After running several blocks, the man some knew as Raymond, entered a four-stall garage, found his black Ford Explorer and threw himself inside. Along with the cold wet feeling, adrenalin pumped through his body like never before in his 52 years of life.
He started the vehicle, backed out of the parking space, and began his journey through the rain-soaked streets to I35W. With luck he’d be home within two hours. Still pumped and grinning crazily he thrust his fist violently into the air, unintentionally punching the roof of the SUV. He didn’t feel it at all, so complete was his satisfaction with what he had accomplished tonight.
Raymond had never before killed anyone. Had he hurt women? Oh yes, he had, many times, but this…..what a rush. He knew this would have to happen again. As he played the scene over and over in his mind, relishing the details that he had seared into his brain, the city blocks passed magically. Reaching into his glove compartment he found a cloth rag and blotted his face, which had already been washed fairly clean by the rain. He would need an excuse for the scratches on his cheek.
Raymond traveled south on 35W, skirting Northfield, Faribault, Owatonna, and then after turning onto 218 South, Pratt, Bixby, Blooming Prairie, and finally….Austin. Home. This had been his home for the past 26 years. It was a town of about twenty three thousand people and one main employer, Hormel, a meat packing plant.
This town has always been a one trick pony, he thought. As Hormel had expanded to other cities across the U.S., the local plant had contracted, employing probably a thousand fewer workers today than it had 50 years ago. Pay rates had shrunk for the local plant workers as well, after the company had endured a bitter strike in 1985. Strikebreakers had been brought in and many of the locals had also returned to work, as the strike dragged on for months and money ran low. It had been a terrible situation for the workers who had suffered a 23% cut in their pay at the hands of the very profitable company. As it was across America, the workers took the pay and benefit cuts while the top executives kept increasing their own. This had been the Ronald Reagan America. Screw the unions and working class while funneling more money to the already well off and rich. Oh well, not my problem, Raymond said to himself. He had carved out a life that he loved.
He passed a police cruiser as he traveled on 1st avenue, and smiled like a maniac as he stared at the patrolman inside and wagged his index finger. Maybe I should stop in at the office and see what was happening. Glancing at his clock on the dash he noted that it was barely after midnight.
The rain had stopped a couple of hours ago and he had dried off slightly as he stepped out of the SUV and almost skipped into the law enforcement center. “Hey, Chief, what are you doing here?” called a dispatcher as he entered.
“Just got back into town and thought I would check up on things,” he said, actually telling the truth. Then the lies began. “The convention at Redwood Falls was a great experience. I think I brought back some procedures we could use here, and you know…. the after hours stuff I can’t stand, so I decided to return early and get to bed …after checking things out here.”
“We’ve had a little excitement, but nothing we couldn’t handle,” said the dispatcher, who didn’t seem to notice the scrapes on the chief’s face.
The chief walked leisurely into his office and started going through the communications that had piled up on his desk while he had been gone for three days. Just going through the motions was all it was though, for he was still lost in the excitement that had been his earlier. Suddenly remembering the scratches he stood up quickly and moved into the bathroom tucked off to the side of his office, a nice little perk, he thought. He started working on cleaning the scratches and his story. Chief Adrian Pope was very pleased with himself tonight.
The ambulance pulled into the emergency room space of the trauma center at North Memorial. Working fast, the paramedics transported Elizabeth into the massive hospital. Immediately, nurses and doctors who had already gathered the pertinent information met the ambulance. The crew rushed to get her into surgery. It seemed like a miracle that she was still alive. None of the paramedics had seen anything like this before. An apparent stab wound to the heart and yet, she lived?
After assessing Elizabeth quickly, Surgeon Martin Conrack viewed the X-Rays and was surprised by the results. I’ll be damned; her heart is on the opposite side of her chest. It was known in medical terms as situs inversus with dextrocardia. This was a congenital condition in which the major visceral organs were reversed or mirrored. The heart was on the right side of the thorax. It occurred in less than 1 in 10,000 people. This was the reason he loved the trauma unit. A veteran surgeon saw everything here if he stayed in the game long enough.
The paramedic’s quick actions of applying pressure to and then sealing the wound and administering oxygen had saved Elizabeth’s life. Now it was Dr. Conrack’s turn. He prepared for surgery to stitch the laceration to her lung. Lacerations to the lungs generally did not bleed very much because the blood vessels involved were small and pressure from them was low, but in this case the wound was large and best practice demanded that it be stitched, so Conrack and the rest of the team- nurses and an anesthesiologist, worked swiftly to save Elizabeth’s life.
