Mr. Redding’s color had worsened. He did not seem to be completely in the here and now. “I have to get back to Kathleen,” he mumbled.
“Mr. Redding, we’re going to stay here for now,” I said, in as low a voice as I could manage. I don’t know who I thought would hear me—the big bad wolf?—but I felt the strong conviction I should stay as small and still as possible. This must be how a rabbit felt when it heard a fox in the woods. Or a wolf.
Now, sporadically, voices were coming over the radio. Cathy, looking to her right around the back of the SUV, was trying to answer the incoming law.
“On scene,” said a new voice calmly. “Moving west to intercept. Status?”
Cathy responded, “Shots came from close to the entrance. I’m behind my car with two citizens. Possible victims, screaming heard, location unknown.”
The wail of sirens grew closer.
From where I crouched I could only see a little to the northeast. I caught movement from the corner of my eye. Susan Crawford, in uniform, was duckwalking from car to car, a little awkwardly because she was pregnant. She had her radio in her left hand, her handgun in her right. She did not hesitate. She didn’t acknowledge our presence, but I was sure she knew we were there. After peering from behind a Ford Fiesta, she moved right behind a midsize red car, maybe a Nissan. I saw her lips move, and over Cathy’s radio I heard Susan say, “I see him. Suspect’s behind the Dr. Brennan statue. White male, teens, blond, blue shirt, brown pants, maybe five foot eight. Moving into position.”
“Backup almost there,” said a calm female voice over the radio.
“Victim bleeding on the ground. I have a clear shot,” Susan said. “I’m taking it.” In one smooth movement, she aimed and she fired. Bam. Bam. There came a howl from closer to the hospital entrance. Susan leaned left to evaluate the damage she’d done.
Crack.
Susan sprawled backward, her gun and radio skittering away from her hands. Her shoulder began turning red. I was so shocked I could not draw breath for a long moment.
“Officer down, officer down,” Cathy said into the radio. She no longer sounded calm.
“I’m going to help her,” I said, gathering myself to rise.
“You are not,” Cathy told me. “You are not moving at all. You’re no doctor. You’re no nurse. You’re fodder.”
It was the most crushing telling-off I’d ever received. And I knew she was right.
But looking at Susan lying on the pavement, bleeding, reaching her right hand across her chest to stanch the blood spreading in a creeping circle from her left shoulder … it gave me the worst feeling of helplessness I’ve ever had. I wanted to start screaming myself. Mr. Redding was staring at Susan, his mouth wide open, his color gray.
“Officer is down east of a red Nissan,” Cathy added. “Approach from the east, keep low.”
“One shooter’s down,” said Brad Rodenheiser. “I can see him from my window. Crawling west, leaving a blood trail.”
Susan had stopped him.
“Can anyone verify the location of another shooter?” It was a new voice. “I’m almost there. Safe to approach?”
Another new voice. “Coming east from the perimeter of the parking lot,” a man said. “No more signs of another shooter. No more signs.”
“Stop and check everyone trying to exit that parking lot,” said an older man.
“Searching civilians.”
I figured out the incoming officers were stopping the fleeing civilians in case one of them was another shooter. This was horrible. I had tears welling out of my eyes. “I’m so scared,” I whispered.
“Young lady, you’ve never been to war,” Mr. Redding said, and then he fainted.
“Cathy,” I said. She turned a little and took in the scene. She spoke into her radio again. All I could do was straighten Mr. Redding out and unbutton his collar and remove his tie.
“Parking lot secure,” said a disembodied voice.
“Shooter in custody,” said a voice I’d heard before. “Repeat. He is in custody. Gunshot to the abdomen. Waiting for lockdown to be reversed.”
“Ten-four,” dispatch radioed.
There was a pause. Then that first voice said, “Cathy, you need to come in ASAP.”
Cathy turned completely white. She reholstered her gun in slow motion, and as an EMT crew swarmed over Susan (thank God) Cathy began walking away. I started to ask her what we should do, but I didn’t. It seemed best to keep quiet.
Then another team of EMTs crowded around Carter Redding, and I told them the little I knew about him and what had happened. Mr. Redding was unresponsive, and they put him on a gurney and began pushing it through the phalanxes of cars to reach help.
And there I was, alone in a parking lot swarming with police and civilians now trying to reach their cars to get the hell out of this place.
I was so glad I had my phone. I called Robin and started crying. “Please come get me,” I said. “Please come get me.” He asked me questions, but I could not seem to get enough breath to answer him. I saw a familiar face and headed for it. Officer Rodenheiser looked ten years older than he had an hour before.
“Did you see what happened?” he asked.
I shook my head. I had to gasp for enough breath to answer him. “I was with Cathy. I saw Susan get shot. And Mr. Redding passed out.” I had a hard time making sense. I finally managed to give him a narrative that satisfied him.
“The kid with the gun was Cathy’s nephew?” I asked, finally.
Brad nodded. “We’d suspected it was Duncan who fired into that house party last Saturday night, but we couldn’t build a case against him. Duncan’s mom, Annette, is Cathy’s sister. Dr. Clifton is the one who put Duncan’s mom in the hospital.”
“But … why would the boy start shooting?”
“Cathy thinks Duncan believes Dr. Clifton was lying about Annette’s strange behavior, which was what landed her in the psych ward.” Brad Rodenheiser shrugged. “I guess Duncan practiced with the rifle between the party and this afternoon. Clifton’s in surgery.”