Sweetheart Deal

by Claire Matturro

  “And my husband,” Shalonda said. “It’s Shalonda Dupree now.” She held up her left hand and showed off a single gold band.

  Whoa there, Shalonda Rivers, who had been every bit as wild as she was athletic, had married the chief of police? And didn’t I remember some rumors that Shalonda and Big Lonnie had quite the thing going on in college? Obviously I’d missed a few chapters.

  I offered a congratulations, and was all set to ask more about this, but Dan stepped up closer to Shalonda, and asked, “Has Willette said anything to you yet? I mean, about what happened.”

  “Nope.”

  “She say anything to anybody about what happened?” I asked.

  “Nope. Not to me or anyone else. She was a holy terror when they brought her in the ER and they dosed her up so on tranquilizers they ’bout OD’d her. Now ever time she wakes up, she starts pitching conniptions like you ain’t hardly heard, and the nurse, she’s got her orders—that is, give her another shot.”

  “Has a psychiatrist seen her?” I asked.

  “No, just Dr. Weinstein. He’s an internist,” Dan said. “I told you, he’s her doctor of record, and he came right out to the ER that night.”

  Yeah, the doctor who prescribed meds to a woman after she coughed over the phone for him, I remembered all right. Let’s say my confidence level in this guy wasn’t high.

  “We need to get a psychiatrist in to see her. Right away,” I said, hoping it didn’t sound too much like I was giving an order, though I clearly was.

  And, having switched on the part of my brain that takes care of things, not giggles with old girlfriends, I said, “And you, Dan, are you by chance her legal guardian?”

  “Why’s she need a legal guardian?”

  Taking that for a no, I sighed. “She does not appear to be competent. Someone needs to be able to legally act on her behalf. It’s after five now, but hopefully we can get an emergency hearing tomorrow. We can talk about this tonight, but you need to get it done as soon as possible.”

  Dan gave me a look that let me know he’d noticed I was giving orders.

  While Dan and I glared at each other, Shalonda reached over and stroked the side of my mother’s face with a light, gentle touch and then turned back to me. “It’s a downright shame, that Ray Glenn scaring her so bad she’s gone off the edge. But sitting with her ain’t real hard, and there’s plenty of pound cake. Want some?”

  I looked at the pound cake, a classic Southern comfort food so named because it contained a pound of butter as well as other seductive substances, and I shuddered with a sudden desire to eat a very big piece. But I shook my head and refocused on the fact that the police chief wanted Willette if not under guard, at least not alone. Being a lawyer and, therefore, suspicious, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to the story. Let’s see, bruises? An OD? And a dead man?

  Rodney had said he was to make sure nobody hurt Willette.

  Was my mother in some kind of danger?

  I needed to talk to the person in charge. And now.

  “So you’re married to the police chief? Could I talk with him?”

  “Sure can.” Shalonda picked up the bedside phone, punched in some numbers, and said, “Tell Demetrious to get himself over to the hospital. He’s got a visitor at Willette Cleary’s room—her daughter the lawyer wants to talk to him.”

  There was only one chair in the room. Dan offered it first to me, then to Shalonda, who deferred to me and then to Dan, who said, “No thank you, ladies first.” Shalonda told us we could sit on the bed, as Willette didn’t take up much room, but Dan said maybe we ought not to. So while we were all stuck standing up to show how polite we were, Shalonda and I tried catching up as we waited for the police chief. Apparently, Shalonda hadn’t done anything interesting in the last two decades except up and marry Demetrious last year, or else Dan’s quiet Methodist ways were inhibiting her free and unbridled expression. Pretty much I figured on the latter and couldn’t wait to get her alone.

  I edged up toward my mother again, and stared at those bruises. But before I could question Shalonda, someone said, “Knock, knock.”

  We all turned to the door, and a man came striding in, without, I might add, waiting for anyone to invite him to do so. He had long legs and long arms, which he swung as he loped energetically toward us.

  “Simon McDowell, hospital administrator,” he said, sticking his hand out toward me. His hands were as big as his arms were long.

  I took his hand, squeezed it quickly, and dropped it, and immediately felt the need to go wash my hands. No telling what this man had touched as he went about his hospital duties. I had yet to actually look at his face.

  “Excuse me,” I said, and ducked into the cubbyhole bathroom in my mother’s room. I washed my hands, not once but twice, and came back into the room, all without touching anything except paper towels.

  Simon was brushing some cake crumbs off of my mother’s bed. “I told you, do not let people eat over her bed,” he said, directing his words toward Shalonda.

  “And I told you, I don’t work for you,” she said.

  “We are just trying to keep Mrs. Cleary clean and quiet,” he said. Then he turned to me and smiled. This time I looked at his face, a long, thin one, saved from homeliness by a square jaw, a dimpled chin, and really big eyes. Not just big eyes, but large gold eyes. Then I noticed his hair was also a golden brown, and he had flecks of gold in his stylish glasses frames. I forgot his face as I traveled down his collection of gold stuff. A light gold shirt. Dark gold pants. Bright gold tie. Okay, somebody needs to tell him monochrome is a boring fashion statement.

  “We are a good hospital, a very good hospital,” he said. “And we don’t let our patients get dirty in bed.” And he kind of rose up on his toes, slanting forward toward me as he spoke, and I had a sudden sense of physical power. The man was tall. Not quite giant, but definitely big.

  “Very good hospital. Are you the daughter, the Florida lawyer?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I didn’t want to commit to anything else just yet. But Dan stepped in and introduced us, all proper and polite.

  “Well, I’ve heard some good things about you,” Simon said. “Very good things.” And he eyed me up and down, quickly but obviously. And smiled again in a way that felt more like a wink. “Very, very good.”

  Okay, vocabulary-and fashion-challenged, both. And I was in no mood to flirt. Still, I couldn’t help but notice the man had some potential. Taller than me, which, since I’m six feet, doesn’t happen all that much, well-trimmed full head of that golden hair, broad shoulders, flat stomach, and those big hands. I like a big man. I wished that I had changed clothes and brushed out my yard-long hair before coming to the hospital.

  “I just wanted to meet you, and to assure you that we are doing all we can to take good care, very good care of your mother.” Simon swayed back and forth as he spoke, and started swinging his arms. Then he took a couple steps too close to me, forcing me to jump back. “Very, very good.”

  No, take back that potential thing. The man was irritating.

  “Then why did she nearly OD in the ER, and what’s with these bruises?” I said.

  “I can assure you,” he said, sounding every bit the hospital administrator, “we can document that your mother came into the ER with those bruises. And with a nearly fatal level of barbiturates and narcotics already in her system. Only the quick thinking and skills of our ER crew saved her. We have a good crew in the ER.”

  “Let me guess, a very good crew, a very, very good crew,” I said. Shalonda giggled.

  “Yes, absolutely,” Simon said. “Our records will show they saved your mother’s life.”

  Yeah, I want to see those ER records and talk to a couple of nurses on the sly, I thought. But I smiled like I believed him, like I wasn’t a malpractice attorney who had heard similar statements too many times to count. “Thank you for that,” I said.

  “Here, Lilly, let me give you my card.” Simon hopped a bit toward me
, and I hopped a bit away from him. “And I’ll put my personal numbers on the back,” Simon said, pulling out a card and scribbling something. “My cell, my home, and my direct line here.” He handed over the card with an exaggerated flourish. “Good, very good.”

  I took the card, resisting the urge to offer an equally exaggerated bow.

  “Would you like to see the rest of the hospital? I’d be delighted to give you a guided tour. Right now work for you?”

  A tour of the hospital? Yeah, right, give those staph germs an even better shot at me. “No thank you, I’ve got family things to attend to right now,” I said, using the voice I used when explaining the obvious.

  “How about the town? I can get off in a jiffy and give you a tour of the town.”

  “I grew up here. I know my way around.” Around what? Five city blocks?

  “Well, back to work. Now, don’t you lose that card. And you call me, anytime,” Simon said, and bounced his big self right out of the room. Then he stuck his head back in. “Lilly, you and I should get together. Soon. Very soon. Very, very soon. Talk over your mother’s care. Get to know each other. Call me.” Grin, leer, grin, on his part. Like this was a barroom, not a hospital with a comatose woman on a bed not five feet from him. And he ducked out, without waiting for my response.

  Shalonda and I looked at each other and giggled. “Very, very good,” we said, perfectly synchronized.

  “This isn’t funny, none of it,” Dan said.

  Before I retorted, Demetrious came into the room, kissed Shalonda on the lips, and said, “Hey, Londa, everything all right?”

  “Willette hasn’t said pea turkey,” she said.

  Demetrious Dupree filled up the room in a hurry, carefully pressed into his uniform, and with the look of a man that didn’t lose any arguments. It took me a minute to realize he was actually rather short and compact. We did our pleased-to-meet-yous, and Demetrious offered me the only chair. Rather than go through that whole stupid chair dance again, I took it.

  But when I opened my mouth to start asking questions, I was seized by a physical sensation, like an anaconda was wrapping itself around my chest and cracking my ribs.

  chapter 4

  No sense beating around any bush just because I was having a panic attack. “So, why are there bruises on my mother’s chin?” I asked.

  Sitting there surrounded by Shalonda, Brother Dan, and the police chief, in the oppressive air of the hospital, I feared some evil genie with a time machine and malicious intent had swept me backward into the world of Bugfest. My head throbbed. My stomach burned. My gut twisted. My hands sweated. My heart beat so fast and hard my chest hurt. I stood up to flee, knocking my chair back a couple of steps.

  But Demetrious said, in a strangely calming tone, “It’s all right, Miss Cleary. We understand your mother needs help, not prosecution. Please, sit a moment.”

  Strangely nonresponsive to my question about her bruises. But more than I wanted to know if my mother had been assaulted, I needed to get outside. Quick. I darted for the door, but Shalonda beat me to it, blocking it with her solid body. She took my hand, and held it. “Don’t you worry, white girl.” Shalonda turned me around and pointed me back into the hospital room. I saw Demetrious shoot her a look I couldn’t quite make out.

  “Why don’t you sit down, again?” Demetrious said.

  I didn’t sit, but I didn’t run either.

  “The city attorney and I have discussed with Dan, and would like to discuss with you, having your mother committed. We are making phone calls to different facilities.” Demetrious paused. I took a step backward toward the door out, then froze. “Please, Miss Cleary, have a seat,” he said.

  “Why don’t you tell her what happened,” Dan said.

  Curiosity slowed down my heartbeat. “Yes, exactly what did happen? And why are there bruises on her face?” I have this theory, not wholly exhausted by years of cross examinations during trials, that a question asked often enough eventually gets answered.

  “I was in my police car, nearby Willette’s, er, Mrs. Cleary’s house, when the dispatcher reported a 911 call about shots fired. I went straight there.”

  So, okay, either a chronological narrative, or he was ducking the bruises question again.

  “When I got to the front door, it was open, and I went right in.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, and nodded, thinking Willette never left her doors unlocked, let alone open.

  “What I saw was your mother, holding a gun, and standing right over Ray Glenn Fussele. I told Willette, er, Mrs. Cleary, to put the gun down, and she did. I got the gun, and checked Ray Glenn’s pulse, but couldn’t find one, and I called 911 for an ambulance, and then Willette, er, I mean, Mrs. Cleary—”

  “You can call her Willette,” I said. “I do.”

  “Well, I don’t mean any disrespect by it. Thing is, before I could tend to Ray Glenn, your mother came apart on me, got hysterical. But the EMTs said Ray Glenn was dead right there, and wouldn’t have been anything I could do. Your mother shot him at pretty close range.”

  I studied Demetrious, but didn’t see anything in his face that told me any more than his words. “So you didn’t actually see her fire the gun?” I asked in my best lawyer get-the-facts-right voice.

  “No.” The “but” hung in the air.

  “Ray Glenn surely broke into Willette’s house. That is, since we all know full well Willette, er, Mrs. Cleary didn’t voluntarily let anyone inside the house—”

  “On the porch was as close as anyone got,” Dan said, as if we didn’t all know that.

  “Yes. And given that, a local jury would probably warm toward a self-defense verdict. Especially in light of Ray Glenn’s”—I watched Demetrious grit his teeth and flex his jaw muscles—“bad reputation around the county. That man…he was a bad man.”

  “He had evil in him, that’s right,” Shalonda said.

  “I’ve been trying to catch him on something for years, but nobody’d ever testify against him,” Demetrious said, his voice low and his face angry. “Well, he finally got what was coming to him.”

  That look, and his tone of voice, made me study Demetrious a bit harder.

  “Still, I would urge Dan and you to place Willette in a mental hospital as part of an arranged plea bargain. Involuntary manslaughter.”

  “Why should she plead to involuntary manslaughter, when even you believe it was self-defense?” Okay, okay, I got it that the police chief was trying to help Willette, but I’m a lawyer and sometimes I can’t help saying things like that.

  “If she pleads, we can skip the trial and get her placed right away,” Demetrious said. “Pending commitment, Dr. Weinstein can keep Willette sedated to keep her quiet. But we should act quickly, for her own sake.”

  “If you and the city attorney agree it’s self-defense, then don’t charge her with anything. And if you don’t charge her, there isn’t a trial, and she doesn’t need to plead to anything.” When I said this, Dan inhaled audibly. I ignored this. “Maybe a little less Thorazine would be a good idea too,” I said, staring at my mother, immobile and expressionless. “She needs to wake up, tell us what happened, and eat.”

  “Well, I’m not a doctor or anything, but I agree she needs to eat. And a lot. But the doc, he says he isn’t giving her that much dope. Just enough to keep her from having those fits,” Shalonda said.

  “Why hasn’t anybody called in a real psychiatrist?” I asked. “I mentioned that we needed to do this, but I wasn’t sure if—”

  “She doesn’t have any insurance,” Dan said. “And she isn’t sixty-five yet.”

  “So?” I said. “If she’s in state custody, doesn’t the state have to pay—”

  “There’s a man, a psychiatrist, who comes up from Tallahassee, that has hospital privileges and does some contract work for the city and the county, but he hasn’t been here yet. And there’s…” My brother paused, glanced at Demetrious, and stopped.

  “Jurisdictional issues,” Demetrious said
. “We’re working out the details of a…” And then he puttered out too.

  Okay, I get it, I thought, but didn’t say. Nobody was going to waste the psychiatrist’s time and somebody else’s money until the legal processes at play decided whether Willette went to jail, was committed to a state hospital, or one of us could cough up money for a private institution. I wondered who was going to pay for her hospital bills, her or the city? But I didn’t ask, because I saw what the real problem was: Nobody really knew what to do with Willette. Which, of course, was not a new problem.

  “I’ll pay for it, the psychiatrist, if that’s the holdup,” I said, with an upwardly mobile professional’s attitude that throwing money at a problem will zip stalled things right along. “You know this guy from Tallahassee?”

  Nobody would look at me.

  “What?”

  “He’s…real busy,” Dan the Polite said in what I took for nice-guy code for the Tallahassee psychiatrist was not very good.

  “What about that guy that was Dad’s friend? He still around?” I asked.

  “You mean Dr. Hodo?” Dan asked. “Why he’s…well, you know.”

  I paused to see what spin Dan might put on the fact that a few decades back Willette had banned Dr. Hodo from our house and our lives for no apparent reason. But Dan didn’t say anything more.

  “He has an excellent reputation, Dr. David Hodo,” Demetrious said.

  “Yeah, he’s supposed to be the best,” Shalonda said. “Got an office over to the Thomasville Road. I’ve worked with him on a couple cases here at the hospital, so I know he’s got privileges here.”

  I remembered a man with a deep voice and blue eyes who went fishing with my dad and came to visit us a few times when we were children, and then didn’t. What I didn’t know was whether he was a good psychiatrist.

  Memo to mental file, I thought: Get Henry to do an insurance database check on Dr. Hodo’s lawsuit status, and if he isn’t Dr. Wacko-Sued-a-Lot, call him first chance. But right now I had Demetrious in front of me, and I wanted to learn everything he knew.