Mad Dog Justice Read Online Free PDF Page B

forward. Roddy sees a space only three cars beyond Walt’s. The guy’s going to maneuver the Chevy into that space.
    Walt’s only a few feet from his Honda. Roddy has stopped in his tracks; he’s standing motionless on the ramp, watching Walt approach his car. The Chevy pulls alongside just as Walt turns to open the driver-side door. The other vehicle partly obscures Walt, but at that moment, Roddy hears a muffled pop—or maybe it’s a soft
pfft
, echoing in the concrete expanse.
    Walt’s knees buckle. He crumples to the cement floor between cars.
    The Chevy peels rubber and races toward the exit ramp. It fishtails and turns sharply as its tires squeal. A second later, it’s gone. A pall of grayish fumes fills the air. Roddy hears the Chevy’s tires shrieking on level three and the sound diminishes as it descends.
    Roddy lunges forward and runs to Walt. The anesthesiologist lies face down on the cement floor. His dark blue overcoat is spread over the pavement. Protruding from beneath the coat, Walt’s legs—clad in green scrub pants—are splayed.
    A sharp pang shoots through Roddy as though electricity courses through his skin. He kneels beside Walt and sees a blood-rimmed hole in the back of his skull. It’s no bigger than the tip of Roddy’s pinky finger. Walt’s blondish brown hair is matted withblood seeping around the hole. There’s no sign of an exit wound. A bullet has lodged deep in his brain. Walt’s face is milky white, has gone slack, lost its muscle tone.
    Roddy grasps Walt’s wrist and feels for a radial pulse. None. His fingertips shoot to Walt’s neck, but there’s no carotid pulse either.
    Roddy feels chilled to his core.
That bullet was meant for me
.
    It’s unbelievable. Walt McKay’s dead.
    Only minutes ago, they were joking in the surgical suite’s locker area. But his life is gone and Walt’s now a corpse. How can that be? He’s known Walt for eight years; they’ve worked together through hundreds of surgeries, shared plenty of cafeteria lunches, gone out together with their wives, and played four-wall squash a few times. Walt McKay—always ready with a joke to relieve OR tension. Walt—a guy who’d give you the shirt off his back, a married man with three kids. Jesus, how can this be?
    Roddy’s hands tremble as he reaches into his coat pocket, and in a hazy fog, grabs his cell phone. He’s not even thinking as he dials 911. He’s not sure his tongue will form the words he’ll need to talk to the police.
    With Walt McKay lying in a limp heap and Roddy kneeling over him, it all coalesces and hits him like a sledgehammer: my life is over.

Chapter 5
    R oddy slumps into a leather chair in the doctors’ lounge. His mind reels from the bleak reality of what’s happened.
    Walt McKay is dead, a guy I worked with for eight years, a great guy, a family man who never spoke an unkind word about anyone. He died from a bullet meant for me. And what happens now? What about Tracy and the kids? And Danny, Angela, and their kids. Are any of us safe?
    He closes his eyes and tries to erase the image of Walt lying on the concrete. The sound of those squealing tires reverberates in Roddy’s ears. He knows Walt’s rush to get home was the reason he was mistaken for Roddy. He got to the garage less than a minute ahead of Roddy.
    It should have been me, not poor Walt
.
    Roddy glances up at the wall clock: ten thirty. He called Tracy and told her what happened.
    “Oh my God. How terrible,” she cried. “And so soon after what happened to Danny. What’s going on?”
    Roddy hears a commotion in the hallway. Bronxville detectives are still questioning people: nurses, doctors, Walt’s colleagues and friends. Roddy was questioned by two different detectives for more than an hour. One detective said the hospital would be in lockdown for at least another hour. Roddy feels exhausted; he must have answered a hundred questions, and therewill be more tomorrow from the hospital administration. And, no