Turning Angel

The cop with the pepper spray takes a pair of handcuffs from his belt, rushes up to Drew, and cuffs his hands behind his back.

“I was defending myself!” Drew protests, tears streaming down his face. “Pe

“He’s telling the truth!” shouts Drew’s med tech, stepping forward.

The other cop has cuffed Steve Sayers and is now checking the other boys on the ground.

“What happened here, ma’am?” asks the first cop.

Susan Salter swallows and tries to collect herself. “Dr. Elliott and I were just standing here talking, and these kids drove up and started cursing. They picked the fight. I have no idea why. It was crazy! Dr. Elliott did everything he could to avoid it.”

“What’s your name, ma’am?”

“Susan Salter. I’m Dr. Elliott’s medical technologist.”

The cop turns to me. “You’re Dr. Elliott’s lawyer?”

“Yes, I am, Officer. Pe

Drew looks in my direction with tears streaming down his face. “Uh…that’s right, Officer. We were just horsing around, and it got out of hand.”

“Bullshit!” yells one of the boys on the ground. “That bastard tried to kill us! He broke my fucking nose!”

The cop points at Steve Sayers. “In that kid’s hands, a baseball bat is a deadly weapon. It looked like aggravated assault to me.”

The cop is right. Steve Sayers is at least six-foot-one, and he has the hyperinflated musculature I associate with the use of anabolic steroids. All three boys do, come to think of it, which makes me think of Marko Bakic and his little drug business at St. Stephen’s.

“Aggravated assault is a felony, Officer,” I say evenly. “Steve’s a good kid. There’s no reason to put a felony arrest on his record.”

“Everybody wait right here,” says the cop, who looks young enough to be a rookie. He’s not going to make decisions involving prominent citizens without some advice from a superior. As he goes back to his squad car to use the radio, I turn to one of the seniors on the ground. “What the hell were you guys doing?”

“Kiss my ass!” he barks. “That bastard needs his ass kicked. Fucking cradle-robber. Pervert.”

Then it hits me: They know about Drew and Kate.

I’d like to question Drew, but the second cop is standing too close to him. I try to catch Drew’s eye, but the pepper spray has rendered those organs useless for the time being.

When the young cop returns from his car, he walks right past me, informs Drew that he’s under arrest for aggravated assault, then begins reading him his Miranda rights. The other cop takes his cue and does the same to Steve Sayers.

“What are you guys doing?” I ask in the calmest voice I can muster. “Dr. Elliott was clearly defending himself. You heard what he said during the fight.”

“Judge’ll decide that,” says the young cop. “Step back, sir.”

“The most you can arrest him for is simple assault.”

“I’m just doing what the chief told me to do.”

“The chief of police told you to do this?”

“That’s right. You got a problem, take it up with him.”

“I’ll do that,” I reply, but what I’m thinking is, Son of a bitch! This situation is becoming more political by the minute. The police chief should have ordered the patrolman to let Drew go, or at most to arrest him for simple assault, then release him on a recognizance bond. An arrest for aggravated assault can only mean one thing: the chief wants Drew and Steve in his custody. And the only reason I can see for that is the long-ru

The boys cuss and spit at Drew as the cops haul them to their feet. One’s face is a mass of blood below the nose; the other’s left eye is already swelling shut. For a man defending himself against three assailants, Drew did a lot of damage.

A second squad car pulls into the lot. As the police herd their charges into the cars, I promise Drew I’ll meet him at the station. Then I pull Susan Salter into the courtyard of Drew’s office building. She’s hyperventilating now, and her tears are flowing nonstop.

“I don’t understand!” she says in a stu

Is she talking about the fight?I wonder. Or about Kate’s murder? I take hold of Susan’s thin wrists and speak in a reassuring voice. “Listen to me, Susan. I don’t know how much Drew told you about his situation, but I do know this: he trusted you with his life. He told me you’d worked for him nine years, and that he had absolute confidence in you. What you just saw will be the talk of the town by tonight. If you add to that talk, it can only hurt Drew. Do you understand?”

She sucks her upper lip into her mouth as though thinking hard, then nods and wipes her nose. “Don’t worry about me saying anything. I hate gossip. That’s why I quit the hospital. All they do over there is cheat on their spouses and gossip about it afterward. I think they like the talking better than the cheating.”

“Will you tell me what you saw in the parking lot?”

She nods helpfully. “It happened just like I said. We were standing there talking about recombinant DNA, and this big pickup truck screeched to a stop beside us.” She points at a jacked-up orange pickup parked thirty yards away. “There were three guys inside. They looked like high school kids, but big, you know? I think Dr. Elliott knew them, because he waved and spoke to the driver. But then a guy jumped out of the backseat and started screaming at Dr. Elliott.”

“What did he scream?”

“Curse words, mostly.”

“Try to remember exactly.”

Susan has a primitive Baptist’s reluctance to utter profanity. “ ’You motherfucker,‘ I think he said first. ’You sick motherfucker. It was you. It was you all along.‘ ”

Oh wow.This is only a preview of the community reaction to Drew’s secret private life. “Did Drew say anything back?”

“No. He looked too shocked to speak.”

“Go on.”

“ ’You need your ass kicked,‘ I think the boy said next, and then he jumped at Dr. Elliott like he was going to hit him. Dr. Elliott called him by name then. He told Steve to calm down and get back in the truck. But the kid just threw up his fists and kept jumping forward like he was going to hit Dr. Elliott. I was kind of freaked out, but not really scared at that point. It was so weird. But then the other two guys jumped out of the truck.”

“Is that when the bat came into it?”

“No. That only happened after Drew knocked the other two guys down.”

“Who threw the first punch?”

“The first kid. Steve.”

“Did Drew fight back?”

“Not at first. He kept trying to calm Steve down. But after Steve hit him five or six times, Dr. Elliott shoved him backward. Steve fell down, and I think that really embarrassed him. He screamed for the other guys to help, and at that point the other two guys jumped Dr. Elliott.”

“What happened then?”

Susan shakes her head as though in wonder. “I’m not really sure. I mean, it happened so fast. It was like Dr. Elliott knew how to fight and they didn’t. They were really mad, and they were screaming and throwing punches everywhere, but it looked sort of like my husband wrestling with my ten-year-old son. The second it got serious, it was like, over. ”

“How did the baseball bat come into it?”

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