Trouble in a Big Box (A Kelly O'Connell Mystery)

by Alter, Judy

  My mind drifted back to our wedding. Mike and I had married last April, after the traumatic winter events in which Ralphie nearly killed my mom and me. We thought it was time to seize the day or whatever carpe diem means. Although Mom attended the local Methodist church and lobbied for a wedding there, we would not agree. We had gone to too many funerals there in the past year. I didn’t exactly want a courthouse wedding, and we didn’t plan to invite many people—Keisha, Anthony, his two sons, and his daughter Theresa with her husband, Joe, Claire and her two daughters. Mike’s parents were both gone, and he was an only child. He insisted he wasn’t close enough to any aunts, uncles or cousins to invite them, but at his suggestion, I reluctantly included Buck Conroy, the detective who’d been the bane of my existence, and his significant other, my former—well maybe still—girlfriend, Joanie. They’d bring McKenzie, her baby.

  I’d met the young minister at the Methodist church during the serial killer chase and liked him, so Mike and I decided to ask if he’d perform a simple ceremony in our living room. He agreed, and we assembled everyone on a Sunday afternoon. The girls stood by us in front of the minister, and he inserted special vows for them—we became a family. After the ten-minute ceremony, Mike and I cut a Black Forest cake from Swiss Pastry Shop. Both of us love that cake and don’t care much for traditional cakes. There was much toasting with champagne—over Mike’s slight frown of disapproval, the girls each got a small sip in a flute. Joe took pictures, a detail I’d not thought of. It was simple but joyous, and in no time we had changed out of wedding clothes and were grilling hamburgers for everyone. Mom still fretted that it wasn’t a church ceremony, and Keisha came close to pouting because there was no music. I didn’t care. Mike and I were married.

  Mom also fretted because I didn’t take Mike’s name. It wasn’t proper, she insisted, and when I retorted I hadn’t taken the name of my previous husband either, she replied with, “And look how that worked out!” Remembering the moment, I grinned just a bit, and Claire watched me carefully. Those memories made me happy.

  A young doctor came through the swinging doors and asked, “Ms. O’Connell?” He was kind, polite, and, I decided, about twenty-four at the most. “Dr. McAdams wanted me to report to you.” He said that e He Mike’s vital signs remained strong, and the surgery was going well. I thanked him, but it wasn’t a hearty thank-you. I was fixed on whether or not he would walk. Walk the neighborhood again, chase a ball with the girls and Gus, our dog. And, yeah, make love to me.

  I looked at the clock. They were three hours into the surgery. “Claire, would you call Keisha and give them all the report?”

  She nodded and then handed me the second small bottle of wine. “This is all,” she said. “I figured I don’t want to deal with you sloshed.”

  I managed a slight grin and drank it gratefully. She dialed our house, and of course Mom insisted on talking and it was some time before Claire got through to Keisha, but while her talk to Mom was reassuring, her answers to Keisha were direct. I suggested she call Anthony and gave her my phone with his number. I could hear him saying, “Mother of God!” and picture him running his hands through his hair. Another slight grin.

  Dr. McAdams didn’t come out of surgery for another three hours, time that dragged by. When he did push through the swinging door, his mask down from his face, his eyes were weary. Wordlessly, he sat down next to me and took my hand. Claire tactfully moved away. “The surgery went well. He’s strong and in good shape, and he should walk again.”

  “Run?” I asked.

  “That’s up to him.”

  I asked about swelling in the brain and he replied that it seemed to be under control. They didn’t foresee surgery. Mike would be dopey for at least a day when he woke up, the doctor warned.

  I went in to see Mike in recovery. Of course, he was still sedated and couldn’t even squeeze my hand. His color was awful, and he looked cold—and felt cold. I almost wanted to ask if they were sure he was alive. He still had breathing tubes and all sorts of stuff around his mouth and nose, so that I couldn’t kiss him anywhere except on the forehead. I did and stumbled out of the area.

  Conroy tried to talk to me, but Claire waved him away, took me home, and practically put me to bed. Apparently she also waved away Keisha, Mom, and the girls, each of whom was offended. She gave them a full report and said to let me sleep until I woke up. I went to sleep at seven in the morning and slept all day.

  Chapter Two

  I was groggy and confused when I woke up, but slowly, the real world came back to me. Mike! My hand reached for him before I remembered—the accident, the surgery. The bedroom was dark—surely it wasn’t yet night. I had to get to Mike. When I stumbled into the kitchen, I found I had slept the clock around. It was after seven in the evening, dusk but not yet dark, and Mom and Keisha were cleaning up the kitchen.

  Maggie rushed up to me. “We saved you some dinner. It is delish. Keisha said it’s called Doris’ Casserole because somebody named Doris gave her mom the recipe.” It was Maggie’s sweet way of telling me she was worried about me. Em came and stood beside me wordlessly for a long minute. Then she said, “I want to see Mike.” Her tone implied that the statement made it a reality. She would see Mike.

  “We’ve called twice,” Mom said. “He’s in a private room, doing fine, still groggy.”

  “I…I need to see him, touch him, know for myself that he’s okay.”

  Keisha stared at me with an appraising look and sighed. “Of course you do. Go put on some sweats and we’ll go.”

  “Sweats?” I yelled. “I have to look good for him.” The second part of her sentence dawned on me more slowly. “We’ll go?” I asked. “I can go alone.”

  “I’m going,” Keisha said, her arms crossed belligerently. “You’re not going to JPS alone at night. No argument. And he probably won’t care what you’re wearing, if he even notices.”

  Before I could think of an answer, the girls began to clamor to go, insisting in shrill voices that they too had to see Mike, to know that he was okay.

  I gathered both girls in a hug. “No, darlings. I’ll tell Mike how much you wanted to come, but you stay home. Nana will get you ready for bed…and tomorrow you can go see Mike. I promise. Before school. We’ll let you be late. Your teachers will understand.”

  I put on a soft turtleneck and good chino slacks with a light wool jacket that I’d splurged on for fall. I wasn’t going to see Mike in sweats. Maybe it was pride and maybe it was my private moment of rebellion.

  No police officer jumped out to take my car this time, and we had to wind our way up several levels of the parking garage, a spooky place at eight-thirty at night. “See why I’m with you?” Keisha asked and then laughed at me. I nearly held her hand as we made our way down the dark stairwell, with me expecting someone to jump out of the shadows any minute. She was right. JPS could be a scary place.

  At the door to Mike’s room, I looked at Keisha. “I know,” she said, “I’ll just wait out here in the hall and flirt with this good-looking cop.”

  The policeman, tall, young—probably Keisha’s age—and Hispanic, looked like he might panic, but Keisha was unfazed. “Take your time. Mr. Officer here and me are gonna get acquainted.” As I entered the room, he was offering her his chair.

  Mike was sort of awake, sort of asleep. When I took his hand and whispered his name, he asked, “Kelly? I thought you weren’t coming till tomorrow.”

  “Wild horses couldn’t keep me away. Neither could Keisha.”

  He grinned just a bit, and I kissed him—no more tubes and all that, though his face was still a mess of cuts and scratches and so was his good arm. He had a button for administering his own pain medication and wires that connected to various monitors that beeped comfortingly. I asked if he was in pain, and he said not really. He was so loopy he didn’t know. He began to mutter about things he needed—a Dopp kit and the like—and I promised to bring them.

  Haltingly he asked, “The other car? Conroy won’
t talk about it.”

  “I don’t know anything,” I lied.

  “Find out. Please. I’ve got to know. No kids? I heard this awful scream. I remember it so clearly.”

  Oh, Lord. Was he going to be burdened with traumatic memories—and nightmares? I shook my head, “No kids. I know that much.”

  He seemed relieved. Speech was an effort and words came out of his mouth so slowly that it was hard to understand him but there was obviously one more thing on his mind. “I have to get up and walk tomorrow.”

  “Walk!” I exploded. “You can’t! You just had surgery on a badly broken leg.”

  “That’s why I have to get up,” he mumbled.

  I didn’t stay much longer. Mike was too groggy and clearly wanted to sleep, dozing off in the middle of one of his painful sentences.

  I was loaded for bear when I left that room, sailing by Keisha and a now speechless policeman to head for the nursing station. “He says he’s going to walk tomorrow,” I said angrily to the first nurse I saw, “but you’ll see that he doesn’t, won’t you?”

  She didn’t bat an eye. “Standard procedure. Part of therapy. The sooner they get up and walk, the better their recovery.”

  I was appalled. This wasn’t just Mike’s determination, as I’d thought, but hospital policy. “He has a head injury,” I protested.

  “No problem,” she said and went back to her charts.

  “What time of day?” I asked with as much force as I could muster. “I want to be here.”

  She shrugged. “Don’t know, and they wouldn’t let you in the room anyway.”

  I stalked back to Keisha and said, without a bit of grace, “Let’s go.”

  She stood up, high-fived the police officer and said to him, “See you, José.”

  Once we were settled in the car—Keisha was driving because she was sure I’d be too upset to drive—I asked, “Is that guy’s name really José?”

  She giggled. Honest to gosh, a schoolgirl giggle. “Naw, he’s Joe. Joe Thornberry, actually. His mama’s Hispanic, but his daddy is Anglo. I just decided to call him José. I may be late to the office tomorrow. I’m meetin’ him at the Grill for breakfast. But I’ll hurry. You go on and come back here, bring the girls.”

  I was still marveling at Keisha, her boldness and her energy, when she slammed on the brakes. The seatbelt tightened on me as I was thrown forward. Catching my breath, I yelled, “What the heck are you doing?”

  “Teaching the jerk behind me not to tailgate,” she said calmly as she drove on.

  But the car stayed behind us all the way home, and I could tell Keisha didn’t like that. My mind was still on Mike, and I didn’t pay attention. I should have.

  Once we were in the house, she said quietly to me, “That car followed us all the way here and then took off like the devil was on its tail. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

  Usually I was the one who saw conspiracy everywhere, but now I scoffed. “Why would anyone follow us?”

  Mom had fallen asleep in one of the big leather chairs, but now she roused. “Who’s following who? How’s Mike?” Like me, earlier in the evening, she seemed to come from some deep, faraway world.

  “It’s okay, Mom. Nobody’s following anyone, and Mike is okay. Kind of loopy from medication, but he’ll eventually be okay.” At that point, I had no idea how long eventually could be nor did I know that okay was a relative state, but I would learn. “Mom, it’s time for you to go home to your own bed.”

  Keisha planted herself in front of me. “I’m driving Ms. Cynthia home. You can see that she gets her car in the morning when you go to the hospital. I ain’t lettin’ her go home alone anymore than I let you go to the hospital alone tonight.” It seemed that Conroy had had someone drive my car from JPS back to the house, so we had a parking lot in our driveway—my car, Mike’s car, Mom’s and Keisha’s. I thought it was a good idea for Keisha to drive Mom home, but Mom definitely did not agree.

  She drew herself up as tall as she could, which of course didn’t come anywhere near Keisha’s height. “I can drive myself home.”

  Grabbing her keys off the table, Keisha said, “Yes, ma’am, you surely can. But you ain’t going to this late at night. Kelly, I’ll be back in a minute. Come on, Ms. Cynthia.”

  I barely had time to give Mom a goodnight peck.

  By the time Keisha came back, after making sure Mom was safely locked inside with the alarm system on, I had heated myself some of Doris’ casserole. It was, as Maggie said, delish—a red sauce with meat, topped by a mix of egg noodles, sour cream, cream cheese, and scallions. And then a layer of cheddar. Not good for my weight program but oh, so comforting. Before I could compliment Keisha, she said,

  “Kelly, you got to be careful. I’m pretty sure that car was following us, and now whoever it was knows where you live.”

  I put my hands over my ears to block out what I didn’t want to hear. “No more vandalism. I couldn’t take it.” My old house, the one Claire now lived in, had been damaged by vandals more than once during the affair of the skeleton. Teenagers were paid to scare me away from discovering the skeleton’s identity and cause of death. It almost worked, and I simply wasn’t up for more.

  Keisha stood waiting patiently until at last I took my hands down. “No one’s going to vandalize your house, least I hope not. But we don’t know why this guy followed us. Maybe I’m wrong, and it was what my momma would call a big fat coincidence. But we gotta be sure.”

  “You can’t say anything to Mike.”

  She shook her head. “I ain’t, and you neither. I got to go home and get some sleep so I can meet José at seven-thirty and then run your business tomorrow. You take the girls to the hospital.”

  “Whenever I wake up,” I yawned.

  As she left, Keisha turned and said over her shoulder, “It was an older Mustang. Sort of brown, banged up in a few places. Tell Conroy. No, I didn’t get a plate on it.”

  “I’m not telling Conroy anything!”

  I tiptoed in to kiss my sleeping girls and then, in my own room, stripped off my shoes, sweater and slacks and fell into bed in my underwear, more tired than I knew it was possible to be. You haven’t been up that long, I told myself, but it made no difference. My dirty dishes were still on the table, not even rinsed or soaking.

  Sleep didn’t come instantly as I thought it would. Instead my mind played with an older brown Mustang, slightly battered. Who would follow me? Why? The only thing I could think of was that it had to do with Mike’s accident. In spite of my bold assertion that I’d tell Conroy nothing, his words about a petty criminal driving the other car came back to haunt me. I’d have to talk to him tomorrow.

  ****

  I woke slowly, hearing distant sounds from the kitchen.

  “Maggie, do you really know how to scramble eggs?”

  “Yes, I do,” was the confident reply. “You get that tray and put a plate, silverware and napkin on it. Then pour a glass of orange juice.” A moment of silence and then, in a frustrated tone, “I wish I knew how to make coffee.”

  “Yuck! Who would want it?” Em asked.

  “Mom would,” Maggie said. “Maybe I can make a cup of instant, but I have to hurry before the eggs get cold. Cooking is very complicated, Em.”

  “If you’d let me help….” Em’s voice trailed off, and I envisioned a nearing squabble. I decided to lie in my bed and play possum.

  What I finally got was a tray presented with love and filled with spilled, lukewarm instant coffee that tasted like dishwater, stone cold eggs, and toast with butter and jam. Maggie had thoughtfully put the salt and pepper shakers on the tray and that helped the eggs. I sat up in bed and waxed enthusiastic over this treat, then forced it all down, in spite of the fact that I didn’t feel like eating at all and if I had, this wouldn’t have been my choice.

  “You girls are so wonderful,” I said, tousling Em’s hair.

  “Maggie did it all,” she said. “She says I’m too little to cook.”


  Maggie looked a bit repentant. “But I can teach you,” she said, putting an arm around her sister.

  “And I can let both of you cook with me more,” I said. “I can see you’re ready.”

  We bustled around and got ready for the day, although the girls insisted on changing clothes two or three times, each time claiming they were choosing their best clothes.

  “We have to look good for Mike, Mom,” Em explained.

  I understood the feeling.

  At the hospital, they hung back a bit, clinging to my pants until Mike, now much more alert, held out his good arm and said, “Come see me, girls. I miss you.”

  They flocked to his side, and a long discussion about his injuries ensued. “How long will you be here?” “When can you come home?” “When can you chase Gus with me again?” “I want you to grill hamburgers.” And best of all, “I’m scared when you’re not there at night.”

  No need to remind them that a year ago he hadn’t been there at night at all.

  “Your mom can take care of you,” he said, hugging them to him with one arm. “She will never let anything hurt you. And neither will I.”

  I finally pulled them away, amid protests and promises from Mike that they could come back in a day or two. We headed for school, where I would have to explain their tardiness. It wasn’t every day one’s stepfather—soon to be father by adoption—was nearly killed in a car accident. I thought that should excuse any tardiness. I blew a kiss to Mike and mouthed that I’d be back.

  After delivering the girls to school and securing the principal’s promise that this would be an excused tardiness, I ran by the office on my way to the hospital. Keisha greeted me with a black look.