Poisoned Petals plgm-3

by Joyce Lavene

  “I don’t know, Steve. Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. They’re just people. I’m a veterinarian. I can talk about animals. Your parents have animals. We’ll be fine.”

  She smiled up at him with misty eyes. “Have I told you lately how wonderful you are?”

  “I think I may have heard it earlier, but you can go into more detail when you get back.” He kissed her and handed her his car keys. “My Vue is behind your truck. You’ll just have to pollute the atmosphere a little.”

  They walked to the front door together. Peggy opened it to her parents’ excited faces. Aunt Mayfield and Cousin Melvin stood close behind them, grinning widely. “Mom, Dad,” Peggy started, “Aunt Mayfield, Cousin Melvin, I want you to meet Steve Newsome. Steve, this is my family. At least part of it. My mother, Lilla Cranshaw Hughes. My father, Ranson Hughes. My aunt, Mayfield Browning Cranshaw, and my second cousin, Melvin Hughes.”

  Her parents’ excitement faded as she kissed them, then ran toward Steve’s green Saturn Vue. “Margaret?” her father yelled “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’m sorry to leave like this,” Peggy yelled back to them. “I wouldn’t leave if I didn’t have to.”

  Steve opened the heavy wood door wider. “Mr. and Mrs. Hughes, Mr. Hughes, Mrs. Cranshaw. It’s so good to meet all of you. Lunch is ready. Peggy should be back soon. Maybe you’d like come inside and freshen up before we eat.”

  Peggy’s relatives watched as she backed the Saturn onto Queens Road and sped off with a squeal of Steve’s new tires. “Where is she off to?” Lilla Hughes demanded.

  “A friend of hers was taken to the hospital. She’s going to check on him,” Steve explained.

  Peggy’s mother moved regally past Steve and into the house, trailed by Aunt Mayfield and Cousin Melvin. “She could have waited a few minutes! A good hostess wouldn’t leave her guests standing at the door with a stranger!”

  “He’s not a stranger, Mama,” Ranson Hughes proclaimed. “This is Steve, Margaret’s beau. Right?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Hughes.” Steve gratefully shook the older man’s hand.

  “Call me Ranson. We don’t stand on much formality.” He nodded toward his wife’s back. “Well, I don’t anyway. So Margaret tells me you’re a veterinarian, huh? Ever birth a hog?”

  “Not yet,” Steve admitted. “But I delivered a potbellied pig once.”

  “Close enough.” Ranson slapped him on the back. “We have plenty to talk about over lunch.”

  PEGGY PULLED INTO THE PRESBYTERIAN Hospital emergency parking lot and locked the Saturn Vue before she rushed up to the door. This whole thing was probably too much for Luther. He’d been ill for such a long time. It was probably stupid to think he could fill in for Darmus on the spur of the moment. Not that she’d been much help.

  “I’m looking for Luther Appleby.” Peggy looked at the papers on the hospital desk. “He was brought in a short while ago.”

  The emergency room was packed. Apparently, there was a bus accident on North Tryon. The casualties had spilled over from Carolinas Medical Center to Presbyterian. People with blood on their clothing were trying to find out what had happened to their loved ones. A Hispanic interpreter raced from one person to another taking names and information.

  “We’re very busy.” The woman at the desk moved the papers into a folder. “Take a seat. We’ll get to you when we can.”

  “I’m fine. I just want to know what happened to my friend.”

  “We only allow family members to see patients down here. You’ll have to wait until your friend is sent upstairs. Call the hospital switchboard and ask about his condition.”

  Peggy thanked her and reluctantly took a seat on one of the orange vinyl chairs. A team of nurses and doctors began to sort through the patients from the bus accident. A young woman sitting beside her jiggled a crying baby. She asked the nurse at the desk for help, received the same answer Peggy did, then came back and sat down again.

  Peggy was anxious about Luther, but curious about the young woman next to her. She straightened up a leaf on a jack-in-the-pulpit beside her. Really, they should know better than to have a poisonous plant in the waiting room! A child could chew on it. Just because something could grow well in a low-light area wasn’t a good reason to have it. People needed to think more about what they were planting.

  “What’s wrong with your baby?” Peggy finally asked when she was done worrying about the plant She wasn’t a doctor, but the baby didn’t seem to be seriously ill, just fretful. She could tell how frazzled the mother was by the dark circles under her eyes and her tightly drawn lips. “May I hold her for a few minutes for you?”

  The young woman considered the question and might have said no at another time. But she finally handed the baby to Peggy. “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She started this a few days ago. She eats and then she starts crying. I think she might have the flu or something. I don’t have any insurance, so I can’t afford to take her to the doctor.”

  “Is she running a fever?” Peggy put her hand on the baby’s forehead. It felt cool to the touch. The blue button eyes looked clear, but she kept drawing her little legs up to her chest and balling up her fists like something was hurting her.

  “I don’t think so. But she can’t sleep, so I can’t sleep. I had to take time from my job to bring her in here because the day care won’t keep her like this. I haven’t been at my job long. I hope they don’t fire me. This looks like it could take all day.”

  “I think she might be a little colicky. You might try giving her a little chamomile tea. It shouldn’t take much, just a few teaspoons in a bottle. It will help settle her tummy and calm her down. My son had colic, too. It’s terrible. They gave me a sedative for him that was too harsh. Chamomile worked for him. Be sure to use bottled water to make the tea.

  The nurse called the woman’s name from the doorway. The anxious mother thanked Peggy.“I’ll try it if what they say doesn’t work. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. Take good care of that beautiful baby.” Peggy smiled as the mother disappeared behind the door that led to the examining rooms. The door had to be opened from the inside to allow patients to enter. She watched and waited as several of the people from the bus accident were called back.

  She glanced at her watch. It had already been more than an hour since she heard about Luther being found in the garden. Anything could be happening. She had seen enough of death in recent years to realize it crept up without warning. Maybe Luther was fine. Maybe he wasn’t. She didn’t want to take that chance.

  When the next group of patients went through the electronic door, she was right behind them. She respected that hospitals needed protocol. She really did. But life slipped away too easily. She had to see Luther now.

  Walking down the long hall that led to the examining areas, she passed dozens of relatives waiting for word on a family member’s condition.

  The examining areas were small cubicles closed off with green cotton curtains. Quiet weeping came from behind one of them. A child screamed and cried behind another. Busy nurses and doctors walked past her. They looked at her but didn’t ask why she was there. If she was back there they figured someone had to have let her in.

  The smell of chlorine and other cleaning solutions was strong. A young man ran past her with an empty hospital bed, nearly knocking her over. The place was an overcrowded maze. How was she ever going to find Luther?

  She skirted around a nurse’s station when the phone rang and a young woman in green and blue scrubs answered it. It gave her an idea. It might not work, but it was worth a try. Luther carried Darmus’s cell phone in his pocket to make the transition easier for people who wanted to get in touch with him. If he still had his clothes on or near him, she could hear the phone ring and use it to locate him.

  She’d laughed with Darmus about the ringer he gave her. It was the Beatles’ “Octopus’s Garden.” He said it reminded him of he
r. Her ringer for him was the “Garden Song.” Their love of plants was their first bond. Darmus became involved in politics as an extension of that love just as she opened her garden shop in the same spirit.

  It didn’t help to think about Darmus. His death saddened her more than she let on to the people around her. Paul and Steve wanted to her to stay home and take it easy. She couldn’t. She needed work to keep her from thinking about what happened. It was too fresh in her mind, especially at the end when she wasn’t sure if she were going to make it out of the house alive.

  Peggy took out her cell phone and called Darmus. Luther! How many times do I have to remind myself? The faint electronic sound of his cell phone answered hers. She followed the sound, despite the other distractions, and finally located it behind one of the closed green curtains. She pushed aside the curtain and found Holles Harwood, Darmus’s, then Luther’s, assistant. He was standing over a bed with a form covered by a white sheet.

  “No!” She rushed into the tiny space. “He can’t be dead. What happened?”

  Holles looked up, his handsome face white and drawn. Peggy thought of him as a humorless young man who was sometimes a little sulky. She only saw him occasionally if she met Darmus at his office. His dark hair was perfectly styled and his clothes were always immaculate. He’d been with Darmus for at least five years.

  “Dr. Lee? Where did you come from?”

  “I want to see him.” She stepped closer to the bed and started to grab the sheet.

  “Not like this.” Holles caught her hand. “You don’t want to see him this way. He wouldn’t want you to. He must’ve been out in the garden all night. The insects . . .”

  Peggy felt a sob catch in her throat. She felt like a hypocrite. She never liked Luther. But it wasn’t just him. It was his death coming so closely on the heels of his brother’s death. “What happened? Was it his heart? Did he have a stroke? Was it the cancer?”

  “They don’t know yet. I’m not even sure he was alive when they found him. I was here when they brought him in. He was already dead.”

  He held out his hands, and Peggy put hers into them, remarking, “You got here quickly.”

  “I was in the area, thankfully.”

  “I can’t believe it. I talked to him last night. He was fine.”

  “I know.” Holles bent his head. “Let’s pray over him. He was a good man with a good heart. God has called him back to him. We have to let him go.”

  Peggy prayed with him. She bent her head and closed her eyes. But all she could see were images of Darmus and Luther in her mind. When they were both young and vital in college, the day she first met them. The fire. Darmus dying. Luther asking for her help with Feed America. Talking to him about Darmus’s memorial on the phone.

  “I don’t want to interrupt,” a young orderly said. “Take all the time you need with him. Let me know when you’re ready.”

  Holles lifted his head, his blue eyes steady. “We’re ready. Luther was strong in his faith. We have to be strong and believe he’s gone on to be with his savior.”

  Peggy’s rational mind agreed. There was no use standing and crying over a dead body. Luther was gone like Darmus was gone. Everything that made him special and more than a piece of flesh was gone, too. But emotionally, she wanted to throw herself on that body beneath the sheet and cry until all her tears were gone.

  She put her hand on the chest area. “Good-bye. I know there are wonderful gardens where you are.”

  “We’re ready.” Holles nodded and held Peggy’s hand.

  The orderly moved to roll the bed out of the room. “I’m sorry for your loss. You can take his personal effects with you if you like.”

  “I’ll take them.” Holles picked up the small bag that contained Luther’s clothes.

  Peggy stood to the side as the orderly moved the bed out of the cubicle. Luther’s hand slipped out from under the sheet and dropped against the side of the bed. Something fell from it and dropped on the gray tile floor. It flashed in the overhead light, then rolled away under the sheet that closed off the cubicle.

  Peggy got down on the floor and chased it as the orderly moved away with the bed that squeaked going down the hall. She followed the quickly moving object until she put her hand on it. It was a ring. Darmus’s gold wedding band. The outside was etched with the figure-eight symbol of eternal life. What was Luther doing with it?

  She looked up and found she was underneath another hospital bed. The man in the bed looked down at her. “Sorry.” She smiled at him as she got to her feet. “My friend lost something.”

  The man didn’t reply; he just stared at her. She found the opening in the curtain that separated the cubicles and walked back to find Holles.

  “What was it?” he asked.

  She held up the wedding band. “Why would Luther have had it?”

  Holles shrugged. “Maybe he liked carrying it with him. Darmus died recently. Maybe it gave him solace.”

  “Why would he have taken it to the garden with him? I mean, why wasn’t it in his pocket?”

  “Who knows?” Holles easily dismissed her questions. “I don’t see anything remarkable about it.”

  “Maybe not. But it seems odd to me.”

  He took a deep breath. “Darmus always told me that once you had an idea in your mind, someone had to use a crow bar to pry it loose.”

  “Sometimes,” she admitted, looking down at the ring in her hand. “I suppose that’s true. And sometimes, it’s a good thing. This feels wrong to me. I want to know how it happened.”

  Peggy made Holles sit down in the waiting area so she could pore over the contents of the bag they’d given him. There was a blue T-shirt with Feed America emblazoned on the front. As she held the shirt Peggy noticed there was something in the pocket. She pulled it out and stared at the wilted flower. It was a hyacinth, probably one Darmus planted in the garden. In the language of flowers, it meant sorrow.

  There was also a pair of jeans that didn’t look big enough to belong to an adult and the watch the church had given him, inscribed on his twentieth anniversary. It was all in the bag along with his wallet. She looked through it. Driver’s license, credit cards, pictures. Nothing seemed to be missing. His shoes and socks were on the bottom.

  “Satisfied?” Holles asked her.

  “I guess so.” She sighed as she replaced all the items in the bag.

  “People die, Dr. Lee,” he told her. “It’s sad only if you don’t realize we’re all going back to God. It’s a happy reunion. There’s nothing to cry about.”

  She got up and stared at him. “I’m sorry for causing such a fuss. I guess I just can’t believe he and Darmus are both gone.”

  He stood beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “I know. He was the only one left of his family. Both brothers were an inspiration to the world. I was proud to know them. Now we have to let Luther go and move on. Keep his name and his good works going.”

  She hugged him, crying into his rumpled dark suit coat even while another, analytical part of her brain said he sounded like he was running for public office. “I know you’re right. I just need some time. Darmus’s memorial service isn’t even planned. Now this. We’ll have to plan Luther’s, too.”

  “I know Luther wanted you to give Darmus’s eulogy. I don’t want you to have to give one for Luther, too. We can split it. I’ll do Luther’s. Would that help?”

  “Yes, it would.” She wiped her eyes with her hand and managed to smile. “Thank you, Holles.”

  “I’ll take care of everything and let you know when it’s set.”

  “I’m sure it will be awhile. The police will probably want to do an autopsy on his body to find out what happened.”

  “Maybe. It won’t be that hard to tell if it was a stroke or a heart attack. It should still be over quickly.”

  Peggy agreed. “He managed to pull himself together so well these last few days. He told me last week he thought he was going to die. He seemed so much better after he got
here. I thought he was going to make it after all.”

  “He had some serious health problems. He told me the chemo left him with a damaged heart. He did the best he could with the time he had.”

  “Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “He wasn’t going to slow down or give up a single inch, I think. Admitting he was sick would’ve been terrible for him. I learned in the few days we had that Luther was a proud man. He wanted to carry on his brother’s legacy.”

  “Pride has nothing to do with being ill. He should have told me.”

  “I agree. I’m sorry.”

  They parted at the parking lot. Peggy took the bag with Luther’s few possessions. She’d have to let the church know he was gone.

  She watched Holles run through the rain to his car and leave the hospital parking lot. She knew she should leave, too, but she couldn’t even make herself run to the Vue. She took her time, walked, and was soaked when she got there.