Your Eight O'clock is Dead

by Kat Jorgensen

  I didn’t have the heart to tell Granddad that Baby Ruth was the candy bar and that Babe Ruth was the sultan of swat. So I let it pass. We both knew what he meant.

  Louisa Mae continued to fuss over her daughter. “Come inside, Edna. A cup of tea will settle you down.” She led the way to the front of the house, then stopped and turned to face us. “Well, what are you waiting for? That’s an open invitation, y’all. This calls for a celebration. We’ll have a dinner party. I’ll work on the guest list right away.” Before any of us could say anything, she disappeared back into the house.

  “I do apologize for Mother. She gets a tad wound up,” Edna smiled wanly at Granddad and me.

  “A tad! Tornadoes cause less destruction than she does.” Granddad brushed more dust balls off the front of his shirt.

  “Granddad, Mrs. Smith thought you were a burglar or something. Cut her some slack.”

  Edna placed a hand on my granddad’s arm as he harrumphed at my statement. “Marty, Mother is high-strung. I’m so sorry. That was very sweet of you to even think of cleaning the gutters. Please come inside. Both of you.”

  “No. You should be with your family, Edna. Becca and I will see you some other time. I’m really happy they released you. Darn fool prosecutor. I knew they had the wrong person all the time.”

  He tugged the ladder back to where he’d found it, while I spoke with Edna. “Granddad’s right. I’m sure you’re exhausted. I’ll let Dr. D. know you’re home safe and sound.” At the mention of my boss’s name, Edna’s cheeks flushed pink.

  “Please thank Dickie for letting you use the car to pick me up.” She leaned over and kissed me lightly on the cheek. It reminded me of the kisses my mother used to give me and filled me with a bittersweet yearning.

  “C’mon, Granddad. I’ve got to get back to work. See you later, Mrs. O.”

  The two of us walked to the curb together. He looked around for the Honda before remembering that it was in the shop. I pressed the keyless entry for the doctor’s car and explained how I’d come to have it in my possession. His eyebrows shot upward in reaction. “Becca, you know you don’t exactly have the greatest driving record. Please be careful. I don’t think we could afford the repairs to this beauty.” He rubbed his hand along the back fender with something akin to reverence. Must be a guy thing. Even so, I’d have to make sure I got any smudges off the car before I returned it to Dr. Dick.

  Granddad waved as he marched down the street, showing no lingering signs of his vertigo. He’d parked his truck at the end of the block.

  He has this thing about getting exercise wherever you can and gets very disturbed with me for taking the closest parking space I can get.

  I waited until he reached his truck before starting up Dr. Dick’s car. Minding my grandfather’s warning and remembering Edna’s mountain trip story, I drove back to the office, paranoid about scratching or denting my ride.

  By the time I reached the office complex, another vehicle occupied Dr. Dick’s favorite parking spot, but I managed to find an alternate place nearby. I made sure I had plenty of room to open the door, careful not to ding the paint. I’d never been so self-conscious about driving in my entire life. Which just proved that I wasn’t ready for a spiffy car like this.

  I entered the D & P suite and found Dr. Daley sitting at my desk, waiting for me. Uh-oh. I checked my watch, relieved to discover he was merely in-between patients – clients. I’d never get it right.

  “What took you so long? How’s Edna?” Dr. Dick practically pounced on me as I approached my desk. I hoped he hadn’t gone through the drawers and found my secret stash of snacks behind the claim forms.

  “Mrs. O. is at home and doing fine. It took me a little longer than I anticipated.” I didn’t want to volunteer why, so I left it at that, hoping he wouldn’t pursue the subject any further. I could tell by his tense expression that he planned to do just that.

  Hoping to sidestep that conversation so I didn’t have to get into the whole dust mop/ladder story, I extended his keys. “And your car is safe and sound and tucked in for the rest of the day.”

  He started to say something but the next patient chose that moment to enter the suite.

  “Oh, hi. Dr. Daley is ready for you, aren’t you Dr. D.?” He glared at me and stood. Okay, I guess that meant I should have asked first, or let him state when he was ready for his appointment.

  The instant the two disappeared behind closed doors, I collapsed into my chair. It had been a hairy afternoon, but I had a lot to be thankful for. Edna was home. Granddad managed to get off the ladder in one piece. I’d returned Dr. Dick’s car to the lot smudge-free and as pristine as when I’d borrowed it. Life was good. Or so I thought.

  Chapter 18

  The sound of the impact could be heard from my desk. Wow, somebody had hit something. Hard.

  Metal on metal.

  I rushed out of the office and down the corridor following several other tenants from the building.

  When we reached the entrance, we all clustered together, emerging as one large group.

  At first, I didn’t see anything as I examined the rows of cars, but then my gaze landed on a twisted piece of junk where Dr. Dick’s car should have been and my heart did a little bumpety-bump kind of rhythm.

  “I’ll call 911,” one of the building supervisors said, hot-footing it toward the accident.

  I couldn’t move, shock holding me immobile. It couldn’t be. How the heck had somebody rammed into the doctor’s precious car in the parking lot?

  There were a hundred or more other cars to choose from, why did it have to be his?

  I dragged myself toward the accident, guilt-ridden because the condition of Dr. Dick’s stupid car had me more concerned than whoever might have been injured in the crash.

  Even while I watched, the other car involved in the wreck detangled itself from Dr. D.’s vehicle and, to my utter horror, backed up and hit it with more force than the first time.

  If there was any doubt that Dr. Daley’s car was totaled before, all doubts were now erased.

  Oh. My. God!

  He’s going to kill me. Dr. Dick would totally and utterly annihilate me.

  And then he’d fire me. Or maybe he’d fire me, and then annihilate me.

  Regardless of the order, I could kiss this job good-bye. Then my curiosity kicked in, because…well…I’m not dead, yet. Who in the heck wrecked Dr. Dick’s car? It hadn’t happened by accident. This was deliberate.

  As though to prove my point, the car backed up and rammed the poor defenseless wreck yet again, this time leaving the vintage auto’s metal body mangled and twisted like something out of a demolition derby. Or salvage yard.

  All around people were shouting and exclaiming as they ran toward the scene. I still hadn’t moved. I glanced over my shoulder half expecting Dr. Daley to be standing behind me, ready to give me the proverbial ax. Or maybe a not-so proverbial ax. I didn’t want to believe that all of my hard work over the last few months was for nothing. That my career was done for. Three strikes and I was out. Somehow, someway, he’d blame me for this disaster. With a feeling of dum-dum-dee-dum-dum dread, I put one foot in front of the other and crossed the lot to the wreck.

  The police arrived on the scene the same moment I did and hauled the driver out of the car that had inflicted all the damage. It turned out to be one of our clients. One of our crazier clients.

  “Don’t you see,” he said to the officers, “I had to kill the aliens. Disable their spaceship. It was the only way to save the earth.” The poor, poor man. Obviously off of his medication. And obviously delusional.

  “It’s okay, officer,” I spoke up. “Mr. Nightingale is a patient of ours.”

  “Hey, aren’t you from the psychiatric group that had the murder?” the beefier of the two officers asked.

  All attention turned toward me and I wanted to crawl into a hole. “Yes. Daley & Palmer.” Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned them by name. Although they needed the publicity, per
haps not this sort of publicity. “Mr. Nightingale is one of our patients.”

  The two officers exchanged looks. Something like, here we go again if I didn’t miss my guess.

  “Mr. Nightingale, are you okay?” I called to him, knowing ahead of time that it wasn’t my brightest attempt at conversation.

  If he were okay, he wouldn’t think saving the earth involved destroying his psychiatrist’s car. But hey, I felt obligated to try.

  He wobbled and wrenched his body from the grasp of the younger, slighter officer. The beefier cop stepped up to assist his partner. The two of them wrestled poor Mr. Nightingale to the ground and clasped handcuffs on his wrists in what struck me as excessive force. Didn’t they get it? The man needed help, not a jail cell.

  Before I could think better of it, I ran forward. “Stop, you’re hurting him. Can’t you see he’s in distress?” I crouched beside Mr. Nightingale, trying to calm him down, but only succeeding in making the police angry and adding to their trouble.

  “Lady, if you’re smart, and I may be giving you a lot more credit than you deserve, step back,” the younger cop addressed me as he struggled with our still thrashing patient.

  “Save yourself. They’ve got me.” Mr. Nightingale shouted at the top of his lungs, all the while flailing his legs. “They’re going to fry my brains and body parts in their mother ship. Run!”

  My heart lurched. They were hurting him. I had to do something.

  I plucked at the older cop’s sleeve. Bad move.

  We both yanked at the same moment and his shirt ripped at the seam, which pretty much pissed him off. Not quite what I’d intended.

  “What the hell…” he was more surprised at my audacity than anything else. “You want your own set of bracelets, lady? I can arrange that.” He reached behind his back and out came a gleaming set of silver handcuffs.

  I gulped.

  Ryder miraculously appeared at my side. “Easy, guys. Easy.” He nudged me in the ribs. “Becca, tell the policeman you’re sorry you ripped his shirt and will reimburse him for it.”

  I held up my hands. “I really am sorry. It’s just that Mr. Nightingale doesn’t know what he’s saying. He’s frightened. Please let him go,” I begged.

  Ryder put a hand on my arm to restrain me from getting into further trouble. “Guys, I can vouch for Miss Reynolds here. The cuffs aren’t necessary.”

  I was busy calculating if two cops could have three sets of handcuffs on them when to my surprise the older cop put his handcuffs back on his service belt. I stared at Ryder with a new appreciation.

  “Can you get them to turn him loose,” I said out of the side of my mouth.

  Ryder shot me one of those looks of his that said he wasn’t Svengali. But to my astonishment, he went over to Mr. Nightingale and said, “Remember me? We met in the hall outside of Dr. Daley’s office last week. These men are from the anti-alien agency. They’re going to take you to the hospital to get you checked out. Make sure that you didn’t pick up any foreign substances when you took out that spacecraft.”

  I rolled my eyes. A lot Ryder knew about psychiatry.

  But to my amazement, Mr. Nightingale stopped resisting the two Henrico County cops and gazed from one to the other as if he were seeing them for the first time. I jumped in, hoping it would help make up for ripping the officer’s shirt.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Nightingale. These men are the good guys. You go with them. I’ll get Dr. Daley, and he’ll join you at the hospital. He’ll make sure everything is all right.”

  Ryder shot me a look of warm approval that ignited a delicious fire in the pit of my stomach. After that, he helped the cops get Mr. Nightingale settled into the back seat of their cruiser. I overheard him say, “He needs the psych unit. His doctor will be by to take care of the paperwork.”

  Finally, he shook hands with both cops and tapped on the rear passenger window. “You take care, Mr. Nightingale.”

  As the police car pulled out of the lot, I edged over to where Ryder stood. “Are they really taking him to the hospital?”

  “Yes, Becca. Go tell your boss what’s happened.”

  “Are you insane? It’s not enough that I parked his precious vehicle in another spot and now it’s…it’s this blob of junk, but you want me to interrupt him in session for the second time today to tell him about it?” Custer and his cavalry stood a better chance with Sitting Bull.

  Ryder held his ground, folding his impressive arms across his equally impressive chest in unspoken demand.

  “You don’t know what you’re asking me to do,” I tried again. “He’ll fire me. On the spot.” I sniffled. Allergies, but Ryder didn’t have to know that.

  “Oh, God, Becca. Don’t cry.” He instantly relented and I filed the information away for future reference.

  Ryder plus tears equaled Becca getting her own way. Outstanding.

  Or it would be if I didn’t feel so incredibly unoutstanding. “I’ll talk to Dick with you. It’s not your fault one of his patients did this.”

  I wiped my eyes surely smearing my cheap waterproof mascara. “He won’t see it that way. You don’t know him. I’m history.”

  I sank down on the curb, my stomach feeling every bit as twisted as the body of Dr. Dick’s car.

  Ryder sat beside me. “If he’s going to be that much of a jerk, do you want to work for him?” His voice sounded soft and velvety in my ear. If I wasn’t so upset, I could have been easily seduced by the sound of that voice.

  “You don’t understand. I need this job. I’ve worked my tail off to get this office up and running. I have just a few weeks to go until my probationary period is up. Don’t you see? First a patient,” damn, damn, double-damn, I give up, “a client, gets murdered in our office. And now this accident.” My voice almost reached falsetto range as I pointed to the hulking mass that had once been a beautiful sleek driving machine.

  Ryder put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me into his arms. “It was an accident. No one can blame you for that.” When I gazed into his eyes, not only did those darn baby blues suck me in, but I actually believed him. Ha!

  Shows you the momentary power of sexual persuasion. Deep inside, I knew whether or not I kept my job, Dr. Dick would forever blame me for the destruction of his car.

  “Come on, tiger. Let’s go get Dick out of his session.” Ryder patted my leg in a short staccato way.

  Before I could respond, he climbed to his feet and extending a hand to help me up.

  Like the condemned heading to the gallows, I reached up and put my hand in his. We walked in silence into the building and down the long corridor to the D & P suite.

  Despite all of the noise outside, it still surprised me to see Dr. Daley’s private door closed. You had to give it to the man. When he was in session, the patient held his undivided attention.

  “Becca,” Ryder prompted and gave me a gentle push toward the door.

  I dragged my feet. This was worse than finding a dead body.

  No. Not that bad. But it ranked right up there with the top ten sucky things that had happened to me since I’d taken this job.

  “Becca, interrupt him. Or I will. I think he’ll take it better coming from you.” Ryder crossed his arms over his chest again in a “take no prisoners” kind of stance.

  He was probably right.

  Still. Sweat broke out on my forehead, and I could definitely feel dampness under my arms despite the promise that my deodorant had made that it wouldn’t fail me. I glanced back at Ryder who remained at the door to the suite like one of the stone lions guarding the local library entrance.

  My heart thumped so loud, I was sure he could hear it. If it accelerated any more, I had a feeling it would burst. My eyesight blurred, and I thought for a moment I’d pass out. Then I realized I was having a garden-variety panic attack. We had plenty of patients with those. I’d read up on the various forms so I could better converse with them.

  The main thing that I remembered was the importance of breathing slowl
y in through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. I tried that, but I couldn’t seem to slow my breathing down. Instead of relaxing, I sounded like I was in labor and doing Lamaze breathing – minus the coach.

  “Becca, are you okay?”

  Ryder’s voice came from somewhere behind me and sounded like the teacher in those Charlie Brown specials.

  Wonka Wonka. But I concentrated really hard and managed to make out most of his words. It would have helped if the blood wasn’t flooding through my body at marathon speed.

  That couldn’t be healthy. If I survived my attack, I’d be a whole lot more compassionate with our anxiety and panic disorder clients. There, I’d gotten the term right for once. Great. I’d gotten it right on my last day of employment, right before I expired from a panic attack. Yay, me.

  I started hyperventilating again and the room spun in a slow, wobbly circle. Someone steadied me. It felt like Ryder but in the grips of a full-blown panic attack, who could tell for sure?

  Wonka Wonka. He had to be saying something important, but damn if I knew what it was. Wonka Wonka Wonka. Louder and more insistent this time. I pushed his hand away and staggered toward Dr. Dick’s private door.

  Wonka!

  Yeah, bite me. You started this, I wanted to tell him.

  Confession is good for the soul.

  And the unemployment line.

  I rapped on the door with so much force, I was afraid I would shatter the wood. Having done my duty, I slumped against the nearest wall struggling to get a fresh bit of oxygen into my lungs instead of the stale stuff recirculating though me.

  “This better be good, Miss Reynolds.”

  The instant Dr. Dick fully opened the door, I fell into his arms.

  “I quit.” Now, where had that come from?

  The lead in my legs finally won out, and I dropped to the floor almost taking the doc with me. No chivalry there. He let me fall.