LOVE, HOPES, & MARRIAGE TROPES

by Abby L. Vandiver

  “I’m happy to keep you company,” I said.

  We sat in the rockers, and Mrs. Westin started a slow steady rock.

  “So, I hear that you are taking over Harley’s practice.”

  That was gossip, sure enough, not the kind I was fishing for, and somehow I knew my Auntie Zanne had started it.

  “No,” I said. “County Commissioners offered it to me, but I’m going back to Chicago.”

  “Oh,” she said. “When are you going back?”

  Good question.

  “I have to find a job first. The job I had downsized.”

  “Then why go back looking for one, if you have a job here?”

  Sounded like she’d been talking to Auntie Zanne.

  Or maybe, Romaine, that just makes sense...

  “The new facility looks really nice,” I said. “I think Doc Westin would have been pleased.”

  “I know he would’ve,” she smiled, “he was always complaining about that old one. And besides me wanting you to keep me company, I appreciate you bringing me his things. I thought there must’ve not been anything worth keeping after I didn’t hear from Miriam once she got the place packed up.”

  “The new office inherited everything that was left,” I said. “When they finished the new place, I had all the things from the old office moved to the new one.”

  “I see,” she said and nodded. “I just figured that there wasn’t anything personal he’d left.”

  “Did you say Miriam before?” I asked, my mind just catching up with my ears. “Do you mean Miriam Colter?”

  “Yes. She helped Harley out sometimes. A nurse of sorts.” She nodded a confirmation. “Mostly with the seniors, and then down at the office.” She chuckled. “Not with autopsies or anything like that. Harley did those all by himself.”

  “Oh that was nice of Mrs. Colter,” I said to Mrs. Westin, but to myself I said, “What?” I couldn’t believe my ears. I cleared my throat. “So, Miriam Colter packed up Dr. Westin’s office?”

  “I already told you that, dear.” She looked at me. “Can you hear me okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. I had heard her loud and clear, I was just distracted because I knew what was in those boxes and now I knew it had been Miriam Colter who had put it there. “I just saw Mrs. Colter today.”

  “You did?” she asked.

  “Yes, she was with the JOY Club at Angel’s Grace. They were working on mums for homecoming.”

  “Homecoming,” Mrs. Westin said. “This’ll be the first year I’ll miss it. Harley and I would go every year. He loved football you know. He didn’t care if it was high school, college or professional.”

  “I haven’t been to a football game since I can’t remember when.”

  “Oh, I enjoy them,” she said. “Harley’s favorite season.” She smiled at the memory. “And Harley loved to rub elbows with the players. Every year he’d have the varsity over for a bar-b-que.”

  “Roble’s varsity team?” I asked.

  “Do you need to sit closer to me?” she asked. “So you can hear?”

  Auntie Zanne was always asking me if I had cotton in my ears. It wasn’t that I couldn’t hear, it was that I surprised at what she was saying and I wanted to make sure I got it right.

  “No ma’am,” I said. “I can hear you just fine. I was just surprised that Doc Westin invited the high school team over.”

  “Why?” she said and looked at me.

  It was true, I didn’t know much about him so how could something he did surprise me? I didn’t know what was usual for him and what wasn’t.

  “I don’t know,” I said and shrugged, trying to make up for my uninformed response. “You know how sometimes young people don’t like to hang out with people who are much older.”

  “Oh, they loved Harley. Lots of times they’d come to him for medical help.”

  That made my ears perk up. Had Bumper come to him for medical help? Help possibly with his asthma? That was the kind of information I was fishing for. “I thought Doc Westin was just the medical examiner,” I said.

  “Oh no. He was a lot more to so many people around here.”

  “Yes. I see that he was.” I bit my lip, not sure how to ask the next question, so I just spat it out. “Did Doc Westin ever treat Michael Hackett?”

  “Bumper?”

  Oh, so she knew him...

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yep,” she said and smiled. “He was the doctor, confidant, and member to the JOY Club. He was their sometime doctor and an all-time fan of the local football team. So many things to so many people.” I saw her smile fade, and a mistiness cover her eyes. I didn’t want her to start crying, I still hadn’t found out if it was possible that Doc Westin did give Bumper inhalers. Possibly ones laced with ricin for God knows what reason. Tears would stall if not stop my questioning. And, I hadn’t found out anything about his alternative cancer treatments, the reason he needed the ricin in the first place. How was I going to bring up his cancer, when just the subject of football brought on tears?

  “When I first wanted to become a doctor,” I said, getting ready to not tell a whole truth, “Dr. Westin really helped me.”

  “He did?” she said and smiled, sniffing back the urge her eyes had to tear. “See. Like I said, he liked helping people. I couldn’t picture him as anything else but a doctor.”

  “So did he help Bumper with his asthma?” I asked, not wanting her to get too distracted.

  “Mostly it was Delores he helped.”

  “Mrs. Hackett? How so?”

  “She was frantic over Bumper playing ball and having asthma, only Harley told me he’d mostly grown out of it. Hadn’t had an episode in a while and knew his triggers,” she looked at me, “at least that’s what Harley called them.”

  “That’s what they’re called,” I said and nodded.

  “Harley told me that even Bumper’s pediatrician wouldn’t write prescriptions for inhalers anymore. Said Bumper was nigh grown and his adult doctor should check him out to see if he still needed it.”

  “Looked like he needed them the day he died,” I said.

  “Must have done something to trigger it then.”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  I knew that people outgrew asthma. I also remembered hearing that he hadn’t had an episode in a couple of years. What made him have one the day of the ceremony?

  Mrs. Westin yawned and I knew I wouldn’t have her full attention much longer, especially with all my questions, even if she was happy to have company. I moved on to my next topic.

  “And when I went through the boxes to see if anything was personal that you might like,” I smiled sweetly, “I saw where Doc Westin been doing research on alternative treatments. It was fascinating, and as a medical professional I was really interested in it. I hope it’s okay that I held on to the box.”

  “The alternative cancer treatments?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Yes.” She nodded slowly and took a minute to speak. “He had cancer.” She looked at me. “Many people didn’t know that.”

  “I wouldn’t tell anyone anything we discuss,” I said. “I’ve taken an oath.”

  “Hippocratic Oath,” she said, nodding, “it says you’ve got to have medical confidentiality.”

  “Yes ma’am,” I said. “It does.”

  “Harley warned me about that almost every time he came home and told me about a patient. And believe me, I never repeated anything he said about a case. Except for the dead ones. Harley said those were public knowledge.”

  “The research had a lot to do with natural methods of treating cancer,” I said, “likes herbs and roots. That’s why I found it so interesting because you know, I grew up around that.”

  “Most people think of Babet as a doctor in her own right,” Mrs. Westin said.
“With her herbs and teas. They’ve helped a lot of people around here. When Harley first got his diagnosis, he went straight to Babet.”

  “He did?” I said.

  “Yes he did.” She gave a single nod. “Wanted to learn what she knew about so he could treat his cancer. Then he tried growing his own garden.” She chuckled. “That didn’t work out too well.”

  “He couldn’t grow anything?”

  “Nothing!” she said. “I told him he should just stick to traditional medicine and let Babet do the gardening.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I got more information than I bargained for from Mrs. Westin. I felt bad using her for information, especially after she told me she was lonely and missing her husband. I suggested that perhaps she should join the JOY Club. Chester had said he took the last spot, but I’m sure they could find room to make for their favorite member’s wife.

  I had stayed a good hour with Mrs. Westin, and when I got ready to leave she made me promise I’d come back to see her. I got into the car and as soon as I drove off, my mind went into overdrive.

  I had discovered that Miriam Colter had access to all the things it took to murder Bumper. She had packed up the boxes, making it easy for her to get what she needed. She came to the wedding and was close to Bumper.

  But why would she leave her evidence behind packed in boxes? And how did she manage to get Bumper to take the inhaler she’d rigged? Could she have even thought and carried out such a devious plan?

  Auntie Zanne did say she was mean and sneaky, and Miriam herself had said that she’d taken care of whoever had wronged her. Would that include committing murder? Did she think Bumper was the young voice that had wronged her? And would her killing scheme have Doc Westin in it? Did she take care of him, too, because he failed to do what he had promised?

  I wasn’t sure, although it almost sounded as far-fetched as Auntie’s assessment of who the murderers were.

  I needed to figure this out.

  I couldn’t go and discuss it with Auntie, she was at one of her many meetings. Planning the homecoming dinner. Her life was so full of things to do. She always tried to get me to go with her, and I’d fight going, digging my claws deep to keep her from dragging me along. But for some reason, at this moment, I couldn’t say why I never wanted to go.

  I pulled up to a stop light and put my foot on the brake. I blew out a breath and laid my head on the steering wheel. I had to take that back. I did know why I started thinking about it.

  I was lonely, too.

  And talking to Mrs. Westin had made me realize it. Right now I needed someone to talk to and the only person I had was Auntie Zanne and she was busy. Sure, she’d say she was never too busy for me, but she had a million things to do.

  And she was right, I didn’t have any friends.

  What a thing to figure out.

  The light turned green and I pressed down on the accelerator. I felt tears well up in my eyes, but then I realized how stupid it would be to cry. I was always talking about my carefully crafted life. I had done this to myself. And there was no reason to cry, it was what I had wanted.

  What I thought I had wanted.

  There was no one now I could call or drop by to see. And all I wanted to do was get back to Chicago because I thought my friends were there. I shook my head. I hadn’t heard from one of them.

  I tried to put my mind back on the murder. The autopsy. The investigation. All those things fulfilled me. Trying to solve it with Auntie, going back and forth with my cousin, Pogue—that excited me.

  It made me happy.

  When I looked up, I realized that I was driving down the road to Catfish’s place. I had come here on autopilot

  How did I get here, I started to say, then I realized it was because I knew that Catfish was someone I could always count on to be there for me. He was another good thing in my life.

  “Hi,” he said, standing on the other side of the screen door, that bashful smile of his spread across his face.

  “Auntie said I don’t have any friends,” I said.

  “You’ve got me,” he said and pushed open the door.

  “Always have. Always will.”

  “Thank you,” I said and stepped inside the house.

  “I was just on my way out to the dock,” he said, walking toward the back. “Sit a while and think. Maybe cast a line.”

  “Sounds good,” I said and followed him.

  Catfish had acres of land, passed down through generations, part of the land his family got in their grant in the mid-1800s of “forty acres and a mule.” His family had been lucky. Most of the land allocated during the war ex-slaves under agrarian reform wasn’t allowed to keep it. The land got restored to pre-war owners. Not theirs.

  I took off my shoes, rolled up my pant legs and sat on the dock, dangling my toes in the water.

  Catfish sat in a chair and picked up his fishing pole. “You know I got a chair up here for you.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I like sitting here.”

  “Nice day.”

  “Yeah. It is a nice day.”

  We sat quietly for a while. Basking in the warm October day, not needing any words between us to enjoy each other’s company.

  “You figured who killed Bumper yet?”

  “Well, that just came out the blue,” I said and chuckled. “What makes you think I’m trying to figure that out?”

  “You figured out the last one,” he said. “I remember you like a good puzzle. Plus, I figured you wouldn’t let Babet take charge of a murder investigation as a justice of the peace. She’d get it into a tangled mess.”

  I laughed. “I think she already has.”

  “Yeah? How so.”

  “She’s got one college’s assistant football coach, a Mighty Max marketing exec, and one of Bumper’s childhood friends committing the murder.”

  “Wow,” he said. A word he liked to use. “That’s pretty out there.”

  “Not as out there as a couple of theories I’ve been mulling over.”

  “Oh yeah? What you got?”

  “My murder suspects include a man who has been dead for two months and an eighty-year old woman who can hardly hold herself upright.”

  “Oh wow,” he said. “You’re getting to be just as bad as your Auntie Zanne.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  It was nearly four thirty when I left Catfish’s place. I was hungry and tired, but I had one more stop to make before I headed home.

  “Hey, Cousin,” I said as I walked inside of the Sheriff’s Office. I needed to drop off the toxicology report to Pogue, and maybe share notes with him on the murder investigation so far. I couldn’t let him know too much of what I was doing because he’d told me not to do anything.

  He was standing at a table that had a coffee machine, cups and a box of donuts on it.

  “Hi,” he said, happy to see me. “What you doing here?”

  “Can’t I stop in to see my cousin?”

  “Romie, you know you’re not one for visiting,” he said.

  “Why does everyone think I’m so antisocial?”

  “Uh, because you are.”

  I waved the envelope at him. “I brought you a present.”

  “Ahh,” he said. “Now I see why you’re here.”

  “One day I’m going to surprise you and just stop by to say, hi.”

  He laughed. “I look forward to that day.”

  “I thought you’d be on your way out, not still working.” I glanced up at the clock on the wall.

  “I’m busy, what can I say.”

  “Who knew there was so much crime in Roble,” I said, almost facetiously, although things were a-changing.

  “Yeah, all this murder business is something.”

  “The crime I’m talking about was some kind of Medicare Part D s
cam I just found out about earlier. Someone perpetrating it on the seniors around here.”

  “You’ve been talking to Miriam Colter.”

  “Yeah,” I said and raised an eyebrow. “She said something to you about it?”

  “Oh my, that’s all I can hear from her.” He shook his head. “She wants me to go and arrest every person in town under eighteen.”

  “Oh,” I said, “because the voice sounded young that made the call to her house?”

  “Right and when it first happened that might have made sense. But that was two years ago. It’s possible that by now they’d be an adult.”

  I laughed. “You weren’t even sheriff two years ago.”

  “I know, but when I got elected she thought she had a new ear to bend about it. Somebody she hoped who would open up an investigation.”

  “Are you going to look into it?” I asked.

  “The other sheriff did some preliminary work on it, I guess. He looked into some juvie records, found out who were some of the little hooligans at the time who might be involved in it or maybe knew about it.”

  “Didn’t find anything?”

  “No. But that might be interesting to you, Michael Hackett was one of the juvie records he pulled.”

  “Bumper?”

  “Yeah, seems like he and a couple of his friends liked to cause a little havoc back then. Got into a little trouble.”

  “They’re all in college now,” I said. “Well, Bumper was in college. And his friends are—the ones I met that is.”

  “Yeah, one of them had been into some trouble for credit card theft. But what I’ve learned from the last sheriff’s investigation, if you want to call it that, there was no way a bunch of high school pranksters could have pulled it off. Someone older, more experienced had to have been running that scam.”

  “Maybe they employed teenagers?” I asked. “That’s why the seniors thought the voices were of young people?”

  “Seniors?” he asked. “Who else?”

  “I was at Angel’s Grace when I heard about it. Seniors from the JOY Club told me about it.”