The Lethal Helix

by Don Donaldson

  His answer reassured Holly that he wasn’t involved. Otherwise, he would have gone along with her request just to hear what she knew. On the other hand, after hearing her story, he might run with it to that cop.

  Not yet ready to take him completely into her confidence, she decided to hold back. “Well, this guy was definitely real,” she said. “And clearly didn’t belong here. That’s why I wanted to leave.”

  “You put that in the past tense. Does that mean you’ll stay?”

  Right now, with Heflin there, she couldn’t think of a better place to be for the rest of the night. Though she was in no position to bargain, she said, “On two conditions. No IV and you stay with me until dawn to make sure nothing else happens. I know that last part is asking a lot, but I just can’t be here alone.”

  Heflin looked at his watch. Dawn was only a few hours away. That wouldn’t be so hard to do. And he found himself intrigued by this woman . . . attractive and involved in something she didn’t want to talk about. Telling himself he was doing it solely for professional reasons . . . to ensure that his patient got the best care possible, he said, “Can we reconnect your cardiac leads?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ll let us make sure you can tolerate solid food before you leave?”

  “All right. But in the morning, I’m not staying a minute longer than necessary.”

  “Deal,” Richard said, offering his hand.

  After sealing their bargain with a handshake, Heflin called the nurse to reattach Holly’s leads. When the nurse had gone, he said, “Do you want the lights on?”

  “Not this bright.”

  He adjusted the lighting then went to the overstuffed vinyl-covered visitor’s chair and dropped into it.

  “You’re a good doctor,” Holly said.

  “I hope so.”

  “I’m not saying that just from a patient’s perspective. I’m a doctor too.”

  Heflin sat a bit straighter. “Really . . .”

  “Hematology.”

  “Where did you go to medical school?”

  “University of Mississippi in Jackson.”

  “Ever run into an internist there named Keith Harmon?”

  “He was the attending on my medicine clerkship.”

  “One of my best friends.”

  With the common ground of medicine between them, Holly and Richard talked easily until dawn.

  “Well, I certainly don’t think you’re the worse for your accident,” Richard said finally. “What are you going to do when you leave here?”

  “Find transportation. Is there anywhere in town I can rent another car?”

  “Sure. I’ll run you over there. It’s not far. Now let’s try you on a little clear liquid. Then, if you do okay with that, some solid food. I’m going home to shower and shave, then I’ll come back, and if you’ve had no problems eating, we’ll get you out of here.”

  “I’m going to take these leads off,” Holly said.

  “Go ahead. I’ll let the floor nurse know it’s okay.”

  Ten minutes after Heflin left, a new nurse appeared in the doorway with a tray. “Good morning. Did you have a good night?”

  Obviously she hadn’t been briefed. “Oh, dandy,” Holly said.

  “Doctor Heflin would like for you to eat this broth. Then, if there are no problems, I’ll bring you a real breakfast.”

  She brought the tray over and put it across Holly’s lap. Still not ready to trust anyone but Heflin, Holly eyed the broth, then looked at the nurse. “You try it first.”

  “Why?”

  “I have my reasons. If you don’t, I won’t eat it.”

  “All right, fine.” She picked up a plastic cup from the nightstand, removed the wrapping, and spooned some of the broth into the cup. Then she drank it. “Satisfied?”

  “Thanks.”

  After the nurse left, Holly set the tray aside, slipped from the bed, and carried the broth to the bathroom, where she flushed it. Over the next hour, the nurse checked on Holly several times to see whether she was feeling nauseated. Holly surreptitiously did the same with the nurse. When she was eventually brought a real breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and orange juice by the same nurse, who still seemed to be feeling fine, Holly decided the food was safe.

  Though the hospital would never go on her list of the best places to eat in Wisconsin, Holly finished everything on the tray.

  Heflin appeared a short while later in a suit and topcoat, looking now like a doctor instead of the vagrant he’d resembled the previous night. For the first time, Holly noticed that he was a strikingly handsome man: long brown hair, slightly graying at the temples; sharp yet compassionate eyes; and those thin lips that she’d always felt made a man look as if he’d be competent and cool in a crisis. He was balancing a pile of neatly folded clothes in one hand and had a familiar pair of dark gray running shoes and her handbag in the other.

  “I had all your things washed and ironed,” he said.

  There was something about his expression that made Holly say, “How did you manage that?”

  “Actually . . .” he blushed slightly. “I did it.” Then, to cover his embarrassment, he said, “Consider it a professional courtesy, one doctor to another.”

  He brought the things over and put them on the bed. He touched a small paper sack on the clothes. “There’s a toothbrush and some toothpaste in there. I didn’t know what else you might need. I’ll be back in half an hour, and we’ll get you that rental car.”

  Even though she locked the bathroom door, fleeting thoughts of the movie Psycho ran through Holly’s head while she showered. As she dressed, she noticed that Heflin had even used fabric softener on her clothes.

  She was surprised at how after all she’d gone through seven years ago, she’d forgotten how being a patient and totally under someone else’s control took away your dignity, a lot of that coming from those damn gowns that let your butt show, and being barefoot. Invigorated by her shower and once again in her own clothes, Holly felt like herself again.

  Heflin returned just as she was about to start looking for him.

  “Well, you’re a free woman,” he said.

  “I had a jacket when I came in . . .”

  “It’s in the ER, along with your personal effects. We’ll go out that way.”

  It was a clear day, with the sky a seamless blue and the temperature just cold enough to see your breath. On the way to Heflin’s car, Holly noticed a variety of birds just sitting quietly, barely moving in the partially clothed trees. After all she’d experienced in the last twelve hours, she was ready to believe that even they were up to something.

  Once they got underway, Holly had a strong impulse to tell Heflin everything. But they hardly knew each other. Why should this be his problem?

  As they drove, Holly became worried that they were heading for an Avis office, the firm that had provided the car she’d wrecked. Wouldn’t they check to see if she already had a car out? She certainly didn’t want to go through all that now. But finally something went right, for it turned out to be a local outfit.

  Heflin hung around until the paperwork was done. “Sorry you had such a bad time here,” he said.

  “You made it all bearable,” Holly replied. “If you’re ever in Memphis, give me a call. My number is on my website.”

  They exchanged a final handshake and parted, her last words making Heflin think she was going home. But a plan had been forming in Holly’s mind since the sun had come up, so that as she drove from the rental lot, she knew exactly what she was going to do, and it didn’t include leaving town.

  16

  HOLLY’S FIRST GOAL was to check out of the Green and White and find a better place to stay. She got there a little after nine and went to her room, where she suddenly felt totally
exhausted. Checkout time was eleven o’clock, so she didn’t have to leave yet. Planning to just rest for a few minutes, she lay down on the bed and closed her eyes.

  “IT WAS A real mess,” Otto Christianson said, putting his cup down. “Rolled over twice and crushed the top almost flat. But she came out of it okay.”

  “Who was she?” Charles Hallock asked.

  You didn’t see many ponytails on men in Midland, but folks figured that being a dealer in rare prints and kind of an artsy type, it was okay for Hallock. He didn’t care to be called Charlie, though; it had to be Charles, which once again was what you’d expect from a guy who didn’t actually have to work for a living.

  “Name is Fisher,” Otto said, answering Hallock’s question. “Holly Fisher. Up from Memphis. Came to see the corn maze, she said.”

  “So she doesn’t have any relatives around here?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Where’s she staying?”

  “The Green and White.”

  Hallock made a sour face.

  “Come on, Charles, some folks just don’t want to spend much for a night’s sleep.”

  “Life is too short to waste a minute of it on such a place. What caused her accident?”

  Otto was about to spill everything he knew and all he thought about the incident, including his drunk driver theory, when Ted Arneson, the owner of the place, stopped by their table. “How you boys doin’ today?” he asked.

  Until about a year ago, Ted had weighed over three hundred pounds. Then, suddenly, it all just dropped away until he was hardly recognizable. At first everyone thought he had cancer, but then word leaked that he’d had his stomach stapled.

  “My left knee’s been acting up,” Otto said. “But otherwise I’m holding my own.”

  “Well, that’s better than holding someone else’s,” Hallock said.

  They all had a good laugh over that, and Ted moved on to the next table. The brief interruption gave Otto a chance to see that he was about to lapse into his old habit of talking too much about police business. Reining himself in, he gave Hallock the abbreviated version of the accident. “I think a truck hit her.”

  “You think?”

  Unaccustomed to being close-mouthed, Otto had trouble clamming up. “Whatever the vehicle was, it left the scene.”

  “Hit and run . . . Must have been some reason for that. Any witnesses?”

  “Haven’t found any.” Unable to stop himself any other way, Otto stood up. “Charles, you take care now. I’ve gotta hit the road.”

  Though his conversation with Hallock hadn’t been a great example of self-restraint, it had given Otto an idea. So he drove from Arneson’s over to the Midland Guardian and asked Barbara Thorstadt, the owner, to run an appeal in the paper for any witnesses to Holly’s accident to contact him. He then returned to his car and went back to the office to work on next year’s budget.

  Otto hated dealing with numbers. It was by far the worst part of his job. Disliking them so, he found it easy to become distracted. Today, as he worked, the words seat belt kept inching into his field of concentration. Finally, after putting together a rudimentary budget, he pushed back from his desk and left his office.

  “Claire, I’m going over to the Meinholz salvage yard.”

  “Say hello to Rubin for me,” the dispatcher replied.

  THE SALVAGE YARD was just inside the city limits west of town. As Otto approached, he noticed that two sections of the bamboo screening fixed to its chain-link fence had fallen down, so they were in violation of the Midland eyesore ordinance.

  A few minutes later, when he pulled up to the cement block office of the yard, Rubin Meinholz came out with his hands in the air. “Don’t shoot, Otto,” Rubin said. “I’ll go quietly.”

  It was the same thing he always said. Originality was never something to count on with a Meinholz.

  “Rubin, you look more like your daddy every day.”

  Rubin was slim and gangly just like his father, and he had the Meinholz dimple in his chin. And like every male Meinholz in recent memory, he didn’t have a lick of athletic ability.

  “How is your daddy?” Otto asked.

  “Got the best corn crop in years. Two hundred bushels an acre. Course, so does everybody else. You wait for that one great year when the sun is right and the rain is right and when you get it, there’s a surplus and the bottom falls out of the market. I don’t know why he stays with it. The other day somebody asked him what he’d do if he won ten million dollars in the lottery. And he said, ‘Guess I’d just keep farming ’til it’s gone.’”

  Otto laughed. “It’s a tough life, all right. Say, I noticed coming in that your fence needs some attention; couple places where you can see right in from the road.”

  “Yeah. Been meaning to fix that.”

  “Then I’ll put it out of my mind.”

  “That why you dropped in?”

  “Actually, I’d like to take a look at the car that was in that wreck last night.”

  “Come on. It’s back here.”

  Otto followed Rubin through a wide muddy roadway lined with cars that had come to violent ends. About the time Otto was thinking he should have driven in, Rubin said, “There she is.”

  Holly’s car had been so flattened in rolling over that the rescue squad had to cut off the door on the driver’s side to get her out. So all Otto had to do to look inside was walk closer and bend over, which he did. He quickly located the seat belt and let it slide through his fingers until he came to the end that was supposed to be anchored to the floor. He inspected the free end carefully, then took out his pocketknife and cut off the last eight inches to take with him. It sure looked as though someone had cut the stitches free that held the terminal loop to the eyebolt in the floor.

  HOLLY LURCHED AWAKE, uncertain of where she was.

  Then, she remembered . . . the Green and White. Jesus, she hadn’t intended to fall asleep.

  Knocking . . . Someone was at the door.

  She glanced at her watch. Lord. Three-twenty. She’d slept most of the day away.

  She got off the bed and trekked to the door, where she fumbled with the lock. Too stuporous to think of being careful, she pulled the door open.

  “Sorry to bother you,” the motel owner said. She took a wheezing breath and added. “But checkout time is eleven.” Another breath. “Since you’re more than four hours beyond that, I need to be paid for an additional night.”

  Her head clearing, Holly bristled. If the woman had come earlier, she wouldn’t be owed any more money and the day wouldn’t be nearly gone. Faced once again with a time constraint, Holly decided to just pay up and remain at the motel one more night. She pointed into the room. “I’ll get my bag.”

  Not wanting to take the time for a credit card transaction, Holly managed to dig up the exact amount. Before leaving, the owner gestured at Holly’s new rental. “What happened to your other car?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Failing to get the drift of Holly’s reply, the woman waited for that story to begin.

  “Better told another time,” Holly added.

  Obviously put out by Holly’s evasiveness, the woman trudged back to the office. Holly shut the door and concentrated on what she had to do. She was wearing charcoal-gray slacks . . . No good. Too dark. Hurrying to her overnight bag, she pulled out the pair of khaki pants and changed.

  Shirt? Didn’t matter because it’d be covered. But her only jacket was navy. Nuts.

  She made a pit stop in the bathroom, then fiddled with her hair so it didn’t look slept in. Finally, she was able to leave.

  Wishing she could hold back time, she was soon cruising Midland’s main street, checking the storefronts. There . . .

  She pulled into an angled parking spot, got ou
t, and went into the low end clothing store she’d seen. She emerged from the store as quickly as any customer that day, poorer by the eighteen dollars and fifty cents she’d paid for a khaki jacket that was too lightweight for the weather. But it was all they had in the right color.

  Barely able to keep from exceeding the speed limit, she arrived at the dairy with no more than a couple hours of daylight left. The question now was what to do with the car.

  She drove past the dairy entrance and kept going until she was well clear of the far property line. Then she began in earnest to look for a good place to park. There was nothing though but narrow, grassy shoulder as far as she could see.

  With no other choice available, she pulled as far onto the shoulder as possible. Checking to make sure there was no traffic visible in either direction, she jumped out, pulled off her navy jacket, and put on the one she’d just bought. She threw the extra jacket onto the passenger seat and made sure she had her phone with her. Surprisingly, the phone had come out of the crash completely unscathed.

  After a quick look toward the dairy and one in the opposite direction, she locked the car, ran around the front, and dashed down the sloping edge of the shoulder, her movements stiff from muscles bruised when her car rolled over. Using the momentum from her descent, she jumped a small water-filled ditch and ducked into the huge cornfield that flanked the road. The jolt of the jump kicked off a low-grade headache. Ignoring it, she kept moving, her clothing quickly making her invisible among the dead vegetation.

  She’d had to leave the car in plain sight, but since it wasn’t the one she’d been driving when she’d first visited the dairy, she didn’t believe that would be a problem.

  The corn was planted in rows perpendicular to the road, so it was a simple matter to follow the path between rows deep into the field. But when she decided it was time to head toward the dairy and began to cut across the rows, she found that the corn formed a tough barrier whose dried leaves raked and cut her hands and face.

  After an exhausting trek in which a machete would have been useful, the corn thinned and she could see the chain-link fence of the dairy. But she’d gone too far . . . passed all three barns she’d seen earlier, so she was staring at a ten-foot-tall enclosure of huge concrete blocks filled with silage that bulged the tarp covering it.