[stmercy2020]

Author's Note: No real strength feats or muscle in this one (sorry, folks), but the plot thickens.  I cut it a little short because I felt that I'd reached a good ending point for this chapter, and the next chapter will start to introduce some kind of scary characters who will be very important later on.  Oh yeah- I promise this will be the last time that I go into depth about how badly mauled the Motorheads got…

Chapter Four

Dasia was just getting off her cellphone when Dicey walked in.  “Ron says the doctors think he can come home today.  His parents are going to call and give the hospital permission for us to pick him up this afternoon.”
“That’s great.  We need to discuss if Ron is gonna press charges or not.”
“I was talking with him about that.  I think we should.”  Seeing Dicey grimace, Dasia hurried on.  “Look, I know they got roughed up a lot worse than us, but…”
“No, it’s okay.  I’m just a little worried about what Detective Francisco was talking about, the countersuit.”
“Why?  They attacked us and, more to the point, we’re clearly minors!”
“I’m not.”
“Oh- okay- One adult woman and her teenage sister and her sister’s broken boyfriend.  Like any jury in the world’s gonna say you didn’t have the right-“
“To nearly kill four men?  I don’t know.”
“You know something about state law?  ‘Cause I don’t.  But I’d bet we have a good enough case that any competent lawyer could get a jury on our side.”
“Okay, okay.  I’ll call Detective Francisco.”

Doctor Taliba Koudinya looked over the charts for the four men admitted into the emergency room last night.  A police report had accompanied them, and they were being kept under both sedation and guard, although-judging from the extent of the injuries-Dr. Koudinya doubted very much that the guards would be necessary for some time.  The triage on these men had taken hours, and had been touch-and-go on all four of them.  What was disturbing to Koudinya, though, was the strange configuration of the wounds.
One man had injuries that would have corresponded nicely with those incurred by a third-story defenestration.  Both his collarbones and three vertebrae in his upper back were broken, and there was further compression of his pelvis and several of his lower vertebrae.  He was unlikely to ever walk again, and might not regain the use of his arms.  Police said they found him against the south wall of the warehouse- the inside of one of the exterior walls, that is- and that he was nowhere near any ladders or shelves of any kind.
The next man had suffered a severe twisting trauma to his neck, his jaw had been separated and broken, and most of the teeth on the right side of his jaw- the upper cuspid, both upper and lower bicuspids, upper and lower 1st and 2nd molars, and the lower 3rd molar- had been smashed so badly that only splintered fragments remained.  In addition, the man was mildly concussed, hardly a surprise.  What was a surprise, actually, was that he wasn’t in worse shape.  The injuries looked comparable to what Koudinya would have expected to see if the man had been hit by a two-by-four wielded by a major league ballplayer, except that the point of impact was too precise.  A board or similar weapon should have struck a much larger surface area, probably increasing the concussion, but, overall, reducing the damage.  Added to the severe head trauma, the man had also suffered a compound fracture to both the radius and ulna of his right arm, and his shoulder was so badly dislocated that it looked as if it had been yanked out of socket by a tractor.
The third man was probably going to end up looking the worst when all was said and done, but, in truth, his injuries were the least brutal.  His maxilla had been split into four distinct pieces, and all four of his upper incisors had been knocked out.  The shattering of his maxilla had also resulted in the displacement of both zygomatics, his ethmoid, and his lagrimals.  Amazingly, his nasal bone was virtually undamaged.  He was, she noted, going lose much of his sight, though, as the displaced maxilla had not only shredded his tear ducts, but had actually pierced both eyes causing the loss of a significant amount of aqueous and vitreous humors.  Oh yes.  This one was also concussed and had suffered severe whiplash, as if his head had been whipped backwards and forwards in a terrible traffic collision.
The most seriously injured man was truly the prize, as far as Dr. Koudinya was concerned.  A true mystery.  His ribcage had been crushed- shattered- by four distinct blows.  X-rays could easily pinpoint the epicenter of each blow, but the amount of even one blow should have been sufficient to launch the man away from the weapon, whatever it was.  Shrapnel from the man’s ribs had torn up his internal organs pretty severely, and he was still on life support.  A surgical team was busily trying to seal the myriad rips in his arterial walls.  If this man survived, it would be entirely thanks to the rapid response team’s dedication and skill, she thought.  What was puzzling to her was the fact that none of the weapons recovered at the scene could possibly have inflicted that sort of damage.  Being hit by a truck might have been sufficient, but then the impact area would have been much larger and, more to the point, singular.
Taking a sip of the luke-warm cafeteria coffee, Taliba considered the report.  She was still young enough to be curious about the unknown, and new enough to the area to still be disturbed at the shocking levels of violence that she was seeing on a nightly basis.  There was more to this, though.  According to the police, the men in the O.R. were all beaten-physically beaten-by one woman.  Taliba was very smart.  She had graduated in the top one percent of her class at the University of Michigan.  The only reason she was in Lincoln Park was because she had decided she wanted to get some experience working with trauma patients, and this seemed to be a good place to get that experience.  What the police were reporting couldn’t possibly be true.  The problem was, Taliba didn’t know what the truth could be.
According to the police reports, another boy had been transported directly to Mott Children’s hospital in Ann Arbor with a preliminary diagnosis of broken ribs.  Another girl had a bloodied nose, but appeared to be otherwise unharmed-Dr. Koudinya frowned at that.  The younger girl should have been checked by a qualified medical attendant, but the reports did not indicate that such had occurred.  The younger girl- Dasia Boudreaux- had been released into the custody of her older sister, Dicey Boudreaux.  Dr. Koudinya tapped her teeth with her pen.  Maybe this was an avenue she could explore, a loose thread she could pull.  She decided to give the detective in charge of coordinating the criminal investigation a call.

Dicey pulled Vinnie’s Harley Davidson Softail into the still-empty lot of Ann Arbor’s Calvary Presbyterian Church.  It was lucky, she supposed, that Nicole could get Reverend Tiller to open the place up every week after church so they could have a place to practice free-of-charge.  She had to wonder what the occupants of the nearby Pittsfield Apartment buildings thought of their racket, though.  She knew from spending time in Vinnie’s cramped little box that the walls were paper thin, and if any noise escaped the thick stone of the church, it was certain to be an unwelcome guest to people who were busily trying to get dinner on and kids to bed.
The building itself was quite small- basically a small fellowship hall, a few classrooms, and the circular sanctuary which comfortably seated around four hundred people.  It was a nice neighborhood, at least.  The Pittsfield Apartments had been built in the early 1940s, and showed many of the characteristics of surplus military housing.  They weren’t quite the tin sheds that used to house soldiers’ wives near barracks, but they weren’t far off.  They had originally been intended as low-income family housing, and were constructed of relatively inexpensive materials with buildings having units for two or four families each.  Each building had a small, postage-stamp sized front yard, but shared a sizable field with all of the other buildings its block for a communal backyard.  Vinnie actually parked his bike outside most nights, and didn’t even worry about removing the keys, a habit which Dicey thought was, quite frankly, insane.
Hopping off the bike, Dicey went up to the covered cement porch and sat down on one of the benches to wait for Reverend Tiller or one of the deacons to come by and open up the building.  Detective Francisco was surprisingly approachable, she thought, going back to her conversation with her earlier that afternoon.  She seemed genuinely pleased that Dasia and Ron wanted to press charges.
She wondered, briefly, why that would be the case.  The sense she had of the policewoman was of someone who was stubborn as hell, but terribly world-weary.  Of course, she works in a city that regularly claims the title of Murder Capital of the World, so that’s no surprise.
What was odd, she decided, was how the detective had offered to take some time out of her schedule to meet with Dicey, Dasia, and Ron in order to help them organize their cases before they contacted a lawyer.  She seemed genuine, Dicey decided, but she wasn’t entirely sure that it was ethical.  Too late now- we already agreed to see her tomorrow afternoon.
Drifter pulled up in the van with Nicole and Vinnie, then, followed immediately by Reverend Tiller in her beat up station wagon.  The band piled out and Dicey started to help unloading the instruments and the mini-amps.  She noticed Nicole was wearing one of Drifter’s t-shirts, an oversized black number that said “Fighting Solves Everything.”  Dicey almost choked, but Nicole was clearly enjoying the attention she was getting from wearing it, so she let it slide.  It was almost comical, actually.  On Drifter, that shirt would be slightly small, as his huge, intensively trained physique would have worn it like a second skin.  Nicole, on the other hand, nearly disappeared into it, except where her pixie-like face popped out the top.  It was so loose, in fact, that the collar was in constant danger of slipping off her shoulder.  Drifter, on the other hand, was wearing a muscle shirt that he easily had earned the right to wear and khaki fatigue trousers with his usual trainers.  Dicey would never understand why Drifter, a star jock if there ever was one, had opted, instead, to go into teaching for a career.  That, she thought, was bizarre.  She knew he had played with the Wolverines all four years of college, and had been offered a pro-spot with-was it the Bears?-which he had flatly turned down.
Vinnie ran his hands over his bike before walking up behind Dicey.  “Everything okay, Chance?”
“Huh?  Oh, yeah.  It was a little hairy last night, but I’m good, now.”  Vinnie’s gray eyes seemed to look through her, piercing directly into her brain.  His wiry frame was relaxed, but she could read the concern in the minor twitches in his long, spidery fingers.
“Okay.  You’re going to tell me all about it, though, right?”  Vinnie had been her best friend all through middle school and high school, and when both of them were accepted at the University of Michigan, it had been an amazing blessing for both of them.  What Vinnie described as his inherent nerdiness had saved Dicey’s ass on more than one occasion, and, in return, she had been his date to several dances and social gatherings, thus helping him to become less of an outcast.  Vinnie was the sort of guy who got nicknames like ‘Spider’ or ‘Stretch,’ partly because he was skinny, but mainly because his hands were freakishly long and thin.  His saving graces were his compassion and his sense of humor.  Somehow, the nicknames never seemed to last long on him, and he always quickly became just ‘Vinnie’ again.
“Later, I promise.”
“You’d better.”
Reverend Tiller had already ducked inside the building and was, Dicey supposed, hard at work in her tiny office.  When the band had finished unloading and setting up, Vinnie set the agenda for the evening.  They needed to polish several of the pieces that they had nearly botched last night, of course, and Vinnie had a new song that he’d been working on and he wanted the band to doodle around with it to see what they could come up with.  Nicole and Drifter wanted to take some time to play some of their Cheshire material, too, and get Vinnie’s and Dicey’s feedback.
Moments later, Drifter gave the opening riff to Vigilant, and Dicey tried to just lose herself in the music.  It just wasn’t happening.  Her mind kept wandering, and her playing sounded wooden and dull even to her own ears.  Vinnie tried stopping them several times, tried making some suggestions, tried everything to just amp up the performance, but nothing was working.  Finally, after what seemed like an hour, he called a break.
“Take five, everybody.  Dicey, you okay?”
“Yeah, just a little sidetracked.”
“Well, get some air.  Maybe grab a coffee, or something.”
“Yes, boss.”  Dicey stuck her tongue out at him.
“I’m serious.  You need to take a break or something?  You just aren’t playing like yourself, today.”
“I’ll be fine.  I’m just…just…look, just give me a couple minutes, okay?”
“Fine.  I’ll be in here if you need to talk or anything.”
Dicey felt a little bad about blowing him like that, but it wasn’t something she could talk about with him.  She wasn’t sure she could talk about it with anyone.  She walked back outside and breathed in the chilly night air.
“So.  Is it about last night?  Or is it about this morning?”  Nicole’s rich alto voice cut through Dicey’s reverie.  Evidently, she had followed Dicey out here rather than stay inside talking with Drifter.
“God.  This morning, I- I-”
“What, honey?”  Nicole was good at this.  She was listening with her whole body, not just her ears, but her eyes, her shoulders, the set of her jaw.  Dicey felt the confused welter of emotions rising to the surface once again.
“When you kissed me… what was that?”
“Oh, Dicey, sweety!”  Nicole hugged her, then, hard.  “I love you, girl.  I always have, but it’s not like that.”
“What- what do you mean?”
“I don’t know.  This morning, you were so sexy…
“God, I almost lost it…”
“But you and Drifter…?”
“Yeah.  Me and Drifter.  You know I’ve had girlfriends before, right?  But, I don’t know, I think most of them were just lust.
“No, that’s not right.  Some of them were lust, some of them were more than that…
“But Drifter is special.  I don’t know.  He’s got such a big heart.  I don’t ever want to do anything to hurt him, y’know?”
Nicole’s look at Dicey was almost pleading, but, somehow, Dicey found it comforting.  At least she knew where they stood, now.  “So- you’re bisexual?”
“To paraphrase Ms. Bujold, I used to be.  Now I’m monogamous.”

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