The First Ladies Club Box Set

by J B Hawker

  “Well, what do we get?”

  “Do you have to be so crass, Thad?” Priscilla asked, looking disgusted.

  “Don’t quarrel, Pris, you are just as curious, or you wouldn’t be here,” Noel said.

  “I can tell you,” Marcus said. “It’s no breach of confidentiality, Dad didn’t care who knows. We all share equally, after a few small bequests to his favorite pro-life charities.”

  “I wonder why Father was always so fanatical about this pro-life business. Our family’s not Catholic, or especially religious, or anything,” Thad said.

  “If he recovers, perhaps you can ask him,” Madelyn said. “I’ve seen enough. Boreman said not to tire him out, remember. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 26

  Detective Ransom saw Haleby’s kids coming down the hallway and sent Forester out to waylay them.

  “Excuse me,” Forester said to Noel Haleby, who strode ahead of his sisters and brothers.

  “Yes?” Noel replied, looking annoyed.

  “Detective Ransom would like a word with you all, if you don’t mind.”

  “What’s going on?” Madelyn asked.

  “That detective wants to speak with us,” Noel replied to his sister before turning back to Forester.

  “What can we possibly have to do with your local homicide case, Sergeant?”

  “I’ll let my boss explain,” Forester said as he herded the recalcitrant Haleby siblings across the waiting room to a corner table Ransom had commandeered for the interviews.

  “See here, Detective,” Noel began as he approached. “We are in this area due to family emergencies. We only arrived today, after all. The idea that we could have any information about local happenings is ludicrous.”

  Ransom stood to greet the family, saying, “I know this is a difficult time for you, with the recent death of your mother and your father’s accident, but we have to investigate the death of another relative, Victoria Folsom. We are waiting to talk with your father, but in the meantime, we need to see if you can shed any light on the case.”

  “How can we? She died before any of us were even born,” Thad said, and the others voiced their agreement with him.

  “In such an old case we have to explore every avenue, you understand,” Ransom said. “We never know what crumb of information can lead us to the answer. We appreciate your cooperation. If you will take seats over across the room until you are called, we can get through this faster. Who’d like to be first?”

  “I’ll do it,” Noel said. “Anything to get this waste of time over quickly.”

  “Thanks,” Ransom said, pulling out his notebook as Noel took a seat.

  *

  Crossing the lobby, Judy and Ken noticed the crowded waiting room.

  “The hospital is sure busy this afternoon,” Judy commented.

  “Oh, hello, Rev. Falls,” the receptionist said, when she saw the couple approaching the information desk. “I was just trying to call you.”

  “Hi, Mildred. What did you need?” Ken replied.

  “One of our patients requested a visit with a Presbyterian pastor. Our chaplain on call this week is the Catholic priest,” she explained. “Would you mind?”

  “Not a problem. What’s the name and room number?” Ken asked.

  “This shouldn’t take long, Judy,” he said. “Why don’t you go along and see Doc while I call on this person. We can meet up in the cafeteria and grab some lunch before I go to the church.”

  “Good idea. I’ll give Dr. Haleby your best,” she said, heading down the hall, glancing through the open doors to find his room.

  Seeing Dr. Haleby lying so still, hooked up to monitors and tubing, dismayed Judy, but she placed a smile on her face as she approached the bedside.

  “Hiya, Doctor,” she chirped. “How are you feeling?”

  When Haleby failed to respond, she sat down and proceeded to tell him all about the new house she and Ken were trying to buy. Judy knew that seemingly unconscious patients are often more aware of their surroundings than they appeared. This was especially true of stroke victims.

  “So, anyway, this house is perfect, it’s a Godsend, for sure. There’s plenty of room for our babies, too.”

  Judy noticed the doctor frown and twitch as she mentioned her pregnancy.

  “Don’t you worry about me carrying these twins, Doctor. I’m feeling great and everything is going to be just fine. I appreciate your concerns, though, so don’t think I’m mad at you, or anything.”

  Cassius turned his head toward Judy, moving his lips without making a sound.

  Judy leaned closer; in case he was trying to speak to her.

  *

  In the waiting room, Haleby’s children were losing patience and were milling around the room making snide remarks.

  “So, you don’t remember your father ever mentioning his cousin? Not even once?” Ransom asked Thaddeus, trying to ignore the background grumbles.

  “That’s what I said, wasn’t it? I’ve had enough of this harassment. Isn’t this harassment, Marcus?” he called to his brother.

  “Thank you for your time,” Ransom said, getting to his feet. “You can go. That’s all for now.”

  The Haleby siblings marched out, muttering and throwing annoyed glances over their shoulders at the officers.

  “Jumped up Barney Fifes,” Thaddeus said in a loud voice. “Just trying to throw their weight around to hide their ineptitude.”

  “Come on, Thad,” Priscilla said. “Let’s go.”

  When they were gone, Forester sat down.

  “Wow,” he said. “Do they think they are American aristocrats, or what?”

  “You got the feeling they think they are better than us, did you?” Ransom asked, chuckling. “And we’ve got nothing to show for putting up with their guff, either. Can you believe Haleby never once mentioned his mysteriously missing cousin? You’d think something like that would have become family lore.”

  “In my family we’d probably have heard the story at least every year on the anniversary of the disappearance,” Forester agreed. “But I guess the ‘upper crust’ might be different.”

  “Come on,” Ransom said. “Let’s go take another crack at the sire of that thoroughbred snob mob.”

  “Not my fault,” Cassius said, again.

  This time Judy heard him clearly.

  “I know; you were just trying to help. Don’t you fret, now,” she said.

  “Tried to help,” he echoed. “Should have worked, but...”

  “You’ve always worked hard, Doctor. Everyone says so,” Judy said.

  “So much blood. Couldn’t stop the blood.”

  When Cassius repeated this phrase from the night of his accident, Judy began to pay more attention.

  Was he talking about his cousin, as she’d suspected?

  “Whose blood, Doctor?” she prodded. “Are you talking about Victoria?”

  “Vickie. Pretty little Vickie,” he said, then lapsed into silence for many seconds.

  Judy thought he’d fallen asleep and would have shaken him awake, if not for his fragile condition. She cleared her throat and coughed a few times.

  “Vickie, that’s right. What about Vickie?” she asked.

  Haleby’s eyes opened slightly but seemed unfocused.

  If he was delirious, nothing he said would make any sense, but at that moment he looked directly at Judy.

  “It should have worked, you know,” he said, quite clearly. “I followed the textbooks, exactly. She must have had an internal abnormality. How could I know that?”

  Surprised by how alert he sounded, Judy blurted, “Did you perform an abortion on your cousin?”

  Haleby’s eyes snapped shut and he began to moan, frightening Judy.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you, Doctor.”

  The moaning faded and the doctor seemed to relax.

  “Should have worked,” he whispered. “Stupid girl. Too much blood.”

  Detective Ransom and Sergeant Forester
stood like statues in the doorway, afraid any sound might stop the conversation in Haleby’s room.

  Glancing up, Judy saw the two men and began to rise from the visitor’s chair, but Ransom gestured for her to stay and keep the doctor talking.

  “Uh, then what did you do?” she asked and held her breath.

  “Stupid girl died. What to do? Rolled her in a rug and stuffed her into the storage chest. Needed to think. Needed time to think. Needed a drink.”

  “You just left her there?” Judy asked, aghast at what she was hearing.

  After resting a moment, Haleby responded, “Was going to move it. Didn’t have to. House burned down. No one would ever know... Stupid mushroom-grubbing cow should have minded her own business!”

  Judy was stunned. She couldn’t think of anything else to ask.

  “Well, you take care now, Doctor. I’ve got to be on my way,” she said, easing away from the bed, as though it held something unspeakable.

  When she approached the door, the officers parted to let her through, and she continued out into the hall.

  Ransom followed and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Good work,” he said. “We will need an official statement. Will you come by the substation this afternoon?”

  Judy nodded, walking down the hallway with tears in her eyes.

  “Did you get all that?” Ransom asked his sergeant as Judy walked away.

  Forester nodded, holding up his phone to show Ransom the voice recording app on the display.

  “I got most of it, I think, but will this be enough to convict? It looks like he’s in pretty rough shape.”

  “Let’s see if we can get a bit more out of him,” Ransom said, stepping into the room.

  *

  In the cafeteria, Judy sipped bottled water from the vending machine and waited for Ken.

  “How was he?” Ken asked.

  Startled from her reverie, Judy dropped the water, splitting the bottle and splashing Ken’s shoes.

  “I didn’t see you come in!” she said, grabbing a handful of napkins and dropping to the floor to wipe up the spill.

  Ken pulled her up, saying, “Let the staff take care of that. Why are you so jumpy?”

  “Oh, Ken, it’s just so awful,” she said, sniffing. “Dr. Haleby killed his cousin!”

  Ken pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “What are you talking about? What’s happened?”

  “Well, I went to see him, like we planned. He seemed unconscious when I first got there, but I remembered you telling me stroke victims can often hear what is being said, even when they don’t respond, so I just started babbling, like I do, and he started talking to me, too. I don’t think he knew who I was, but he started explaining what happened to his cousin all those years ago, and saying it wasn’t his fault.”

  “Are you sure you understood him correctly?” Ken asked, looking skeptical.

  “Oh, yes! He repeated himself and told me how he tried to perform an abortion following instructions in a book, but it all went wrong. He said it was an accident.”

  “Maybe that explains why he’s so pro-life, now. But, why didn’t he report it? How could he just let her die and leave her there?”

  “He was young and scared, but that’s no excuse, really,” Judy said. “Imagine living with that on his conscience for all these years.”

  “Did you tell anyone?” Ken asked.

  “I didn’t need to. The officers came in while we were talking, and I think they heard it all.”

  *

  “Detective!” Doctor Boreman exclaimed, walking into Haleby’s room. “What do you think you’re doing? I told you this patient is in no condition to answer your questions.”

  “Maybe not, but he wanted to get some things off his chest, so we decided to oblige him,” Ransom said.

  “What are you talking about?” Boreman said, checking Haleby’s vital signs. “I hope you haven’t upset him and jeopardized his recovery. I should have you thrown out and barred from the hospital.”

  As he spoke, the Haleby children returned to check on their father before heading back to the family home.

  “What’s going on here?” Noel asked. “Why are these officers in Father’s room?”

  “I told you we needed to clear up some things with your dad. We’ve just been chatting with him,” Ransom said.

  “Chatting? He’s not even conscious, yet,” Madelyn said, after scanning the monitors.

  “Maybe he isn’t, now, but he was wide awake a few moments ago. Would you like to hear what he had to say?” Ransom nodded to Forester to play back their interview.

  Cassius had rallied enough to sound completely coherent. Ransom suspected he was relieved to finally be able to tell his story.

  Doctor Boreman and the Haleby children listened in stunned silence to Cassius’s voice clearly explaining how, when he’d learned of his cousin’s pregnancy, he’d convinced her to submit to an abortion, saying she was too young to undergo the rigors of childbirth. He’d placated her with promises of marriage and children when she was older. He’d picked her up before school one morning and taken her to the derelict chapel in the woods.

  A pre-med student, he had access to medical texts and was convinced he could perform the simple procedure and have Victoria back home before evening, no one the wiser.

  Something had gone wrong, whether from his inexperience or, as Cassius claimed, because of some abnormality in Victoria’s anatomy, she had begun to hemorrhage. When he was unable to stop the bleeding, he panicked.

  After she died, Cassius hid her body, intending to return when he’d thought of a way to permanently dispose of it.

  When his family home burned that very night, leaving no survivors, he decided it solved his problem. Cassius simply closed off the property, assuming the body would never be found.

  The recording finished and for some time the only sound in the room was the electronic hum and beep from the monitors.

  A frantic alarm from the heart monitor jolted them all. Nurses ran in and doctors rushed to the bedside, but nothing could be done.

  Cassius Haleby had signed a Do Not Resuscitate directive and Living Will, years before, leaving the medical staff with few options as he breathed his last.

  “Do you suppose he was listening?” Forester whispered to Detective Ransom. “Maybe having everyone hear it, like that, was too much for the old guy.”

  Ransom shrugged.

  He was satisfied the case had been solved and the community would be spared a lengthy trial of their beloved physician.

  Dr. Boreman called time of death and turned to the shocked witnesses.

  “I’m sorry. He’s gone. We’ll give the family a few moments,” he said to the staff.

  “Officers, would you mind stepping into the hall?”

  Ransom and Forester followed him out, leaving Haleby’s children alone with their father’s body.

  “Yes, Doctor?” Ransom said when they were away from the room.

  “I just want to say that I do not approve of you going behind my back to question this patient. It is very possible your action precipitated his death. However, under the circumstances, I’ve decided not to issue a formal complaint. The less notoriety this incident receives, the better.”

  “I do have to file my report, you know. We aren’t going to be able to cover up what he did,” Ransom told him.

  “I understand,” Boreman said. “It’s a sad business.”

  He walked away, shaking his head.

  “He acts like the doc is the victim here,” Forester said.

  “In a way, he was. A victim of his own vanity and pride.”

  Epilogue

  “Ken!” Judy called out, stepping through the French doors into the house.

  “In the nursery!” Ken called from upstairs.

  Judy carried a birdhouse she’d finished fashioning from a discarded mandolin. She set it on the kitchen counter and trotted up the stairs.

  “Shhh!” Ken held his finge
r to his lips as she appeared in the nursery doorway, then crooked it in a beckoning gesture.

  Judy tiptoed up to her husband and joined him in gazing adoringly at their sleeping children.

  “I just got them to sleep. Come on,” Ken tugged her hand, pulling his reluctant wife away from the slumbering babies.

  When they reached the landing, Ken kissed Judy, saying, “Now that they sleep through the night, it is getting harder to convince these guys ten-month-old babies still need naps.”

  “Is it the boys who need their naps or Daddy?” Judy teased with a hug. “What’s for lunch?”

  “Vegetable soup and oatmeal scones sound good to you?” Ken asked.

  “Yummy! You should have taken over the cooking years ago. Will it be ready soon? I need to deliver a completed order to the garden center. Do I have time before eating?”

  “It’s ready now, can’t you smell it? Come and sit down and tell me all about your morning spent in the bowels of your craft studio.”

  “I had a conference call from those people at HGTV about making a pilot for my show, Judy Makes It Better. They suggested I might be able to get the famous fabric artist, Andrea L. Stoeckel, as a guest. You know, she makes those wonderful religious wall hangings we saw in the museum in Portland last year. Won’t it be cool, if my show actually happens?” she said.

  “Yep, but that’s in God’s hands, as always. I think the life we have right now is pretty cool, you know.”

  Judy smiled in agreement as she spread honey butter on her scone.

  “Paisley called this morning,” Ken said. “She’s coming home this weekend. It will be good to see her.”

  “Even though Astilbe stayed home, she’s so busy with classes and friends, I think we see Paisley almost as much as we see her sister.”

  “David and Paul will be happy to have both their big sisters doting on them this weekend, anyway. Those baby boys seem to save their biggest smiles for Astilbe and Paisley.”

  “Don’t they have a check-up with the doctor this week? I hope they aren’t due for vaccinations. I wouldn’t want them to be fussy when Paisley is home.”