She told Brazil that when she was growing up, it was all she had wanted to do in life.
“Unfortunately, policing seems to be part of the problem these days,” she said.
“How often do we really help?”
“You just did,” Brazil said.
She nodded.
“And that’s not policing, Andy. That’s humanity. And we’ve got to bring humanity back into what we do, or there’s no hope. This is not about politics or power or merely rounding up offenders.
Policing always has been and always must be about all of us getting along and helping each other. We’re one body. ”
tw Seth’s body was in dire straits in the OR. His arteriogram was fine and he hadn’t leaked any barium from his bowels, but because he was a V. I. P, no chance would be taken. They had draped and prepped him, and he was face down again, and nurses had pierced his tender flesh repeatedly with excruciatingly painful injections and a Foley catheter, to relieve pain and check his urine for blood, or so he thought he overheard. They had rolled in a tank of nitrogen and connected it to a tube. They began subjecting him to what they called a Simpulse irrigation, which was nothing more than a power wash with saline and antibiotics. They were blasting him with three thousand ccs, suctioning, debriding, as he complained.
Tut me under! ” he begged.
There was too much risk.
“Anything!” he whined.
They compromised and gave him an amnesiac they called Midazolam, which did not relieve pain, but caused it to be forgotten, it seemed.
Although the bullet was located on the X-ray, they would never locate it in so much fat, not without dicing Seth as if he were destined for a chef salad, the surgeon knew. Her name was Dr. White. She was a thirty-year-old graduate of Harvard and Johns Hopkins, and had done her residency at the Cleveland Clinic. Dr. White would not have been as concerned about leaving the bullet were it the typical semi-jacketed, round-nosed variety.
But hollowpoints opened like a flower on impact. The deformed missile in the chief’s husband had cut a swath, exactly as planned by Remington, and might continue to do damage after the fact. Without question, it put him at considerable risk for infection. Dr. White made an incision so the wound could drain, and it was packed and dressed.
The sun was rising by the time Dr. White met Chief Hammer in recovery, where Seth was groggy, lying on his side, tethered by IV lines, a curtain drawn to give him the privacy afforded VIPs, as set by the medical center’s unwritten policy.
“He should be fine,” Dr. White was saying to Hammer.
“Thank God,” Hammer said with relief.
“I want to keep him overnight in isolation, and continue the IV antibiotics. If he spikes a fever during the first twenty-four hours, we’ll keep him longer.”
“And that could happen.” Hammer’s fears returned.
Dr. White could not believe she was standing here and the police chief was looking to her for answers. Dr. White had read every article written about this incredible woman. Hammer was what Dr. White wanted to be when Dr. White was older and powerful. Caring, strong, goodlooking, kick-ass in pearls. Nobody pushed Hammer around. It wasn’t possible that Hammer put up with the same shit Dr. White did, from the old boy surgeons. Most were graduates of Duke, Davidson, Princeton, and UVA, and wore their school bow ties to the symphony and cocktail parties. They didn’t think twice when one of their own took a day off to boat on Lake Norman or play golf. But should Dr. White need a few hours to go to her gynecologist, to visit her sick mother, or give in to the flu, it was another example of why women didn’t belong in medicine.
“Of course, we’re not expecting any problem,” Dr. White was reassuring Hammer.
“But there is extensive tissue damage.” She paused, searching for a diplomatic way to explain.
“Ordinarily, a bullet of that power and velocity would have exited, when fired at such close range. But in this case, there was too much mass for the bullet to pass through.”