With a squeal of tires, the heavy vehicle rocketed toward her. Before it had come to a complete halt, the Emergency Medical Team was out of it and beside Olivia. “We’ll take it from here.”
McLain waited until the paramedics had pressure on the stab wound, then stepped away. “Go inside, ladies. There’s nothing you can do here. We’ll follow to the hospital when you’ve gotten dressed.”
Alison suddenly realized she was standing there in her underwear. She gasped, wrapped her arms around herself, and bolted for the house. Laura followed her.
“I’ll get my car and be back to pick you up,” McLain called after them.
“We can take my car. It’s closer,” Samantha offered.
“Okay. Good idea.”
They turned and ran back toward Samantha’s house, Rags in hot pursuit. Samantha snatched her keys off the key board just inside the kitchen door and tossed them to McLain. She knew she was in no condition to drive.
“Good girl!” McLain dragged her to the sink and made a hasty job of rinsing the blood off both their hands. Then he lobbed a vigorously protesting Rags into the pantry and slammed the door on him as Samantha yanked open the one into the garage. Together, they leapt at and scrambled into her Buick.
McLain started the engine, looked toward her and snapped, “Get your seat belt on.” One quick glance and he’d located the garage door opener clipped to the visor, punched the button to activate the mechanism that lifted the door, and shifted into reverse. Before the car’s hood was even clear of the door, he’d punched the button to close it again.
They hit the street with a jolt. McLain stopped the car long enough for Laura and Alison to jump in, then slammed it into drive. In a smooth rush they swept away, headed for the hospital.
Even over the snarl of her engine, Samantha heard the mournful howl set up by Rags.
It made her blood run cold.
***
In a hush broken only by the faint sounds of papers being shuffled, monitors softly humming and the squeak of rubber-soled shoes moving over well-scrubbed vinyl floors, Samantha sat with her friends and prayed. They were all begging that Olivia Charles might recover from the awful wound in her chest.
Samantha’s world had turned upside down. She and all her friends had gotten over the murder of a perfect stranger and settled down again into the usual rhythm of their lives. Only a little while ago her greatest concern had been the petty annoyance of some prankster damaging gardens. Now that issue was forgotten in the horror of this attack on a well-loved friend.
Never would she be the same after seeing Olivia Charles lying there with John McLain trying to staunch the flow of blood from her chest.
They sat without speaking for what seemed an eternity. Every now and then one of them would get up and walk over to stare unseeingly out the glass window wall of the waiting room. No one spoke.
There were only three other people in the room, but they glanced toward Samantha and her friends from time to time, as if wondering what had happened to the person about whom they waited for word. They seemed curious, but were perhaps reluctant to ask because of the strained expressions on the faces of Samantha’s little group. Now and again they sent sympathetic glances their way.
Finally, Alison spoke, “She is going to be all right, isn’t she?” Alison, in a shirtdress she’d buttoned wrong in her haste, was as white as the papers carried by the nurses that moved purposefully up and down the hall.
“We don’t know, dearest,” Laura told her.
Samantha took one look at McLain’s face, read correctly the strain on it, and knew. McLain had been in battle. McLain had known what to do to try to help Olivia. McLain had seen men wounded unto death, and McLain had seen men die.
She looked again at his stern face, and slow tears began to trickle down her cheeks.
Half an hour later, the surgeon came out of the operating room and approached them reluctantly. They all stood up as if jerked out of their chairs by a common invisible string, fearful to hear his news.
He hesitated, looking around the tense little group, his face grave. Finally he took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry. We did everything we could.”
Samantha stood closer to Laura who was shocked to statue stillness.
On the other side of her, Alison buried her face against her aunt’s shoulder and sobbed.
McLain shoved his hands into his pockets as if he were afraid he’d do the wrong thing if he reached out to any of them.
He didn’t get the chance.
Into their stunned silence, a deep voice spoke from the doorway. “I guess that makes it murder, then.”
As if pulled by a single cord all of them turned to the speaker.
“I’m Lieutenant Nichols, Homicide,” he told them. “I’ll have to ask you some questions.”
Chapter Twelve
After lying awake half the night grieving for Olivia and then having a nightmare that she was being roughly questioned by Lieutenant Nichols for the rest of it, Samantha finally fell into a deep sleep toward dawn. She was awakened by a phone call that sent her racing back to the hospital.
She had no recollection of how she’d made it through the heavy morning traffic. Her well-ordered life which had been, until last night, always so calm, so peaceful and predictable, last night had tumbled into panic-stricken chaos. Badly shaken, frantic with worry, she had come.
She had no idea where she’d parked the car, but she knew where she was. She knew she was standing by the bed of yet another stricken friend.
She asked softly, “How are you feeling?”
“How am I gonna pay for all this? That’s the question.” Pain medication blurred Jasmine Johnson’s voice and slurred her speech as she gestured vaguely at the paraphernalia holding her right leg in traction.
“Oh, Jasmine, please don’t worry about that now. It’s all taken care of. Don’t you remember we took out that accident policy on you when you first came to work for me?”
Tears spilled over. This was more than Samantha could come to grips with. Two of her friends injured in the space of twenty-four hours. One of them, sweet Olivia Charles, gone. Gone forever. Now this.
What if the car that had struck Jasmine had killed her? It would have been more than she could bear.
“Oh, yes,” Jasmine was saying dreamily. “Now I remember. That do make it so I can relax a little.” Her eyes closed.
The nurse said softly from the doorway, “I think if we leave now, she’ll rest.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Samantha rose, leaned over the bed and kissed Jasmine on the cheek. Jasmine’s eyelids fluttered and she smiled. Before the door had closed behind Samantha, the injured woman had dropped off to sleep.
“If there’s anything I can do,” Samantha told the nurse, “Anything she wants. Anything at all.”
“We’ll let you know. She’ll pretty much sleep the next few days, you know. We’re going to try to keep her comfortable. She has multiple contusions, as well as that fractured leg.” The nurse strove for an encouraging comment. “We’re lucky she doesn’t have a concussion.”
“Yes, yes of course.” Samantha was numb. The call from the hospital had awakened her from a deep sleep—a dead sleep caused by her having cried for half the night over the loss of Olivia. Nerves tattered, she was having trouble accepting it all.
She bid the nurse an automatic goodbye, laced with thank-yous that came just as automatically, and went to the elevators. On the ground floor, she walked down the long hall to the foyer without seeing the photo gallery of those men who had contributed to the beginnings and growth of Norfolk General.
She half smiled as she mused that it would always be Norfolk General to her and other native Norfolkians who’d been born there and had had their own children there, never mind the sign outside that proclaimed it Sentara Hospital.
Turning left toward the foyer, she crossed the wide expanse of the high, glassed-in lobby to the entryway and pushed out through the heavy double glass doors
.
Buildings had so much glass nowadays, she thought vaguely.
Outside, she hesitated on the curb, waiting to think again, waiting to feel something, trying to focus. Then she crossed the street to the parking lot.
Somehow she found her car.
Laura and the Colonel were waiting there next to it. Laura was still wearing her gardening clothes, standing there twisting her hands, her soiled gardening gloves stuck in the waistband of her khaki cargo pants.
The Colonel was leaning on Samantha’s Buick with his hands in his pockets. Samantha thought inanely that that was very unmilitary. She wondered what they were doing here at the hospital.
Laura rushed forward. “Oh, Samantha. I’m so sorry about Jasmine. We’ve come to drive you home.” Quickly she peered into her friend’s face. “Heavens. You aren’t even connecting, are you? You poor dear. Good thing the Colonel saw you screech out of your driveway and brought us here.” She hugged Samantha. “We’ll take you home.”
The Colonel took Samantha’s purse from her and asked, “Car keys in here?”
Vaguely Samantha patted both pockets of her linen blazer, then nodded.
“You drive her Buick, Ms. Fulton.” He handed Laura Samantha’s handbag. “I’ll take her in my car and fill her in on what the cops had to say.” He took Samantha firmly by the elbow and guided her to his dark blue Jaguar.
Samantha gasped and stopped dead, startled when she saw the car. Olivia, her dear, dead friend Olivia had driven the same model in dark green.
“Yeah, I know,” McLain said softly, understanding. Tucking her into the passenger side, he walked around and got into his own. His voice had regained its habitual rasp when he ordered, “Fasten your seat belt.”
Samantha did as she was told, took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. As they looped off Brambleton Avenue onto Hampton Boulevard, she stared out the car window.
It seemed odd to her that everything was the same. It seemed to her that things should change somehow when there were tragedies, but evidently they didn’t. The familiar street with its huge old houses, many of them turned into doctors’ offices, apartments and discreet businesses, was the same.
Twenty-first Street still swept off to the right. Next came the underpass that always flooded in heavy rainstorms.
Everything was the same, yet nothing was the same. Olivia’s murder and Jasmine’s accident had changed it all for her.
She gave herself a mental shake. All was clearly just as it had been the other day when she and Laura had picked Rags up from the groomer’s. That familiarity brought her back to herself and she had to acknowledge that the only change was in her.
Life went steadily on in spite of all its horrors. Even though she felt everything should stop for a moment somehow, it was going to go on in spite of Olivia’s murder and Jasmine’s accident, and she realized that she had better get a grip.
Finally she leaned forward to check in the side mirror and saw that Laura was safely behind them in her faithful silver Buick. She took a deep breath. Her mind at ease about her friend, she turned to McLain and asked, “What did the police tell you about Jasmine’s accident?”
Samantha was ready to face life again.
“They said it was an ordinary case of hit and run. Maybe some drunk.”
“At seven in the morning?”
“Coming home from a binge, maybe.”
“Poor Jasmine.”
“She was lucky. One of the people who lives across the street ran out to help her right away. Didn’t get the license number of the car, though.”
Samantha took a deep breath. Then another. It finished clearing her head. She’d seemed to have been living in a fog ever since they’d found Olivia. She was relieved to be coming out of it. “I imagine the person was too busy worrying about Jasmine.”
“Yeah.”
Samantha flashed a glance at him. “That had undertones.”
“You are coming around.” He shot her an approving look. “Yeah. The cops put it down to a hit and run. An accident. I figure maybe it wasn’t an accident. I figure maybe Jasmine knew something about what happened to Olivia Charles that somebody didn’t want her talking about.”
Samantha stared at him, all the horror creeping back in, chilling her. “What do you mean?” She didn’t even worry about the shock that clearly registered in her voice.
“I mean that the man who ran out to help Jasmine couldn’t understand why the driver of the car didn’t come back to help her, too. He said that the car had turned around as if they were going to, but then they sped off instead.”
The traffic light ahead turned red, and McLain had time to swivel to look at Sam. He regarded her steadily. The expression on his face shocked her.
“You mean . . .” She couldn’t finish. The words that formed in her mind refused to come out.
“Yeah. I mean I think they were gonna come back and finish the job.”
Chapter Thirteen
The next morning, Samantha woke up full of determination. At least she knew of one thing that would help make Jasmine feel better, and she was going to cause it to happen. She’d said to the nurse in Jasmine’s room that she’d do anything Jasmine might want and she was going to do it ‘come hell or high water’ as Andrew used to say.
“Yes, right now, Brenda,” she said firmly into her phone. “I want to come over there right now.” Samantha frowned at herself in the hall mirror as she waited for Brenda Talley’s reply. For Jasmine’s sake, she didn’t mind being a little rude. Even a lot pushy.
“Well, I suppose if you must, you must, Samantha. Come on over. I’ll go make coffee.” The sharp click at the other end of the line could mean either that Brenda was annoyed because Samantha had insisted on coming over, or that she was in a hurry to make the coffee to welcome her.
Samantha frankly didn’t care which it was, but knowing Brenda she didn’t think it was the coffee. Unfortunately, Brenda never bothered to say ‘goodbye.’ That lack of social grace indicated nothing; everybody had just had to get used to it. Samantha wanted to get to Benny Stoddard both to console him for the loss of his good friend and former Sunday school teacher, Olivia Charles, and to inform him as gently as possible that another very dear friend of his, Jasmine Johnson, was in the hospital.
She particularly wanted to be the one to break the news about Jasmine. She wanted to soften this second blow before his hostess got wind of the accident. Unfortunately, Brenda had always had a lamentable tendency to be rather abrupt with bad news.
Samantha shook her head. Poor Brenda. Though she knew Brenda would resent it, Samantha couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. Surely, Brenda hadn’t counted on all this tragedy when she’d so blithely announced that Benny Stoddard was coming to be her houseguest. Now, instead of a guest who would have been considered a social coup, she’d have a grieving youth on her hands.
And here Samantha was on her way to put her under even more pressure. Brenda would feel the brunt of her news, even though it was her houseguest, Benjamin Stoddard Jr., that Samantha was going to tell that another of his close friends had met with misfortune.
And that poor boy. What a terrible beginning for his return home. One of the two cherished adult friends of his childhood murdered, the other injured. This on the heels of coming home from two years in a foreign prison for something he didn’t do to find his parents had been killed in his absence. She sighed. So much tragedy.
Samantha’s heart went out to the young man. He would have to be reeling under this series of blows.
Thank God Jasmine was only injured and would live. She, at least, would be there for him. It was so sad. Only one friend left from a past filled with loving supporters. Poor Benny.
Samantha, her thoughts in turmoil, decided to walk over to the Talleys’s. Perhaps a walk would lift her spirits. She fervently hoped so.
It was a beautiful day, and she concentrated on that. The sun was bright without being hot and the breeze that wafted in off the river was gentle,
ruffling only the smallest leaves on the trees.
Taking a deep breath, she savored the fresh scent of spring. Everything was budding out. She was relieved to see that the cherry trees had recovered and opened new blossoms in spite of having lost most of their earlier buds to an unexpected freeze. They’d been bolder than the other trees and budded too soon—as so often happened now that the climate was going through such peculiar changes. The Judas trees, called Redbuds everywhere but in the South, were fine, too. The dogwoods were budding and would soon be a lacy white background for the azaleas blooming at their feet.
She gave herself a little shake. She mustn’t forget that she was on a mission. She was determined to convince Ben Stoddard Jr. of the importance of his going to visit Jasmine Johnson in the hospital. Jasmine so needed cheering up, lying there helpless as she was.
Turning the corner, Samantha stepped up her pace. The Talleys’s stone walkway was outlined by a stalwart battalion of daffodils. Stiffly they marked with yellow cheer the arrow-straight path from the curb to the front steps. Unfortunately, the blossoms of the crocuses interspersed here and there that might have softened the stiff effect had begun fading after the final frost of the season. She noted with pleasure, though, that the plants themselves were recovering well.
Brenda Talley opened the front door. “Inspecting my plantings as usual, I see”
“‘Goes with the turf,’ as Alison would say.” Samantha wiped her feet carefully on the doormat. “Your daffodils are doing beautifully. So pretty with the forsythia, don’t you think?”
“Yes. I suppose they are pretty together. Yellow has never been one of my favorite colors, though.” She frowned at the daffodils. “So damned bright.”
Samantha laughed. “I think bright’s just what we need after our long gray winter. It’s dreary so much of the time here in Tidewater.”
“You have a point. Come on into the living room. Benny’ll be down in a minute.” She went to the foot of the stairs and called, “Benny. Samantha Masters is here.”
Murder Makes it Mine Page 9