Healing Wolves
Part Seven - The Wake
By Scott J. Welles
scottjwelles@yahoo.com

ER and all related characters are the property of Warner Bros., Amblin Entertainment, and ConstantC productions, used here without permission. This story has been written entirely for entertainment value. No copyright infringement is intended, and no form of profit is being made on this work. Any errors in continuity, characterization, or common sense may be blamed entirely on me. Sorry. If this hasn't given you eyestrain already, read on.



Four hours later, I was still sort of hanging listlessly around the emergency room. I spent a while sitting in Chairs, listening to a couple of broken-down oldsters arguing over who was better, Gene Autry or Roy Rogers. I remarked to them that I always kind of liked Randolph Scott. They looked at me like I was speaking in Tongues. One of them harangued me while the other tried to spit on me. He couldn't quite work it up, and ended up dribbling on himself. Good thing I hadn't brought up Rory Calhoun or Lash LaRue, or I'd really have been in danger. Such is life in a big-city hospital.

I didn't really know what I hoped to accomplish by being here. I almost felt like I owed Kerry Weaver something. Like maybe I hadn't given her her money's worth. No, I realized, it wasn't so much that I'd shortchanged her. I'd done everything I reasonably could, after all. It was the way I treated her after the job was done. I'd behaved like a goon at lunch, with the birthday thing and all. I had meant to show her a good time, but all I did was make her look like a fool. Rebuffed by her best friend, humiliated by the Fox, then snatched and maybe murdered by some psychopath. Not Kerry Weaver's month.

Gene had fallen asleep on top of Roy, and I was thinking that maybe I should take off, when a young doctor approached me. "Mr. Fox, right?"

I stood up and shook his hand. "Danny, please."

"Hi. John Carter."

"Kaor, Warlord," I said.

He looked blank. "Beg pardon?"

"Nobody's ever said that to you?"

"Nooo, don't think so."

"Forget it. It's nice to meet you." Nobody reads anymore.

Carter was my height, on the low side of thirty, with the sort of sensitive good looks that were all the rage in Hollywood these days. Maybe if he ever got tired of practicing medicine, he could come to LA and be the next Matt Damon. Maybe I could introduce him to this movie director I know, who would make him a star. Maybe they could collaborate on a four-hour epic about the Hindenburg disaster that would win nineteen Oscars and a truckload of Golden Globes.

"Dr. Weaver told me about you," Carter was saying.

"Don't believe a word," I said, "I'm really a nice guy."

"That's what she said."

I looked at him. "She did?"

"Actually, she said you were kind of a clown, but I got the impression that she liked you."

Really? "How could you tell?"

He smiled. "I know, it's hard to tell with Kerry. She's crotchety a lot, but if she really doesn't like someone, she just doesn't talk about them. You, she went on about."

I'll be damned.

"Listen, a bunch of us are going to Doc Magoo's, across the street. It's just this diner we hang out at. You want to join us?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I'd like that. Thanks."

"Great, I'll see you there," he said, "Gotta get back to work. Lot of casualties from the big gang fight between the Tharks and the Warhoons, but I'll tell Dejah Thoris you said hi."

I gave him a look.

"Like I've never heard the 'John Carter of Mars' bit before," he said with a grin, and walked off.

Okay, some people read.

Maybe half an hour later, I pushed back my plate. I hadn't realized how hungry I was until I had demolished a cheeseburger that would probably clog every artery in my body. Most of the people I'd seen in Trauma One were gathered in the diner, and things had developed into a sort of impromptu wake. Somebody told a Kerry Weaver story, and then someone else told another one, and pretty soon everyone was just having a grand old time.

"...creep slugs her in the ear, and down she goes," a nurse I hadn't met was saying, "and Randi picks up her crutch like a Louisville Slugger and flattens the guy!" Everyone laughed.

"That's nothing," said Jerry the desk clerk, whose last name turned out to be Markovic, "What about the time she faced down Sean Connery?"

"Oh, Lord, that guy!" Chuni Marquez added.

I pricked up my ears. I had a feeling I knew about this one.

"What are you talking about, Jerry?" asked Lucy Knight, the blond med student.

Jerry warmed to his audience. "This guy walks in, last year, looks just like Sean Connery, okay? Old English dude, dressed like a million bucks. He's bleeding from a knife wound in his arm, with a silk handkerchief tied around it, and leaning on this cool cane. Says he was nailed with a switchblade, but he doesn't need us to call the cops, 'cause he's 'already dealt with the silly bugger'. I believe him, 'cause this guy's built like a boxer, and he's carrying this big old forty-four magnum under his arm..."

"It was a Webley," said Maggie, an attractive young doctor with dark hair. The nametag on her lab coat said 'Doyle'.

"What?"

"It was a classic old British Webley revolver, Jerry, not a .44."

"Yeah, okay, whatever, it was this big cannon in a shoulder holster. I can see it 'cause he's not wearing a jacket. And I ask him to leave the piece with me, 'cause he can't take it inside, but he just narrows his eyes and glares at me over this big walrus mustache of his, like I've got some kinda nerve telling him what to do. I mean, he's got this look that Clint Eastwood would envy."

"So what'd you do?"

"I backed off! I'm not stupid!"

"So he just went in with the gun?"

"Well, almost. Then Dr. Weaver arrives, and she looks right into the guy's face and tells him he can't bring a weapon into her ER. The big guy says, 'My dear lady...' He says it like she's just another pain in the butt, but he's gonna be polite anyway. He says, 'My dear lady, I assure you I have no intention of shooting anyone.' Then he sends me another little glare, like saying 'yet'."

"What did she do?"

Jerry laughed a little. "She just holds her hand out for the gun and says, 'And I have no intention of letting you in here with that thing.' So they're staring each other down, like 'High Noon', and he's big enough to just step on her, right? But she doesn't budge. Then he breaks into this huge smile, like he's just met the Queen of England, and he unholsters the gun and puts it in her hand. Very daintily. The gun looks like it weighs more than she does, but she just takes it and kind of ushers him into the nearest curtain area. He even gives her a little bow before he goes in." Jerry shook his head, like he was watching it again, and couldn't believe what he saw.

"You're leaving out the best part," Chuni added, "Once the guy's gone in, Jerry comes up to Weaver, acting all solicitous, and says, 'Uh, Dr. Weaver, would you like me to take the gun for you?' And Weaver gives him a look, like 'Are you kidding me?' " More laughter.

Lydia said to me, "Jerry once blew up the ambulance bay with a rocket-propelled grenade."

"That was an accident!" Jerry protested among the catcalls.

I raised my eyebrows. So that was where Richard Wintergreen knew Kerry Weaver from. He hadn't bothered to mention any of this to me. I didn't even know he'd been to Chicago. But then, he was like that. Sometimes he could launch into accounts of his exploits at the drop of a hat, like hunting tigers in India, others he never bothered to mention at all.

Carol Hathaway was telling about how she once dropped a clock on Kerry's head. I was greatly enjoying the company of these people. They were a diverse bunch, but they had the kind of camaraderie that only ever comes from dealing with matters of life and death together on a daily basis. These were not people who would care how the Dow-Jones Average did, or be impressed by how many shares of Microsoft or AT&T you owned. If you came into their place of work, all that mattered was that you were maybe broken and maybe bleeding and maybe living and maybe dying. Mortality, the Great Equalizer.

"Carter, you lived with her," Carol Hathaway said when she was finished, "You must have some good Kerry stories."

I looked at the young Dr. Carter. "You lived with Kerry Weaver?"

"Not like that," he said, "I'm just renting her basement. I'll tell you all one thing. Never stay at her place unless you're a major morning person. My first night there, I was woken up around five-thirty in the morning by the most godawful noise you've ever
heard. I drag myself upstairs, groggy as hell, and there she is, wide awake, mixing up these vitamin shakes in her blender and grooving to Grace Jones at maximum volume. She's all cheery, yelling 'good morning' over the noise, and I'm just thinking, 'oh, God, what have I gotten into, here?' " Carter clapped his hands over his face in mock anguish.

There was a fresh round of vigorous laughter at the tale, but when it faded, there followed the silence that always comes at some point in these sort of gatherings. When nobody can think of what to say next, and you're suddenly aware that the one you're laughing about isn't with you anymore.

Jeannie, the woman who had asked about Kerry in Trauma One, tried to fill the silence. She had a beautiful dulcet voice. "I, uh, I remember once she was doing some kind of endurance study, and she recruited me to be her test subject, and..."

You could see her fighting to remain upbeat.

"And she was just running me ragged, all over the place, and she wanted me to get into this chamber that..."

You could see her losing the fight. Her eyes were beginning to fill. She said, "I'm sorry, please excuse me..." and she fled outside. Lydia Wright went out to console her.

I heard some sniffling from the booth in the corner. A nurse who had been quiet all through the proceedings was also tearing up.  Haleh patted her back and said, "Honey, you know it's not your fault."

Carter leaned towards me. "Lily was the last one to see Dr. Weaver," he said, quietly.

I got up and went over to her. "Lily, would you mind telling me about it?" I said. "My name's Danny Fox, by the way. I'm a detective."

She composed herself and shook my hand. "Lily Jarvik," she said. "I went off shift about the same time as Dr. Weaver, and I saw her in the parking structure. She was standing a ways off, by this dark blue van. The side door was open, and it looked like she was talking to someone inside. Then she climbed into the van, and the door shut and it drove away."

"That's the last anyone saw of her," Haleh said to me.

"The cops know about this?"

"They took her statement," Haleh said, like I shouldn't have to ask. Did I think they were dumb?

Lily said, "If I'd known, I'd have tried to at least get a plate number, or..."

"Lily, it's not your fault," Mark Greene told her, his voice like a balm for the spirit. "You couldn't possibly have known that anything was wrong."

"Wait a second," I said, "Dr. Weaver just got into the van of her own volition? She didn't struggle or yell 'fire' or anything?"

"No, she just climbed in," Lily said.

"Did she look like she was happy to see whoever was in the van? Was she smiling or waving?"

Lily shook her head. "No. In fact, at the time, I thought she might have been frightened. I remember her looking stiff and worried. That's why it caught my attention. I was about to go see if there was anything wrong, but then she just got into the van, so I figured it must be all right."

I scratched my head. "This doesn't make sense," I said. "Kerry Weaver would be too smart to get into a van with someone she was afraid of." I thought about her, a single woman in the big city, physically small and partially disabled. The prime demographic for all the human predators out there. I couldn't see an intelligent, levelheaded career woman like her not being strongly conscious of issues like personal security. I said as much, and asked if I was mistaken about her in that regard. No, everyone agreed with me, it would be unlike her.

"Maybe someone in the van was holding a gun on her," Jerry said.

I shook my head. "All the more reason for her to refuse to get in. You risk getting shot that way, sure, but it's a chance you have to take. If you refuse, the other guy's got a choice to make. He can open fire, and risk drawing public attention to himself, or he can leave you and cut his losses. Besides, anyone who would shoot you out of spite would have no qualms about doing much, much worse to you if you get in. You lose all control over your own fate that way. Kerry should have known that! What the hell was she thinking?"

Everyone was staring at me. Lily looked like I had bitten her head off. I realized that I was somewhere between lecturing and ranting. The tendons in my neck and shoulders felt very tight. I said, "I'm sorry. You guys probably know this stuff better than I do."

"No, you're quite right, Danny," Mark Greene said. "In fact, I think we should arrange a seminar on safety issues for all staff."

Maggie Doyle said, "I know some people who teach those. I could call them."

"Great. I'd appreciate that, Maggie," Greene told her. "I'll talk to Dr. Anspaugh about scheduling in the morning."

With that, the evening seemed to be over. Everyone was paying up and pulling on their coats

Going out the door, I overheard Chuni saying to Carol, "Wishing you hadn't written her as the villain?"

"For the last time, I DID NOT WRITE THE NOVEL--!!"

Outside, I could see my breath crystallizing. Wow. Even in April. Must be an unseasonable cold snap. I heard Mark Greene beside me. "Mind some company?"

"Not at all." I was liking Greene just fine. He wasn't an impressive-looking guy, but I admired the way he handled his people. The real leaders in this world aren't the ones who look like Marlon Brando or George C. Scott. They look as ordinary as anyone, until push comes to shove. Then their true character shows itself.

"I appreciate what you said in there," he said to me as we walked.

I nodded. "I didn't mean to lecture anyone," I said, "I just can't picture Kerry Weaver doing something so foolish. You knew her much better than I did, of course..."

"Not as much as you'd think. She was a very private person."

We were quiet for a while.

"You mind a little advice?" he asked me. I shook my head, and he said, "Don't torture yourself by looking for answers. Sometimes it's better for everyone to accept what has happened and just let yourself grieve."

"Mark, I'm a detective," I said, "Looking for answers is what I do."

"Uh-huh." Greene pulled his collar tighter. "You've seen a lot of people hurt, am I right? Lot of injury, lot of pain?"

"Yeah, some. Probably not as much as you have, but..."

He stopped walking and looked at me directly. "Ever happen to you?"

We faced each other. He wasn't being confrontational. Just talking.

"I've been hurt before," I admitted. "Hospitalized once, seven years ago." It was due to a serious gunshot wound, but I didn't want to sound like I was boasting.

"But you always knew who was doing it to you, or at least why it was happening?"

I nodded. My injuries had all occurred in the course of my work. And I had always managed to leave my attackers the worse for wear in return.

Greene nodded, like he'd guessed right about me. "It's different when you've been hurt for no reason," he said. "Until you've had random, senseless violence inflicted on you by someone you've never met, who came out of nowhere and then vanished again forever, you can't appreciate what it's like."

He wasn't asking me. He was telling me. I knew, somehow, that he was talking about himself. Behind those deceptively mild eyes, Mark Greene knew things that I didn't. Things that couldn't be put in words. I wondered if Kerry Weaver knew some of those same things, now.

"Sometimes, there's no answers, no reasons, and no justice, only tragedy and loss," he told me. "Either it happens or it doesn't." He walked away and left me on my own.