Chapter 29

Linda poked her head out of the driver's door window as if she were a four year old surveying the kitchen on a cookie run. The ten policemen with an assortment of shot guns and pistols were quite a surprise to her. "Good day officers. I seem to be having a little difficulty with my seat belt." She was still suspended from the drivers seat. One of the policemen with a helmet and bullet proof vest, holstered his gun and walked over to the car. He kicked a little pile of broken glass with the toe of his boot and then climbed up the hood of the Izuzu and then up onto the driver's side door. He reached in and undid the belt. Linda dropped with an ignoble thud onto the passengers side window. She uncrumpled herself and then climbed back up the seats, out the now open drivers door, and then down the back side of the vehicle using the drive shaft as a stepping stool. She looked at the hulk of the Izuzu. Bob had so loved that car. He had loved to go skiing in it. Playing king of the road. Well tough patookas, it was just a toy for that clod she called a husband. She had destroyed it and that was that. As the policeman handcuffed her, the right shoulder began to itch, and she felt the little twitch overcome her face.

"Before we ask you any questions, you must understand your rights: You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions and to have him with you during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before questioning if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you will still have the right to stop questioning at any time until you talk to a lawyer. Do you understand what I have read to you? Having these rights in mind do you wish to talk to me now?" The cop kicked at a few more bits of broken golden glass and shook his head in disbelief. Who in their right mind would ever talk to them? No wonder there were criminals all over the place. Well, it keeps us in business I guess.

Linda began to rant. Her face was contorted in a facial twitch with one eye blinking furiously. Her left shoulder dropped slightly and she seemed unsteady. Two of the other policemen grabbed her from the sides as she began to collapse. They laid her down on the grass as an ambulance drove up. The crew jumped out and ran around to the rear. They brought a gurney and a medical box. They took one look at her and put on rubber gloves. By now Linda was salivating and rolling back and forth. "I'll get you for this Harold. I swear I'll get you for this." The medics and the officers lifted her onto the gurney. They unlocked the cuffs just long enough to get her arms in front of her. They then secured her to a backboard and put the little plastic collar on her. It was a tad bit late for cervical spine precautions but such is life. Once strapped in place, a few vitals taken, Linda fighting all the way, she was off to the General.

San Francisco General is not your typical County Hospital. It is a beautiful concrete building and is reasonably efficient at what it does. There is the usual cast of urine soaked alcoholics asleep on the benches in front and the parade of cars that used to have radios parked in back. When the ambulance rolled in to the docking bay, the gurney was quickly rolled into trauma room two. Linda's clothes were cut off. Vitals were taken. An intravenous line was placed in each arm. Blood was drawn and a blood gas obtained. A foley catheter was placed in her bladder. The requisite rectal exam for fecal blood was negative. Linda screamed all the while. The staff was used to it. This procedure was repeated for every ambulance delivered accident with a likely injury, twenty four hours a day. If you did this to someone at a party, you would do ten to twenty in the state pen for assault, but at the hospital it was de rigeur. The cervical spine films were negative. The urine dip negative. Her three hematocrits were stable. The chest xray-negative. She was moved out of the trauma room when the fourth gun shot of the day came rolling in and she was parked in the hall way next to a drunk with a laceration from a bottle. Linda continued to rave on "That little dweeb. He is going to ruin the planet. The whole planet." The drunk next to her was oblivious but the next one over was just awake enough to listen. He was about to sit up when an intern came over to examine her. The intern rolled her gurney to the rear suture room. A little washout and a few stitches later the glass cuts were barely visible. Linda didn't notice the melee around her. The smell of urine and vomit from the male ward was ripe today and mixed well with the cheap bouquet of Night Train from the drunk next to her. She ranted on for another ten minutes. The intern filled out the form for the head CT scan. Thirty minutes later the CT scan was negative and she was cleared to see the psychiatrist.

He wasn't really a psychiatrist. He didn't even look like one. He had just graduated from medical school and was an intern. Half a year of internal medicine and then three and a half years of psychiatry and he would be a card carrying psychiatrist ready to have his own couch and waiting room with old magazines. Today he was an intern with two months of psychiatry in medical school and two months as a resident. But he could spot a loon just like the rest of us. Ten minutes later he gave up talking to Linda. He checked the CT scan, checked the lab results, and the other tests, and admitted her to 7D.

Seven D, what a charming place. There was an interlocking set of doors that a guard could only open one at a time. Beyond the inner door there was a hospital ward. Not your typical ward with a nurse's station, flowers, and little charts on the wall. There was a special difference. The charts were in a locked room, the rooms all had glass windows with the little crossed wires in them. You know, the kind you had in grade school to keep you from breaking the window. The doors all locked from the outside. The bathrooms had a little sink and a thing that looked like a cross between a bidet and a toilet. Obviously the toilet, but no seat, not the kind of facilities you would expect except in the jail ward. Linda didn't even notice.

Dr. Bebrovy, the psychiatry intern, made the call. He had gotten her home number from the police when they checked her driver's license.

"Hello." Bob was at home watching a video tape on plumbing repair, called "This Old Septic Tank".

"Is this Mr. Grange?"

"Yes, it is." Bob put the video on pause with the remote on a scene describing proper technique for periodic opening of the tank. It was much better on video.

"This is Dr. Bebrovy from San Francisco General Hospital. Do you know a Linda Grange?" Bebrovy was not good at this so he was stuttering a bit.

Yes, she is my wife." Bob sat up and looked concerned.

"She was in a traffic accident today and is in San Francisco General Hospital."

"Is she OK?" Bob got out a piece of paper and was writing down the name of the hospital.

"Medically, she is fine, but she is ranting on and on about someone named Harold." Bebrovy wasn't sure what else to say.

"Can I see her?" Bob wasn't sure he wanted to but that is what a husband was supposed to say.

"You will have to ask the police. She is under arrest for some reason." Bebrovy hadn't checked why she was under arrest.

"Oh my god! What has she done? I'll be right down." Bob slammed the receiver down and cupped his head in his hands.

Chapter 30

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