The siren died as the ambulance came down the chute into the sally port. Ballard waited and watched. The double doors at the back of the ambulance opened and the paramedics brought out the fifth victim on the gurney. She was already hooked to a breathing bag.
Ballard heard the team communicate to the waiting ER team that the victim had coded in the ambulance and that they had brought her back and stabilized her, only to have her flat-line once again as they were arriving. The ER team came out and took control of the gurney, then moved swiftly through the ER and directly into an elevator that would take them up to the OR. Ballard tagged along behind and was the last one on before the doors closed. She stood in the corner as the team of four medical workers in pale blue surgical garb attempted to keep the woman on the gurney alive.
Ballard studied the victim as the elevator jolted and slowly started to rise. The woman wore cutoff jeans, high-top Converses, and a black tank that was soaked in blood. Ballard noticed the tops of four pens clipped to one of the jeans pockets. She guessed that this meant the victim was a waitress at the club where the shooting took place.
She had been shot dead center in the chest. Her face was obscured by the breathing mask but Ballard put her at midtwenties. She checked the hands but saw no rings or bracelets. There was a small black-ink tattoo depicting a unicorn on the woman’s inside left wrist.
“Who are you?”
Ballard looked up from the patient but could not tell who had addressed her, because everyone was wearing masks. It had been a male voice but three of the four people in front of her were men.
“Ballard, LAPD,” she said.
She pulled the badge off her belt and held it up.
“Put on a mask. We’re going into the OR.”
The woman pulled a mask out of a dispenser on the wall of the elevator and handed it to her. Ballard immediately put it on.
“And stay back and out of the way.”
The door finally opened and Ballard quickly exited and stepped to the side. The gurney came rushing out and went directly into an operating room with a glass observation window. Ballard stayed out and watched through the glass. The medical team made a valiant attempt to bring the young woman back from the dead and prepare her for surgery, but fifteen minutes into the effort they called it and pronounced her dead. It was 1:34 a.m. and Ballard wrote it down.
After the medical personnel cleared the room and went on to other cases, Ballard was left alone with the dead woman. The body would soon be moved out of the operating room and taken to a holding room until a coroner’s van and team arrived to collect it, but that gave Ballard some time. She entered the room and studied the woman. Her shirt had been cut open and her chest was exposed.
Ballard took out her phone and snapped a photo of the bullet wound on the sternum. She noted that there was no gunpowder stippling, and that told her that the shot came from a distance of more than four feet. It seemed to have been a skilled shot, the work of a marksman who had hit the ten ring while most likely on the move and in an adrenalized situation. It was something to consider should she ever come face-to-face with the killer, as unlikely as that seemed at the moment.
Ballard noticed a length of string around the dead woman’s neck. It wasn’t a chain or any kind of jewelry. It was twine. If there was a pendant, she couldn’t see it because the string disappeared behind a tangle of blood-matted hair. Ballard checked the door and then looked back at the victim. She pulled the string free of the hair and saw that there was a small key tied to it. Seeing a scalpel on a tray of surgical instruments, she grabbed it and cut the string, then pulled it free. She took a latex glove from her coat pocket and placed the key and string inside it in lieu of an evidence bag.
After pocketing the glove, Ballard studied the victim’s face. Her eyes were slightly open and there was still a rubber airway device in her mouth. That bothered Ballard. It distended the woman’s face and she thought it would have embarrassed her in life. Ballard wanted to remove it but knew it was against protocol. The coroner was supposed to receive the body as it was in death. She had already crossed the line by taking the key but the indignity of the rubber airway got to her. She was reaching for it when a voice interrupted from behind.
“Detective?”
Ballard turned and saw that it was one of the paramedics who had brought the victim in. He held up a plastic bag.
“This is her apron,” he said. “It has her tips.”
“Thank you,” Ballard said. “I’ll take it.”
He brought the bag to her and she held it up to eye level.
“Did you guys get any ID?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” the paramedic said. “She was a cocktail waitress, so she probably kept all of that in her car or a locker or something.”
“Right.”
“But her name’s Cindy.”
“Cindy?”
“Yeah, we asked back at the club. You know, so we could talk to her. Didn’t matter, though. She coded.”
He looked down at the body. Ballard thought she saw sadness in his eyes.
“Wish we had gotten there a few minutes earlier,” he said. “Maybe we could have done something. Hard to tell.”
“I’m sure you guys did your best,” Ballard said. “She would thank you if she could.”
He looked back at Ballard.
“Now you’ll do your best, right?” he said.
“We will,” she said, knowing that it would not be her case to investigate once RHD took over.
Shortly after the paramedic left the room, two hospital orderlies entered to move the body so that the operating room could be sterilized and put back into rotation—it was a busy night down in the ER. They covered the body with a plastic sheet and rolled the gurney out. The victim’s left arm was exposed and Ballard saw the unicorn tattoo again on her wrist. She followed the gurney out, clutching the bag containing the victim’s apron.
She walked along the hallway, looking through the windows into the other operating rooms. She noticed that Ramón Gutierrez had been brought up and was undergoing surgery to relieve pressure from the swelling of his brain. She watched for a few moments, until her phone buzzed, and she checked the text. It was from Lieutenant Munroe, asking the status of the fifth victim. Ballard typed out an answer as she walked toward the elevator.
KMA—I’m heading to scene.