Under the Circumstances

                                                           by Brenda Mick

Cassy St. John pulled the Mustang up into entrance of Centennial Park and drove along the palm-studded lane to the very end of the road.  A dirt clearing passed for a parking lot and she brought the car to a halt.  Secluded and quiet, surrounded by an overgrown thicket of  wild flowering hibiscus, the area had the look of a jungle.  In fact, that’s what this area was called by the police and the homeless who inhabited the south end of the park.  She was there to try to identify a murder victim who’d been found in the Jungle a few weeks before.  It was Tom’s case, he’d been out there a least half a dozen times without any results, but now that they were partners again, it was her case too.  Cassy wanted to get some leads on who had ‘done in’ the gentleman in question...starting with just who the victim was. She scanned the road for Tom and noted that she’d won the bet she’d made with herself...he was late.  She knew he would be.  It was just his little way of getting even--he knew she hated to wait.

Of course, if she hadn’t called and offered to pick him up...

“Thomas, can I give you a ride this morning?  I don’t want to spend all day waiting for you to show up, again.”

“That wasn’t my fault, Cassandra.  It’s your car...the damn chipmunks were just tuckered out, I guess.  I took it to the mechanic and he fixed it--replaced them with squirrels.”

“Why don’t you just give it up and buy a new car?”

“I don’t want a ‘ new car’...I want my car.”

“Make me an offer...start at twenty thousand.”

“Cassy, I don’t have to buy my own car.  I’ll get it back. You’ll see. You’ll be back.”

“Right, the same day that you sell one of those...songs....  Do you want me to pick you up or not?  It’s on my way.   There’s no sense in both of us driving over there.”

“I don’t like to be chauffeured in my own car.  Let me drive and I’ll consider it.”

“While I sit there and listen to you lecture me on the importance of proper maintenance...and bitch about the seat covers again?  Get real.  ”

“Then forget it.  I’ll meet you at the Jungle.  Be about an hour.”

“Don’t be late.  Oh, and Thomas?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you supposed to change the oil every 3000 miles or every three months?”

“Either.  But I always changed it at 2000 miles.”

“Hmmm.  Well, guess it’s time then...6800 miles and six months.  Think I’ll take it to the Wal-Mart and get it done.”  She heard Tom hitting his head on the kitchen counter as she hung up.

Cassy checked her watch.  It was 9:35.  She’d talked to him at  eight.  She swatted at a bug flying around her head.  Half an hour...well, he was nothing if not predictable.  Cassy wished she’d eaten breakfast this morning, not sure she’d survive the blood loss she was suffering as she sat in the open convertible.  The mosquitoes had decided she’d make an excellent entree and were buzzing around her mercilessly, dining at their leisure as she slapped herself silly trying to fend them off.  She distracted herself from the onslaught with thoughts of painted black pinstripes on the Mustang.  And maybe some of those neon lights attached to the underside.  It might be expensive, but she was sure it would be worth it in terms of payback.

Cassy was just about to raise the roof on the convertible, to conserve what little blood she had left when she heard the unmistakable puttering of the Volkswagen.  She climbed out of the car and leaned against the hood, arms crossed, trying to look unconcerned and trying not to slap the bloodsuckers.

Tom pulled up behind the Mustang and the VW coughed and sputtered to a halt.  He struggled to get out of the too-small car,  giving it his customary whack as he slammed the tinny little door shut.

“You’re late.”  She checked the watch on her wrist.  “Forty-three minutes late.”

“Sorry.  Had to run an errand first.  You have the new enhanced picture of our John Doe?”

“Of course.”

Tom sighed.  “Of course.  Look, these people get a little nervous.  They’ve got a campsite in about half a mile.  Mostly single men, but some families too.  You gotta take things slow.  I’ve been around enough in the last few weeks that they know I’m not going to run them in, but you’re a new face...”  He stopped talking and stared at her openmouthed...  “What the hell were you thinking?”

“What?”

“Look at your clothes.  Are you nuts? You gotta go change.”

Only then did Cassy notice that Tom wasn’t displaying his regular sartorial splendor... he was dressed in faded jeans, a long sleeve Henley and hiking boots.  She glanced down at her white sleeveless mini dress and open toe strappy sandals and began to think she’d  made a serious mistake.  Tom was dressed for a safari...she was dressed for a picnic.  It was a stupid mistake, she knew it, he knew it, but  she decided not to give him the satisfaction of being right on top of being late.

“My clothes are fine.  Can we go now?  I’d like to get back to the station before noon.  I have a lunch date.”

“Just a minute...gotta get my bait.”  He reached into the Bug’s back seat and pulled out a large, grease-stained fast -food  sack .”

“You stopped for breakfast?  Good.  Gimme, I’m starving.”

“It’s not for you.  It’s for them.”

“Them?  Them who?”

“The homeless.  The people we’re here to interview, remember?  I found it’s a lot easier to talk to them when they have  full stomachs.  They’re grateful, helpful, cooperative.”  Tom grinned as Cassy slapped a mosquito from her cheek.  “Maybe I should have fed you more often.  I might still have a car...and a dog.”

“I’m not going to talk about the dog again.  Let’s just go feed the animals, and get out of here.”  She grabbed the bag from his hand and started off into the brush, following an impromptu trail beaten through the vegetation, waving her arms and swatting at the bugs which swarmed around her.  Tom pulled a can of insect repellent from his car, sprayed himself thoroughly and trotted off after Cassy.

He followed behind her, watching her struggle along in her heels, the bushes scratching her  bare legs.  Serves her right. I tried to tell her.  Let her find out the hard way, he thought.  It was his case, anyway.  She’d insisted on coming along, she was bored, and thought she could turn his perennial John Doe into a solved case.  It was just like her to think she could do it better than him, hell, she thought she could work a case better than anyone.  Cassy didn’t like to be second best at anything.  He heard her shriek as a large spider web hit her face.

“You okay?” He asked solicitously, trying not to grin.

“I’m fine.  Try to keep up, will you?”  She stomped off again, leaving him behind.

She didn’t like to be pampered either.  He’d found that out  almost right away in the seven months of hell that they called a marriage.  She resisted all his efforts to take care of her, preferring to do everything herself.  Everything from car maintenance to house maintenance to domestic chores, Cassy did herself, never asking for assistance.  On the job, this was an asset.  In real life, it was damned irritating. On the job, they had a common goal...find a killer and bring him to justice.  In marriage, they seemed to be on two completely different paths...paths which never seemed to meet. He began to feel like a roomer...not a partner.  Definitely not a husband.  She  was demanding and particular and always in control. In a detective, these are admirable qualities.  In a wife, less so.

“Too expensive,” she complained when he wanted to eat out.  She didn’t want to go out and go dancing or go for walks on the beach, or see movies...except for action films and Tom didn’t particularly like Schwarzenegger.  He liked to relax after work, play some pick-up roller hockey or just sit and play the guitar...she liked to talk about work and cases and leads.  She was orderly to a fault, always picking up after him, putting his half-full coffee cups into the dishwasher as soon as he put them down.  If he didn’t read the paper right away, it wound up in the recycling bin. She said he was messy and chronically disorganized- he said she was a neatness Nazi.  If they hadn’t been so good together in bed, he was sure they would have killed each other within a week of their marriage.  It was a testament to just how very good they were under the sheets that it took them seven whole months to call it quits.  Even now, he felt a twinge of regret...if only a marriage could be based on the frequency and intensity of the sex...they would have been married forever. 

“Thomas?  Are you coming?” 

God, she sounded like his mother.  He hadn’t noticed it in the great before, but she really treated him like a child sometimes. “One of us has to be the grown-up, Thomas,” she’d reply when he’d complain about her overbearing manner. He supposed that she couldn’t help it.  It was the way she’d been brought up.  She was the oldest child, her parents had divorced when she was ten.  She had told him her father was irresponsible, a dreamer, always getting fired, always having an excuse for his failures.  Her mother had been the strength of the family, but after they divorced,  her mother had gone through a string of marriages and failed relationships.  It had always been Cassy’s job to look after her two younger sisters and the house, and everything else.  Tom thought back on his middle class upbringing.  Policeman father, stay-at-home mother, the youngest of four kids, his life had been a breeze compared to Cassy’s.  He thought his parents story-book marriage was what he and Cassy would be living.  He couldn’t believe something that seemed so right had gone so wrong.  He’d done his best, but it hadn’t been enough.  Nothing he did made her happy.  She corrected and complained and he’d try to change whatever behavior she didn’t like, but there was always something new to complain about.  Then, she filed for divorce.  It broke his heart.  He couldn’t believe it, until she moved out. He pleaded with her for three weeks, but it was no use.  She was gone.

Tom looked up and Cassy had disappeared from sight.  “Cassy?” he called, looking for her along the trail. He didn’t see her anywhere, so he back-tracked, trying to find out where he’d lost her.  The path branched off about a hundred yards back.  He’d been so lost in his musings that he hadn’t seen her take the wrong turn.  Of course, it was just like her not to ask for directions.  He shook his head, and started out on the wrong path, hoping to catch her before she went too far.

********

Cassy was pissed.  She was covered with scratches and bug bites, and she was pretty sure that last bush she’d walked through was poison ivy.  Now, to top it all off, Tom was lost.

“Thomas!  Quit kidding around and get your butt over here!”  She kept walking and looking until she came to a clearing, the remnants of a campfire still emitting a faint warmth.  Whoever had been here hadn’t been gone very long.  She spied a cardboard box and a bedroll stuffed under a nearby bush.  ‘This must be the place,’ she thought as she sat gingerly on a tree stump. She dropped her purse by the log and sniffed the bag she held in her hand.  The smell of breakfast biscuits made her mouth water.  She opened the sack and pulled out one of the now cold sandwiches, unwrapping it and taking a bite.  ‘Ewwwww.’  She swallowed and re-wrapped the sandwich, putting it back in the bag.

The heat in the clearing was oppressive.  Sweat ran down her back and attracted even more bugs.  Somehow, this was all Tom’s doing.  She knew it. Another little bit of post-divorce revenge, leading her out into this god-forsaken jungle, leaving her at the mercy of killer insects and detective-eating plants.  She conveniently dismissed the thought that it had been she who had insisted on pursuing this case.  She would have killed for a cold Dr. Pepper and a dip in the ocean.  She smiled as a memory played in her mind. 

It had seemed the most natural thing in the world.  They’d been partners for a year and a half and they were a great team.  Eighty percent clearance rate, one of the highest in the department.  Cassy had brought it up first...as a joke, that if they were this good on the job, imagine how they’d be in bed.  The thought drove both of them crazy...so they tried it, and it was, well, fantastic.  Better than she could have imagined.  Life just got better and better.  They’d solved three homicides in the past two weeks, they were clicking...a well-oiled machine.  It was the next logical step.

Tom had picked her up for a late supper at the beach.  He’d packed a picnic basket, full of her favorite foods, and a cooler with champagne and ice-cold bottles of Dr. Pepper, another of her favorites.  They ate supper and went swimming in the ocean.  He had candles and red roses and his guitar.  He sang one of those sappy songs, and then got down on one knee and asked her to marry him.  Cassy hesitated for a moment, but she was so swept up in the excitement, the incredible rightness of her life at this moment in time with this man, who loved her like she’d never been loved before, that she couldn’t refuse.  Tom gave her a little map, with  little rhyming instructions on where to find her ring.  It was incredibly romantic, but ultimately incredibly stupid, because the ring wasn’t where it was supposed to be. They spent half the night looking, then gave up and went out the next day to buy another.

The first two weeks of married life were wonderful.  They honeymooned in the Keys, stayed in a beach house, made love every morning, noon and night.  They ate in romantic, candlelit restaurants, they went dancing and walked on the pier at sunset.  Life was perfect...at least until they got home.  That’s when Tom showed his true colors.

He was messy, disorganized, a handsome Oscar Madison.  He was hopelessly romantic, she’d known that going in, but it was hard for a cynic like herself to get used to the 24- hour optimism that was her husband.  He had that dog.  Now granted, she liked the dog, but Buster wasn’t neutered and a wanderer.  Tom refused to have him fixed. Then there was the incident with the car.  Tom loved that darned car.  He babied it, spent inordinate amounts of time tinkering with it.  Spent ungodly amounts of money on it.  She saw the checkbook, and what he’d spent on a new muffler for the Pony.  She’d objected, and he apologized for spending that much without checking their finances first. He claimed it was just out of habit, promised to change...it all sounded so familiar.  Someone was going to have to be the grown-up in this relationship.  And as usual, it fell to her, as it had her whole life.  That’s when it changed for her.

She started to take control of the finances, the housecleaning, everything.  In their working relationship, Tom shared the load, but in married life, he didn’t seem to have a role, other than chief stud and irritant. She started to feel like she was going to suffocate.  She pulled back.  “Don’t rely on anyone but yourself, Cassandra.  You can’t count on a man to take care of you.”  She remembered her mother’s words, her mother’s lesson.  Tom wanted their marriage to be just like his parents’, and Cassy had wanted her marriage to be nothing like her parents’.  Cassy couldn’t help herself.  She couldn’t see the wonderful man who’d swept her off her feet.  All she could see was the hopelessly romantic child who played with cars and dogs and couldn’t pick up after himself.  She saw her father in him- and she became her mother- harping and angry because Tom couldn’t fix what was wrong...and Cassy filed for divorce, like her mother had before her.  Following in her miserable footsteps.

“What are you doing here?”

Cassy jumped, startled by the gruff voice that came from over her shoulder.  She turned around to see three men, dressed in dirty, disheveled clothing, standing behind her.  It was a wonder she hadn’t smelled them before she saw them. “What am I doing here?” Cassy snapped, “ I’m having breakfast at the Palm Beach Hilton, what does it look like?  I’m investigating a murder.” She reached for her purse to grab her shield and the photo of the dead man she’d come to I.D, and, just maybe, her gun.  A filthy hand got there first and snatched the purse from the ground.  “Hey!  Hands off, pal, unless you want me to run you in.”

A young man with close-cropped hair and wild eyes stood in front of her and menacingly played with a small screwdriver as one of the thugs went through her purse. “She’s out here all alone, boys.  Maybe she wants some company?”

Cassy stood and started to back away from the men.  “My partner is just down the path.  He’ll be here any second.  So unless you want to deal with two cops, I suggest you drop my purse and move on.”

A pair of arms wrapped around Cassy, pulling her close.  “Got her!” 

Cassy kicked out at the man in front of her and threw her head back into the nose of the man holding her.  He released his grasp on her and grabbed his face, falling to the ground as blood gushed between his fingers.  Cassy turned and ran straight into the screwdriver man.

“She broke mah nose!  Hold on to her, Grazer!  Watch out!”

Cassy struggled to free herself.  There were three men here, no gun, and no partner in sight. “You’d better let me go.   This is assault on a police officer.” 

The man whose nose she’d bashed stepped in front of the struggling Cassy.

“No baby, this is assault on a police officer,” he said and slapped her hard across the face. 

Cassy felt blood fill her mouth and tears sting her eyes.  Angrily, shoving aside the fear that threatened to incapacitate her, she thought, ‘Where the hell is Tom?’

*******

‘Where the hell is Cassy?’ Tom thought as he trudged along the overgrown path.  Cassy was nowhere in sight and he was far from where he was supposed to meet with his informants.  “Cassy!”

“Mister?”  A small voice came from behind him.  Tom turned around and saw two children, one, a boy perhaps twelve years old and the other a little girl with white blonde hair, no more than, maybe six years old, who asked in a small voice, “You looking for someone?”

“Hey, kids,” Tom smiled. “Yeah, have you seen a lady around here?  Blonde, pretty, dressed in funny clothes?”  He’d seen these two before, when he’d come out to question some of the homeless in the area about the John Doe.  He’d been surprised by the number of children he’d seen.  Their parents always tried to keep them out of sight when he came, perhaps afraid that he was with Child Welfare.  It was mainly for the kids that he started bringing the food.  He wished he had the bag with him now, these two looked like they could use a meal.

“Uh-huh.  She went down there.”  The girl pointed off to the left, to an almost hidden trail that he surely would have missed without their help.

“Thanks.” Tom started to walk toward the gap in the bushes when the boy stepped forward.

“She might be in trouble.”

Tom stopped suddenly.  “Trouble?”

“The people who live down there, Papa calls ‘em a ‘rough bunch.’  Says to stay away from them. We were going to tell him we saw that lady go down there, when we saw you.”

“Okay.  You’d better get back to your family.  Don’t worry. That lady, she’s a cop.  She’s really good at taking care of herself.”  Tom patted the girl on the head and started to trot down the trail, fear tightening his throat.  He pulled his gun as he ran, full speed now, ducking branches and dodging roots, crashing through the underbrush.  He didn’t care about stealth, all he wanted to do was get to Cassy as fast as he could.  He felt it in his gut that the kids knew more than they were telling.  Cassy was in trouble.

 He heard the shouting as he jumped over a fallen tree.  Angry voices, strange and male.  And one voice that he knew well, giving them hell.  He slowed and crept up through the brush.

“What are we gonna do with her?”

“I’m telling you, she’s trouble!”

“You’re all under arrest.  Get your damn hands off me!”

Tom stepped through the brush and into the clearing, gun drawn.  “Police! Freeze!” he called. The men looked up in surprise. Rage surged through him when he caught sight of his partner on the ground, restrained by two men, a trickle of blood running from the side of her mouth.  He saw the fury in her eyes and knew that she wasn’t hurt. He relaxed slightly.

“You heard him...let me go!”  Cassy shouted angrily, shaking the men’s hands off her.

“I’d do what she says. She hates to be held down like that.  She likes to be on top. Now, back off and let her go.” Tom trained his gun on the man who had been restraining his partner’s arms.  “You all right, Cassy?”

Cassy got up from the ground, sputtering with rage, dusting herself off..  “Of course I’m all right.  Where the hell were you?”  One of the men attempted to stand and Tom gestured at him with his gun.

“Uh-uh.  Don’t move.  On the ground, face down, hands where I can see them.  Whaddya mean, ‘Where was I?’  Where were you?”

Cassy retrieved her purse from the ground and pulled out her handcuffs. “Well obviously, I was right here, being accosted by these good citizens. Just having a grand old time.” She grabbed the wrist of the man who had slapped her and snapped a cuff on him, kneeing him in the back as she reached for his other wrist.

“Ow!  That hurts!”  He yelped as Cassy tightened the cuffs.

“Payback is a double bitch, jerk.  Didn’t your mama ever teach you that?” She took her gun from the purse and stood up, covering the man still on the ground.

“My car is living proof of that.”  Tom said as he put his gun in his holster, pulled out his cuffs and put them on the other man, not quite as roughly as Cassandra had done, but still plenty tight.

Cassy looked around.  “Where’d the other guy go?”

Tom pulled his prisoner to his feet.  “What other guy?  There were only two.”

Cassy shook her head, “No, there was another one...mean, crazy-looking.”

“Musta rabbitted when he heard me coming.  We’ll bring some uniforms and see if we can’t find him.”

Cassy’s prisoner laughed.  “You won’t find him, Grazer’s like the wind, man, crazy as a loon and quiet.  He can hide in these woods for weeks.”

“I don’t remember telling you that you could talk.”  Tom said.  “Now shut up and move. Oh, and, Cassy?”

Cassy looked up at Tom.  “What?”

“You’re welcome.”

They started back on the trail to their cars, and had gotten no more than a hundred feet when Tom stopped suddenly and swore.  “Damn.  Cassy, where’s the bag of food?”

She stopped and looked at him as if he were crazy.  “I left it back there, the stuff is completely cold by now.  It’s disgusting.”

“Sure, it’s disgusting if you eat more than once a day, if you don’t, it’s haute cuisine.  I’m gonna go get it.  Stay here and watch your back.”  He turned and jogged back towards the campsite.

“Sit.”  Cassy commanded, gun in hand.  The two handcuffed men meekly did as they were told.  She looked at them disgustedly, screwing up her face.  “Men.  Always thinking with their stomachs.  Or some other part of their anatomy.”

********

The jog back to the campsite took only a minute, and Tom started to search for the bag of breakfast food.  He’d remembered the look on those kids’ faces, the ones who’d helped him find Cassy.  If they hadn’t helped him, no telling what would have happened to her.  He was glad that he didn’t have that on his conscience.

Tom spied the bag near a tree stump at the edge of the clearing.  Some of the sandwiches had fallen out and he bent to retrieve them.  He heard a small rustle behind him and turned, hoping that the children had returned, but there was no one there. ‘Hope that wasn’t a gator.’  He wasn’t exactly fond of the Jungle, and would be more than glad to be out of there.  He gathered up the rest of the food and started back toward Cassy and their prisoners. 

He could see her far up ahead, standing with her hands on her hips, giving one of the prisoners hell about something.  She had the two men sitting on the ground, while she paced around them, slapping at the cloud of mosquitoes attracted by her perfume. Her white dress was filthy from rolling around on the ground. He felt a momentary twinge of guilt for letting her come out here dressed like that. She had her back turned and he took a moment to admire her figure.  Even when she was being a bitch on wheels, the sight of her sometimes still made him ache.

“Thomas!  Hurry it up!”

Tom shook his head, guilt erased by the petulant tone of her voice.  He quickened his pace slightly.  No sense in making her even madder than she already was.  He smiled to himself.  All in all this had been a rather successful bit of revenge on his part.  Except for the unexpected attack by the two tramps, which, instead of being tragic, had turned out to be a bonus,(she sure as hell wasn’t going out on a lunch date looking like that) he thought that today might begin to cover the debt he owed her for trashing his Mustang. 

Tom was within a dozen yards of Cassy and the prisoners when his eye caught a flicker of movement to Cassy’s left.  “Cassy!  Look out!”  he cried and ran to her as she whirled around and was knocked to the ground by a flying bundle of rags.  Her gun flew from her hand as she hit. Tom was only a few feet away when the wild-eyed man, Grazer, the other two had called him, jumped on top of her.  “Sonofabitch!” Tom swore and threw a flying tackle at the man, knocking him off Cassy and sending them both rolling on the ground. The impact knocked the wind out of Tom, and as he tried to draw a breath, he saw the tramp pull a screwdriver from his pocket and start for the stunned Cassy again. Tom lunged at him and managed to grab the man’s leg.  Grazer furiously turned on Tom, lashing out with the speed of a cobra.

The first blow plunged deep into Tom’s back, striking his shoulder blade and sending an electric current running down his right arm.  He recoiled as a hot burst of pain surged through the shoulder.  Before he could draw a breath, the second blow came, this time piercing his right arm, tearing through the bicep as Tom cried out in pain.  He rolled to his left, his right arm now completely limp and useless in fending off the assault.  Grazer got to his feet again, once more intent on assaulting Cassy.  Tom kicked at the assailant, catching him in the kneecap and eliciting a yelp of pain  from Grazer who turned his attention back to Tom.

Cassy searched frantically for her gun as Tom fought with the crazed homeless man.  The two prisoners saw their chance to escape and  slipped into the underbrush. Cassy spied her gun on the ground a few yards away and ran toward it.

Tom pulled himself up on his still functioning left arm and half-crawled, half-backed away from maniac, hoping to draw him away from Cassy. Grazer, limping from the blow to his knee, advanced on the cop.  Tom stared into the mad eyes of his attacker, screwdriver grasped in his hand, coming at him. He saw Cassy behind the man, still looking for her gun.  He fumbled for his own gun, but the holster was pinned underneath his left side.  Desperate, Tom rolled onto his wounded back, and cried out as the pain hit him.  In that instant, Grazer struck again, this time plunging the six-inch screwdriver into Tom’s chest. 

“NO!” Cassy screamed, dived for her gun, rolled and fired, hitting Grazer squarely in the face. The man jerked convulsively and fell backwards, half his head blown away, unmistakably dead.  Cassy crawled on hands and knees to Tom’s side, her heart pounding with fear.  “Tom?  Thomas?”

Tom’s eyes were wide open, and he gasped with every rapid, shallow breath. Blood stained his arm and the front of his white shirt where the hilt of the screwdriver protruded from the right side of his chest.  Generally, Cassy was immune to the sight of blood, but this was Tom’s blood, and that made all the difference in the world.  She felt her own blood drain from her face.  She had to close her eyes for a moment and take a deep breath before she could trust herself to speak. “D...don’t move.  You’re gonna be all right, Tom, just don’t move.”  She winced as she examined the wound.  There wasn’t much blood, but the sight was gruesome.

Tom saw her white face hovering over him, and was surprised to see fear in her eyes. He thought she looked as though she might faint. Her uncharacteristic loss of control scared him more than the pain in his chest.

 "You…you...gonna be okay?" he gasped.

Cassy nodded, trying to pull herself together. “I’m fine...don’t worry about me.”

“Okay...I’ll worry...about...me.”  He tried to make a joke, but it hurt too damn much to laugh.

“Let me do that.  You just lay there and be quiet, okay?” 

"That's ...what you said... on our... wedding night," Tom wheezed.

Cassy blinked back her tears and smiled ruefully at him.  “Shut up.” She kissed his forehead.  His skin was cool and clammy against her lips.

 “Cass...it hurts.  Can’t...can’t breathe.”  He panted shallowly, his voice tight with pain.  “Please...please...take it...take it out.”

Cassy was paralyzed with fear. Take it out?  Her mind reeled with shock at the idea.   “Tom, no.  You’re not supposed to take it out.  It’s...it’s...you’re not supposed to. I can’t do it.”

“Please?...Cass...please.”

She took his hand and squeezed. What should she do? Would it help to pull out the screwdriver? She wanted to do what he asked, but all she could remember was a story a paramedic once told her about a man who’d been stabbed. A bystander, trying to be helpful, had pulled the knife from the man’s leg. The knife had been pressing against an artery and had kept the wound from bleeding...five minutes after the knife was removed, the victim died. The last thing she was going to do was let Tom die.

“I’m sorry, Tom, I can’t.  It’s not bleeding much right now, if I take it out, it could...it could make it worse.  I’m afraid, please don’t ask me to do that.” She fought the urge to cry.

Tom closed his eyes.  He knew she was right, but that didn’t stop it from hurting. Cassy was squeezing his hand and trembling. He could see that she was on the verge of a total breakdown. “Okay...okay.  One of us...has to...be the...grownup.  My turn.” he panted. “Your...phone.  Call...call for...help.”

Cassy shook herself out of her daze. Phone?  Where the hell was her phone? In her purse...she scanned the area and spotted it lying off beside the trail.  She raced to it and, hands shaking, punched in the number and called in to dispatch. “This is Baker 1-9.  I have a 10-13 at Centennial Park, in the Jungle.  Officer down, send EMS. Hurry.”  She disconnected and knelt down next to Tom again.  Talking to dispatch had helped her regain some control again.  She took a good look at Tom.  His face was pale and his eyes were closed.  He was breathing with difficulty. “Tom?  They’re coming.  They’ll be here soon.  Just hold on.”

Tom nodded weakly.

Cassy suddenly noticed how much blood was soaking his right sleeve.  “Your arm...it’s bleeding.  A lot.  I need to apply pressure, try to get it to stop.”  She searched for something to help staunch the flow of blood from his torn arm.  “Damn, I need a cloth, something to hold against it.”

Tom opened his eyes. “Nap...napkins.  In the...the bag.” 

Cassy scrambled for the bag, dumping food until she found the hefty wad of napkins at the bottom.  She ripped the sleeve off his shirt, exposing the jagged wound which went clear through his arm. She hesitated, gathering her courage.  “Tom...this might hurt.  Hang on.”  She pressed  the pile of napkins against his upper arm.  He gasped as the pressure woke the torn nerve endings, setting off a new round of agony.  Cassy wrapped the torn sleeve around the napkins and tied it off and held it in place.

Tom tried to take his mind off the throbbing in his arm. “You’re good...at...this.”

“I dated a paramedic.”

“Who?  When?”

“I don’t believe you.  You’re carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey and all you can think about is who I’m dating.”

“I...have my...priorities.”

“I know.  Car, sex, music, car.”

“You...forgot...car.”  Tom grinned slightly at her.

“I’m not giving you the car.  I don’t care how bad you’re hurt.”

“Good...if you...were nice...to me...I’d be...worried.” 

“So would I.”  She checked the makeshift bandage on his arm.  The bleeding had slowed, but Tom’s breathing had become more labored.  His eyes grew wide and he began to pant rapidly. “Tom?  Are you okay?”

“Can’t breathe...help me...sit...sit up.”

“You shouldn’t move.”

“Cass...I...can’t ...breathe,” he gasped, panic tingeing his voice. He started to move on his own, desperate to get air into his lungs.  He felt as though he were drowning.  Every breath was a struggle and he was losing.  Frantic, he reached for the screwdriver, but Cassy grabbed his arm.

“Tom, no!”

“Oh, God...take it...out.  Please...Cass.  Help...me.”

“Tom, I can’t.  Trust me, please.  Let’s sit you up.  But slow.  Be careful.”  Cassy knelt at his head and eased him upright, slowly, trying not to dislodge the screwdriver protruding from his chest. “Here.  Here, sit up, just a little, lean against me. Roll to the right a little, it’ll help keep fluid out of your other lung.”  Tom did as he was told, and Cassy felt him relax slightly, his respiration  slower, less strained.  “Better?”

“Yeah...thanks.” Tom moaned and lay back against her.  “Paramedic...teach you that?”

“Shut up about him, will you? I haven’t seen him in months. Save your breath.” Her hands touched the sticky wetness of the wound on his back.  “Oh Christ, Tom.  You’re hurt on your back, too.”  Where the hell were the paramedics and back-up?

“Cass?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m...sorry.”

“For what?”

“Everything.”  Tom closed his eyes.  “Except...losing...the ring.”

“Well, it was a sweet idea.  You’re just lousy at making maps.”

“I’m...so...cold.  S’never...cold...in...Florida.  Hold...hold me, Cass.”

Cold fear swept through her again. “I am holding you, Tom. Can’t you feel my arms around you?”

He nodded weakly, tried to smile. “S’nice.”

She could feel him start to drift away.  “Tom?  Stay with me here.  Don’t you leave me.”

“Now...you...you want...me?  Figures.”  It took too much energy to hold his eyes open, took too much to breathe.

“You’re my partner, I need you.  No one else will put up with me.”  Tom didn’t respond and Cassy began to panic. His face was pale and his lips were tinged with  blue.  “Don’t do this, Tom. I need you. I’ve always needed you.”  Cassy felt the tears sliding down her cheeks.

Tom moved slightly, drew a ragged breath.  “And...I...I always...loved...you.”

Cassy bowed her head and held Tom even tighter, the tears streaming down her face now.  She could hear the sound of sirens in the distance and her heart leapt.  “Hear that, Tom?  Help is on the way. You hang on, Thomas Ryan.”

“I’m...trying.”  His voice was barely a whisper. He slumped lifelessly in her arms, slipping into unconsciousness.

“Tom?  Tom?”  Cassy grew frantic.  “Goddammit, Tom, don’t you leave me or so help me, I’ll run that stupid car into a brick wall.  Smash it to pieces.  I swear.”  She held him tightly against her, rocking slightly, and whispering his name until help arrived and pried him from her arms.

*****

Harry Lipschitz raced into the lobby of Palm Beach Presbyterian, his stomach in knots and his Mylanta in hand.  He stepped up to the information desk, flashed his Mylanta at the receptionist and said, “One of my officers was brought in a little while ago, where is he?

“Name?”

“Captain Harry Lipschitz.”  The woman entered the name into the computer and frowned.  “I’m not finding anyone by that name.”

“Ah! That’s my name.  Try Tom...Thomas Ryan.”  She entered the information and smiled.

“Surgery...fourth floor.  Go down this hall, take a right and take the elevator up to the waiting room.”

He was gone before she had finished speaking.

Harry stepped off the elevator and stopped at yet another reception desk and was directed to the waiting room.  He opened the door and saw Cassandra St. John sitting huddled in a chair, wrapped in a blanket, staring off into space.  Sgt. St. John was a beautiful woman, tough as nails and twice as sharp.  One of the best homicide detectives he’d ever seen, always completely professional in everything she did.  But seeing her sitting there alone in that room, disheveled, covered with dirt and scratches and her partner’s blood, Harry couldn’t help but think how little she looked like the tough cop she made out to be, and how much she looked like a frightened child who’d lost her only friend.  He didn’t want that thought to come true, so he pushed it from his mind and went to Cassy’s side.

“Cassy?  You okay?”  He sat down next to her and put his arm around her.  All her promises to herself not to cry dissolved in a torrent of tears.  She buried her head in Harry’s chest and sobbed.  He held her until she regained some of her lost composure, and sat up, sniffing and wiping the tears from her face. “What  happened, Cassy?”

“I screwed up, Harry.  I lost my gun. I let it happen.  We went to the Jungle, to try to ID that John Doe, one more time.  We got separated, I was jumped by three guys.  Tom...Tom, he saved me.  We caught two of them, the third one jumped us again, as we were walking his buddies out.  Tom tackled him, they fought and...and...the guy stabbed Tom.  Three times.”  She winced, remembering.  “I took him out, Harry, but I was too late.  I dropped my gun when he jumped me.  I was too late.”

“Cassy, it wasn’t your fault.  You know that, and I’m sure Thomas knows that.”  Harry nodded towards the doors to the surgical suites.  “Have you heard anything?  How bad was it?”

Tears started to run down Cassy’s face again, this time she didn’t bother trying to wipe them away.  “It was awful, Harry.  He had a screwdriver.  The guy stabbed him in the chest...and left it there.  Tom kept begging me to pull it out, but I wouldn’t.  I couldn’t do it, Harry.” She buried her face in her hands.

Harry blanched and laid a hand on her shoulder.  “He was conscious?”

“Up till EMS got there.”  Cassy looked up and saw the blood on her hands.  “Oh, God, Harry.  Did I do the right thing?  I knew you weren’t supposed to remove it...but he was in such pain, and he couldn’t breathe.  I kept telling him no, kept telling him to trust me. I was so scared...”  Cassy stopped.  She heard the words come out of her mouth.  Words she’d been hearing in her head since the divorce.  She’d hurt Tom, then and now. She hadn’t meant to, but she was so scared.  Scared that her life would be like her mother’s.  She didn’t want that, so she ran.  Ran from Tom, left him bleeding and in pain.  He’d begged her to come back, but she said no.  He trusted her with his love, with his car, with his dog, and with his life, and she’d let him down. “Oh, God.  What have I done?”  She buried her face in her hands and wept.

Harry took her by the shoulders and stood her up.  “Cassy, Tom will be all right. You did everything you could.  It wasn’t your fault.  Now, come with me.  Let’s get you cleaned up.  Wash your face and dry your eyes.  Then we’ll go find out what’s happening with Tom.” 

Harry begged a pair of scrubs from the charge nurse for Cassy.  He led her to the rest room and she went in to change.  She slipped out of her ruined dress and washed the tears from her face and the blood from her hands.  She pulled on the scrubs and looked at her face in the mirror.  She saw her mother staring back at her.  The washed out complexion and red-rimmed eyes belonged to someone who was out of control, and Cassy had never been out of control in her whole adult life.  “You did everything you could.  Pull yourself together, St. John, you won’t be any use to anyone if you’re blubbering and carrying on.  Someone has to be the grown-up.”

She gathered herself, put on her policeman’s face, and dried her eyes.

“Cassy?”  Harry said as she stepped out of the Ladies room.  He looked at her face and saw the cool professional emerge from behind the red-rimmed eyes.

“He’ll be all right.”  Cassy said.  “He has to be.  I have his car.”

******

Four solid hours and half of Harry’s bottle of Mylanta went by before a tired doctor in blood-soaked green scrubs came out to tell them that Tom would recover.

“It was tough, but he’s going to pull through.  He had some very serious injuries, and it’s going to take him a while to get back on his feet.”

“How long?”  Harry asked.

Well, he’s got a hairline fracture of the scapula, and the damage to his arm was pretty extensive, but he was fortunate in that he seems to have escaped any nerve involvement.  Maybe six weeks.”

“He couldn’t breathe...the...the screwdriver.  Did it cause any permanent damage?”  Cassy whispered.

“No, no permanent damage.  It’ll take him awhile to get his wind back, his lung deflated, that’s why he couldn’t breathe.  You were with him?

“Yes.  He wanted me to pull the screwdriver out, but I was afraid he’d bleed to death if I did.”

You did good, you got pressure on that arm, he lost a lot of blood from that wound.” 

“So she did the right thing?”  Harry asked, hoping to put Cassy’s mind at ease.

The doctor looked somewhat hesitant.  “Yes and no. Normally, that would be the procedure, because, just as you thought, the implement may be preventing more bleeding from occurring, and also it helps to keep the lung inflated, because a puncture into the lung causes a condition called a sucking chest wound. Air leaks out of the lung and the lung deflates. Leaving the screwdriver in place should have sealed the wound.  But in Tom’s case, the chest wound was large enough to cause a tear, and the lung deflated anyway.  A wound like that is easily dealt with by placing something, a hand, a plastic bag, over the tear to seal it, that allows the lung to inflate again..  A trained professional would have been able to spot the trouble.  But, as a layman without specialized medical knowledge, you made the best choice possible, under the circumstances.”

Cassy went pale and excused herself.  She ran to the Ladies room and threw up.

Harry thanked the doctor, asked when they could see Tom, and was given permission to check in on him in about half an hour, after he was transferred from recovery to ICU.  He went to find Cassy.  He found her sitting outside the rest room door, looking utterly forlorn.

“Cassy.  Stop torturing yourself.  You heard the doctor.  Tom’s gonna be okay.”  When she didn’t respond, he squatted down on the floor next to her.  “Cassy, you did the right thing.”

“No, I did the best I could under the circumstances.  That’s different.  It’s not right.  Just different.”  Cassy sighed, and stood.  “I want to see him.”

Harry struggled to his feet with Cassy’s help.  “The doctor said we could see him for a minute after he goes to ICU.  Let’s go find out where that is.” He put his arm around her and together they walked down the hall.

A nurse directed them to Tom’s room.  The ICU consisted of several small single bed rooms, glassed in so that patients could be monitored more easily.  Harry hated hospitals, and he particularly didn’t like the Intensive Care ward. The rooms had a sort of temporary feel to them.  People didn’t stay in the ICU for long.  It was a stopover.  You either got well enough to be moved to a regular floor, or you didn’t.  He stood outside Tom’s room and put his hand on Cassy’s shoulder, as they peered through the glass.

Cassy pressed her face against the window and gazed at her partner.  Tom lay still in the small, white room surrounded by machines and monitors, bandaged and pale, a blood transfusion going in his left arm and a clear fluid running into an IV connected to his ankle.  The injured right arm was cushioned and elevated, a tube running from beneath the bulky bandage.  She watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, reassuring herself that under all that equipment, Tom was alive. Instinctively, she reached out to touch him, but her hand hit the windowpane.  A nurse’s reflection appeared in the glass as she stopped to speak to Cassy.

“He’s heavily sedated.  He won’t wake up until tomorrow.  But one of you can go in if you like, just for a minute.”

Harry nodded.  “You go ahead, Cassy.”

Cassy nodded her thanks and followed the nurse into the room.  She went to Tom’s side and gently touched his cheek.  “I’m sorry, Thomas.  I’m sorry about you getting hurt, and about the car and the dog and the marriage. About everything.  I did the best that I could...under the circumstances.  Goddamn the circumstances.  I wish I could be different.  I wish...I wish I could let someone else be the grown-up...but I can’t.  I don’t know how.”  She smoothed his hair, let her hand trail down his pale cheek.  Tom didn’t respond to her voice, or her touch.  She reached into her purse and pulled her car keys out and placed them in his palm, closing his fingers around them and holding the cold hand in her own, trying to warm him.

The nurse tapped her on the shoulder.  “We should let him rest.”

Cassy nodded and laid his hand carefully down on the bed.  She leaned over and kissed him gently on the lips, caressed his face one more time, then turned and walked out of the room.

“Drive me home, will you, Skipper?”

“Sure.  C’mon kid.”

*****

If miserable had a face, today it looked exactly like Tom Ryan.  Each time he awoke, he was brutally greeted by his abused body, which seemed to hold him (and not the other guy, the one with the damn screwdriver), personally responsible for the damage done to it. His right side was on fire, his arm throbbed and ached clear to the bone. His lungs seemed to take his simple request for oxygen as a personal affront. In other words, he hurt like hell. It seemed like a good idea to go back to sleep almost immediately upon waking when your body holds a grudge like that, so that’s what he did for most of the morning, drifting in and out between drug-induced sleep and bone-cracking pain.  He definitely preferred sleep.  But the nursing staff, for some reason had a preference for pain, at least it seemed that way to him, because they were in his room every half hour, waking him, checking this or that, setting off alarms and changing dressings and poking and prodding and rolling him from side to side.  They claimed it was for his own good, but their actions spoke louder than words.  He heard the sound of another torturer in white, padding around his bed, reading through his chart.  He surrendered to the inevitable and opened his eyes. 

“Hey there!  Good afternoon, sleepyhead.  How are we feeling?”

This one was entirely too perky.  If it hadn’t hurt so much to breathe, he would have told this person to take a flying leap.  As it was, all he could do was whisper, “I feel...like shit.  I don’t care...how you feel.”

“Uh-oh, someone is a little bit crabby.”

Tom wished he had his service revolver.  “Getting stabbed...always...screws up...my day.  Who...are...you?”

“Betsy Johnson, I’m your Respiratory Therapist.  Oh, by the way, you dropped your car keys.”

“Huh?”

The woman handed him a set of keys.  He examined them closely, recognized them immediately. Cassy would never have given up the Mustang, unless she thought he was going to....  “I’m dying...aren’t I?”

“Um, no.  I don’t think so.”

“Why...do I...have...my keys?

“I don’t know, why do you have your keys?”

Tom started to answer that if he had his keys, and he wasn’t dying, then Cassy must have decided to return to him, to try and make it work, but he felt a cough coming on.  He gripped the keys tightly in his hand as screwdrivers tore through his chest with each weak cough. Once, twice, three times, the sensation ripped through his right lung and left him wheezing breathlessly.  When the spasm was over, he moaned and a tear ran down his face.

“That was really good, Mr. Ryan.  You should try to cough every ten minutes.  It increases your lung capacity, clears fluids and keeps you from catching pneumonia.”

“Okay.  I’ll try.” ...when Hell freezes over. He doubted that anyone who had his best interests at heart would have greeted with such enthusiasm and delight that horribly painful coughing spell. He fingered the keys which he held in his hand, suddenly lonely in the midst of all this unwanted attention. Where is Cassy?  I’m going to die here with a sadistic respiratory therapist cheering me on.  He closed his eyes once more and welcomed the painless time warp of sleep.

*****

“Thomas?  Are you awake?”

“No.”  It was true.  He wasn’t awake, at least he didn’t want to be.  “I don’t...wanna... cough...again.  Come back...later.”

“Tom?  Wake up, it’s me.”

Tom opened his eyes and saw Cassy standing over him.  “Oh.  It’s you.”

Cassy looked perturbed.  “That’s a nice greeting.”

“Sorry...thought you...were a nurse.”

“Be grateful I’m not.  I have a lousy bedside manner.  How are you?”

Tom stared at her for a moment, hoping to see the woman who’d held him and comforted him and needed him.  “I’m ...dying ...apparently.”  He held the keys out.

Cassy hesitated for a moment, fighting with herself to keep her emotions in control.  She wanted to fall onto the bed, hold him in her arms and tell him how frightened she’d been, how much she loved him and needed him. But that was yesterday, when she thought that he would die.  Things were different today...not right, just different. During the long night, the grown-up Cassy had won the battle for control. Under the circumstances, there was only one thing she could do.  She smiled slightly and snatched the keys from his hand.  “I wondered where they went.  Thanks.”

A wave of disappointment washed over Tom, he’d seen the hesitation, and had hoped, but it wasn’t to be. “You’re...welcome.  I thought...maybe....”

Cassy saw the flicker of sadness cross his face, she could read him so well, knew exactly what he’d been thinking, hoping.  She sat down on the bed next to him.  “You thought maybe I’d realized just how much you meant to me, how much I loved you and had decided to come back to you.”

Tom gave a small shrug and regretted the movement immediately.  “Can’t help...myself.  I’m hopelessly...optimistic...and delirious...with pain.”

Cassy sighed.  “Thomas, you know that I love you.  I just can’t live with you.”  She gave his hand a sympathetic squeeze.  “Does it hurt much?”

“If I...say yes...will you...hold...me...again?”

Cassy smiled.  “Go for it.”

Tom closed his eyes and moaned.  “I’m ...in... agony.”

Cassy climbed onto the small bed and gently took Tom into her arms.

“How’s this?”

“Mmmm.  Better...thanks.”  He closed his eyes, enjoying the closeness of her, glad he was still be here to enjoy the feel of her in his bed, even if it were a hospital bed.

She kissed him on the forehead.  “If you ever tell anyone, so help me, I’ll kill you myself.”

“It almost...worked...didn’t it?”

Cassy just smiled.  “I’ll never tell.”

Tom lay in her arms for a while, then looked up at her.  “Cassy?”

“Hmm?”

“You didn’t...change the oil...at Wal-Mart...did you?”

                                                         FIN