“Did you hang up on him too?” I eyed his phone with the suspiciously dark screen.
“You’ll be okay.” At the female paramedic’s voice, I spun to see her and her partner wheeling the stretcher.
Arthur looked deathly pale against the white sheet, and panic surged within me. I wanted to stalk over and demand to know if he was going to be okay.
Except they appeared to be very focused, and anything that might delay the trip to the hospital would be bad.
I heard shouts of, “Kevin. Kevin!”
The young man and I pivoted to see two men being held back by a female police officer from one of the four patrol cars now parked haphazardly along the street.
“You can’t go down there, sirs.” The woman couldn’t be more than perhaps twenty-four…so a couple years younger than me. Not much of a force to be reckoned with, against two determined guys a decade older.
“Dad!” Kevin waved.
The officer glanced at us as I encouraged Kevin to move toward two rather harried-looking men. The shorter and slimmer of the two kept running a hand through his straight brown hair. The taller and broader guy waved agitatedly at Kevin. And despite Kevin being skinny and not tall for thirteen, he really did favor the bigger guy with matching snub noses and wavy hair and something about the shape of their eyes. Dad, I presume. And the other one must be Alec.
“Officer—” I called.
“Branson.”
“Right.” I tried to smile even as the ambulance pulled away, siren blaring.
Using that momentary distraction, Kevin’s fathers slipped past Officer Branson to snatch the young man into their arms, the likely bio dad sweeping him into a hug while the shorter guy hugged them both and clutched the kid’s sleeve like he wasn’t ever going to let go. After a moment, the bio dad said, “Let’s get you home.”
“Hey—” Branson shouted, striding toward the huddled family.
“Officer Branson?”
She met my gaze.
“He just saw someone get shot?—”
“Which makes him a witness. We’ve got officers who’ll need to take his statement.”
“I’d prefer you start with me. I saw what happened.” Whether I could be a great witness was an entirely different story. Everything had happened so fast.
“And you are?”
“Brooklyn. Brooklyn West. I was walking down the street, and I heard a gunshot, and?—”
“Sir.” She held up a hand. “I’ll need to take your statement as well, but perhaps not at this exact moment.” Even as she said the words, the front door of the house opened.
The sheriff’s deputy and the other officer guided a handcuffed Frank down the driveway and to their car.
Frank whined, “Someone’s got to look after my chickens. That damn coyote will come back and eat them?—”
“It’s not a coyote!” Kevin actually yelled the words. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. The dog’s a pittie?—”
“Kevin.” The dad who had his arm protectively around the boy squeezed his shoulder. “Maybe let’s let the police do their job. He had a gun.”
“He shot Arthur. But he didn’t have to shoot him. We could’ve caught the dog?—”
“Damn coyote probably has rabies.” Frank tried to angle himself toward the deputy propelling him by the arm. “Kathleen?—”
“That’s Deputy Olson to you. You can’t shoot people. I’ll see about your chickens, but you’ve been advised of your right to remain silent, and I suggest you do that.” She tucked him into the car with way more gentleness than I would have, had our situations been reversed.
“Is that blood?” Officer Branson pointed to my hand.
