Page 40 of The Grave Artist

The contrast between the three busy EMTs and the stillness of the body they worked feverishly to save struck at her very core.

The Honeymoon Killer had caught Heron from behind.

Please don’t let him die.

She pounded to a halt and sank to her knees beside one of the medics, a burly balding man in his twenties who was the definition of “unflappable.” Gasping, Carmen asked, “Have you got a pulse?”

No immediate response, which she took as a good sign. Experience had taught her that when an ambulance crew moved slowly, that meant the patient’s terminal outcome was a foregone conclusion. This team, however, was working feverishly.

She didn’t want to interfere with what she’d overheard EMTs refer to as “thumping and pumping,” which meant chest compressions andsqueezing air into an oxygen mask over the patient’s face, but she was desperate for an assessment.

She looked at the closest paramedic and decided to try again. This time she restricted her question to one word. A word that should elicit a response as if a doctor or charge nurse had demanded an answer. “Status?”

“Attempting to stabilize for transport.”

That didn’t console her at all. The word “attempting” implied they weren’t having success, after all. Then again—

“No ...” A voice, laced with dismay, came from behind her.

She swiveled to the speaker.

It was Jake Heron.

Overwhelmed with shock and unable to form words, she stood and reached out to grasp his arm, assuring herself this was not an apparition. Then she stepped to the side to peer around the paramedic and took a closer look at the victim’s face, which was still partially concealed by the oxygen mask. What she saw sent alternating waves of relief and dread rushing through her.

Frank Tandy was the one who’d been stabbed.

Carmen had known the detective for years. They had participated in joint federal-local training, served on a few multijurisdictional task forces and, after major incidents, had occasionally seen each other at one of the local watering holes favored by law enforcement, where beer selections were long and wine short.

“How is he?” Heron asked.

She shook her head.

He said in a strained voice, “That could have been me.Shouldhave been me.”

“What happened?” she asked.

“I started toward the cemetery to meet the teenage girl, then I got a phone call.” He hesitated. “Family matter. I couldn’t let it wait. I told Frank and he said he’d interview her, and I could take over on the canvass.”

“Family matter?”

Heron said nothing more about it. But simply stared at the medic hovering over Tandy’s form. He whispered, “Son of a bitch.” Then heaved a sigh.

“Heron.”

He slowly lifted his gaze to meet hers.

“What-if’s a game you can’t play in law enforcement,” she said. “You’ll learn that as you go along.”

“Did he have a vest?”

She nodded. “But ballistic armor doesn’t do much good against edged weapons. HK stabbed around and through it.”

The paramedics positioned Tandy on a board, lifted it to the gurney and ran a line. They wheeled him to the ambulance. An LAPD sergeant strode forward, and Carmen briefed him. He took custody of Tandy’s service weapon, asking Carmen, Heron and the medics, “He describe who attacked him?”

“No,” a woman EMT replied as they loaded Tandy into the ambulance. “Nonresponsive when we got here.”

Without another word, she slammed the rear doors, and soon the vehicle was gone. Carmen explained to the sergeant about the task-forced case, and suggested Tandy’s captain contact Williamson for next steps regarding liaison.