Rip Your Heart Out

by Jeanne Glidewell

  The letter was from the hospital's board of directors, informing the family of Mabel Trumbo that her death had been brought under review due to a re-evaluation of the results of the medical examiner's report. There was a lot of legalese and medical mumbo-jumbo I didn't understand, but I got the gist of the letter. Mabel's death had officially been classified as a pulmonary embolism, but there was reason to believe there may have been negligence on the part of the cardiac center's medical staff. They specifically mentioned failing to inform the patient of critical post-operative precautions and/or giving her the wrong medications and/or food items. I read the important parts of the letter out loud to Rip. "All staff members involved with the patient prior to her death will be brought before the medical board for questioning."

  "Do you think that will include Sydney?" Rip asked.

  "I think that goes without saying. After all, she's the surgeon's personal nurse, and was responsible for the patient's at-home care after her aunt left the hospital. Do you think it's possible Sydney did something wrong? Screwed up her aunt's medications or something? Sydney was under a lot of pressure with so much on her plate, between her job here and taking care of her aunt." Even as I spoke, I couldn't quite wrap my head around the situation. The very thought of Sydney being found guilty of negligence in the death of her beloved aunt made me shudder.

  "I suppose it's possible. I sure hope not, for Sydney's sake. She's too good a person and nurse to be dealt a hand like that. You better get that letter back where you found it right away, Rapella. Sydney might walk in here at any moment."

  "Yeah, I know." I folded up the letter and returned it to the envelope. "And, hey, I'm impressed you got Nurse Combs' first name right three times in a row."

  "Before I spoke, I imagined myself on vacation in Australia," Rip said with an impish grin. "Don't you realize I am keenly focused on every single thing you say to me?"

  Yeah, right. Of course you are, dear. I didn't have time to respond, so I just stuck my tongue out at him. On my way out of his room, I pretended to wade through the load of bull crap Rip had just dumped on me.

  As I stepped into the hallway, I saw Sydney wheeling her COW toward me. Rather than concocting an elaborate scheme to return the envelope to the cart, an envelope Sydney might have already noticed was missing, I decided a simple approach was the best. I approached her just as she reached the nursing station.

  When she looked up at me, I handed her the envelope. "I found this on the floor just outside the room next to Rip's and saw it was addressed to your family, so I wanted to make sure it was returned to you."

  "Oh, thank you, Rapella. I must've dropped it." She folded it in half and shoved it in the front pocket of her scrubs. "Did you happen to see a woman go in or out of that room just a short while ago?"

  Uh-oh! Time to wing it. "Yes, I did. I saw a female physician leave the room just as I exited Rip's."

  "What did she look like?"

  "Oh, I'd say she was about my height and weight. And she had salt and pepper hair like mine, but was probably seven or eight years younger than me. She was heading in the direction of the elevators when I saw her. Why do you ask?"

  "I was just wondering who she was. No biggie." Sydney looked concerned, and I knew why. She was probably wondering if someone from the medical board was looking for her, or even interviewing patients about the care they'd received from her. I was quick to change the subject.

  "I'll be heading back over to the Heart Shack in a couple of minutes. Anything special you'd like for me to do?"

  "No, Rapella. You're doing more than enough already, and I really do appreciate you." Sydney impulsively reached out and gave me a quick hug. "Thanks for seeing that this envelope got returned to me. It's kind of important."

  I'd say it's very important, dear, I wanted to reply. Instead, I said, "No problem, sweetie. It was the least I could do." And, being that it was I who stole it from you in the first place, it really was the very least I could do.

  Chapter 14

  It was three-twenty when I returned to the Heart Shack for another few hours of scrubbing and mopping. With so much to do and so little time to do it, I didn't have the luxury of letting grass grow under my feet. Walking up the sidewalk, I again felt eyes following me—all the way to the front door this time. I turned to find a woman in the yard adjacent to Mabel's staring at me. The house next door was not nearly as old, but much smaller than the Heart Shack, and the lawn was meticulously manicured. It was as if it'd been trimmed with a pair of surgical scissors.

  Feeling uncomfortable, I turned toward the door and pretended to be checking for mail for a few moments before turning back around to see if Mabel's neighbor was still staring at me. She hadn't moved a muscle. Her gaze was still fixed directly on me. She was petite and had a tanned and deeply wrinkled face befitting a woman I estimated to be in her middle seventies who enjoyed yard work. If she could claim to be five feet tall, it was only because of the army boots she wore. The boots boasted higher heels than seemed appropriate for gardening.

  With her deep-set eyes still fixed on me, I felt uneasy again and immediately turned away. My first notion was to quickly enter the house so I might avoid any interaction with her. I didn't need yet another reason to feel on edge every time I was on the premises of the bright red Heart Shack. With my back to the next-door neighbor, I hastily fiddled with the skeleton key to unlock the front door which only made my fingers quiver clumsily and the task more difficult.

  But suddenly a thought caused me to do an about-face. It had just occurred to me that a short woman in my age bracket, if not a few years my senior, might possibly be the spouse of the man Rip had tried to convince me was the nosy neighbor I'd encountered earlier in the day. Shoving the key ring in my front pocket, I turned around and walked toward the neighbor. Her eyes remained fixed on me and she stood as motionless as the garden statue next to her.

  Walking briskly as I approached her, I waved good-naturedly. To fill the awkward silence, I said, "Good afternoon, neighbor!"

  "Neighbor?" Her voice was not exactly friendly. She appeared to be distrustful, as if concerned I might be up to no good.

  "Yes, ma'am." With forced cheerfulness, I added, "Temporarily, anyway. The former owner's niece is a friend of mine, and–"

  "Sydney? Or the other one?" There was a semblance of fondness in her voice as she mentioned Sydney's name. The tone she used to ask the second question indicated otherwise. It seemed as if she and I shared a negative opinion about Adelaide.

  "Yes, Sydney. I can honestly say I don't consider Adelaide a friend."

  The neighbor didn't reply. So I stuck my hand out and introduced myself. When the lady shook my hand without introducing herself in return, I asked, "And you are?"

  "Just fine, thank you."

  "That's nice. But what I meant was, what is your name?" I was pretty sure she'd known what I meant and was being intentionally evasive, like the caretaker had been earlier. As Yogi Berra would have said, it was like déjà-vu all over again.

  "Itsy."

  "Itsy? As in itsy-bitsy?"

  She looked at me as if I'd just claimed to be an alien visiting from the recently demoted space object named Pluto. After scrutinizing me for several long, uncomfortable moments, she finally replied. "Itsy, as in Itsy Warman."

  "Oh." I was stymied by her antisocial behavior and decided to attempt a few pleasantries and then leave her to her flower-planting. "It's nice to meet you, Ms. Warman."

  "I go by Itsy."

  "Very well. I see you enjoy gardening, Itsy."

  "Who said I enjoyed gardening? These flowers ain't gonna plant themselves, you know."

  So much for pleasantries, I thought. Her response had been terse, but when I laughed at her remark, she smiled, exposing darkly stained teeth. I'd soon learn Itsy had a hankering for a wad of chaw now and then.

  "No, I reckon they ain't," I replied with a chuckle. Now that this woman named Itsy was being a little more amicable, I thought it'd be a good
time to segue into a conversation about the man I'd met in the drawing room. "Am I to assume then that your husband doesn't have a green thumb?"

  "Who said I had a husband?" This time she slapped the side of her dirt-smudged jeans and laughed heartily. Her guffawing was so contagious that soon we were both snickering so much we had tears running down our cheeks. The woman laughed so hard, she nearly gagged on a swallow of black saliva which she hacked up and spat onto the ground in front of her.

  "No husband, huh? Want one?" I asked, trying not to appear disgusted by the lady's unladylike habit. Itsy's dour mood had turned on a dime, and I wanted to take advantage of her new light-hearted demeanor. "I got a husband I'll sell cheap. It's an older, restored model, but hopefully it's still got a few years' worth of use left in it. Just recently been rewired, in fact."

  My silly response set us off again. When we both finally quit our raucous cackling, Itsy smiled broadly. "Thanks, but no thanks. I don't need no stinking husband telling me what to do. Too set in my ways from being on my own so long."

  Still giggling, I said, "Okie-dokie, Itsy Warman. I can't fault you for wanting to maintain your independence."

  After nodding her agreement, Itsy said, "Welcome to the neighborhood."

  "Thank you. I'm looking forward to moving in. Right now I'm trying to blow the cobwebs out of the old place."

  "Good luck with that. A blow torch might be your best bet. Mabel wasn't much for housework, and Ridley wasn't either."

  "Ridley?"

  "Never mind."

  "Who's Ridley?"

  "It's not important."

  "Was Ridley Mabel's caretaker?" It'd been obvious Itsy had tried to backtrack after mentioning the man's name, but I was like a dog with a bone now. I wasn't giving up easily. "What's Ridley's last name?"

  "I've already said too much." Itsy shuffled her feet nervously after replying. I stared at her expectantly for several long moments, until she finally added, "Okay, yes. Ridley Wickets was Mabel's caretaker. But you didn't hear it from me, and that's all I'm saying about him."

  Itsy's reluctance to expound on the caretaker was perplexing. I might've been determined to find out more about the Ridley she'd mentioned, but Itsy was even more determined not to share any additional information about him with me. Still, my intuition told me he was the Irish bloke I'd run across in the drawing room that morning. I didn't want to alienate the neighbor, though, so I asked her about her recently deceased neighbor.

  "It sure was a shame about Ms. Trumbo's death, wasn't it? Were you two close?"

  "Not really. Didn't cotton to her much."

  "Why didn't you care for Mabel?" I consciously tried to sound conversational, rather than prying, but her response convinced me my effort had failed.

  "I had my reasons."

  "Yes. I'm sure you did. Even so, it's sad she died of post-surgical complications."

  "The fact I was often annoyed by the woman doesn't mean I believe she died of natural causes." Itsy spoke in a huff, with her arms folded across her chest as if affronted by my causal comment. I couldn't swear to it, but I thought I saw a tear well up in her right eye, which made no sense to me at all, given her distaste for her late neighbor.

  "Why do you believe her death wasn't from surgery-related complications?"

  "I have my reasons," she repeated. Itsy clammed up abruptly and I suspected she'd said all she intended to say about the matter. But after considerable contemplation, she continued. "Never really trusted those Combs kids. They're a greedy lot, except for maybe Sydney."

  "Are they from Australia?" I hadn't detected an accent from either twin, but the twins' names were both that of major Australian cities. And I realized their brother could have been named for the little island of Tasmania which was located in the Tasman Sea, off the southern edge of the "down-under" country.

  "No. All three were all born in the states," Itsy replied. "It was their grandmother, Rosalyn, who spent her childhood in Australia. Their mother, Norma Jean, named them in her grandma's honor. The family lived nearby when Rosalyn, who was Mabel's older sister, was killed by a shark while swimming off the coast of Oregon."

  "Yikes! How tragic!"

  "Yep. Good way to spoil an enjoyable day out on the water, ain't it?"

  "I'd say so." Where the siblings were from was neither here nor there as far as I was concerned. I had more important fish to fry. I didn't have a lot of time to waste jabbering with Itsy Warman, so I felt compelled to ask, "So you truly believe one of Mabel's kin could've had a hand in her death? Ridley seems to agree that she didn't die of natural causes. The local homicide detectives must think so, too. Or at least they have some reason to believe foul play might have been involved."

  "Where'd you hear that?" I could tell by Itsy's reaction and the quizzical look on her face, she had no clue what I was talking about.

  "Didn't you hear on the news? They're planning to exhume her body. They may have already done so. I'm sorry. I thought by your earlier comments you already knew about it."

  Itsy looked as if she'd just seen a ghost squat down and relieve himself in the middle of her flower bed. "Why? Did they say why they wanted to exhume her body?"

  "The reporter said it had to do with an anonymous tip."

  "Did they say who the anonymous tipster was?" Itsy asked.

  "Um, no. That's kind of the point of being anonymous."

  "Oh, yeah. Guess you're right." Itsy appeared flustered. "I'm happy to hear they're reevaluating Mabel's cause of death. Even though I never believed it, I'd heard they'd officially concluded she'd died of complications. Wasn't that what the medical examiner supposedly determined?"

  "I think it was the assumption at the time. But I got the impression from the news report that an autopsy was not initially performed after her death. The family didn't request one, and being that Mabel had just undergone open-heart surgery, complications following that operation was a natural assumption. To verify the initial determination, they've decided to do an autopsy, or at least to the extent one can now be performed."

  "That's crazy. Kind of disrespectful to disturb a body after it's already in its final resting place. Whatever. Not my problem. I suppose if someone took Mabel's life deliberately, they need to pay for their actions. As exasperating as she could be, I still believe justice should be served."

  "Absolutely!" I agreed emphatically. "If Mabel's death truly was a case of neglect, or even a homicide, it's not for certain it was at the hands of a family member. It could've been anyone. Maybe even someone who lived in the neighborhood." As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized they'd sounded like I was questioning Itsy's innocence. After all, she'd just admitted to having issues with Mabel.

  Itsy's amicable expression morphed into one of distrust. I knew I'd probably want to converse with her in the future, so I didn't particularly want to piss her off at our first encounter.

  "Those purple iris bulbs should multiply quickly," I said, faking a sudden interest in her flower-planting project. "What a beautiful border they'll make along your driveway in a year or two. Do you dig your bulbs up in the fall and store them inside over the winter?"

  Itsy's tenseness gradually eased and we chatted a few more minutes about flowers and a few other mundane subjects, such as what time the mail carrier normally delivered the mail on South Hart Street and the upcoming postage rate increase.

  "I just purchased an entire roll of the 'forever' stamps," I said. "I wanted to stock up on them before the price went up again."

  "At this stage in our lives, isn't that kind of like buying green bananas?"

  I laughed at her quip and bade her adieu, telling her I looked forward to visiting with her again once we'd gotten settled into the Heart Shack. I expected her to echo my sentiments.

  "Silly name for an old house, if you ask me," Itsy said instead before we parted ways.

  Chapter 15

  A knock on the front door caught me off-guard. I'd been about to step up onto a chair in hopes of being
able to reach the drapery rods to bring them down.

  "Anybody home?" A deep, gravelly voice resonated from the foyer. It was a warm, friendly voice that made me not hesitate to welcome the visitor.

  "In here!" I replied. I'd been expecting a representative from the local inspection department and assumed that's who'd come calling.

  I nearly choked on my own saliva when a tall, well-built man with wide shoulders walked into the drawing room. With dark hair, piercing blue eyes, a chiseled chin, and a broad, white-toothed smile, he was the most attractive human being I'd ever laid eyes on. This epitome of masculinity could grace the cover of Playgirl Magazine. I know I'd buy two copies myself: one to gaze at and the second as a spare, in case my eyes burned a hole through the first one. "Howdy!"

  "Good afternoon, ma'am." He glanced at the wobbly wooden chair next to me. "Looks like I arrived just in time to lend a hand. Standing on that chair's probably not a good idea for someone your…"

  "Age?" I supplied the word when he stopped short of finishing his remark.

  "No, that's not what I was going to say," he replied, without further clarification. With a grin, he added, "It doesn't look safe for a person of any age to stand on."

  When I returned his engaging smile, I could tell I had a goofy grin on my face. Even though the man was obviously younger than my daughter, there was no escaping the magnetic effect of his devastating charm and appearance, no matter your age. My gaze locked with his. Looking away was like trying to let go of a live electric wire.

  Trying not to sound like a blooming idiot, I introduced myself and explained why I was there. He acted as if he was genuinely engrossed in what I had to say. When he didn't respond with his own introduction, I asked, "Are you here to approve the punch list so the Wiley Burke Construction crew can commence with the repairs?"

  "No."