22 February 1993 – Avocado Street, Springfield, Massachusetts

Jeff parked his truck at Connecticut River Valley Ambulance’s headquarters and grabbed his coat and stethoscope. For an industrial area, CRVA’s garage wasn’t in too bad of a spot. Nestled at the end of a dead-end street and up against the Connecticut River, it was easy to forget where you were. The road noise from nearby Interstate 91 was the only hint you might be near civilization.

Jeff inhaled a lungful of crisp winter air as he exited his truck. The air near CRVA’s garage was clean today, owing to the southwest wind coming up the river. The winter sun tried its best to warm the air, but the mid-twenties temperature won that battle. However, the weak sun did, at least, keep the pavement clear. The crews wouldn’t eat their dinners along the riverfront as they did in the summer, though.

Jeff entered through the employee entrance and stepped into the crew room. He checked the ambulance assignments to ensure he and Gene would use Ambulance 15 for their shift. Gene entered a minute later, and they traded their standard greetings and insults.

They heard yelling coming from the front office while they punched in. Whoever yelled probably made the front office staff deaf. They walked towards the front of the building and heard a loud <crash> before they reached the office door.

Jeff and Gene entered in time to see Dawn Ebersole stomping away from the building. The front door flapped open in the breeze, and its hydraulic closing arm hung twisted and useless from the frame. Bill Harris, Stu Masterson, and Connie Willis all scowled at the sight. Stu wore his street clothes, while Connie and Bill wore their uniforms. Bill sighed and waved everyone towards the crew room.

“People! May I have your attention, please?” Bill called to the other crews. They looked at him, curious. “Dawn Ebersole is no longer employed at Connecticut River Valley Ambulance. Please do not allow her access to company property or vehicles as of this date. If she does show up here, please notify me, the on-duty supervisor, or the local police as necessary.”

Bill motioned the original group from the office out to the garage. Then, at the back of Ambulance 15, he explained what happened to Gene and Jeff in low tones.

“Guys, I rode third with Connie and Dawn today. Unfortunately, unlike the two of you, Dawn has not made the progress we like to see in new employees over the five months she’s been here. Based on the reports I’ve gotten from Stu and Connie, she’s started to backslide. Watching her performance today, she appeared to me like a misplaced rookie. Her skills were marginal. Even worse, she showed little empathy for our patients.”

“Back here in my office, we showed her the facts. We had stacks of signed preceptor reports, which Dawn countersigned, detailing her initial progress and then her regression. I wanted to offer her an extended probationary period until she started spewing invective.”

“Invective?” Gene asked before Jeff could.

“She called me an ‘effing dyke,’” Connie said with anger evident in her voice. “We’ve been working together for five months, and she knows that I’m gay, but she didn’t say a word about it until just now. So she’d better not ever cross my path again.”

“Her shifts will be open for a while. Our other trainees are already assigned other shifts. We don’t have anyone else in the pipeline at the moment. So we won’t get another surge of applications until the next batch of local EMT classes finishes, based on experience.”

They talked for a few more minutes until Stu needed to leave for his son’s basketball game.

“Connie, does she know where you live?” Jeff asked.

“I don’t believe so, no.”

“Just watch your surroundings back at the apartment. I wouldn’t put anything past Dawn at this point.”

“I’m glad you were home today, Jeff. I don’t know what I would have done.”

“You would have called my dad, eventually,” Jeff replied while the Valley Automotive flatbed pulled away with Connie’s car.

“Sure, an hour from now when I stopped freaking out. What did you say it might be?”

“Hopefully, just the transmission shift solenoids. Those control the flow of the transmission fluid and make the car shift. Dad’ll have it figured out pretty quick, and fixing it shouldn’t take more than a few hours if that’s what it is. Shouldn’t be too expensive in that case, either.”

“Well, with Steve not charging me much in rent, I’ve been able to build up my savings. So as long as it’s not the actual transmission, I’ll be able to handle it.”

“Steve knew you needed to get your feet back under you over the past two and a half months. Don’t sweat it. Let’s get back inside if we’re going to keep chatting. It’s too cold out here to be standing around this parking lot.”

Connie noticed the message light blinking on the answering machine when they entered the kitchen from the back deck. She pressed the button, and the messages began to play.

“Connie, Jeff, it’s Bill Harris. Call CRVA when you get this message. <BEEP>”

“Connie. Jeff. It’s Stu Masterson, and it’s about 10:30 on Wednesday morning. Call the office as soon as you get this. <BEEP>”

“Guys, it’s Bill again. Would you please call in as soon as you get this message? <BEEP>”

“<End of messages.>”

“We were only outside for thirty minutes. I wonder what’s so important?” Connie asked as she dialed CRVA’s number.

“Hey, Paul, it’s Connie Willis. We … Wow, whatever it is, I’m being transferred to Bill Harris already … Hey, Bill, it’s Connie. Yeah, he’s here with me. Why?” Jeff saw Connie’s face fall when she received the answer to her question. “No …” she wailed. “Oh, no! Okay. We’ll be there. Bye, Bill.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Jeff, they coded Mr. Noke this morning,” she replied while a tear tracked down her face. “He’s dead. There’s a preliminary meeting about him at CRVA at two p.m.”

The two roommates didn’t get much accomplished around the apartment before they left for the meeting. A somber Connie and Jeff joined a silent crowd in the crew room at CRVA later that afternoon. The Noke family hadn’t announced any arrangements yet. But the company came up with a plan to honor Mr. Noke at his funeral.

“Hey, Jeff, Paul in dispatch got a message for you from your dad,” Neil Fournier informed him before he and Connie left an hour later.

“Thanks, Neil,” Jeff replied as he read the note Neil handed him. “Connie, your car’s ready. We’ll stop at my dad’s garage on the way back to the apartment.”

“Seems like you were right again – that it wasn’t as bad as I thought.”

“Hold off on your exuberance until Dad hands you the bill.”

“You’re a real wet blanket, you know?”

“I do what I can.”

Thirty minutes later, Joe Knox handed Connie an invoice for her car’s repair.

“Mr. Knox, you only charged me for parts. What about the time you spent working on the car? Your labor costs?”

“Joseph spent barely half an hour working on your car.” Joseph was Jerry Gulbicki’s son. A skilled mechanic, his work enhanced Valley Automotive’s already stellar reputation. “And you’re what … less than three months out from that fire? So let this be our way of helping you out a bit more.”

“Okay, okay,” Connie relented. “But full price next time! You can’t keep the lights on here if you keep giving away your time!”

“With Jeff out of the house, we’re still saving money on food. So I don’t have to work as hard here.” Jeff gave his father the finger. “Your mother would wash your mouth out with soap if she saw that.”

“For what? I didn’t say anything.”

“Go on, git. Some of us have work to do.”

Jeff followed Connie back to Bilzarian’s and saw no trouble with Connie’s car on the way. She reported none after they parked their vehicles.

“Hey, did you check the mail before we left?” she asked him.

“No, I thought you did,” he answered before they walked to the street.

There was a mail slot in the door to the front staircase. The lights from the Common and the businesses lit the center of town while the daytime faded tonight. Connie and Jeff collected their mail and walked up the stairs after securing the front door. Jeff pulled the shades down before turning on the lights there.

“It’s been about a month since you told me you felt that someone was watching you. So why are you still pulling the shades and curtains before you turn on the lights?”

“Part of it is a habit now, I suppose, Connie. Part of it’s not wanting to give the enemy a chance to study our movements.”

“Enemy?”

“Sounds pretty paranoid, I know, but …”

Connie laughed at him. Jeff started making dinner, one of his specialties: spaghetti carbonara.

“I don’t know how you can eat this stuff and keep your girlish figure,” she said while he plated the cheesy bacon and pea-laced pasta thirty minutes later.

“I’ll run an extra mile tomorrow,” he quipped as he sat.

Before tasting a single forkful of the meal, they heard a muffled <bang> from the back of the building.

“Wait!” Jeff barked when Connie moved towards the door to the back deck.

He darted into his bedroom and returned with the same shotgun and .45 he used to defend himself almost a year earlier.

“The hair on the back of my neck’s been standing up since we came home. Kill the lights.”

Connie didn’t question him and did as he asked. With the lights off, Jeff used a window over the driveway to check the back parking lot. He waved Connie into the living room area and turned off those lights. Jeff picked up the cordless phone.

“Enfield 9-1-1, this call is being recorded. What is your emergency?”

“Mrs. Somersworth? It’s Jeff Knox at Bilzarian’s again.”

“Jeff? More trouble at your place?”

“Yes, Ma’am. 223 Main Street, Bilzarian’s parking lot for two cars on fire.”

“My car?” Connie cried. She tried to push past Jeff, but he forced her to the same window he looked out earlier. Jeff also blocked her path to the back door.

“Don’t go out there, Connie. I don’t like this.”

“Jeff? Are you still there?”

“I’m here, Mrs. Somersworth. I was keeping my roommate from going out to our back deck. Something’s wrong with this whole situation, and it’s got me on edge.”

“They refill propane tanks at Bilzarian’s. Where are you parked in relation to their storage tank?”

“Opposite side of the lot, Ma’am. Our vehicles are well away from the propane. The burning vehicles are an ‘83 Chevy K-10 pickup and an ‘83 Chevy Chevette hatchback. There’s a hydrant just down the street, in front of 219 Main.” Jeff heard the first fire engine pull down the driveway. He listened to their radio call over the phone also. “The fire department’s here, Mrs. Somersworth, so I’ll let you go. Ask the officers responding to check the door off the loading dock again, please?”

“Will do, Jeff. Call back if you need something.” Jeff hung up.

Now Connie questioned him. “Jeff, what’s going on? Why won’t you let me out there?”

“Do you remember the car fire they had off Division Street in Springfield right after I started at CRVA last year?” he asked in a hushed voice.

“Vaguely, why?” she replied in the same quiet voice.

“A former boyfriend set his ex-girlfriend’s car on fire and then stabbed her when she came out of her apartment to look. The lights on the deck are out. Someone is waiting for us outside, Connie; I can feel it.”

“Okay, you’re weirding me out now. Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

“I wasn’t kidding earlier when you asked me why I always pull the shades after dark. I had a vague feeling, but I wasn’t sure. So now, I don’t want whoever is out there to know where we are, what we’re doing, or that we’re armed.”

“You think somebody is waiting for us out there?” Jeff could hear the fear creeping into Connie’s voice.

“I wasn’t sure until our cars caught fire, but now? Absolutely! Anyone coming in here uninvited is getting a load of double-aught buck right in the chest, followed by a slug. If anything happens, I want you in your room with the deadbolt locked.”

Jeff installed a lock for Connie when she moved in, though she’d never used it. Now, Connie curled herself into a ball on the floor outside her room while Jeff stood guard over her. Five minutes later, Jeff heard yelling on the back deck. Male voices barked commands over and over for about thirty seconds, then silence. A minute after that, someone knocked on the back door.

“Jeff, it’s Jack,” a welcome voice called.

The lights on the deck were still out, even though the switch for them was on. So Jack Dwadczik lit his face with his flashlight so Jeff could see him.

Jeff unlocked and opened the door. “We have to stop meeting like this,” he said.

“Yeah, when you invite me over, why are there always intruders and firearms involved?” Jack asked, pointing to the shotgun Jeff held at a low-ready position and the .45 in his waistband.

“Where’s that dyke bitch, Jeff?” a loud, coarse voice shouted. “I’m gonna kill her! I’m the one who’s interested in you! I’m the one who’s interested in men!”

Jeff pointed his flashlight in the direction of the voice. The beam lit the snarling face of a woman he hoped he’d never see again. An aluminum softball bat lay next to her.

“Dawn Ebersole,” he sighed.

“You know who this woman is?”

“Dawn Ebersole. She used to work for the same ambulance company in Springfield that Connie and I do. Unfortunately, she was fired about two months ago.”

“It was that bitch in there who got me fired! I’m gonna kill her! Come out here, bitch! I’m going to give you what you’ve got coming to you!”

“Pete, did we Mirandize her?” Jack asked one of the officers holding her down.

“Sure did, Sarge. As soon as we took her down.”

“Spontaneous utterance, then. You two get her out of here.”

The two other officers wrestled the small, angry woman down the stairs.

“Can I come in, Jeff?” Jeff opened the screen door, and his old friend stepped in. Jeff turned the kitchen lights on. Connie no longer sat on the floor, and her room’s door was closed.

Jeff ran through the sequence of the day’s events for Jack. Jack asked him a few questions for clarification, then asked Jeff to sign a statement. Jeff quickly agreed and inquired about a restraining order against Dawn.

“And I’m sure Steve Bilzarian will ask for at least a criminal trespass warning against her as well, Jack.”

“He’s got it as soon as he asks. It’s a good thing that you parked your vehicles across the lot from that propane tank. I hate to think about what could have happened if the fire had been next to it. An explosion from a tank that size could have leveled the whole business district.”

“Do you need to speak to Connie?”

“I do, yes.”

Jeff knocked on Connie’s door, but there was no answer. Then, finally, a sheet of paper with a signed statement slid its way out from under the door.

“This is good enough for tonight, Jeff. I’ll be in touch if we need more. It’s clear to me that woman intended to ambush you and your roommate tonight. There are signs that she forced the door downstairs. She unscrewed the light bulbs over the deck, and she was lying in wait for the two of you. I think you threw off her plans when you used the front door. She lit your cars on fire and planned to attack when you came out to the fire. I’m glad you had a hunch on this; I’d rather not investigate a double homicide, especially the deaths of people I know.”

Jeff shook his head. “Unreal. All right, thanks, Jack. Keep in touch. You think they’ll keep her locked up for a while?”

“No bail is a guarantee on this, and so’s your request for an emergency restraining order. You’ll have to go to court in Northampton to have that extended past forty-eight hours. She’s going to buy a thirty-day evaluation committal at Bridgewater at least.” Bridgewater State Hospital is where the Commonwealth sends defendants who need mental health evaluations before trial. “Odds are you’ll never have to see her again if you’re lucky.”

Jeff thanked Jack and showed him out the back door. The deck would remain off-limits until the police processed the crime scene, possibly into tomorrow morning, so Connie and Jeff would have to enter and exit via the front stairs. After locking up, Jeff made another attempt to talk with Connie to no avail. He’d have to borrow a car from his Dad to get to work tomorrow. A phone call to his parents’ house confirmed a couple he could borrow at his father’s garage. Joe would pick Jeff up an hour before his scheduled shift for the drive to the garage.

Jeff unloaded the shotgun. He put it and the shells back into the gun safe. The loaded .45 went under his pillow.

The following day, Jeff found Connie’s door still closed. CRVA hadn’t called looking for her after six a.m., so Jeff guessed she called out for her shift. Jeff dressed and walked to the Valley Credit Union branch where he did his banking. The manager assured Jeff could get a cashier’s check for a new vehicle whenever Jeff needed it. The manager also told him he’d deliver it personally anywhere in the valley to facilitate the process. There was plenty of money in Jeff’s account to cover a new vehicle.

Jeff walked back to Bilzarian’s to talk with Steve. The car fire blackened the spot where he and Connie had parked, but repair costs would be minimal since the lot was cinders and not pavement. Left unsaid was any concerns Steve might have over Jeff’s second violent incident in two years.

Jeff returned to the apartment to find Connie’s door still closed. He sighed and went about preparing for his shift. Jeff prepared his uniform, packed a dinner, then ate his lunch. After lunch, he shaved, showered, and changed. Finally, he waited for his father on the store’s loading dock.

A CRVA, Jeff learned he was correct about that morning. Connie called out for her scheduled shift the night before, citing the need to secure another vehicle. Jeff’s shift with Gene was unremarkable: all transfers and no responses.

Mr. Noke’s wake would be the following evening in Springfield. The funeral would be Friday morning. Gene, Stu, and Jeff planned to wear uniforms of their respective armed services to both. CRVA staff who weren’t veterans would wear their work uniforms with ties, work jackets, and white gloves.

When Jeff returned home at midnight, Connie’s door stood open, but her belongings were gone. An envelope with his name sat on the coffee table in the living room. With it was her apartment and room keys. The envelope held a thank you card and a check.

Dear Jeff,

I’m sorry to do this to you, Jeff, but I have to go. 1993 is shaping up to be a horrific year for me, and I need to start over somewhere else. I’m leaving the state. I’m hoping that I can start over in another place. Trying to start over here hasn’t been good for me. I don’t know if I can ever forget the hateful words my family said to me five years ago or the hateful words that woman said last night. Her words cut through the brave front I put on after CRVA fired her. That’s all it ever was – a front. Her words then, as well as last night, scared me, in reality. They’ll haunt me for years, that I know.

I’ll never forget, though, how you made me laugh during the first moment we met, how you were my friend regardless of who I was, how you took me in without hesitation, or how you were ready to protect me last night. I know you would have given your life to keep me safe. So, please, don’t ever think that I’m not grateful for that.

Would you please thank everyone at CRVA, Mr. Bilzarian, and, most importantly, your family for their kindness through the years? Please also tell them I’m sorry I slipped away like a thief in the night. If I ever have children, I hope they grow up to be as fiercely loyal to their friends as you are. If our paths ever cross again, please don’t hate me too much.

Auf Wiedersehen, my friend,
Connie

Jeff stared blankly at the card in his hands. He didn’t hate many people, and Connie Willis would never be on that list. Dawn Ebersole, however, was now firmly on that list along with Connie’s family. He’d better never run into either because the results wouldn’t be pretty. Connie included a cashier’s check with the card made out to Steve Bilzarian for fifteen hundred dollars. The check was to make up for the rent Connie felt she owed him. Jeff knew Steve wouldn’t take it but that he would donate it to an appropriate charity in Connie’s name.

“Vaya con Dios, mi amiga …” Jeff whispered.

“She’s gone?” Stu asked the following evening.

Jeff nodded and handed over a copy of the card. Stu and Gene read it while they waited in line at Mr. Noke’s wake. They stood between the veterans and the rest of CRVA’s staff since they were both. Jeff indicated Stu and Gene should pass Connie’s note down the line of CRVA employees when they tried to hand it back. Jeff already gave Bill Harris a copy.

“Where is she?”

“In the wind, Stu, in the wind. In the note, she didn’t say where she was headed, and Enfield PD tells me her license plate is listed as ‘canceled, plate not returned.’ There’s no other vehicle listed in her name in the Registry database. My guess is she hopped a bus or train going somewhere. We won’t have any way to track Connie unless she gets in legal trouble.”

“Man, now I really hate that crazy bitch,” Stu said, meaning Dawn. “She’s the one who torched your cars? And she was waiting outside your apartment with a bat the other night?”

“Yep. She was arraigned today and shipped off to Bridgewater State for ‘evaluation.’ It won’t take them the whole thirty days to figure out she’s nuts. It’s my guess she’s a lock for ‘not guilty by reason of insanity.’ So Dawn will be at Bridgewater for a long time.”

The following Monday morning, Bill Harris held another company-wide meeting in the crew room at CRVA.

“As you all know, CRVA is a privately-owned business. Mr. Dupuis has owned this company for the past fifteen years. Many of you have been here since he bought it; a few of you were here even before that. However, there are no Dupuis children to continue family ownership, so Mr. Dupuis has agreed to sell CRVA to Westover Regional EMS. Over the next three months, the two company’s operations will merge. The name of the combined company will continue as Westover Regional EMS.”

Stunned silence settled over the staff. In contrast to the name, Westover Regional wasn’t based anywhere near the Air Force Base. Instead, their base was in Westfield, Massachusetts, on the opposite side of Springfield and the Connecticut River. Moreover, WREMS didn’t have a stellar reputation for taking care of its employees. CRVA was one of the best around in that regard.

“Some of you may not be aware, but we are not employees of Connecticut River Valley Ambulance, Inc. We are employees of Hampshire Staffing, which leases our services to CRVA. What does that mean for us? It means that we will be required to apply for jobs with WREMS and interview with them. Anyone ultimately hired by Westover Regional will have their length of service at CRVA transfer to WREMS, credited at fifty percent for seniority purposes.”

If the part about reapplying for jobs they already held generated rumblings in the room, the seniority news created an uproar. WREMS would treat employees with twenty years of service as ten-year employees. They knew they would be reminded of their loss of seniority by their new ‘peers.’

“The application process will begin in approximately two weeks. Are there any questions?”

The room erupted. Everyone began talking at once, but Jeff ignored it all. Mr. Noke’s death was an open wound for him, exacerbated by Connie’s flight. Mr. Noke’s wake and funeral left that wound raw and weeping. Today’s news was salt rubbed into it by sandpaper. Jeff worried more was around the corner.

Later that week, Jeff's concerns proved justified.

“Jeff, I’m going to be moving in with Nancy and her family in Deerfield,” Mrs. Noke informed him on the way home from dialysis Saturday night.

Nancy was the oldest Noke daughter. Gone was Trudy’s cheerful, playful banter of the past year. Gone too were her attempts to help him learn German. Instead, the conversation was bland and business-like. Jeff closed his eyes; the fabric of his stable life was fraying at an alarming rate.

“When, Ma’am?”

“A month or so. Nancy’s home has an in-law apartment attached, and I’ll be moving into it. I’m changing my dialysis treatments to a center up there.” Deerfield wasn’t too far in the scheme of things, only thirty or so miles up Interstate 91 from Springfield.

“Will we still be picking you up, Ma’am?” Trudy Noke looked away. “I take it that’s a ‘no?’”

She shook her head. “The ambulance service the center contracts with has an office in Deerfield. We’ll use them once I move there.”

Well, Scheisse.

“The breaks just didn’t go our way this season, John,” Jeff remarked when Amherst High School eliminated them from their conference’s baseball playoff race. Unfortunately, the 1992-93 hockey season hadn’t been very successful for Thompkins this winter, either. Both teams were young and showed promise, however.

“No, they didn’t,” John sighed.

“We’ll get ‘em next year.”

“There won’t be a ‘next year,’ Jeff. Not here. At least, not for me.”

“John?” Jeff asked, his voice full of concern.

“Hmm?” John hummed in reply, turning to his assistant coach. “Oh, not that, Jeff. Health-wise I’m fine, other than the kids giving Carrie and me gray hair.” John’s kids were in their early teens. “No, I meant that I won’t be returning to Thompkins next year.”

“Not returning? What are you going to do, John? You’ve been here a dozen years.”

“I’ve been offered the Athletic Director’s position at a private school up in Vermont, just over the line from Greenfield. They’ve got a solid hockey program there that needs a coach as well. So they’re going to let me wear both hats. They have a good baseball coach already.”

“So endeth my coaching career,” Jeff muttered.

“Only if you want to end. You’re good, Jeff. I can easily see you coaching in the future.”

“Thanks, John, but I’m enjoying being an EMT, and I’m starting to consider becoming a paramedic. Maybe once I go to paramedic school, have kids, and settle down, I’ll coach again. But, until then, I won’t have the time to devote to coaching that the kids would deserve. Have you told the teams?”

“I’ll have to before the school year ends. I wouldn’t want them to find out after the summer when I’m suddenly not here.”

Jeff walked down the front stairs to answer the doorbell one early afternoon in mid-May. He looked through the peephole in the front door before opening it. Jack Dwadczik and Owen “Bud” Ozelynk, Enfield’s fire chief, stood on the sidewalk. Jeff invited the men inside and offered them something to drink. They accepted water since they were both on duty.

“Mr. Knox, while I don’t know you, I’ve known your father for many years. Jack tells me the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree with you.”

“Thank you, Chief, but I’m afraid I still don’t understand why you’re here.”

The fire chief handed Jeff an envelope, which bore the logo of Westover Regional EMS. The letter inside, written by WREMS’s general manager, stated that departments should not now, nor ever, hire one Jeffrey Knox. In addition, the letter detailed Jeff’s ‘abuse’ of an unnamed female, which led to her breakdown and admission to an unspecified mental hospital.

“Mr. Knox, when I opened that letter, I was stunned. As I said, I know your father, and I’ve heard kids talk about how willing you were to show them your ambulance on the Common last year. I’ve also talked to Jack here. Fortunately, this letter does not describe the person I’m sitting across from. I checked with the surrounding departments, and they all received the same letter.”

Jeff couldn’t speak. It took all of his composure not to crumple the letter and envelope in his hands into a tight ball. Instead, he closed his eyes and began counting to one hundred.

“Jeff,” Jack said, “Bud and I had the Town Clerk certify receipt of that letter and notarize five copies for you. We brought those copies, ten un-notarized copies, and every document we could find that refutes the allegations in that letter.”

Jack handed Jeff a packet containing copies of the letter Jack mentioned and a notarized, sworn statement from the Town Clerk detailing the time and date Enfield received the letter from WREMS. The packet also held a copy of the police report from the night Dawn Ebersole set Jeff’s truck on fire and a copy of the official information from the State Fire Marshall’s Office about the fire. Jeff held the documents in his hands as he finished counting to one hundred.

“Gentlemen, thank you for these documents. I have one question for you.”

“What is it, Jeff?”

Jeff smiled. It was not a friendly smile.

“Do you know any good lawyers?”

WREMS accepted Jeff’s application, which surprised him. He would report to the WREMS office on the Thursday before Memorial Day for his interview. Jeff and two other gentlemen walked into WREMS’s office five minutes before the appointed time on the specified date.

Thirty minutes after the scheduled appointment was supposed to start, a secretary ushered Jeff into the general manager’s office for his interview. The manager didn’t rise from his desk, nor did he shake Jeff’s hand when Jeff offered it to him. He didn’t offer Jeff a seat, either.

“This won’t take long, Knox,” the man said. He held up Jeff’s application for employment and dropped it into the trash can next to his desk. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before you work here. It’ll be a cold day in hell before you work in EMS anywhere in this state. If I have my way, you’ll never work EMS anywhere in New England ever again. Your harassment of and baseless allegations against my cousin caused her so much pain and anguish she had to check herself into a mental hospital for treatment! Get out of here, and don’t ever show your face around me again!”

Jeff didn’t say a word before he spun on his heel. Instead, he walked to the office door he left open but didn’t step through.

“Gentlemen, would you join us, please?”

The two men who accompanied Jeff rose from their seats in the lobby. They stepped into the general manager’s office over the protests of his secretary. Jeff nodded to one of the men.

“Mr. Ebersole, my name is Harry Ouellette. I am Mr. Knox’s lawyer. Your cousin is a criminal and a liar.”

Harry lifted a leather briefcase onto Shawn Ebersole’s desk with a solid <thud> and pushed Ebersole’s nameplate, and desk set out of the way. Harry snapped open the brass latches, opened the briefcase, and extracted a bundle of documents. He threw the blue-bound stack onto the desk in front of Ebersole.

“That is a cease-and-desist order from the Court of Hamden County, barring you from mailing any further libelous correspondence, or uttering further slanderous statements, defaming my client.” Harry threw another stack at him.

“That is a certified copy of an incident report from the Enfield Police Department detailing how one Dawn Ebersole illegally trespassed onto private property. She then broke into a secured area on that property, destroyed other privately-owned property legally located there, and intended to assault my client to cause bodily harm to him and one other person.”

More paper flew. “A certified copy of a State Fire Marshall’s Office report that states that a fire on that property that same night was intentionally set. Forensic examination of the clothes your cousin wore that night indicates she set that fire. At her arraignment, your cousin’s spontaneous utterance of ‘I’m gonna kill her!’ was introduced as evidence of intent against her. It was admissible because Enfield Police had already read her rights to her when she made those statements. Your cousin didn’t ‘check herself into’ a mental health facility; she was remanded there on a court-ordered evaluation. That evaluation determined she was competent to stand trial. Your cousin entered pleas of guilty on multiple counts in Hampshire County District Court yesterday, and the court will sentence her in two weeks. Your cousin is headed for a long stretch at the women’s prison in Framingham.” Harry nodded to the other gentleman with them.

That gentleman stepped forward. The six-pointed star of the Hamden County Sheriff’s Department hung from his coat’s breast pocket. The deputy produced a large manila envelope.

“Shawn Ebersole, you’ve been served.” The envelope hit the desk with a resounding <slap!>.

Harry spoke again. “My client has authorized a civil suit against Westover Regional Emergency Medical Services, and you personally, for defamation of character, lost wages, and mental anguish. Have a nice day.”

The three men trouped out of the office, leaving a stunned Shawn Ebersole in their wake.

News of Jeff’s confrontation with Shawn Ebersole spread around both CRVA and WREMS. The door between the reception area and Ebersole’s office remained open during the event, and two CRVA employees waiting for interviews heard every word. WREMS reeled when CRVA employees began rescinding their applications. WREMS employees fed up with how their company treated them resigned as well. Several smaller EMS agencies around Springfield experienced considerable surges in employment applications.

Jeff’s employment at CRVA ended on Saturday, June 5, 1993. The date corresponded with Trudy Noke’s final dialysis treatment in Springfield before moving to her daughter’s house in Deerfield. Dispatch assigned Gene and Jeff to transport her home following her treatment.

The staff at Riverside Hospital’s outpatient dialysis unit gave Trudy a big sendoff. She was a favorite patient there, too. As Ambulance 15 left the hospital, Trudy noticed a long line of vehicles following the ambulance through traffic. The ambulance’s red lights weren’t on, so this wasn’t illegal.

“Why are those cars and ambulances following us, Jeff?”

“They’re coming to say goodbye.”

Trudy Noke sat silently in disbelief.

Gene and Jeff unloaded her from the ambulance in her driveway as a host of CRVA employees drifted over from the street. Even more employees showed up than had last Christmas. When everyone had the chance to say goodbye to the company’s favorite patient, Gene and Jeff escorted her to her front door. Nancy Noke stood there to help her mother inside. Nancy was in awe of the CRVA employees silently standing vigil in the driveway. Trudy turned to Gene and Jeff with tears in her eyes.

“Auf Wiedersehen, mein Euguen, mein Gottfried. Alles Gute – All the best.”

Jeff answered for both of them.

“Auf Wiedersehen, Frau Noke. Alles Gute.”

There wasn’t much to clean out of his locker at CRVA, just a spare uniform. So Jeff left it hanging in there. He’d drop the rest of his uniforms off tomorrow anyway.

“You’ve got our address?” Gene asked him as they walked out to the parking lot together.

“Yeah. You’ve got my parents’?” Gene nodded. “What are you going to do now? I heard you were one of the people who pulled their application.”

“Jean would have killed me if I went to work for those crooks at WREMS,” Gene snorted. “Western General’s adding a BLS division to their EMS department. I’m going there. The hospital’s got good benefits. If I want, they’ll send me to paramedic school, too, once I have five years of EMS experience and after I’ve been with them two.”

“And you can move up to their paramedic units with your seniority intact. Good deal.” Jeff held out his hand. “Good luck, Marine. Take care of those ladies of yours. I’ll see you down the road.”

Jeff loaded the last of his things into the bed of his new pickup. He noted again that he needed an Army-related sticker on the back somewhere.

“You don’t have to go, Jeff,” Steve Bilzarian said as Jeff closed the truck’s tailgate.

“Yeah, I do, Steve. Plus, you can have Charlie move out of the dorms and into the apartment upstairs, where you can keep an eye on him. God only knows what kind of trouble he’s getting himself into over at UMass.”

Jeff was kidding. A very proud Steve told him that Charlie made Dean’s List both semesters of his freshman year.

“A least let me pay you for the furniture you’re leaving behind.”

Jeff shook his head. “You can rent the place out as a furnished apartment. I don’t know where I’m going to land yet, and I don’t have a place to store all of that stuff. Plus, you haven’t charged me a dollar in rent since I moved in two years ago. So we’ll call it an even trade.”

“How’s that civil suit going?”

“Slowly. It’s civil, not criminal, so it’s on a slower schedule. That company will likely be out of business before it even goes to trial. People are leaving so fast they can’t keep trucks on the road. People aren’t applying because the word’s gotten around about what they tried to do to me. I’ll be surprised if I can find the general manager at that point. We named him in the suit individually, too. It’d be nice to squeeze that bastard.”

“Is he why you feel like you have to leave?”

“I want to keep being an EMT or paramedic, but I don’t want to be a firefighter to do it, no offense to them. It’s the medicine that interests me, not the firefighting aspects. If I want to keep doing only the medicine, I about have to leave, despite how hard Chief Ozelynk and Jack Dwadczik are working to clear my name. WREMS poisoned the well for me. It would be an uphill battle. Hopefully, ambulance services near Boston aren’t going to care about a letter from a small service in Western Mass.”

“What did they do, send a letter to every EMS company in the state?”

“Anyone with an ambulance service license. That includes private and municipal services. They were getting ready to mail services in other states at his direction, too.”

“So, back to your parents’ place?”

“Only for a little while. I need to clear my head, so I think I might go on vacation.”