12th of Never

and full. Victims of the multicar crash were being treated in curtained cubicles, and those who weren’t in danger of dying had been parked in wheelchairs and on gurneys wherever space permitted.
    Mackie, on the board, was lifted onto an exam table in a trauma room. Medical personnel crowded in, began assessing the damage.
    The attending physician was about forty, wiry, efficient. Her name was Emily Bruno and she and Conklin had met many times in circumstances like this one.
    Bruno said to Conklin, “What’s the patient’s name? What happened to her? Do you know anything about her medical history?”
    Conklin said, “This is MacKenzie Morales, twenty-six, single mother, and I don’t know her medical history. She drove the car into that semi outside the ballpark. Two fatalities so far. I’ve got to talk to her.”
    Dr. Bruno threw a loud, exasperated sigh.
    “Okay, you know the drill, Conklin. Stand back. Turn off your phone. Don’t get in anyone’s way.”
    Conklin said, “Understood.”
    He stood about eight feet back from the table as the nurses cut off Mackie’s blue cop uniform while she was still strapped to the board, checked her airway, her breathing, examined her head.
    Conklin saw the great purple bruises on her torso, the angry abrasions on her arms and chest, a seat-belt bruise from shoulder to waist.
    Dr. Bruno flashed a light into one of Mackie’s eyes and said, “Concussion,” but the rest of her words were lost as Morales batted the doctor’s hand away and opened her eyes on her own.
    “What happened?” she said.
    “You were in a car accident,” Bruno said. “Do you remember it?”
    Conklin saw the memory light up Mackie’s eyes. And then the impact of the thought came to her in a rush. She heaved upward and tried to sit up, totally impossible to do, strapped as she was to the board.
    “Where’s my
baby?
” she screamed.
    Conklin went to her and said, “Mackie, Ben’s okay. I saw him. He’s going to be fine.”
    Did she recognize him?
    “Mackie, it’s Richie. It’s me.”
    “Oh, fuck,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

Chapter 105
    CONKLIN TRIED TO keep the shock off his face. Mackie looked feral. She’d been severely traumatized. Maybe she actually didn’t know him.
    He said it again. “Mackie, it’s me. Richie. Conklin.”
    “Where’s Randy?”
    Where’s Randy? The sexual predator? The homicidal maniac? That Randy?
    Morales was highly agitated, trying to release herself from her restraints even as the nurses tried to soothe her, listen to her heart, hook her up to air and fluids.
    “Oh,
God
,” she screamed out. “Everything hurts. Give me something for the pain.”
    Dr. Bruno was shouting, “I need CTs, stat,” when Conklin interrupted, said, “Emily, before you take her anywhere, give her anything, I need two minutes.”
    “What are you asking me, Conklin? We’re not wasting the golden hour.”
    “I’m asking for two minutes. This woman filled up your ER tonight. We’ve got bodies in the morgue. I need to talk to her while I can.”
    Dr. Bruno said, “I’m walking out of the room to call radiology. When I come back, you’re done.”
    Conklin returned to Morales, who was crying, her voice guttural, unrecognizable. “Oh, my God, oh, my God. Put me out, please, give me something.”
    “Mackie,” Conklin said. “Talk to me.”
    “You’re kidding,” she shouted. “I hurt like a son of a bitch. Tell them to put me out.”
    “Why were you driving that car?”
    “Why? Because I was breaking Randy out. Don’t you get that, you moron? We were running off with Ben. It was finally our time.”
    Conklin muzzled his outrage. He liked this girl, really liked her, but clearly he didn’t know her. Whatever he’d been thinking about her was a reflection of what he wanted her to be.
    She grabbed his wrist. It was like being clapped into an iron wristband.
    “I don’t want to die,” she said.
    “We don’t have a lot of time, Mackie.”
    “Oh, no, oh, no.”
    “Talk to me now. What’s your connection to Randy Fish?”
    “Damn you. You want your dying declaration, Richie? Here’s the whole enchilada. I killed that Whole Foods woman. Harriet Adams.”
    “Say that again?”
    “Yeah, and I killed the streetcar driver, too, okay? It was
me
. It was a real fucking rush, believe me.”
    Conklin’s bullshit meter was going off. It was impossible to pull off a murder that someone else dreamed. Mackie was delusional. She was concussed and