Baby, It's Dead Outside

by E M Kaplan

  “What happened to her? What is going on?” Josie asked with alarm, as she maneuvered herself closer to the bedside.

  She didn’t know what all the machines were, but Lynetta appeared to be on a respirator. Machines beeped and gasped while the woman herself lay motionless with no outward sign of life.

  I need to call Greta. Now.

  Josie reached for the phone in her back pocket and nearly tipped over on her crutches. Before she could dig her phone out of her jeans, Dr. Patel appeared in the doorway.

  “Ah,” he said. “You’re here. As you can tell, she’s stabilized for now, but obviously you’re going to have to make some very tough decisions.”

  Behind him, Ashley’s eyes bugged out. “Dr. Patel,” she interrupted. “I think you should wait for Dr. Charles to get here.”

  “Well, obviously that would be appropriate in a case like this in which the immediate family needs to decide about life support, but that’s not something she must do in the next hour or two. There is plenty of time to make a decision even though it will be a difficult one.”

  “Wait, what?!” Josie gawked at him, feeling the blood drain from her face.

  “Dr. Patel! She just got here. Just now.”

  He stared at Ashley and then abruptly turned on his heel. “Excuse me. I have just been paged, I believe. Someone will speak with you shortly.”

  Dumbfounded, Josie watched him leave before she looked back and forth between Ashley and Lynetta, who lay pale and deathly still on the bed.

  “You need to sit down,” Ashley said, scooting a chair toward Josie, who landed on it heavily, dropping her crutches on the floor in front of her. The young nurse picked them up and set them out of the way.

  “But I don’t understand. What happened?” Josie asked, gazing at Lynetta.

  “I’m so sorry. This isn’t how you should have been informed,” Ashley said, kneeling beside her. She placed a light hand on Josie’s forearm. “Dr. Charles should have been the one to tell you. Your aunt came in very sick several hours ago. In very bad condition.” Her mouth pursed with anxiety and she stood. “Just wait here. I’ll go page the doctor again.”

  After she left the room, Josie leaned closer to the bed, her gaze on Lynetta’s face.

  I don’t understand. I just saw you. I just spoke with you. You were okay. I thought you were faking it. Now you’re lying here unconscious. In a coma.

  The door opened behind Josie and Dr. Charles bustled in. “I apologize it took me so long to get here. I came as soon as I heard you were in the building. Please come with me.” She took a second look and noticed Josie’s wrapped ankle and the crutches leaning against the wall behind her. “On second thought, stay right where you are. I’ll bring another chair.”

  After some shifting and scraping of metal on the linoleum, a second chair was brought into the room for the doctor, who perched on it beside Josie. Dr. Charles turned her head, her sleek gray hair falling around her chin, and scrutinized Josie’s face. “I’m going to be straight with you. And absolutely blunt. I’m not acquainted with you that well, but from what I have learned, I think you’d appreciate it. I know I would.”

  Josie nodded, feeling her face tighten and her forehead wrinkle.

  “Lynetta came to us gravely ill this afternoon. She was transported by emergency services directly here, and they had to attempt life-saving measures in transit. By the time she arrived at the hospital, her organs were already failing, and it pains me very much to have to tell you that our machines are not detecting any brain activity at this time. These breathing machines are currently keeping her body alive, but otherwise, Lynetta has already passed on.”

  Josie couldn’t help her deep, shocked inhalation. She felt like she was trying to breathe for poor Lynetta. A weird feeling gathering in her throat threatened to choke her. The emotion welling up was going to come out in a gasping sob if she didn’t force herself to take a breath—a real breath.

  “Do you understand what I’m telling you?” Dr. Charles asked.

  Josie nodded, feeling somewhat dizzy. “Not in a coma.”

  “No, not in a coma.”

  

  “I need to call Lynetta’s sister. Right now.” Greta would know what to do. Josie sure didn’t.

  “Of course. I’ll leave you for now, but please do have the nurses page me when you have more questions.” When Josie had questions, not if—because that was the only certainty at the moment.

  After the doctor left, Josie immediately got out her phone and dialed Greta. It would be nearing midnight in Boston, but this was an emergency. Josie cringed, suddenly realizing that this call would be one of those dreaded middle-of-the-night interruptions that meant bad news for the recipient. Greta was a night owl, but all the same, no one liked to get calls like this.

  Or to make them either.

  “What happened?” Greta asked when she picked up, forgoing a greeting. She was astute enough to know this conversation wasn’t going to be a social call.

  “It’s Lynetta,” Josie said, and stopped, unable to find the right way to tell the woman that her sister was, essentially, deceased.

  The silence stretched out as Josie continued to flounder for words. She wasn’t even sure if she was capable of relaying all the information Dr. Charles had told her. Words and phrases sifted around in her mind but refused to sort themselves in to coherent words.

  Acute internal trauma. Organ failure. Unknown substance. Toxic within minutes of ingestion. Ongoing tests to determine the cause. Autopsy afterward.

  Maybe the worst of it was how badly Lynetta had suffered.

  Nausea, vomiting, pain, and trouble breathing. Most likely fear and dread. Possibly confusion, or even worse, the sense of knowing exactly what was happening to herself…

  “Where are you right now?” Greta asked.

  “I’m at the hospital. In her room. She’s…on life support.” Josie felt truly choked up. Her voice sounded weird and strained, distant even to her own ears.

  “I’ll be there in a few hours.”

  Josie listened to the dead conversation for several more seconds before realizing that Greta had hung up. She should have been used to the way the woman ended all of her calls by now, but the bizarre circumstances had Josie more muddled than usual.

  No doubt, Greta would be readying her staff and awakening the pilot of her private plane. Someone would pack a bag for her, and Henry would warm up the Bentley to take her to the airport. She would probably do Sudoku on her phone or play her turn on Words with Friends on the short flight between Boston and O’Hare. Before long, she’d arrive in tiny Lake Park Villa.

  Where, hopefully, she’ll know what to do.

  Josie sat and stared at Greta’s only sister, who lay silent and still in front of her, the machines the only things keeping her alive.

  Chapter 26

  Josie awoke to the whisper of voices. She hadn’t really been sleeping—more like trying to quell the blizzard of anxiety in her mind…with her eyes closed and her chin propped in her hand.

  Before the day shift had come, Ashley had gotten a hospital aide to wheel in a recliner chair for Josie, one that was marginally more comfortable than the metal one that was all right angles. At least she could elevate her swollen ankle. At dawn, she’d left briefly to feed Bert and make sure he was all right after the drugged sandwich incident. Thankfully, he’d seemed back to his normal self—still sleepy and clumsy. But who wasn’t at this time of day?

  As the voices came closer down the hospital hallway, she sat up and just in time to see Greta sweep through the door with her entourage, like the Queen of England. Okay, maybe if the queen wore a plain woolen overcoat…and sat on an iron throne like Cersei Lannister.

  Josie stood up. “You made it here faster than I thought.”

  Greta approached the bedside with the same composure she might have viewing a display case of ancient history at the Museum of Fine Arts—calmly and with an unnerving amount of detachment, at least to Josie. This w
asn’t a mummy on a slab in front of her, but her sister.

  I may joke about it all the time, but doesn’t she have a heart?

  However, Greta’s thin, blue-veined hand reached out and, for a half-second, touched the back of Lynetta’s wrist, which lay on top of the blanket. That hand and those fingers would never move again of Lynetta’s volition, but only when an orderly came to retrieve her body. Only when the funeral people arrived to take her to the next step in her body’s process toward eternal slumber, as they might say.

  Breakdown on a cellular level. Ashes to ashes, carbon to carbon.

  Josie gathered up her crutches as silently as she could and, with the grace of a hippo on roller-skates, swung her way out of the room, the rubber ends of her crutches making that popping suction noise that would have been humorous under any other circumstances.

  In the hall, a hospital administrator with a sheaf of papers waited for her.

  “Miss Tucker,” the woman said in a whispery voice that Josie had to strain to hear over the normal beeps and pages of a hospital. “Can you please come with us? We need to explain to you what will happen next with your loved one.”

  First of all, Josie didn’t know who “us” was, since the woman was the only person standing there, but she wasn’t going anywhere without Greta. Second of all, this woman was making a lot of assumptions about her relationship with Lynetta, and it was only serving to drive home how out of place Josie felt. Never mind regret, guilt, and slight horror that she hadn’t been able to prevent Lynetta’s death.

  You know, just the entire reason I was sent here in the first place.

  She propped her crutch under her arm and balanced so she could gesture back at Greta. “I need to wait for my…for her before any decisions are made.”

  “Of course,” the woman whispered. “Take your time if you need someone with you. Just be aware that you, as the designated next-of-kin on your aunt’s medical forms need to give consent before we can proceed. When you’re ready, go into the room across the hall and someone will be with you as soon as possible.”

  She scuttled away with her clipboard and pens. How the woman managed to exude both obsequiousness and administrative authority was beyond Josie, but she balanced on her good foot there in the hallway and watched the woman retreat, feeling both irritated and deserted at the same time.

  When she turned back to the room, she stood in the doorway. Greta sat with her sister quietly. She was speaking so softly that Josie couldn’t make out the words, but whatever she was saying was intended as a private talk—final words between two sisters—so Josie retreated to the sitting area near the nurse’s station and left them to their conversation.

  Sometime later, Greta came out of the room. Josie searched her face for signs of regret or anger, but she found nothing. Greta had already pulled up her emotional drawbridge—if she’d even opened herself up at all.

  Josie remained calm for approximately three milliseconds before she said, “Why did she choose me of all people?”

  Anyone witnessing her outburst just outside the room of an all but deceased woman would have thought she was the epitome of self-centeredness…and maybe she was, but anxiety was for the living, not those nearly beyond the pale. In any case, Josie was freaking out and she couldn’t contain it.

  Greta didn’t answer. Probably because it was obvious why Josie had been placed in this horrible position—Lynetta, through some possibly dementia-affected reasoning, had put her there. Instead, the woman gestured for Josie to follow her, and together, they went into a tiny consultation room where countless other families before them had probably been told terrible news and had been forced to make similar, horrible decisions.

  After settling herself in a chair next to Greta, Josie took the time to reflect on and regret her outburst. She might be feeling terrible, but it was probably nothing compared to what Greta, as Lynetta’s flesh and blood, was feeling.

  “I’m so sorry,” Josie said. Through her jumble of horror and confusion, the additional gravity of the situation suddenly struck her.

  I’ve failed not only Lynetta, but Greta as well.

  Greta said nothing, perhaps lost in her own mire of conflicted thoughts.

  Who knows what the woman is thinking.

  Josie didn’t. Not even on a good day, which this certainly was not.

  

  The next couple of hours were a blur of expert opinions, sad faces on people who didn’t know them, and softly spoken options which Josie could barely comprehend. Terms like “cessation of life-sustaining measures” drifted through her ears. Someone explained to them again that Lynetta would not be able to breathe on her own without the ventilator that currently pushed oxygen into her lungs. In fact, she had multiple organ failure and no brain activity at all. She was for all intents and purposes…dead.

  How did this happen? The woman was simply losing her memory. The threats on her life weren’t even supposed to be real.

  The hospital administrative woman returned to discuss further options with them, which Josie realized, were in fact, not choices at all but a series of inevitable steps.

  Lynetta would be removed from the machines keeping her alive. She would die where she currently lay. Her body would be taken to the coroner’s office where they would do a full autopsy. Evidence would be collected. Eventually, her remains would be cremated as per her will and be sent to Greta who by then would be at home in Boston.

  After they’d settled all the details with startling efficiency, Josie once again found herself in the waiting room while Greta stayed alone in Lynetta’s room. Not entirely alone—the other woman’s body was there, still hooked up to the various machines as they awaited someone to turn things off.

  Nurses went into the room. When they came out, the machines had been silenced. They drew the curtains and retreated wordlessly. Josie watched from afar, stricken with empathetic grief for Greta, for Lynetta, and for all the distance between them.

  Then Greta emerged, dry-eyed and still, almost preternaturally calm. When she finally spoke, her voice was calm and without even a warble or the need to clear her throat. She said, “When we’re done here, I want you to go to her room at the nursing home and pack up her belongings. You can have them shipped to me. Your house is rented for the entire month so you don’t need to hurry. You should at least stay until you feel up to driving home with that…with your pet.”

  The unspoken thought…accusation?…between them was that the need for Josie to find out whether Lynetta’s life was in danger was obviously moot. She had failed miserably on that point, and now it seemed as if Greta was absolving her of any responsibility of finding out—after the fact—who had done this to her sister.

  Josie had more questions now than before, but she didn’t feel like asking them out loud at the moment. She was exhausted and needed to go back to the house to take care of Bert. Lynetta’s life may have ended, but the living needed to go on without her. Dogs still needed to be fed, Josie needed to rest and, somewhere, a murderer needed to be caught.

  Chapter 27

  Josie declined a ride to her house with Greta’s livery service and drove herself back in the rental car. Greta, who was staying at a multi-star hotel closer to Chicago, had some business in the city the following day and planned to return to Boston shortly afterward. Josie didn’t blame her; Greta couldn’t do much else either for herself or her deceased sister, so there was no point in prolonging her stay. Especially with Josie as the designated next of kin…which was still terrible and surreal to her.

  At least Greta had gotten to see her sister one last time, for what it was worth. A lump of discomfort settled in Josie’s midsection—a ball of regret and disappointment in herself that didn’t bode well for her future appetite. Between this and the chloroform sandwich from Aloysius, she didn’t think she’d be able to eat much in the next few days, never mind brainstorm any articles for work or continue on as if nothing had happened. She’d had the half-baked idea to sample some Chicago
-style hot dogs while she was in the area. Not now though. The very idea of continuing with that train of thought turned her stomach, if she were to be honest with herself.

  As she pulled into her drive and parked her car on the ice-covered pavement, she shot glares at both Harris Kane’s and Aloysius’s homes. A psycho and a traitor, as far as she was concerned. Both houses were quiet and looked empty, which wasn’t that strange for lunchtime on a Friday afternoon. She swung herself on her crutches to the back steps and hopped up into the kitchen. The crutch situation was getting old fast and this was only her second day on them.

  As soon as she could put weight on her ankle, she was ditching the crutches. Hopefully soon. She’d need both hands to be able to pack up Lynetta’s room. Greta had been concerned about that, but Josie had—perhaps overly optimistically…or just stupidly—assured her she would be able to take care of it.

  Josie propped open the back door and Bert hustled over to greet her—well, ambled, in reality—and she let him out into the cold afternoon air to do his business. Underneath the steps that led up to the kitchen door, a different, shorter flight of steps went down to the vacant basement apartment. Previously, a vinyl roller shade had been pulled down inside the window, but now it was partly raised, tweaked upward on one side.

  Sandra had mentioned that Harris was slowly renovating the downstairs living quarters and getting it ready to be rented as a separate apartment. All the same, Josie was more than a little freaked out at the idea of him going in and out of the same building as her and messing around directly under her floorboards.

  Until I see living proof of his wife’s well-being with my own eyes, I’m avoiding him like he’s a curdled Fettuccini Alfredo left out in the sun.

  As soon as she and Bert were back inside, she bolted the door, although that was a pointless gesture. Harris probably had keys to her place, too.