Chapter 22
There was a party going on somewhere, because Jo could hear it. People talking, glasses clinking. The squeaky wheels of a portable bar. Laughing. Crying? She really wished her neighborhood would quiet down. These houses were too close together. In the morning she’d look for a place off by itself. And those bright lights. Had she forgotten to close her draperies? She needed sleep. She felt so tired.
“Jo, Jo, are you awake?”
Someone was rubbing her hand. Jo opened one eye a bit and saw Carrie. Why was Carrie in her bedroom?
“What are you doing here?” she rasped. Her tongue felt swollen and her consonants came out mushy.
“One of the nurses—Bobbie Fraehling—lives down the street from me,” Carrie explained. “They wanted to call your mom, but Bobbie had them call me.”
“My mom? Why would they call my mom? And who’s ‘they’?”
“Hospitals always call the nearest relative. Except your mom’s way down in Florida. They found her name in your wallet.”
Jo was totally confused. Of course Mom was in Florida. She’d been there since Dad died nine years ago. Both eyes open now, Jo glanced around. All she saw were white walls. No, they were white curtains. This wasn’t her bedroom, was it?
“Where am I? What happened?”
“Don’t you know?”
Carrie’s eyes looked worried. Jo shook her head, then winced at the sudden pain.
“You drove your car into a tree over on Highpoint. Don’t you remember? What were you doing on Highpoint?”
Jo thought hard. “I felt sick.”
“Yes, they said you had thrown up. Were you trying to get yourself to the hospital?”
“No, I don’t think so.” It was such an effort to remember. “I think I went there to see where Genna had fallen.”
Carrie nodded. “But what made you crash?”
“I remember a truck.” Things were starting to come back. “He wanted to pass me. But I felt so sick.” She glanced at Carrie. “I threw up?”
“Uh-huh. They found you hanging half out of the car. You must have got the door open, but your seat belt held you in.”
Jo winced. “How bad is my car?”
“Why don’t you ask how bad you are?” Carrie asked, with exasperation, as though Jo were a child who had just done a very foolish and frightening thing. Don’t ever do that to me again, she seemed ready to scold.
“Okay,” Jo said contritely, “how bad am I?”
“Nothing’s broken, thank God. They had to put a few stitches in your scalp.”
Jo touched her head. So that was why it hurt so.
“And your hair might look a little odd for a while til it grows out. Some bumps and bruises, but nothing too terrible. You were lucky.”
“Yes. Apparently. Now, my car?”
“It’s . . . fixable.”
Jo groaned.
“Don’t worry. Nothing too major. They have to straighten something around the wheel that hit the tree, pound out some dents. You should have it back in a couple days at most.”
“How much will that cost?”
“I don’t know, Jo. But don’t worry about that. You need to rest up right now.”
“Right. Where are my clothes? Can you take me home?”
“No, you have to rest here,” Carrie said, spelling it out, “in the hospital. Jo, you blacked out, remember? That’s serious. They want to keep you for observation.”
“And how much will their observations cost me? Carrie, I don’t have health insurance, remember? I couldn’t afford it. So I can’t afford this either.”
“Jo, be sensible. If you go home too soon and have complications, you could run up an even higher bill. Not to mention what it might do to your health.”
As if to block any thoughts of flight, a white-coated technician snapped open the curtain and stood there, holding a tray of sinister-looking needles and tubes.
“Ms. McAllister? I need some of your blood.”
Jo grimaced. “It’ll be on sale tomorrow if you can wait. Twenty percent off.”
The woman gave a polite laugh, probably having heard similar jokes hundreds of times, as well as such accusations as “vampire” and “leech,” which occurred to Jo but never reached her lips. Carrie stepped out as Jo presented her arm to be bound, swabbed, and pierced. By the time the Band-Aid was applied, Jo realized that she really wasn’t feeling well enough to go home and would appreciate a few hours of recovery time there under professional eyes. So when an orderly came to wheel her from the emergency area to a room, she offered no protest, only waving wanly to Carrie as well as ordering her as firmly as she could manage to return home to her family.
“I’ll be back in the morning,” Carrie promised, leaving Jo to watch a succession of acoustical ceiling tiles roll by on her way to her destination. By the time she reached her room, her eyes had grown too heavy to check it out, so she simply stated that it would do. She sank into oblivion on the cheerful parting words of the nurse: “Press this call button when you need the bedpan.”
Carrie arrived early, shortly after Jo’s food tray had been delivered.
“Well, aren’t we royalty now,” she declared. “Breakfast in bed!”
“And a princely one it is too,” Jo said after swallowing a spoonful of her watery Cream of Wheat. “The coffee is almost warm. At least I think it’s coffee.”
“You’re looking better—a little more color. How do you feel?”
“Good. Well, reasonably good, considering. I understand the reason for the stitches and bruises, but I’ve been trying to figure out what was going on with my stomach last night.”
“You mean why you threw up?”
“Yes. I really felt awful, Carrie. I realize now that was the whole reason I crashed into the pole. But what brought it on? I mean, it felt like the worst flu I’ve ever had, or the worst food poisoning.”
“Have you seen the doctor this morning? Did he say anything about it?”
“The doc who treated me last night stopped by earlier and checked my eyes and ears for possible concussion. I guess I’m okay on that point since he said I’m free to go. He couldn’t say what brought on my stomach attack. Apparently, whatever was in my stomach didn’t make it with me to the hospital. He seemed to shrug it off, since I don’t have any symptoms left.”
“There’s such a thing as a twenty-four-hour flu. Maybe that’s what you had, though I haven’t heard of it going around lately. What did you have for dinner last night?”
“Nothing special. I brought in leftovers from a chicken stir-fry I made the other night. It didn’t make me sick the first time I ate it.”
“Was it in the fridge at the store until you ate it?”
“Yes, right up until the time I heated it up in the microwave, which was shortly before the workshop ladies arrived.”
“Hmmm.”
“There’s one thing, though.” Jo told Carrie about Hank Schroder stopping in just before closing time.
“That’s weird. Couldn’t he have just called and asked for Charlie’s number?”
“You’d think so. Maybe he got tired of getting wrong numbers. I gave Charlie an out, by the way, for not taking the job. He’s coming down with the chicken pox—caught from your twins.”
“My what?”
“It’s a long story. Anyway, Schroder went over to the cooler to get himself a soda—at my invitation. But my open can was still sitting there, and I got distracted by the phone.”
“You think he might have dropped something into it? An insecticide, perhaps, from his landscaping work?”
Jo shrugged. “All I know is he was in the shop. If there’s a connection, it’s flimsy, but it’s the only possibility I can come up with so far.”
“But what would Hank gain from that?”
“That’s what I can’t figure out. Maybe he caught on that I was trying to connect him to Kyle’s murder, and Genna’s too.”
“Maybe he thinks you know more than you do. Jo, I thi
nk you should go to the police with this.”
“With what, Carrie? I don’t have anything concrete. No way am I going to face Lieutenant Morgan with a story like this.”
“Jo!”
“No, absolutely not. He’ll only twist it around somehow to make me look like the guilty one.” Jo pushed away the tray with her half-finished breakfast. “How about helping me check out of here so I can get back to work? The store opens up in less than two hours.”
“You’re not working today. I’m taking you to our place. You can have Amanda’s room for a couple days, to rest up. I’ll handle the store.”
Jo laughed, having half-expected such a plan from her friend.
“Will you bring me breakfast in bed?” she asked, easing herself to a standing position. “And lunch and dinner too? I like a fresh rose on my tray, if you please, oh, and a linen napkin.”
“I’m serious, Jo. You can’t stay home alone. You’ve been in a car accident.”
Jo located the bag containing her clothes and headed to the bathroom, clutching at the back of her gown. “I won’t be at my place alone. I’ll be at the store. I just need a shower and change of clothes.”
“Jo!”
Jo pulled the door closed behind her to end the discussion, then winced as she caught sight of her reflection in the bathroom mirror: dark circles under her eyes, puffy eyelids, and a large chunk of hair cut away around a bandaged area where her stitches had been put in. Not exactly the look needed to greet those few customers still brave enough to set foot in her shop. Maybe Carrie was right—maybe she shouldn’t go straight home.
“Carrie,” she called, “let’s stop at the drugstore on the way, okay? I’m going to need a few things.”
Chapter 23
Jo dabbed her new cover-stick makeup around her eyes. It wasn’t helping much to conceal the deep blue. For that matter, household putty might have trouble. The ice pack before her shower, though, had taken the swelling down some. Her hair was something else. She had been warned against a full shampoo because of the stitches, but even a shampoo and blow-dry wouldn’t do much to disguise the lopsidedness of the cut. Emergency room doctors were no hair stylists.
She rifled through her scarf drawer and pulled out a brightly colored silk square salvaged from her New York days. A few folds and a couple of experimental drapes and ties about her head later, and she nodded. That would do for now. Too bad she couldn’t run the shop wearing dark glasses, or a Halloween mask, though some might say that’s what she was starting with.
“I made coffee,” Carrie called from the kitchen. “Ready for it yet?”
“Let’s take it along,” Jo answered, leaning out the bedroom door. “There are two thermal mugs with lids in the left-side cabinet.” She threw her makeup into her purse, along with the prescription pain pills they had given her at the hospital, and took a final check in the mirror before stepping out.
“How do I look? Scary?”
“You look fine. Good, actually. That scarf is beautiful. How about something to eat, though, to supplement the hospital gruel?”
“No time. I want to stop at the garage on the way, if you don’t mind, and check on my car.”
“I don’t mind, if you really want to see it, but you could also just call from the store and get an update. Which reminds me, have you called your mom?”
“Mom?” Jo stared blankly. “Why?”
“To tell her about your accident, of course.” Carrie set down the coffee carafe she had been emptying into the large mugs. “Jo, does she even know about all you’ve been going through lately? When’s the last time you talked to her?”
“We’ve talked,” Jo said defensively. “Carrie, Mom doesn’t like hearing bad news, you know that. She likes to pretend everything is fine and wonderful, with herself and with everyone she knows. When she asks me, ‘How are you?’ it really is just a pleasantry with her, like she’s passing you on the street and is just saying ‘hello.’ She doesn’t want to hear anything other than, ‘Fine, and how are you?’”
“But she did hear about Mike’s accident, didn’t she? And she didn’t dissolve into a puddle over it.”
“No, I had to tell her that, of course, but I hated it. I could hear in her voice, even though she said all the right things, that she really thought it was most inconsiderate of Mike to go and get himself blown up and therefore cause her upset. She did invite me down to Florida, you remember, when I didn’t know what to do next. But I knew if I went that I would never be able to say Mike’s name aloud again for fear of getting that look that said, ‘We don’t talk about such things, dear.’”
“I think you’re being too hard on her, Jo. Did you ever think maybe it’s you that’s trying to protect her?”
Jo shook her head. “Even growing up, it was always Dad I went to when I had a problem to work out. Mom was the one who wanted me always to smile, and look pretty, and be perfect.”
“Well, she was in a dreamworld, then, wasn’t she?” Carrie said, grinning.
“You got that right.” Jo laughed. Her smile faded though, as she thought of her father. Had he died so early because of having to bear the stresses for two? Well, she shrugged, enough of that. She grabbed her mug and waved Carrie toward the door. “Time to work on the problems in the real world.”
They stopped at Hanson’s Garage. Pete Tober, not surprisingly, was not around, and Jo got the rundown on her car’s needed repairs from Earl Hanson himself. It was pretty much as Carrie had said—damage around the right front wheel, along with plenty of scrapes and scratches.
“You were lucky that tree was rotted inside,” Hanson said. “It gave way when you hit it. A healthy tree would have stopped you like a brick wall.”
Jo thought of her stitches and aching bruises. At least she could feel them. What kind of shape would she be in if she’d hit a solid tree?
They discussed how soon Jo could get her car back—Hanson said at least another day of work was needed—and the cost. Jo did have insurance, but, of course, with a high deductible. Getting her aging, but only means of transportation in shape would set her back five hundred, and this on top of her hospital bills.
She rolled her eyes and joked to Carrie, “Maybe I should call Mom after all,” then dismissed the idea as quickly as she’d said it. She’d come up with the money—somehow.
Jo gave Hanson the go-ahead on the necessary repairs, then got back into Carrie’s car. As they drove to the shop, she asked Carrie about Charlie. “How are things between him and Dan?”
“Cool,” Carrie said. “And I don’t mean cool as Charlie would use the word. I mean chilly.”
“Ouch.”
“At least Charlie’s keeping busy enough helping you out to not dwell on it too much. But I know he thinks Dan used Genna’s death as an excuse to pull him away from the playhouse. And I don’t say so, but I think Charlie’s right.”
“Has Charlie ever talked to Dan about what interests him so about the playhouse? How he was fascinated by the soundboard and such?”
“I don’t think so. When he was still going there, I’m sure he sensed Dan’s feelings about it and avoided bringing up the subject around him. Now he seems convinced anything he says to Dan will be treated as idiocy. Meanwhile, Dan sees Charlie’s silence as rebellion. And I’m walking on eggs playing mediator, and not having much success.”
“Give it a little time.”
“Yes, maybe they’ll both cool down. Or warm up. I don’t know which is needed, really.”
Carrie pulled into the Craft Corner’s parking lot with five minutes to spare before opening time. Jo took a bracing gulp of coffee from her mug and climbed out, holding on to and adjusting her headscarf as she did. She didn’t fool herself. No one was going to figure she was setting a new style trend for Abbotsville. But until her scalp could handle things like shampoo and trimming scissors, she was stuck. At least the blue in the scarf’s print coordinated with the dark blue under her eyes.
Carrie handled the first few custome
rs of the morning, while Jo stayed at the back, grateful to sit down and concentrate on paperwork. But when Ina Mae and Loralee walked in, she came forward to greet them.
“Ooh, you poor, dear thing,” Loralee cried, reaching out to give her a gentle hug.
“We heard about the accident,” Ina Mae said. “Tried to call you at home, and when you didn’t answer, figured you must be back at work. Is that wise?”
“I’m fine, despite appearances to the contrary,” Jo assured them. “Just moving a little more slowly for the time being.”
“What happened, exactly?” Ina Mae asked. “You doze off? Or did a deer dart in front of you? The deer are all over the place this time of year.”
“I’m not too clear on what really happened. Shortly after I closed up here, I started feeling very sick, and the next thing I knew a tree had jumped in front of me.”
“Oh, my!” Loralee exclaimed, her hands to her face.
“Tell them about Hank Schroder,” Carrie said.
Jo did, and Loralee’s eyes grew bigger as Ina Mae’s expression turned grimmer. “I’m not accusing Schroder of anything,” Jo hastened to explain. “It’s just that two very odd things occurred last night, one right before the other. Whether his appearance at the store has a connection to my sickness, I really can’t say.”
“Do you still have your soda can?” Ina Mae asked.
Jo gave her a grim smile. “I thought of that too. Unfortunately, no. It was tossed in the trash, and the Dumpster was emptied early this morning.”
“Too bad. I don’t suppose they checked for anything poisonous in you at the hospital?”
Jo shook her head. “I was treated for my cuts and bruises. By the time I was conscious enough to have suspicions it was much too late. Anything that might have been affecting me was long gone.”
“But you did have suspicions,” Ina Mae said, giving her an eagle-eyed look.
Jo nodded. As careful as she’d been to say there was little to connect Hank Schroder with what had happened to her last night, she couldn’t get past the fact that there he had been, in her store on a fairly flimsy excuse, the man who had plenty of reason to hate Kyle Sandborn, who had at least some connection to Genna, and now to her. Had Hank Schroder, in fact, tried to kill her?
Wreath of Deception Page 16