by Paula Boyd
The desk clerk eyed me like she’d seen me before, which she had, but thankfully, she summoned Travis without asking any questions.
“I spoke with Sheriff Parker by phone,” Travis said in greeting. “He won’t be joining us.”
So much for surprising him with my miraculous recovery and renewed go-get-em attitude. I was disappointed, yes, the news also made me a little worried. “Is everything okay?”
“He said nothing to indicate it wasn’t.”
What kind of answer was that? I wanted to know if Jerry didn’t come because he didn’t need to or because he had bigger issues couldn’t. Travis wasn’t going to tell me that even if he did know, so I said nothing as I followed him down the halls and through the familiar doors to his lab.
Walking to the counter, he opened a file folder with all kinds of charts, graphs and data sheets as well as handwritten notes. “We confirmed the medication types from the paper sack, including the cholesterol pill and antidepressant. All are from known sources and, quite frankly, represent a typical prophylactic regimen that a large percentage of Americans are prescribed.”
“Not comforting.”
“Not at all,” he agreed. “But what is of most concern is the pink pill from the white cup. It appears to be a statin drug and markers of it were found in the blood sample.”
“Statin?” I hadn’t even finished asking when he looked at me with a ‘you can’t be this dumb’ look. Oh, yes I could. “I’ve had other things on my mind since your science lesson yesterday.”
“Cholesterol inhibitors. One side effect is myopathy, of which you have anecdotal evidence. Memory can also be affected. The brain requires cholesterol to function properly. Drugs that inhibit cholesterol increase the risk of diminished brain function. Combined with a diet low in fats—also essential to brain health—creates the perfect storm for loss of memory and brain function.”
“So, what you’re saying is that by giving older people cholesterol drugs, telling them not to eat eggs or butter or other foods with good fats and whatnot, you’re actually creating dementia or Alzheimer’s.”
“Basically, yes,” Travis said. “Symptoms are rarely contributed to nutrient deficiencies, particularly in the elderly, and the deterioration continues.”
This wasn’t the first time I’d heard this information, however, since I’d hopped off the medical-pharmaceutical merry-go-round long ago, I hadn’t really given it much thought in a while. Now that I had, it infuriated me. I felt a rant coming on about fake eggs, fake butter, fake sugar and the like, not to mention the whole sodium-salt debacle. But as much as I wanted to vent about the blatant lies we’ve all been programmed to believe, there was no point telling the master what he already knew.
Travis raised an eyebrow, apparently as surprised at my silence as I was. “It is worth noting that the FDA now requires labeling of cholesterol drugs with wording such as, known to cause memory loss. It has not appeared to diminish sales.”
“Oh, there are so many things I want to say about the glorious FDA, the unhealthy state of “healthcare” and the money machines that control it all. But, if I hop on that soapbox and you won’t get me off.”
“Now you know why I work with the dead.”
“I always figured it was because of your bedside manner.” I forced a smile—and he almost smiled back. “But seriously, Travis, I get it. It would be hell having to deal with insurance, paperwork and government meddling, not to mention the people who just want the quick-fix pills promised on TV.”
“Having your research perverted and prostituted is rather unpleasant as well.”
“Oh, wow,” I said, his words—and the possibilities of what they meant—sinking in. There was no doubt a heck of a story behind that comment and I’d really like to hear more about it someday. Right now, I needed to know what to do to help Doris. “So, Doctor-Doctor-Doctor Travis,” I said, trying to lighten things a bit. “Once we get all the crap out of Melody’s mom’s system, she’ll be back to normal, right?”
“She’ll be improved, certainly,” he said. “The less exposure, the less potential for irreversible effects. Dietary and nutrient support will be necessary.” He paused for a moment, then looked me in the eye. “I would be willing to do an unofficial evaluation and provide suggestions.”
“Really?” I said, my voice lilting upward in obvious shock. “You’d do that?”
He nodded. “I’ll need an address and a time.”
I grabbed my phone, found the number and wrote it down for him. “Just give Melody a call.” Then, I paused. “How about you just come for dinner tonight?”
Travis almost jerked. “Dinner?”
“Sure, why not? Want me to give you directions to the house?”
“I know where it is,” he said. “Everyone does.”
“Of course they do.”
Chapter 19
Back in the car, I called Emmajean and told her about the impromptu dinner party. Since it was stacking up to be a pretty good crowd, I told her I would just stop somewhere and grab chicken or barbeque or whatever. She’d gasped and choked, and I was a little concerned she was having a stroke or something. Or something was the case. No way was she going to allow me to stop anywhere for food. She would have a delicious and healthy dinner ready for us and that was that.
And in that moment, it became very clear who was in charge at that house—and it wasn’t me. It was also clear that I wasn’t upset about it. In fact, I kind of liked it. Control freak that I may be, I was exceedingly happy that I did not have to deal with providing dinner or even thinking about it. I still felt like I was imposing on Emmajean, but she’d had plenty to say about that too and informed me I just needed to get over it. So, I did.
Confident that would be plenty of food for the masses, meaning Melody, Doris, Travis, Lucille, Jerry and me, I was free to think about other things—like the potential for trouble. Of course, the trouble first had to be removed from the rehab center. And now that I was back in the saddle and mostly back to myself, I needed to be the one to go round up Her Majesty instead of Jerry. It would at least take one stress-inducing thing off his list. And since I really wanted him to stay with me at the house tonight, it would also stack the deck in our favor for having a relaxing and pleasant evening. Just the thought of those possibilities took the edge off of everything else. I felt my shoulders drop as I automatically relaxed. Smiling, I dialed the phone and waited to hear the soothing deep timber of his voice.
“I told you I’m not leaving!” came Lucille’s voice, screeching from the phone. “You can‘t make me!”
My grand plans for a cozy cuddly evening vanished as the whereabouts of the sheriff, and the unsatisfactory status of his mission, became abundantly clear. “Let me talk to Jerry.”
The deep sigh on the other end of the line told me the sheriff had recovered his phone. “Do I need to state the obvious?”
“No,” I said with my own deep sigh. “I’m in town and I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“She may not live that long.”
The screeching in the background spoke volumes. “I’ll hurry.”
By the time I arrived at the rehab center, I’d steeled myself for the worst. The pep talk I tried to give myself on how I’d managed this sort of thing plenty of times before just didn’t take. After yesterday’s adventures with Doris and the lab goods, just showing my face in the facility was risky enough. Hauling her out by force would not bode well. Nevertheless, I resigned myself to the fact that the situation would probably require duct tape and handcuffs, both of which I presumed the sheriff had already procured from his truck.
Thankfully, I made it to Mother’s room without incident. The door was closed, which was not really a surprise. However, the lack of yelling from within was. With a quick request to the powers that be for divine intervention, I took a deep breath, pushed the door open and stepped inside the room.
Lucille sat in a wheelchair, dressed in a purple track suit, her purse in her lap and th
e bag I’d brought her from home sitting on the floor beside her.
Jerry stood by the window, leaning back on the sill, arms crossed.
I gave him a plaintive, pleading look, hoping he would explain what I was walking into. He didn’t.
“I am only doing this for you, Jolene, I want to make that real plain,” Lucille said, gripping the handles of her purse. “I told Jerry Don that nurse in the lab is probably just a flunky, just doing what she’s told. Somebody needs to find out who’s running the show and I’d be staying here and doing exactly that if it weren’t for you being in trouble.”
She was casting a pretty wide net, so I mouthed to Jerry, “What trouble?”
“Oh, save it, Jolene. He told me everything. I know about your car getting blown up and what that boy came up with in his lab about those pills you took.”
I watched Jerry’s face to see if he was trying to send me any silent messages. Mostly, it just looked like he wanted this over with. So did I. “Well, Mother, you were obviously right about things here,” I said, agreeably. “And I just have to say that I am amazed how you—”
“Just shut up, Jolene.” Lucille smacked her hands against her purse. “I already said I’d leave.”
“Glad to hear that,” I said. “Because you may think you can outsmart them, but I’m not willing to bet your life on it. I don’t know if we got Doris out in time or not. She can hardly move or think. I don’t want that for you.”
She glared at Jerry. “You should have told me that!”
He ignored her and looked at me. “How bad?”
“Bad enough that Travis volunteered to come to the house tonight and give her an unofficial evaluation.”
Lucille narrowed her eyes. “You took Doris to my house?”
“I was going to, but it turns out that the terms and conditions of the mess you’ve gotten me into require that I be in residence elsewhere.”
“That’s not my fault,” she said, frowning. Then, she cut her eyes toward me. “Just because you have to stay in the house on the hill doesn’t mean I do.”
“Oh, but it does.”
She scowled. “I don’t want to. You just take me home and Agnes will come stay with me.”
“No,” I said, firmly and without further explanation. “But on the bright side, you do get to ride up there in your own car. I brought the Buick.”
Lucille tipped up her nose. “You didn’t do that on my account. You were afoot, your monster truck getting blown to bits and all.”
The standard flurry of “Why me?” thoughts whistled through my mind, but I turned my attention to the details at hand—and to Jerry. “So, do I need to go talk to anyone about paperwork or are we just going to leave?”
Jerry pushed away from the window. “All the papers have been signed. They weren’t eager to have a repeat of yesterday’s events. The uniform seemed to speed things along as well.”
“Thank you, Jerry,” I said, sincerely, hoping he could feel my gratitude. “Do you think you could come to dinner too? I’d really like for you to be there.” I sounded a little desperate, but that’s because I kind of was. The whole house situation made me nervous and having him there would be really nice. I couldn’t say that at the moment though, so I took a different approach. “Travis would probably appreciate it.”
He glanced at Lucille then back at me. “We haven’t had a chance to talk. We need to.”
Dread waved through me, settling in my chest and gut. “I know,” I said, although I didn’t, at least specifically. Things had changed so fast, literally overnight, and I had to wonder if he’d finally had enough of it all—of me. My old insecurities did a familiar jig them shuffled off the dance floor. My mother had put him through worse and he hadn’t bolted, so I didn’t need to assume he would now. No, it was something else. “We need to talk, but?”
“Ben has a softball game tonight,” Jerry said, almost blurting it out. He paused, glancing at Lucille. “It probably won’t be over until eight.”
“Oh, my Lord, Jerry Don,” Lucille said. “We all know you’re coming over afterward to spend the night with Jolene so stop being such a child about it. You’ve been sleeping together in my house so you may as well do it in yours.”
“Well, thanks for clearing that up, Mom.” I turned to Jerry. “If you need to be with the kids, I understand.” I said it and I meant it, but I sure didn’t want it. “Just give me a call later.”
He walked over and picked up Lucille’s suitcase then stepped behind her chair. His eyes said he was truly sorry. His mouth simply said, “It’s going to be okay.”
It didn’t feel like anything was going to be okay, but we did manage to get Lucille in the Buick without a major incident. However, as soon as I closed my door and turned the key in the ignition, she began creating one.
“Well, it is certainly good to be out of that horrible place. I tried to tell you what they were up to, but you just wouldn’t listen, just thought I was making things up. Maybe now you’ll start believing me. Of course, I was on to them so I knew better than to fall for their tricks. Anybody else would have been killed dead before you started paying attention.”
Oh, how easily she could jump the fence on her viewpoint when it suited her. And we both knew she was building up to something. “Uh huh. And?”
“Well, after all I’ve been through, the least you could do is let me freshen up and go get some decent food. After being penned up, those really are the first things you want when you get out.”
I was not indulging her jail analogy, nor was I falling for her ploy to get herself back in the social scene. “We are not going to the Dairy Queen.”
“Well, I don’t know why in the world not,” she said, huffing, scowling and plotting, all at the same time. “I certainly need a bite or two to tide me over until the dinner party. And, of course, I can’t go looking like this. We’ll just make a quick stop by the house so I can change and grab a few things, then we’ll swing by the salon so I can have my hair and nails done. I’ve already called Tina and she said she’d work me in whenever I got there.”
“No.”
She sputtered in indignation, but I found words before she did.
“I will drive through somewhere on our way out of town and get you a snack, but that’s it. There will be no trip to the salon. You’re not going to your house either. I’ll go get what you need later.”
“Why, you hateful heifer,” she said, jutting out her chin and glaring at me. “I just don’t know what on earth has gotten into you, treating me like this. Oh,” she said, sucking in her breath. “I suppose now that you have your big fancy house, you don’t have time to bother with me, that’s what it is, and, it’s just plain hateful.”
“Hateful, protective, call it what you want, but it doesn’t change the facts. You are going directly to The Big House.” She frowned and I laughed. “Yes, as in prison. Wonder where I’d get the idea for such a comparison…”
“Hateful, hateful, hateful,” she said, balling her hands into tight fists. “I knew this would happen. I just knew it!”
“Me too.”
“You can’t treat me like this,” Lucille said. “You aren’t the boss of me.”
“I am today. Because, once again, we’re in the middle of a big mess where people are dying, maybe even Doris. And the reason she’s at the house is because the nurse showed up at her place and made them sign papers. The nurse also threatened to turn Melody in to Social Services for putting her mother at risk. You signed yourself out, so they can’t use that angle, but I will not assume you’re safe and let you run free and loose. Not to mention that you aren’t physically healed enough to do so.”
“I am so!” Lucille scowled as she processed the rest of the news. “You should have told me that other part sooner.”
“When? You don’t give me much time between the arguing and demanding.”
More chin jutting. “That’s not true.”
“Oh, but it is. So maybe, when you’re busy jumping to c
onclusions, you might consider that I might actually be looking out for you. Maybe? Just once?”
“They aren’t after me,” she muttered, ignoring my point.
“Maybe. But they’re going to be after me once they figure out what happened to the stuff from the lab. And then they will connect the dots with the woman in Room 216 who caused them all kinds of trouble then checked herself out.”
Lucille scowled. “I still don’t see how having my hair done could hurt anything. It’s not like they’re going to follow me to the salon. Besides, I’m not going to blab about what you did or anything.”
Oh, please. “Does Agnes know what’s going on? How about Merline?”
She glared at me.
“I rest my case.”
Chapter 20
We arrived at The Big House without any further grousing, relatively speaking, the cheeseburger and onion rings having soothed her to some degree. To my credit, I did not mention, imply or infer that her “snack" was going to ruin her dinner, which of course it was.
Also to my credit, I’d asked Clove to go to Mother’s house and retrieve some clothing for her, which I could do because I’d left my key ring at the house—the keys to the Tahoe no longer needed. She was not happy about some man snooping through her things, but she’d rattled off a hefty list anyway. She was certain he wouldn’t get it right—I was certain no one could—but the attempt appeased her for the moment. It also helped that I promised to go back myself tomorrow and to make an appearance at the Dairy Queen on her behalf. Other concessions were also made, but let’s not belabor my magnanimity—or stupidity.
After getting Lucille settled in her room to rest before dinner, I went to the kitchen to thank Emmajean for taking on the group feeding at the last minute.
“Good heavens, Miss Jolene, you have got to stop that!” she said, scolding me like I was a three-year-old. “It’s my job to cook and clean and such and I enjoy it. I haven’t had a chance to do anything like this in a very long time, so stop fretting. If there’s something I can’t do or don’t want to, I’ll let you know and we’ll get someone in here who will. Okay?”