Cry From The Grave
Chapter 23
They had just returned to the Sprinter with the bagged cartridges in hand. "What next?" asked Tori.
"Call Stu, then down to St. Matthew's Grove," said Ballack, rotating through his own list of contacts on his phone. "I'll also check on Missy and Zane."
"I'll call the hospice. What's our request?"
"If you get Andrews or Giles, tell them to gather the whole staff in the chapel. I don't want an open room where we can be overheard, and I don't care if they have to ignore the patients for fifteen minutes. We're going to find out who was where and could have done something."
"What about off-duty personnel?"
"They need to come in, too. Especially them."
"I'm hungry. Can you lean out of your chair and reach me a doughnut?"
Ballack swept his eyes over the floorboard to his front and left. "Calories be cursed. I think we handed them over to Zane and they're in Missy's car."
Tori smacked her forehead. "Back at the lakehouse."
Ballack tried Commander Stu Krieger's phone, but he only got the voice mail. Leaving a detailed message and apologizing that he hadn't called already, he told Krieger where he could find their wounded cohorts. He then tried Crabolli's phone but she had it turned off. He rang St. Joseph's, finally reaching the nurse's station after giving Hull's name many times. A pleasant-sounding nurse answered after the final connection and put him on hold.
"Do you want to get lunch on the way in?" he asked Tori. "Something hearty and classy, but relatively quick?"
"You dare combine the two?" she replied teasingly.
"Go down to Manchester and swing eastward," he said, pointing ahead. "And we'll dock at McAlister's in Des Peres.
The nurse came back on the line. "Mr. Hull seems to be doing slightly better, Detective. Would you like to speak with his partner? She's right here."
Crabolli must have wrenched the phone from the nurse in no time. "Okay, his heart is undamaged, thank God. His blood pressure is remaining fairly low, but at least it's not plunging. Still, the bullet sliced through his upper lung. Front and side from that angle."
"How could it have gotten that far in?" Ballack asked in shock.
"It didn't go through much of the lung. The doctor explained that if you're looking at the lung from a bird's eye view and cut it into quadrants--like northwest, northeast, southwest, southeast--then the bullet chipped through the far northeast corner."
"Which meant it was a different shot than the one that skipped the rail. I was estimating from the direction he fell."
"Don't beat yourself up, C.B.," Crabolli soothed. "But Dr. Mugaba spoke the truth. The bullet was about an inch from his heart and it took a lot of suctioning just to see it. Thank God they had a ton of B positive on hand because Zane lost about a third of his blood."
"This is a disaster," said Ballack, his thoughts otherworldly.
"Anyway, one piece of concrete news is we got a cop keeping him under guard, plus Ballistics came in for the bullet. It's a .22 caliber and that alone--plus Zane's good health--is likely what kept him alive. If it had been a .38 or a .45, forget it."
"Specifics on the bullet?" Company? Other details?"
"Hold on," Crabolli said, rustling some paper. "Here it is. Remington 22 High Velocity with a plated hollow point. Called the Golden Bullet. Thirty-six grain with a velocity of some twelve hundred feet per second."
"Not a sporting clay shell, huh?"
"What?"
"Forget it. We caught up with Eric Carter and just questioned him at Town & Country station. He's not our man."
"But he was out there!"
"Duly noted, Professor. It's a long story, but the bullet calibers don't match. We'll swing by later this evening and have some semblance of a team meeting at the hospital. We're headed to St. Matthew's to grill the rest of the staff."
"Wish I could be there."
"We need you to be in fighting shape, Missy. I'm enough of a drag on things. On that note, how are you feeling?"
"Prelim reading from the MRI is that my trapezius muscle is torn. Big surprise since I can't lift my left arm past the middle of my rib cage."
Ballack was deep in thought, and the pause went on longer than he intended.
"What is it, C.B.?" Crabolli asked.
"Just thinking," he replied. "If Zane got popped from the angle it seems now, and you got hit from where you were standing at the same angle, well..." His words trailed off.
"Go on."
He wanted to spell out his theory carefully. He closed his eyes, remembering every detail of the outer surroundings of Hibbler's domicile. "Unless we're working with a second shooter concept, there wasn't much room to shoot from. Carter's truck went on the road off to the right, but if the shots came from the left of the deck...that's no more than twenty-five yards. And that shooter was spraying things all over that deck. Not the greatest accuracy. But I just remembered. One last shot--after you were hit--went through the back door and mauled that stoneware jug on the wall. There was a sliver of room for that to make it through the door. That clinches it! We pretty much know where the shooter was standing now."
"Better get Sheilah and her posse out there quickly," Crabolli urged him.
They were pulling into a spot at McAlister's "I should have called her earlier and haven't been thinking well since then. I have to call her anyway because she'd have the twenty-four-hour results on the knife DNA from yesterday." He paused thoughtfully. "I'm just glad we don't have to call Holbrook, as well.'
He hung up and dialed Sheilah Grimshaw as Tori was unbuckling his chair restraints. "Sheilah, I have two items for discussion," he began.
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