by Ann B. Ross
“That’s your patient or client or whatever she is? Mrs. Delacorte? I don’t believe I know her.”
“Probably not. She moved into one of the cottages out at the Mountain Villas Retirement Center only a few months ago.”
Still thinking I might have heard of the woman, I asked, “What’s her first name?”
“Fran is all I’ve ever heard. Mrs. Fran Delacorte.”
“Good Lord!” I said, throwing back the covers and springing out of bed. I stood up so suddenly that my head began to swim and I had to clutch at Etta Mae to keep from falling.
“Miss Julia!” she cried, holding on to me. “What’s the matter? Are you ill? You need to go to the bathroom?”
“No, no, I’m all right.” I sank back onto the edge of the bed and tried to get myself under control. “It’s just . . . well, I think I’ve just put two and two together. You said she was from Florida, too, didn’t you? So tell me, Etta Mae, this Fran Delacorte, is she a short, heavyset woman with a lot of strange-looking hats?”
“I guess, though I wouldn’t call her heavyset, exactly. I’d say she’s just plain overweight. And she does have a lot of hat boxes, though I don’t know what’s in them. And she’s as short as I am, maybe a little shorter. I’m not sure because she’s always in bed or sitting in a chair with her foot propped up when I’ve seen her. That big toe of hers, you know, where she has the gout? Well, it sure keeps her off her feet.”
My eyes narrowed as I gave it some thought. “She have a queenly sort of attitude? As if everything you do for her is only her rightful due?”
Etta Mae gave a short bark of a laugh. “I’ll say. That woman’s never once even said thank you. Not that I expect it, you understand, because after all, she is paying for the service. But she’s not the easiest client I have by a long shot.”
“She have orange hair?”
“Well, it’s mostly gray now, but the ends are orange. She tried to get me to give her a dye job, but I wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole. She’d have my hide if it didn’t turn out right.”
“Etta Mae,” I said, coming to a conclusion, “I think I know who she is.”
“Yes’m, I do, too.”
“No, I mean I think I really know who she is. I think she’s Francie Pitts, and if she is, you could be in more trouble than you know.”
“Oh, don’t say that! I already know I’m in trouble.” She sprang up from her chair and began pacing the floor, wringing her hands in agitation. “How much more could I be in?”
“Wait, Etta Mae, I didn’t mean it that way. Come sit back down, and let’s talk about this.” I could’ve kicked myself for overstating the case and increasing her anxiety.
She slid back into her chair but remained tense and visibly upset. “Do you know her? You know what she might say about me?”
“If this Fran Delacorte is the woman I know as Francie Pitts, then, yes, I do know her. But I can’t be sure without seeing her. The thing of it is, Etta Mae, the one I know has been married and widowed a half dozen times and has that many names she can call herself. And the one I know has also just moved here from Florida and is living now in a cottage at Mountain Villas. LuAnne Conover told me all about it, because Francie used to live here in Abbotsville and we all knew her then. But I haven’t seen her in several years, so really it could be somebody entirely different.”
But I didn’t think so. My mind was running in overdrive, trying to think of what it would mean to Etta Mae if her patient was the same woman who’d buried so many husbands and, if LuAnne’s report was correct, was even now being viewed as a person of interest in the death of one of them.
But if Etta Mae’s patient and the woman I knew as Francie Pitts were one and the same, why would she draw attention to herself by falsely accusing Etta Mae just when the Coral Gables police were looking so closely at her?
Uh-huh, and maybe that was the reason. Maybe she thought that by appearing the wounded victim of a theft and a vicious attack, she would elicit a little sympathy and put the Florida investigators off the track.
“All right,” I said, making up my mind. “Here’s what we have to do. First of all, we have to find out if it’s Francie Pitts we’re dealing with. Then we have to find out if she’s specifically accusing you.” I thought for a few minutes as Etta Mae waited with anxious eyes for whatever I’d come up with. “And I guess we should find out how badly injured she is. The Francie I know is entirely capable of exaggerating anything that happens to her. Why, for all we know, she’s lying up in bed, enjoying all the attention she’s getting.”
“Well, I don’t know, Miss Julia,” Etta Mae said with some skepticism. “From what the deputies let slip, she was knocked out cold and was still not fully coherent three days later, which is why it took ’em so long to come after me. That doesn’t sound too good.”
“No, it doesn’t. But I’m telling you, Etta Mae, Francie Pitts could dramatize anything. Everything she talked about and everything she did was always bigger, better, more unusual or worse than anybody else’s experiences. I wouldn’t put it past her to be making more of this than there actually is.”
“Well, but,” Etta Mae said, “it might not even be Francie Pitts. It might be Fran Delacorte and she’s really been hit over the head and now has brain damage that’ll keep her confused and crippled for the rest of her life. And it looks like she’s telling everybody that I’m the cause of it!” Etta Mae’s hands were about to be wrung off her wrists, the way they were twisting in her lap.
“Well, there you have it,” I said, trying to give her some hope. “If she’s confused from a blow on the head, what good is her testimony? No court is going to take that kind of testimony as irrefutable evidence of guilt.”
“Oh, don’t talk about going to court! I can’t stand this, Miss Julia, I just can’t. I’ll never be able to work in this town again if patients can’t trust me. And to be accused and tried, even if I got off, why, it would ruin me forever.”
“It’s not going to come to that, so just get it off your mind. Look, Etta Mae, we need to know more than we do. And I know who can tell us. I’m calling LuAnne Conover and putting her on the case. If she can’t find out, nobody can. And there’s one more thing we can do—or I can do. If it is Francie Pitts, and LuAnne will know if it is or not, I can visit her in the hospital.”
“But, Miss Julia, you’re sick. You can’t be visiting anybody.”
“Oh pooh, I’m going to be well in a few hours, don’t you worry about that.” I glanced at the bedside clock, relieved to see that it was almost four o’clock. Eight was slowly approaching—the time when Sam had promised the pastor to be at the counseling session.
A sudden sinking spell flew over me that had nothing to do with Etta Mae’s problem and everything to do with that meeting. I could just imagine Dr. Fowler with a smirk on his face, sidling up to Sam and intimating that he knew his wife intimately, or even flat-out telling him of that shameful episode when I’d lost all sense of myself.
But one thing was clear: I couldn’t suddenly recover my health at one minute past eight o’clock. I’d have to watch the clock and be back in bed with a relapse by ten o’clock when Sam came home. Surely a caring husband wouldn’t demand an accounting from a woman so obviously ailing.
Chapter 14
After sending Etta Mae home to pack a suitcase for several days of in-house private-duty nursing, I telephoned LuAnne.
Dispensing with the usual social niceties, I plunged right in as soon as she answered the phone. “LuAnne, what’s the latest word on Francie Pitts?”
“Oh, Julia, I was just about to call you. You’ll never guess, but Arley Hopkins told me that she’s in the hospital with a huge bump on her head and a concussion. Somebody attacked her! And Arley said she even has bruises on her neck where somebody tried to choke her. And I mean right in her own home on the grounds of Mountain Villas. And you know they advertise how safe it is out there.”
“Oh my,” I said, my worst fears for Etta Mae
confirmed. “Do they know who did it?”
“No, but Arley said they have their eye on somebody. All they need is a little more evidence, then they’ll make an arrest. And it can’t come too soon, as far as I’m concerned. Imagine, Julia! Somebody’s walking around town who’s capable of such a thing. Makes me shiver to think about it.”
“So she’s really injured? I mean, she’s not just putting on, is she? You know how she is.”
“Well, Julia, I would think that a bump on the head and bruises on her neck qualify as real injuries. But I know what you mean. She would certainly make the most of whatever happened to her.”
“Well, let me ask you this, LuAnne, what’s her condition now? Can she have visitors?”
“I haven’t the slightest. Arley didn’t say, but who’d want to visit her?”
“I might. Just to be neighborly, if nothing else.”
“You know what you’ll get, don’t you? Thirty minutes of moaning and groaning and feeling sorry for herself and poor-little-me carryings-on. I wouldn’t recommend it, Julia, I really wouldn’t. She’ll hang on to you like a leech if you do. And she’ll make you feel obligated to be at her beck and call from then on.”
“You may be right,” I said. “I’ll have to give it some thought before doing anything. I’m a little under the weather myself, so I probably won’t.” But I probably would if making a hospital visit was the only way to find out what Francie was saying about Etta Mae.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” LuAnne said. “Does that mean you won’t be at the counseling session tonight?”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” I said, making myself sound a whole lot worse than I was. “I’ve been in bed for two days almost. But are you going? I thought it was mainly for the young marrieds.”
“Well, here’s the thing. Pastor Ledbetter called this morning and asked Leonard and me to come. Seems they didn’t have the reponse they thought they’d have—hardly anybody signed up for it, and he’s afraid of hurting that doctor’s feelings if nobody’s there. So I said we’d be glad to attend. I’m hoping that Leonard will benefit from it. If anybody needs enriching, he does.”
I couldn’t disagree, but LuAnne seemed not to understand that the sessions were for couples, not just for half a couple—my own husband showing up alone notwithstanding. Of course, what she’d told me about a lack of congregational response to Dr. Fowler’s offerings thrilled me. Maybe he’d lose heart and go back where he came from.
“Sam’s planning to be there, too,” I told her. “The pastor asked us to attend, but I’m too wiped out to get out of bed.”
“Well, you know, I might just stay home, too. It’s the men who need something like that. Maybe with just Sam and Leonard, they’ll decide to make it a men-only course, and we’ll see some changes around here.”
As soon as I hung up the phone, it rang again with Sam on the line, asking how I was feeling.
“Not so well,” I said, hating to be less than truthful, but every time I thought of facing Dr. Fowler, I felt decidedly unwell. “I was so hoping to be able to go to that meeting with you tonight, but, Sam, I’m just not up to it.”
“Well, I’ve decided not to go, either. I’m staying home to look after you, and I just called Ledbetter to let him know that we won’t be there.”
My heart took flight at that announcement, and I sat straight up in bed. What could be better than neither of us in Dr. Fowler’s line of sight and subject to his possible reference to a certain episode?
“Oh, Sam, you don’t have to do that,” I said, but quite pitifully to confirm how badly I needed him. “But I’ll be so glad to have you home.” My voice got a little quavery. “I’ve missed you today, especially since I’ve felt so bad.”
“Did you call the doctor?”
“Uh, well, I have a call in now.”
“That decides it, then. I’ll be home in a little while. You need anything from anywhere?”
“Just you,” I quavered, hung up the phone and lay back in blissful relief that Sam would be spared a potentially humiliating and marriage-damaging revelation.
It was barely an hour later when Etta Mae returned, bearing a suitcase that Lillian helped her lug upstairs and deposit in the sunroom. And only a few minutes later both of them showed up in my bedroom, Etta Mae in white nylon pants and top with white running shoes on her feet and a clipboard in one hand and a black doctor’s bag in the other. She was taking her new position seriously, which portended bad news for me.
Lillian pulled two chairs close by the side of the bed, sat down in one and said, “Now you got somebody know what she doin’ to look after you, so we gonna get to the bottom of this. Go ahead, Miss Etta Mae.”
“Okay, I’m ready.” Etta Mae clicked her pen and poised it over the clipboard. “Now, Miss Julia, when did your symptoms first present?”
I frowned, wondering how closely she intended to question me. “You mean, when did I get sick?”
She nodded. “I need to know everything so I can chart your progress. That’s what a private-duty nurse does.”
“Oh, okay. Well, it was yesterday, just as the pastor started his sermon, that I suddenly felt unwell.”
She jotted that down. “And how did you feel? Nauseous? Dizzy? Weak? Did you have any kind of stabbing pain or did you just feel faint?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“All of what you said.”
“Where did you have the stabbing pain?”
“Uh, in my stomach.”
“In your actual stomach or was it lower down in your abdomen?”
“Both.”
“What about vomiting or diarrhea?”
“Yes, I’ve had that, too.” Well, I’d certainly had both at one time or another.
“Okay,” Etta Mae said, pulling out a plastic tube from her doctor’s bag. She unsheathed a thermometer and put it under my tongue. “We’ll see if you have any fever, and I’ll check your pulse and blood pressure, too.”
When those procedures were done and she’d charted the results, she said, “I think you may be on the road to recovery. Everything’s normal, and that’s a good sign.”
“Well, I don’t know, Etta Mae,” I said, turning my head away. “I still don’t feel too good.”
“You don’t look too good, either,” Lillian said, studying my face intently. “You look a little liverish to me.” She turned to Etta Mae. “See how bilious her face is?”
“It is not!” I said, indignant at the thought. “There’s nothing wrong with my face or my liver. Besides, it’s the lamp bulb. It turns everything yellow.”
Etta Mae reached over and pulled down one of my lower eyelids. “Her eyeballs are nice and white. I don’t think there’s any liver involvement. Yet, anyway.”
Etta Mae then leaned back and tapped the nonworking end of her pen against her mouth. “I think you just picked up a bug, Miss Julia. The intestinal upsets indicate that, so it’ll take a while to feel like yourself again. Have you been taking anything?”
“Taking? Oh, you mean medicine? Let me see, I took some aspirin yesterday.”
“Well, let’s not take any more of that. Aspirin can irritate the stomach lining and cause some of your symptoms. Has your doctor prescribed anything?”
“Uh, well, I didn’t want to bother him, because I think you’re right, Etta Mae. I think I just have the twenty-four-hour flu. Maybe the thirty-six-hour kind. Besides, it’s too late in the day to be calling him, so let’s wait and see how I feel tomorrow.”
“I guess we can because you don’t have a fever. But if it spikes up tonight, I’m going to call him. Now, Lillian’s made you some nice Jell-O, and I want you to eat that along with some soup and crackers. We need to force the fluids, too. Are you sleeping all right?”
“Fairly well, I guess, if I don’t have to get up to use the bathroom.”
“I might need to stay here in the room with you tonight. I’ll ask Mr. Sam if he’ll sleep somewhere else, and I’ll doze in one o
f those easy chairs.”
“Oh no, Etta Mae,” I said, seeing my situation taking a turn for the worse. “There’s no need for that. I don’t want you to sit up all night. I’ll call you if I need anything, and besides, I wouldn’t rest well without Sam.”
“Okay, then,” she said, finally putting aside the clipboard. “But if that fever goes up, we’ll have to rethink things. Miss Lillian,” she went on, turning to her, “I’ll help you fix a tray for her.”
They stood up, preparing to leave, while I hoped that I’d given enough right answers to keep me ailing past eight o’clock.
“Where’s Lloyd?” I asked. “I haven’t heard him come in.”
“He stop off at Mr. Sam’s house,” Lillian said. “He called when he got out of school to let me know. I think I hear ’em coming in now.”
And so did I, for the sound of doors opening and closing and Sam’s deep voice along with Lloyd’s higher one drifted up from downstairs.
“I better get down there,” Lillian went on. “I got to put supper on the table. They be starved to death.”
“Thank you both,” I said, as I heard Sam’s footsteps on the stairs. “I really think I’m getting better, although it still might take a while.”
My heart was beginning to beat a little faster, as it always did when Sam approached, but at the same time, I was trying to appear tired and weak and constitutionally unable to attend a meeting that night.
Chapter 15
I could hear the three of them discussing matters as they met on the stairs. They spoke softly, but I could pretty much figure out Sam’s questions about my condition and Etta Mae’s responses. After a little more back and forth, with Lillian chiming in occasionally, Sam’s footsteps continued on to our room, where I awaited him.
“Well, sweetheart,” he said, as he approached the bed, “I hear you’re expected to live. And now that you have expert nursing care, I hope to see some rapid improvement.”
“Oh, Sam, I hope you don’t mind my employing her. I really don’t need expert nursing care, but she’s in a bad way and I had to do something.”