A Teeny Bit of Trouble

by Michael Lee West

  All I could think of was Mama’s recipe for Coca-Cola Basted Ham. She’d paired it with Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” and Matthew 8:31: So the demons begged Him, saying, If Ye cast us out, permit us to go into the herd of swine.

  The demon-angel moved beside my bed. She lifted my hand and adjusted a red tube. The tube led to a purple-red bag that hung above my head. Again, the disembodied voice uncurled from the ceiling: “Doctor Braxton, call 3-East. Dot Agnew, call the emergency room.”

  Bits and pieces came back to me. Dot, margaritas, Son, eyeballs, Josh, the wreck. And the nurse wasn’t an angel-demon. She wasn’t Dot. She was someone who’d taken an oath to help sick people.

  A gurney rattled past my door, wheels spinning on the tile, a sheet draped over a body.

  “Who’s that? Josh Eikenberry. Or Son Finnegan?”

  The nurse didn’t answer. I grabbed her wrist. “I know you can’t tell me who’s under that sheet. But if Son is alive, he’s in trouble. Dot gave him blood thinner. She put it in our margaritas. I don’t want Son to die. Please help him.”

  The nurse’s face hardened. She peeled my fingers away from her arm. “How many margaritas did you drink, Miss Templeton?”

  “One. But it was laced with PGA and Sonata and blood thinner.” My hand dropped to my thigh. I felt a bandage, and the flesh beneath it ached. I tried to raise up again, but the nurse gently pushed me down.

  “You need sutures. We’re waiting for Dr. Jennings. I’ve got a pressure bandage on your laceration. Try not to squirm, okay?”

  “You don’t understand. I was drugged. Tied up. Tasered. He—he tried to rape me.”

  “Who?” The nurse looked puzzled.

  “Josh. He’s in cahoots with Dot Agnew. She’s a nurse.”

  The nurse’s eyes widened. “Miss Templeton, you’re a tad confused on account of your accident.”

  “Dot tried to kill me and Son. Call the police.”

  “They’re here. But you’d best not talk to them till you’re sober. Try to stay calm.”

  How could I be calm? I’d killed a man with a tarantula. And Dot was clever and sugary. Had she gone to the farm to kill Sir? I sucked in air.

  “Get the police,” I said. “Send them to my farm. Dot’s going to shoot my dog.”

  “No one is going to shoot anyone.”

  “I’ll call the police myself. Where’s a phone?”

  I knew I sounded crazy. Once time Mama had gotten out of control, and Aunt Bluette had brought her to this hospital. The doctors had pumped Mama with drugs until her craziness eased. She’d just sat there like a potato, her empty eyes staring at the window.

  The nurse scurried out of the room. I pulled up on my elbows. The sheet spread out like a white tablecloth. I looked like sacrificial pork tenderloin, just waiting for Dot to carve me into pieces. I couldn’t stay here. She’d find me. I had to find a phone and call Red. He’d go to the farm and ninja-protect my dog.

  I jerked out the IV, and blood dribbled down my hand. A dark circle bloomed on the sheet. I dangled my legs off the side of the bed until the wooziness passed. Then I slid off the gurney.

  My feet hit the cold tile floor. I pressed my fist against my leg, trying to stop the bleeding, and tottered out of the room.

  Light spilled down a brown tiled hall. Doors on both sides. Some open. Some closed. At the far end of the corridor, nurses gathered around a tall desk. If they saw me, they’d haul me back to bed. I stepped in the opposite direction, down another brightly lit hallway, where a baby was crying.

  Don’t faint. One foot in front of the other, that’s a girl.

  At the end of the hall, a woman in a hospital gown stood outside her door, holding on to an IV pole. “Lady, you’re bleeding,” she said. “How’d you get hurt?”

  “I wrecked.” I didn’t just mean the car crash. I was broken in all kinds of ways. I looked down at my leg. Blood pattered against my toes. Dammit, I was barefooted.

  I ducked into a linen closet that smelled of bleach and laundry detergent. The humming fluorescents cast a grayish light over metal shelves. I moved toward one that was crammed with scrub suits.

  First, stop the bleeding. It was Aunt Bluette’s voice, soft and nasal. I peeled the pressure bandage off my leg. The red wound gaped open like trout lips. I found an Ace bandage and looped it around my thigh.

  Disguise yourself, Aunt Bluette whispered. I put on scrubs and a cap. Every place I touched felt sore. My face, knuckles, chest. Even my hair hurt. When I bent down to put on blue paper booties, I staggered sideways and hit the wall. How much blood could a person lose before they passed out?

  I slipped into the corridor. It was empty, except for a volunteer in a pink uniform who pushed a magazine cart. From the intercom, an operator with a twangy voice said, “Housekeeping to 2-West.”

  My heart pounded so hard, the bosom of my scrub suit jerked. Relax, Teeny. Nurses can smell fear. I took a deep breath. My lungs couldn’t fail me now because I’d left my inhaler in Dot’s kitchen.

  I stepped into the hall. It was long and blue. A light flickered above me. I checked each room. They were empty.

  The intercom cracked. “Code Yellow, emergency room.”

  Two nurses walked by, then circled back. They stared at the patient armband that dangled from my wrist. I’d forgotten to remove it. The nurse with pale blond hair looked me up and down. “Are you lost?”

  The other nurse said, “I bet she’s the Code Yellow.”

  I ran in the opposite direction. A red exit sign glowed above a stairwell door. I opened it and raced down to the next floor. Above me, the door opened. Footsteps shuffled over the tile. I flattened myself against the wall and held my breath.

  Footsteps started up again. Muffled voices. Then the door creaked shut. I clawed off my ID band and pushed away from the wall. I expected to see the nurses staring down. But they were gone.

  Holding pressure against my leg, I climbed down another flight of stairs. My paper booties squeaked, as if I’d walked through a wet field. I looked down. Blood. I scooted to the exit door and crept into a hall. It was darker than the rest of the hospital. I passed by vacant rooms, the beds stripped.

  Find a telephone. Call 911.

  The hospital operator’s voice spiraled down from the ceiling. “Code Yellow,” she said.

  I’d almost made it to the elevator when someone tapped my shoulder. I whirled. A woman blinked down at me, her face narrow and freckled. Perched on top of her head was a white Mr. Coffee filter. Her name tag read GLINDA REILLY, RN.

  “This wing is closed.” She stepped closer. “Are you new? Where’s your ID tag?”

  I looked past her, at a U-shaped nurse’s station. “Is there a phone over there?”

  “Honey, your feet are bloody. And your leg. My Lord. What in the world happened? You shouldn’t be on your feet.” While she talked, she steered me to a wheelchair. “I need to see how badly you’re cut. I’m just going to roll up your scrub pants.”

  I put my hand over my leg. “Do you have a cell phone?”

  “Let’s get you to the emergency room.”

  Behind me, I felt a whoosh of air, and I smelled Shalimar.

  “Glinda, call OR 6 and tell them I’m bringing the appendectomy,” a familiar voice said.

  Dot stepped in front of me. She’d changed into scrubs, but her Cockatoo hair was damp and spiked.

  I screamed. She clamped her hand against my mouth. “It’s all right, Glinda. This little gal is a tad paranoid. All her people are that way.”

  Glinda looked at Dot’s hand over my mouth, then she looked at Dot.

  “You want me to write you up?” Dot cried.

  I yelled as hard as I could into Dot’s hand. Murderer. Chop Shop. Killer. Then I tried to bite the fleshy part of her palm.

  The nurse scurried off.

  “Surrender, Teeny,” Dot said. Her free arm circled around me. Then she aimed the Taser against my chest. A string flew out. Something sharp and hard slammed into my chest.


  Dot pushed my wheelchair into an alcove. The abrupt movement nearly threw my limp body to the floor. She hoisted me back into the chair. Then she reloaded the Taser and aimed the red dot. I saw another flurry of white string. The blow knocked the breath out of me.

  “This part of the hospital is closed for repairs. I wouldn’t have found you, but you left a bloody trail.” She removed two probes from my scrub top and dropped them in her pocket.

  “You know what this is, Teeny?” She pulled out a syringe. It was filled with a milky substance. A white drop quivered at the end of the steel bevel.

  My hands and feet throbbed, but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.

  “Propofol. Better known as Mother’s milk. A real peaceful way to die. Your heart will stop. And you’ll go to sleep. I wanted to use this on Kendall from the get-go, but Josh wanted to have a little fun. He was a little sweet on her. When she showed up at the funeral home with that printout, he laced her Countrytime lemonade with pure grain alcohol. It went straight to Kendall’s pea-brain. Then she told everything. She kept talking about you. She said you needed more evidence. Josh went to call me. He left her alone for two minutes, but Kendall must have gotten paranoid. She ran off. We didn’t know where she’d gone. Then you called and told me exactly where to find the little slut. Honestly, Teeny. You’re more efficient than GPS.”

  Oh, no. Kendall, I’m sorry. So sorry.

  I felt a tug inside my chest, right where those Taser probes had gone in. All those people dead and dismembered. All dead and gone because I was a truth junkie and Dot wanted more chairs.

  She pushed up my sleeve. With her other hand, she aimed a needle at my arm. “Oh, by the way,” she said. “Guess who’s in jail? Lester Philpot. I put Kendall’s fingers in the trunk of his car. Then I made an anonymous call to the police.”

  “Why did you kill so many people?” I whispered.

  “I wanted to be rich,” she said. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

  Glinda walked down the hall, arms swinging, then she abruptly stopped. “Everything all right?” she asked.

  Dot put the syringe into her pocket. Then she reloaded the Taser.

  “Run,” I cried. “Tell everybody that Dot Agnew is selling black market organs.”

  Dot’s hand moved in a blur. She pointed the Taser at Glinda. A snap echoed in the empty hall. The nurse let out a whoop. Her eyelids fluttered and she dropped to the floor.

  Dot pulled out another cartridge and reloaded. I vaulted out of the chair and slammed into her. The Taser fell on top of Glinda. She didn’t try to grab it. Her muscles were still locked.

  “Bitch,” I said, and shoved my hand into Dot’s pocket. I groped for the syringe. She made a fist and punched the back of my head. Each blow felt as light as a lemon poppy seed muffin.

  “Dwarf,” she cried. She grabbed my arm and shook it. The tip of the needle jammed into my finger. Now that hurt. I dragged the syringe out of her pocket and threw it down the hall.

  “Propofol,” I yelled. “She’s killed patients with Propofol.”

  Dot raced after the syringe. I got behind the wheelchair and started running. I crashed the chair into the backs of her thighs. She tottered forward and sprawled on the tile floor.

  Get the Taser, Aunt Bluette said.

  I snatched it up. But Dot was ready for me. We rolled on the floor, grappling for the Taser. My booties scraped across the tile, leaving a bloody comma. Bitch wouldn’t get away with it. Bitch wouldn’t murder my bulldog. Bitch was going down.

  She snatched the Taser. I butted her arm with my head. The Taser fell out of her hand and clattered.

  I grabbed her earlobes and tore out those gold hoops. She howled. Her hands flew up to her ears. Blood ran down both sides of her neck. I scooted on my belly toward the gun. I grabbed it and rolled over. My hands were steady as I aimed the red dot between her eyebrows.

  The string wiggled. A prong slammed into Dot’s forehead. She screeched. Her legs folded and she hit the floor.

  Glinda sat up, grappling with a cell phone, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  I was sobbing, too. I wiped my nose. A swirl of dizziness rushed around me. How much Propofol had gotten into my finger? How could a tiny puncture wound hurt more than the gash in my leg?

  I sat down hard. Yet I seemed to be moving toward the ceiling. Up, up, up. So high. Right into the clouds.

  Life is nothing but a peach layer cake, Aunt Bluette said. You can’t eat it in one sitting, but one day you’ll cut that last slice.

  I strained to hear more, but couldn’t keep my eyes open. My aunt’s voice echoed, as if she were crouched inside a tin can. I tumbled in after her.

  thirty-six

  I dreamed that I was cooking a meal at the Spencer-Jackson House. The dining table was covered with platters of ham and chicken and steamy bowls of green beans and corn and gravy. On the walnut sideboard, a red velvet cake sat on a glass pedestal, four layers of cream cheese icing, the peaks and swirls hiding a scarlet center.

  As I laid out blue-sprigged china plates, I breathed in the tang of cole slaw and baked beans. I smelled peaches, too. Turnovers, cobblers, deep-dish pies.

  The smells of home.

  Nature might hate vacuums, but I knew how to fill them. Home wasn’t a place. Home was inside me. And I finally knew how to find it.

  I heard a clinking noise, as if people were tapping champagne glasses and making toasts. Or maybe my lie tally had reset to zero. Each precise click seemed to say, Teeny Templeton, lies are not black and white, they’re pure gray. You don’t need to keep a tally.

  The sound got louder. I opened my eyes. I was in a dark room. Rain ticked against a window. A nurse with gray hair moved next to the bed, adjusting knobs on a machine. She turned her head. “Do you want something for pain, sugar?” she asked.

  “I want Coop.”

  “I’m here, sweetheart,” a deep voice said.

  I turned toward the voice I’d loved my whole life. Coop stepped out of the shadows and took my hand. He felt warm and alive, and he smelled faintly of pine needles. I had so much to tell him, but I couldn’t shape the words. I felt like a voiceless three-year-old.

  The nurse set the call button beside my elbow and left the room.

  With his free hand, Coop lifted a glass and fit the straw between my lips. Water splashed over my parched tongue. I drank and drank, until my thoughts ran clear. His gaze moved up to my hair then down to the bandage on my leg.

  “You look like hell, Templeton.”

  I spit out the straw. “Is Sir all right?”

  “He’s fine. He and Red are at the farm.”

  “What about Son?”

  “The docs removed his spleen. They gave him some medicine to stop the bleeding.” He glanced up at the transfusion bag, type B positive. “Don’t you want to know how you’re doing?”

  “I’m breathing.”

  “You got eight stitches. It wasn’t a deep cut. But the Coumadin stopped your blood from clotting.”

  I squeezed his fingers. “Where were you? I called your office. They said you’d be gone the whole week.”

  “I had a bleeding ulcer. Ended up at Charleston Medical Center.”

  I tried to sit up, but the pain dragged me down. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He turned away. I grabbed his chin and made him look at me. “Just tell me. It can’t be that bad.”

  “Red and I talked about it. We were scared you’d drive to Charleston.”

  “I would have.”

  “I didn’t want you on the road. I was afraid you’d end up like Kendall.” A tear ran down the side of Coop’s nose. “But I had another reason. A bad reason.”

  “What?”

  “I thought you needed time to sort your feelings about Son.”

  “They’re sorted, O’Malley.” I licked my lips. They felt rough and parched. “Where’s Dot?”

  “Jail. She’s claiming the whole Philpot family was involved in the chop shop.”

  “
No. She set them up. She told me.” I let out a harsh breath. “Is that hearsay? Fruit of the poisoned nurse?”

  “She can’t hurt you now, sweetheart. She can’t hurt anyone.”

  I told him about Emerson’s hedgehog, the money, the key, the margaritas, the tarantula, and the Cayman Island bank account.

  He slipped his arms around me. I pressed my face against the curve of his neck. His pulse ticked against my cheek. We stayed like that a long time, just holding each other. Finally I lifted my face. “Where’s Son’s Jaguar? In the junkyard?”

  “I suppose so.” Coop leaned back, his brow wrinkled. “Why?”

  “Because I want to find that tarantula. It saved two lives and broke up a chop shop. I don’t want to lose it.”

  “You lost something else.” Coop pulled Minnie’s diamond out of his shirt pocket. “When the police arrested Dot, she was wearing this.”

  “She stole it.”

  “It’s yours, sweetheart. I want you to keep it. Even if I’m not the one you want spend your life with.”

  “You are the one, Coop.” I put my hand on his cheek. “You always were the one.”

  Behind him, lightning brightened the window. He put the ring on my thumb. Then he climbed into the bed and pressed his nose against my cheek. Something wet trickled onto my neck.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes, what?” he asked in a wavery voice.

  “I’ll marry you.”

  His face moved directly over mine. “I’ll make you so happy. I’ll break laws for you. But I’ll never lie again.”

  “And no sins of omission.” I pushed my fist against his jaw.

  “Nothing but the whole truth,” he said, and drew an X over his heart. “So help me God.”

  Whatever the nurse had put into my IV was making me chatty, and a little bossy. “Another thing, don’t call me baby. Call me sweetheart. That’s your especial name for me.”

  “Sure, sweetheart,” he said in a Bogart-esque voice.

  “Much better, O’Malley.”

  He kissed my hand. “You’re a rare woman, Teeny Templeton. You showed unconditional love to Emerson. You were willing to change your life to raise her.”