3 A Brewski for the Old Man

by Phyllis Smallman

  “Here…” Dr. Travis let go of my hand and slipped an arm under my shoulders, lifting me off the bed. “You need to drink as much as you can.” He brought a glass to my lips.

  Not even my lips would behave. Nothing was working and the glass was at the wrong angle. More water spilled out the sides of my mouth than ran down my throat.

  “Sorry,” Dr. Travis said. “I should have gotten you a straw. Go get a straw,” he said to Styles. Styles trotted off just as he was told.

  “Wow,” I said in disbelief. “He listened to you. He never listens to me, must be all that medical training.”

  He laughed and laid me gently back against the pillows. He went to the small bathroom and came back with a towel and started dabbing lightly at my face and damp chest. “I’ve got you all wet.”

  Had the planet spun upside-down while I was asleep? “Like the converters we had as kids,” I told him. He looked confused. “What?” “Toy man that turned into a car.” Dr. Travis said, “I don’t understand.”

  I shook my head. “Neither do I.” Dr. Travis was a robot who had converted into a human. Maybe it would last, but I doubted if he could change a lifetime of ice. I’d best not give in to this nice side of him, keep myself in check until I saw if this was an aberration. “I was surprised to see you there…and grateful,” I told him.

  “Bernice and I were just coming out of John and Judy Wood’s after having dinner with them. I was so surprised to see you stumbling towards us with that horrible woman coming after you.” He put the towel on the night table. “She was going to kill you, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes,” I answered, the reality of it only now sinking in. Styles came back with the straw and put it in the glass. This time Dr. Travis used a button to raise the bed. Styles held out the glass and I sipped from it. I was pretty sure I could do all this for myself but I was enjoying the novelty of being fussed over. Besides, it was giving me some time to sort through things.

  “Enough,” Styles said and plopped the glass back on the night table. “Talk.”

  Dr. Travis answered for me. “Take it easy. She’s still woozy.” “All right,” I mumbled. “This was what happened. Lacey told me about Ray John meeting a woman in the Preserves he had once arrested for prostitution when he was in the sheriff’s department. Lacey didn’t know her name but it was easy enough to figure out who it was. It was Sheila Dressal.”

  “What?” Dr. Travis gasped. “She’s engaged to a guy I play golf with.”

  Styles wasn’t distracted. In a cold and angry voice he asked, “Why didn’t you just call me and tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to just destroy her life,” I said. “She was starting over. I saw her the day after Ray John died. I knew she was celebrating his death, definitely relieved that he was dead, but I didn’t think she killed him.” Styles snorted with disgust. “You’re equipped to judge?” “Yeah, you’re right, but like I said, I couldn’t just drop her in it, could I?”

  “No,” Dr. Travis said and patted my hand, which he was holding again. When had that happened? “Being you, you wouldn’t want to hurt her.”

  Okay, this was just too weird. “What?” I slid sideways on the pillow to look up at him. “Who are you?” “You still should have called,” Styles said.

  “I was stopped for speeding by Mark Cummings.” I told him what I figured had been happening in the Preserves. “And then I got lost and Anita captured me. When she took that shortcut home behind the recreation hall she saw the license plate on the truck. Like Mark Cummings, she saw it the night Ray John was murdered and remembered.” “Stupid plate,” Styles said.

  “It was Anita who killed Ray John Leenders.” My brain took a right turn. “Was he shot three times — in the head, the heart and the crotch?”

  “How did you know that, it wasn’t released to the public?”

  “Anita told me. She enjoyed telling me. She didn’t think I was ever going to get out of that house. And I wouldn’t have gotten out if Thia hadn’t have come home unexpectedly.”

  Styles didn’t need to hear any more. “Is there anything else I should know before I go down the hall and tell her she’s under arrest?”

  “Down the hall? What is she doing in here?” Styles raised his eyes to Dr. Travis.

  I turned to look at the man holding my hand. “It was Bernice,” he said. “She saw that woman chasing you and took a swing at her with her bag. Dropped her like a sack of potatoes right onto the curb. She wasn’t unconscious but she did seem confused so I thought it was best that she come to the hospital in case of concussion.” “And in case of a lawsuit,” I put in.

  “That too,” Dr. Travis said, but he wasn’t looking too nervous. Actually, he was looking quite pleased. “Bernice always was a fine athlete with a wicked backhand.”

  I started to laugh but it was too painful. I put my hands up to my head where the guys with hammers were.

  “Take it easy,” Dr. Travis cautioned me before turning to Styles. “I think she’s had enough for now, don’t you?”

  Styles went on a bit about getting a statement from me and then left the room without a goodbye, plenty pissed off with me. I didn’t care. My head hurt and my stomach wasn’t feeling too good either. I just wanted to sleep.

  That wasn’t going to happen. There was a racket in the hall and Tully burst into the room with a nurse on his heels.

  “It’s all right, nurse,” Dr. Travis said and rose from the bed where he’d been sitting. “This is the patient’s father.” He held out his hand and shook hands with Tully. “She’s going to be fine, a little hungover but that’s all. She can go home whenever she’s ready. I’ll go and talk to her real doctor and get it cleared.” He turned back to me. “And you,” he leaned over and pecked me on the forehead, “try to stay out of trouble. Bernice may not be there to rescue you the next time.”

  Tully patted Dr. Travis on the back. “Thanks, and thank Bernice for me.”

  “Sure,” Dr. Travis replied and left the room.

  “Well, beam me up, Scotty. I’ve seen it all,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Bernice called me and told me you were in the hospital. I’ve been waiting forever to get in. They said the doctor and a cop were in here and I should wait until they were done. Couldn’t wait any longer. How you doin’, little girl?”

  “Like the doctor said, fine except for a hangover but we both know they won’t kill you.”

  “Are you ready to go home?”

  I threw back the covers. “Call in the dogs and piss on the fire,” I said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  C H A P T E R 5 5

  Four days later, nervous and dreading what was about to take place, I silently rode the elevator at the Tradewinds with Tully and Uncle Ziggy.

  Clay waited at the open door to the apartment as we got off the elevator. Tully stepped forward and held out his hand to Clay. “Good to see you again, son.” “You two know each other?”

  “Yup,” Tully said. “I used to hunt with his pa.” Nothing ever stays tidy in my life; nothing is ever what it seems. Humiliating to know how unaware and confused I really am. While I thought I was keeping the compartments of my life locked well away from each other, they’d been doing their own thing.

  “Two old crackers like Bill Adams and me, course we knew each other. Sorry to hear of his death, son, he was a good man.”

  “Thank you, sir, five years and I still miss him.” I turned to Uncle Ziggy. “And you and Clay are partners on your property?”

  “Seems like,” he said. His skin was red and shiny but his smile was big and happy. “Clay and I are real close.”

  I’d never really had any control over anything, not Ray John, not Sheila…and sure as hell not Anita. She told Styles she walked in and found the gun on the table and shot Ray John in a moment of madness over what he’d done to her little girl. She thought it was Ray John’s gun, and with luck it would stay that way.

  But Anita denied trying to kill me, wasn’t telli
ng anyone her plans for me. My first words to her when I looked up at her from the steering wheel had been, “It’s you.” She thought I was saying, “It was you who killed Ray John,” when what I had meant was “It’s you, Anita, and not the bride of Chucky.”

  I think she decided right there to kill me. Go figure, a little misunderstanding that nearly got me killed when I hadn’t a clue she’d shot Ray John. But there was no way Styles could prove she meant to do anything but drug me.

  “Are you going to keep us standing here all day while you catch flies with that open mouth?” Tully asked.

  Clay reached out and took a small night bag from Tully’s hand. “Come this way. I’ll show you Ziggy’s room.”

  Halfway across the living room, I called to Clay. “I don’t know why you’re smiling. Mrs. Whiting called this morning to say she could no longer work here.” “Good,” Clay said. “That woman drove me crazy.”

  The End

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank Maureen Rowell for her generous support of Artspring with her purchase of a character naming.

  I hope Peter says it’s brilliant.