“It feels like such an invasion.” I looked at her, my eyes welling. “I hate this, Kara.”
She gave me a strong hug and then stepped back. “I think I should stay with you.”
“I’m not about to argue. You have to visit with my new friends, Simon and Otto, anyway.”
I wanted to erase the defacement from my mind and cats would help with that.
The two of us were soon sitting on the kitchen floor with the kitties crawling all over us. Even Dashiell and Scaredy Simon came to comfort us. Felines have a strong emotional bond with their humans. They know when something is wrong and they try to make it all better with purrs and nose bumps and staying close.
The afternoon quietly slipped into early evening and when I saw Kara checking her phone for the fourth time, then texting someone—probably Liam—and generally growing restless, I was ready to set her free from babysitting duty. Besides, I’d had plenty of time to think and I wasn’t about to let some random stranger disturb my peace of mind. We both needed to find a little bit of normal amid the chaos of the last few days.
But Kara’s phone rang and when she said, “Hello, Peyton,” I had a feeling we were off again to our home away from home, the hospital. And so it was.
We each took our own car since I insisted Kara should go home to Liam after this visit to Brenda, who was apparently fully awake now. But there had been another development. Minnie Schultz was also awake, though as Peyton told us, she wasn’t allowed visitors.
What did a no-visitors policy matter at this point anyway? One son had no car, one son had fled, which made him guilty of something in my book, and her daughter had a brand-new baby.
The women’s two rooms on the fourth floor weren’t that far from each other. Peyton was pacing in the hallway near a large food cart. A hospital dinner had apparently been served—and my guess was it had been far less than yummy from the smells that surrounded us. I was glad the memory of that delicious cabbage soup helped me ignore whatever unidentifiable food odor permeated the hall.
Peyton seemed happy to see us and took us into Brenda’s room, where bouquets of flowers sat on the windowsill and filled the room with sweetness. An IV was connected to one hand and a heart monitor bleeped a steady rhythm. A tray of uneaten food sat on the over-bed wheeling table that had been pushed away from the bed. Brenda managed a sleepy smile. But her bruised face, the cast on her leg and her pained expression tugged at my heart. They’d also shaved off her lovely hair on one side, which gave her an odd punk-rock look.
She saw me staring and said, “That’s the one part of me that doesn’t hurt. They had to relieve the pressure from a subdural hematoma. They drilled a hole in my skull and—”
I held up my hand with a smile. “I’m just glad to hear you speaking as if nothing happened to your poor head.”
She glanced Kara’s way and Peyton said, “This is the newspaper woman I was telling you about. She’s been so wonderful.”
“Ah, Jillian’s daughter. You’ve been such a comfort to my overprotective brother.”
No one corrected her by saying stepdaughter. Kara had, after all, truly become as close to me as any daughter could.
Kara took a seat close to the hospital bed. “Do you recall anything about the crash?”
She started to shake her head no and winced. The heart monitor sped up when she experienced this pain. Brenda grabbed the back of her neck and Peyton responded at once with concern.
“I’ll get you a new ice pack.” He hurried from the room.
“He’s such a worrier, but the whiplash is pretty severe. To answer your question, I don’t recall a blessed thing about the accident.”
Her heartbeat began to slow and I felt relieved. I’d even clenched my hands but relaxed my fingers now. Being around someone so injured, so wounded, had me worried for her.
“This ‘accident’ was no accident,” Kara said.
“Why would someone do that to me? None of my patients are violent, despite what the public believes. The mentally ill are, for the most part, harmless. I still can’t believe I didn’t do this to myself.”
I stood back, not wanting to interrupt this conversation. Maybe something Kara asked her would jog her memory. But then I remembered that Peyton said he doubted she would recall anything.
Kara placed a hand over Brenda’s free hand, the one without the IV. “You definitely didn’t do this to yourself. I talked to the wrecker driver and he’s seen plenty of accidents in his time. He said you were run off the road.”
Brenda closed her eyes. “This is so disturbing. Why would someone do this to me?” The bleeping sped up once again.
I stepped closer to the bed. “We didn’t come here to upset you. There’s time to figure this out.”
“What about Minnie?” Brenda asked me. “I remember she was sick and Peyton said something about her being on this floor not too far away from my room. But he didn’t want me worrying about her, so I don’t know anything. While he’s gone, please tell me about her. It would help to know if she’s recovering.”
I said, “She had her surgery. I plan on visiting her—even if I have to sneak in. Maybe I’ll head to her room right now and—”
“Hang on.” Kara gestured at me. “Jillian has a direct line to the police chief and I want her to stay while I ask a few questions. I believe the attack on you has something to do with Chester Winston’s murder. But we have no proof.”
Brenda’s expression betrayed her frustration. “But I can’t make that connection, Kara. I don’t remember anything.”
The last thing I wanted—and I was sure this was Kara’s wish as well—was to upset this broken woman. “Let’s take this back to before the accident, then. And we’ll just call it an accident.”
I gave Kara a bit of a warning look. I felt as if she was being a little too enthusiastic about pinning what happened to Brenda on Chester’s killer. Brenda was traumatized and fragile. She needed a gentler approach.
Brenda smiled. “You’d make a good shrink, Jillian.”
I returned her smile. “I take that as a compliment. Were you leaving here when the accident happened? Or somewhere else?”
She squinted, but the bruising around her eyes obviously made her rethink the use of those eye muscles. “I picked up something from Minnie. Yes. I was here.”
“A journal?” Kara asked. I was relieved that her tone was softer. Kara didn’t fall off the stupid truck. She understood she needed to chill.
Peyton came back into the room carrying a towel that was obviously wrapped around the ice pack—a long one, probably made for exactly the kind of neck injury Brenda had.
As he helped his sister move so he could put it in place, she said, “You know, pain means I’m healing. Pain isn’t a totally bad thing.”
“I hate what happened to you, Brenda.” I saw his eyes shine with unshed tears.
She clutched his hand. “That’s why these two strong, healthy women are helping me figure out what happened. I want you to allow them to ask me the questions that need to be asked. You sent the police officer away, I know, but I need to understand. You’re an internist and I’m the psychiatrist. I know better.”
His shoulders slumped. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Now sit down and rest. You look exhausted.” She weakly waved at a reclining chair in the corner near the window.
He did as she said.
Meanwhile Kara was already asking a question. “What police officer came to talk to you?”
Maybe Tom and Candace had finally made the connection between Brenda’s attempted murder and Chester’s death.
“A man from the sheriff’s office. I never got his name.”
I closed my eyes for a second. Osborne was everywhere. But I remember what Tom said about cooperating with the sheriff’s department and how important it was. I hoped Kara would remember as well.
<
br /> “Oh, that makes sense,” Kara wisely replied. “The sheriff’s deputies responded first to your wreck.”
Wanting to steer this away from an issue we had no control over—police infighting—I said, “You mentioned something about the journal you bought for Minnie. Do you remember that you bought three of them? That you took one from her that she’d written in?”
Brenda closed her eyes. “She was so happy.” She looked at me then and I could see a spark in her gaze. “That young policewoman found that stack of journals in the closet. Minnie has probably journaled all her life. It gave her comfort to hold a pen, to write.”
“She wrote the words no uniform. Did she tell you what that meant?” Kara asked.
“Well, there was a security guard hanging around and the police officer sitting in the room. I took it to mean she wanted them to leave—that she wanted the uniforms to go away.”
I nodded. “That makes sense when you put it in the context of what was going on around Minnie at the time. And the scaredy-cat Simon? Do you recall her writing about him?”
“Yes. Yes. The cat.” Brenda’s mind was working at full speed now, but I worried this would be too tiring for her.
“Simon, the scaredy-cat, seemed important to Minnie?” Kara said.
“Yes. She mentioned something about the tall man frightening her cat, but then we were interrupted. The security guard and the Mercy officer—what’s her name again?”
“Lois?” I said.
“That’s it. Lois. Anyway, this security guard came into the room and started up a conversation with her. Minnie was so confused as it was, and their talking disrupted her train of thought. She could never get back on track. She just put down the journal and sat there staring into space.”
“Can you remember anything else?” Kara said.
I could tell by her tone that for Kara, this conversation was a bit of a disappointment. The only revelation was that Osborne—was it even Osborne or perhaps one of the officers who’d found the crash site?—had come here to see how Brenda was doing. We already knew what Minnie had written in at least one journal.
The conversation seemed to have tired Brenda, and when she asked Peyton to help her adjust the ice pack, we were already up and headed for the door after telling Brenda she needed to rest.
“I didn’t help you much, did I?” she said.
“Oh, you did,” Kara said quickly. “I’ll come back tomorrow because you’ll probably be stronger then. I’ve worn you out and I’m sorry for that. But I won’t give up trying to find answers for you.”
Peyton smiled. “You two are the absolute best.”
Brenda smiled, too, and if she could have nodded her agreement she would have. Instead, she offered a quiet “Yes, you are.”
Twenty-nine
The food cart was rolled away by a dietary department worker as Kara and I stood in the hall. Liam had texted her and she was late for the dinner date she’d promised him.
When I saw Lois hanging around another doorway down the hall, I knew I’d found where Minnie had been moved.
“I don’t know if Minnie is even conscious enough to talk, but I want to see her. Maybe she’ll know at least Lois and I are here for her. Go meet Liam and I’ll call you if I learn anything.”
We hugged and I watched as she left. I noticed the security guard leaning on the nurse’s station counter nod at her as she passed him. Was that the same guy who’d escorted the fighting families out of the hospital the other evening? From this far away I couldn’t tell, but between his presence and Lois being here, I felt safer than I had since seeing that awful paint on the curb.
Lois seemed happy to see me and I also sensed she was glad to be once again protecting Minnie. The patient might have important secrets locked away in her healing brain, ones that could help catch a killer.
“Is it okay if I visit?” I whispered.
“No visitors, I’m told. But I’m making an exception for you—if you promise not to tattle to that surgeon.”
“I promise,” I whispered.
“She’s in and out, but when she wakes up, this little lady actually makes sense now. You know, even when she was so out of it, I felt something for her. Like we were connected somehow.”
“I saw that, Lois. You were there for her—that’s for sure.”
Lois led me into the darkened room. She lowered her voice. “They said to keep the lights dimmed. She had a big surgery and she’s sensitive to the light.”
I nodded in understanding. Minnie, looking frail but comfortable, slept with the bed raised, her head bandages nearly blending with the stark whiteness of the pillow.
Lois took me to the far end of the room as far from Minnie as we could get. “I heard Minnie has her first grandchild now, but I don’t think it’s our place to tell her.”
“If she wakes up, I won’t mention it.” I walked over to the bed and sat in the straight-back chair that Lois had probably been sitting in. She’d stayed close to her charge. That made me smile.
The room was devoid of machines aside from the IV and the monitor clipped to her finger that registered her blood oxygen. I placed a hand over Minnie’s small, cool fingers.
Her eyes slowly opened. “Why, it’s you. How’s my Otto?”
She remembered. I was a little stunned.
“He’s doing great, Minnie. Do you want to see him?”
“Oh, that would warm my heart. As cold as they keep it in this darn place, maybe it would warm the rest of me, too.”
She was indeed making perfect sense. I pulled out my phone and tapped the cat cam app. Since I’d left all the cats together upstairs, I was hoping her two fur friends wouldn’t be camera shy. “Guess who else is visiting me?”
She wanted to sit up straighter, but Lois came quickly to the other side of the bed. “You don’t need to move around too much. I can raise the bed a little more.”
Lois did this and, to my relief, the first cat I saw was none other than Simon, our scaredy boy. “Guess who else came to stay with me, Minnie?” I showed her the image on my phone.
“Simon? But he was hiding from the tall man and I couldn’t find him. Where was he?”
“In a closet. He’s fitting in with my cats just fine and Shawn is taking care of the rest of your crew.” Her mention of this “tall man” wasn’t lost on me and I wondered if she was referring to Chester. But Chester was by no means tall.
She said, “There’s Otto, too.”
I craned to see what she was looking at, and sure enough, Simon and Otto, along with Merlot and Syrah, were all on-camera. “Here. Let me do something so you can talk to them.” I took the phone and activated the chat feature. “Okay, say hello to your kitties.”
“Really? They can hear me?”
It was obvious they’d already heard her because Otto stretched up and began pawing at the camera. She moved her mouth closer to the phone and said, “It’s your mama, my babies. I’ll be home soon.”
Simon opened his mouth and let out the sweetest, most plaintive meow.
“I love you,” Minnie said to her cats.
Lois was grinning—actaully grinning—and this visit was the by far the best part of a difficult day for me.
“You can keep looking, but can I ask you a few questions, Minnie?”
She closed her eyes. “I’m having trouble looking too long because it’s bright, so you can put your little TV down for now.”
I almost laughed, but it was like a TV. “You mentioned the tall man. Are you talking about Chester?”
“No, the man in the uniform, except then he had no uniform on the very bad day. He scared all the cats, but especially my sweetheart Simon.”
No uniform. That’s why she’d written those words.
“He and Chester got mad at each other. It had something to do with all those awful boxes. Why did they keep brin
ging in those boxes? I couldn’t move in my own house. And then there were the cats. So many cats. I tried my best to care for them because Chester kept coming with a new one almost every day.” She paused to take a breath because she was talking so fast.
I gripped her hand, being careful not to hurt her fragile fingers. “Slow down, Minnie. It’s okay.”
But I noticed that Lois had taken out her phone, touched an app and placed it on the pillow near Minnie’s head. She wanted to record what was being said.
She nodded slowly. “Slow down. Yes. I got tired with so many cats and Harris coming in with that man who all of a sudden wasn’t wearing his uniform and . . .” She withdrew her hand and squeezed her forehead between her thumb and her middle finger.
Harris said he hadn’t seen his mother in months. Obviously that wasn’t true.
Lois said, “Do you need medicine for the headache, Minnie?”
“That would be good, Lois. Yes.”
Lois pressed the call bell and a voice came over the intercom seconds later. “Can I help you?”
She relayed that Minnie had a headache and the woman who’d answered said she’d be there in a few minutes.
“You mentioned your son Harris. He came to visit you with the tall man?” I said.
“Yes . . . no. I’m getting confused again.” Minnie covered her eyes with one hand.
“Do you want me to leave so you can rest, Minnie?” I said.
She removed her small fingers from her face, but I could tell she was in pain. “Oh no, Jillian. But I remember something happened at my house. Something bad. It’s not a good memory. I was in the closet with Simon. When it was safe, I knew I had to leave and Otto was the most vulnerable. He was the youngest, you see, so I took him with me.”
“Yes. You protected him and I’ll bet he’s grown since you gave him to me to care for the other day.” I could tell she was not only in pain. I was tiring her out with my questions.
A male voice said, “Tammy wanted me to tell you she’ll be here with that pain medicine in a minute, Mrs. Schultz.”
It was the security guard.
“What are you doing acting like a medical assistant, Norm?” Lois said.
The Cat, the Collector and the Killer Page 21