Chapter 8
The brown boots stopped right at the line where the white floor met the pale doorway trim. I'd been staring at that line since the woman in the white coat hung up the phone. The dispatcher had given an ETA, nine minutes, and then Janet had come back down the hall and said the man in coveralls could stand at the door again. Not inside. At the threshold.
He didn't cross it. He put his hands in his pockets and left his boots exactly there, toes behind the metal strip. I could hear the faint tick of the wall clock and the hum of the fluorescent light over the exam table. The woman in the white coat sat on her stool. She'd pushed it back a foot so her knees weren't near mine. That was the deal we'd just made on the phone.
"You okay if I tell him what I saw?" the man in coveralls asked. He wasn't looking at me at first, he was looking at her, like he was asking permission.
The woman in the white coat glanced at me. "That's up to him," she said.
I nodded. My hands were still fisted around my jacket front. My hood was still up. I hadn't let go since the hallway.
He took a breath that lifted his whole chest under the coveralls. "I was out by the shop," he said. His voice was low and tired. "Bay door was open. Kid came running up the side alley by the gas station. Holding something."
He paused and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His other hand stayed in his pocket.
"It was a muffler," he said. "Not a whole one. Busted heat shield. Rusty. Edge sharp. He'd wrapped it in his jacket, I think, then it fell. I saw it on the sidewalk."
I remembered the weight of it. Cold even through the fleece. Heavier than it looked.
"He wasn't alone," the man went on. "Guy came around the corner after him. Shouting. Said 'give that back, don't you run.' Kid didn't stop. He cut straight across the lot toward the clinic. Guy stopped at the fence when he saw me. Turned around and walked off toward the tracks."
The woman in the white coat wrote that down without looking up. Her black watch caught the light. "Did the man touch him?" she asked.
"Not that I saw," he said. "But kid was breathing like he'd been chased. I followed him here to make sure he got inside okay. Then I heard the lady up front say to lock the doors."
The woman in the white coat capped her pen. "Thank you. That's clear."
The man nodded, but he didn't move his boots. I could see dried gray dust on the toes and a little oil dark on the left sole.
Then the woman in the white coat turned her stool a half inch toward me. Her voice got softer.
"Now that we know where it came from, I need to see if you're hurt underneath," she said. "If that metal cut you, we can't wait. The officers will need the clinic note to match what they find. If we wait, infection, bleeding —"
"If we wait, chain of custody is clean," the man in coveralls cut in. He didn't raise his voice. "Ma'am, no disrespect, but that kid held that jacket for a reason. Guy told him not to leave with it. If you unzip now without police seeing it first, defense says we planted it or moved it."
Her jaw tightened just a little. I saw it because I was watching her mouth.
"And if I don't look now and he's bleeding under there, I am liable," she said, still quiet. She looked at me, not him. "My job is his body. Not the case."
They both looked at me then. The hallway air felt thin. I could hear Janet's radio crackling faintly at the front desk and someone testing the back door lock, the metal thud.
I swallowed. My throat hurt from crying. "Can you both just stay where you are?" I said. My voice came out smaller than I wanted.
The man in coveralls nodded right away. "I don't need to touch nothing. I'll stay right here at the door."
The woman in the white coat put both hands on her own knees and stayed on the stool. "I can stay seated," she said. "No hands on you unless you say."
I pulled my jacket a little tighter. Not because I wanted to hide more, but because it helped me think. "Stay there," I told the man. I pointed at the threshold line. "Stay at the door. Not close."
"Got it," he said.
I looked at her. "Stay on the chair. Don't stand up."
"I'm staying right here," she said. She leaned back a little to show me.
The space between us settled. Her stool by the sink, about four feet away. His boots at the doorway, about six feet away. Me on the edge of the exam table, back against the paper roll, jacket still zipped and clutched shut. No one reaching. For the first time since I'd run in, the room didn't feel like it was closing in.
Far away, outside the locked front doors and the pale walls, a siren started. Thin at first, then a little louder, coming from the highway side of town. Not in the parking lot yet. Not knocking yet.
May you like
The woman in the white coat didn't look toward the sound. She kept her eyes on mine. The man in coveralls kept his boots planted on his side of the line.
I kept holding my jacket. Closed.
