Third Rail by Rory Flynn Page A

his cell phone.”
    â€œThat’s weird. Didn’t it get smashed?”
    â€œHe dropped it on the bridge. Ended up in Evidence downtown.”
    â€œSo a cop took it?”
    â€œMaybe, Harky. All I know is Pauley Fitz’s phone is missing and no one signed it out.”
    â€œWeird.” Harkness sits in the quiet car for a moment, staring at the gray cement hospital.
    â€œLooks like someone’s got it in for you, Harky. All we got to do is figure out who.”
    â€œThat’s always the hard part,” Harkness says.
    â€œI’ll help you.”
    â€œI know that,” Harkness says. “Got to go.”
    â€œMeters?”
    â€œNo. Heading to the hospital to bother a drunk driver who’s about to die.”
    â€œYou get to have all the fun,” Patrick says. “Listen, I got some other bad news.”
    â€œHow bad?”
    â€œReal bad. Watch-your-back bad. Leave-town-at-high-speed bad.”
    â€œWhat’re you talking about?”
    â€œCan’t tell you now, Eddy. Didn’t exactly find out via normal channels. Come downtown and we’ll talk.”
    Â 
    The mound is covered by sheets and blankets, woven with tubes and wires, and surrounded by pulsing monitors no one seems to notice. Harkness can’t imagine that it’s human or alive. From the door of the blazingly bright ICU, he watches the doctors and nurses connecting tubes and setting up equipment. Their hushed, urgent voices make it obvious that Robert Hammond isn’t going to be walking out of Nagog Regional any time soon.
    â€œCan I help you?” A young male nurse with his dark hair pulled back in a stubby ponytail turns toward Harkness.
    Harkness takes off his hat and gives the nurse his cop look—serious, concerned, and honest. “I’m here to ask Mr. Hammond a few questions.”
    â€œI don’t think he’s got much to say. We’re pumping him full of drugs.” The nurse squints at Harkness’s badge. “Eddy, right? Eddy Harkness. Nagog High?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œIt’s me, Andy Singh.” The nurse points at his narrow chest beneath baby-blue scrubs.
    Harkness digs back through his high school memories. “Right. Hi, Andy.” While Harkness was at the Academy, on street patrols in Boston, and with Narco-Intel, his high school classmates turned into townies.
    They shake hands and the nurse leads Harkness a couple of yards away from Hammond.
    â€œYou were on the baseball team,” Andy Singh says. “And you were into music, right? I was in a band. The Andy Singh Experience?”
    Harkness remembers a band of shoegazers in the sun at Nagog High’s spring music fest. “Guitar, right? Still playing?”
    Andy shakes his head. “No. Too busy. Besides, I got way into drugs in college. Had to give up on music. Found a program. Stuck with it. Cleaned up.”
    â€œGood. Good for you.” Harkness gives him the hard look and Andy’s eyes drift. When people say they’ve straightened out, they probably haven’t. Odds are Andy has some weed or a pill hoard tucked away in his locker.
    â€œNow I’m working at a hospital. Surrounded by all kinds of drugs. Weird, huh? How things change.”
    â€œWeirder if they didn’t.” Harkness looks back at the mound. “Is this guy going to make it?”
    â€œProbably not,” Andy says. “But you never know.”
    â€œInjuries?”
    â€œBroken arm, cracked pelvis, punctured lung, lots of internal stuff, toxemia.” Andy holds out his hands about a foot apart. “Going to have to take out a big chunk of his liver. Luckily his is the size of
Tay-hass
. Some cranial trauma. Brain’s loose.”
    â€œSounds bad.”
    â€œOught to be dead already. Scrawny little dudes speeding on prom night? They die in wrecks like this. Puffy guys, wedged in their Volvos, it’s like they’re driving around with extra