by Harry Kraus
Oh the details that spun in circles above her head as she drove to Pleasant View. Gone were the thoughts of the wedding, the caterers, the reception, the dresses, and the makeup. Here were the morbid thoughts of a memorial service, a casket, and a suit. Or had Wally said he should be cremated? She needed to call the funeral home, or would the nurses take care of that? There were relatives to call and an account to close at the home. But in the center of all the details, one thought tortured her above the rest. What was she to do about Claire?
They had all known this day was coming. Wally had been sick for months, losing weight, unable to take in enough calories to make up for the energy-burn of limbs in a constant dance. The news would not be a surprise to anyone. “Why today, Lord?” Della said as she pounded the steering wheel.
Today of all days. Didn’t Claire deserve at least one day of freedom from the shadow her father cast over her future?
Della brushed a tear from her cheek and made a decision. She would let Claire and John have one night together before telling her that Wally was dead. Of course there would have to be a funeral, so the honeymoon would need to be postponed, but she could call their hotel in the morning before Claire’s flight.
Della pulled into a visitor’s parking spot and adjusted the rearview mirror to see if she could rescue her mascara. She dabbed at the corner of her eyes.
Three minutes later she stood at the doorway of Wally’s room and looked across a plastic yellow police tape at an officer standing in the room. Her husband’s body was completely exposed, cooling on his bed. The image, as prepared as she was, took her breath in a gasp. “What’s going on here?”
She looked up to see Sally Weathersby rushing down the hall. “Oh, Della, I wanted to explain.”
Della sensed alarm.
She peered in to see Randy Jensen, an officer in the county sheriff ’s department. “Can I come in? He’s my husband.”
“Sorry, ma’am. This is a crime scene now. No one is allowed in.”
“A crime scene?” She looked at the nurse. “Sally, just what is going on?”
“Della,” Sally said, placing her hand on Della’s shoulder.
Della shivered and pulled away. “No, no. Tell me what’s happening.” She looked back at the officer. “Why are you here?”
“Ms. McCall, we have reason to believe that your husband was murdered.”
“What?” This did not compute. Della looked into the blank stares of Sally Weathersby and Randy Jensen. “My husband had a terminal illness. His death is not a crime! And this should not be a crime scene!” Della tore away the yellow tape and stepped into the room.
Immediately, Randy stepped in her way. “Ms. McCall, I can’t let you do this.”
She felt a hand on hers. Sally’s face was etched with concern. “Della, why don’t you come with me?”
Della shook her head. “Talk to me,” she said, feeling her cheeks flush with anger. “Right here.” She looked up the hall to see two more officers following a nursing home orderly.
Sally talked in a near whisper, “I found an empty vial of morphine and a needle puncture on your husband’s arm.”
Della found herself in a whirl of disbelief. Everyone knew Wally was going to die soon. Who would kill him? This was crazy. She stopped. This is what he had been asking for. Had someone finally granted his request? Had Claire — ? No, it was unthinkable.
Deputy Jensen spoke apologetically. “I’m going to need to ask you a few questions, Ms. McCall.”
Della collected herself for a moment and looked at her watch. “Mr. Jensen, I will be glad to answer all the questions you have, but now is not the time. You know my daughter, Claire?”
The deputy nodded and started to protest, but stopped as Della continued her determined plea.
“Claire is getting married this afternoon. And nothing,” she said, and then repeated loudly, “nothing is going to steal the joy of this day from her!”
She glared at the police officer for emphasis as she continued. “Not her father’s death, not this investigation, do you understand? Nothing!”
She took a deep breath, realizing she was teetering on the brink of losing control completely. The stress of the wedding, of life with Wally, of the desire to assist Claire in finding a needed respite from her own pressure had stressed her to the boiling point. Now she was looking straight ahead at the straw that threatened the camel’s back. “I’m sorry for raising my voice. It’s just that Claire has struggled for so long, facing the knowledge that she too is carrying the gene for the disease that has now killed her father. I cannot let this spoil her day, so with your permission, I need to get to the church. Can you just continue your little investigation here, and I will tell Claire about her father’s death in the morning. I will answer all the questions you have after the wedding.”
She watched as Randy Jensen exchanged glances with the other officers. He asked softly, “Where were you this morning?”
“I’ve been at my house all morning, doing last-minute preparations for my daughter’s wedding.”
He nodded. “That’s all I need to know.”
“That’s all?”
He offered a half smile. “For now, that will do.”
She felt silly for being so forward, but she needed reassurance on one item. “Can we keep this from Claire until I can speak to her tomorrow? If anyone deserves for her special day to be — ”
Randy held up his hand. “I know Claire, Ms. McCall. And I know all about the trouble she’s seen. There are few people in this town that don’t owe her a debt of gratitude for the work she does at the clinic.” He looked at the other men. “I think I can speak for these men. We shouldn’t need to share any of this with Claire until after the wedding.”
“Thank you,” Della said. She stole another look past the officer at her husband’s body. “Can I go in to see him?”
Randy shook his head. “Not until I get a forensics team in here.” He paused. “Sorry, ma’am.”
Della sighed and looked at Sally.
Sally reached for her hand. “Don’t worry about a thing. I can call the funeral home for you. Lindsey’s?”
“Yes. Use his navy blue suit.”
“Okay.” She nodded. “Now you go to that wedding and don’t think about anything. You can come in anytime for his things.”
Della nodded silently and plodded back down the hallway. She felt numb. She had known this day was coming for a long time, but it wasn’t supposed to happen this way, and definitely not on this day. She had held it together until now, but as she walked by the other rooms, each one seemed to be holding a life just waiting to die. On this wing, no one could feed themselves, no one could eat by themselves, and few could carry on a meaningful conversation. Della pressed her hand to her mouth but could not hold back a sob. She sped up, needing to escape, to be by herself. A flood was coming and she wanted to be alone.
In a minute, she was sobbing in her car, not caring that her mascara would need to be redone. She needed to cry for her husband. She would go home and give herself ten minutes to vent. Then she would smile and be the mother of the bride that her daughter needed. Taking a deep breath, she pulled out on the highway, crying as she went.
Why today?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Randy Jensen watched as the forensics team from the state medical examiner’s office collected their data. Wally’s blood was drawn for a drug screen, his core temperature was assessed and plotted on a chart to determine the time of death, the room was dusted for fingerprints, and the rubber tourniquet and morphine vial were collected as evidence for examination.
He looked at Sally Weathersby. “I’ll need a list of employees, specifically indicating who was in the building this morning.”
She nodded and made a note on a small clipboard.
“Did Wally have any visitors this morning?”
“Only his daughter, Claire. She came by and modeled her wedding dress for him.” Sally cleared her throat. “You understand
Wally was in no shape to attend a wedding.”
“I see.” Randy looked around. “Any other way into this room?” He pointed at a door at the end of the hall marked Exit. “Where does that go?”
“Into the stairwell. There is another emergency exit into the parking lot from there.”
“Alarmed?”
“Yes.” She shook her head. “But we had no alarms this morning.”
“Security cameras?”
“At all the exits.”
He tapped a pen against his thigh. “Anything else unusual going on around here this morning?”
“No, except . . .”
“Except what?”
“It’s funny. Maybe totally unrelated — ”
“What?”
“We were called by a state police 911 operator this morning. He said he had a call originating from here this morning.”
“A call?”
“Yes, the man said the call originated from here. All of the phones in the patients’ rooms go through our main switchboard. He couldn’t pin it down any further than to say it came through our main number.”
“What was the call about?”
“He didn’t say much. I believe he called it ‘a weird call.’ He said some sobbing woman was talking about being abused.”
Randy wrote the information down. “Okay. Anything else you can think of? Anything out of the ordinary?”
She shook her head. “No.”
The detective walked back up the hall and into the stairwell. He purposefully opened the emergency exit door by using the very edge of the pushdown bar. No alarm sounded. He looked above the door at a little red box. A single wire exited the box and disappeared into the wall. He reached for the wire, giving it a gentle tug. Just as he’d suspected, the alarm wire easily slid out of the wall, as it was severed just beyond its insertion.
He looked at the edge of the door, feeling the area above and below the latching mechanism. There he found a sticky residue, evidence that the latch had been duct taped to keep it from protruding and locking the door. That way, the door could be pushed open from the outside.
His gut tightened. This didn’t look good.
He walked back into the hallway and found Sally Weathersby at the nurses’ station. “Ms. Weathersby, I’m going to need to see the tapes from the security cameras.”
“Sure,” she said, standing. “Follow me.”
Claire stood facing her mother in the foyer of Community Chapel and talked in a hushed voice, “Mom, in five minutes, I’m going to walk down that aisle. You need to stop crying!”
Della took a deep breath. “I know, I know,” she said, fanning her face with a paper program. “How’s my makeup?”
Claire sighed. “You look beautiful.” She smiled and touched the edges of Della’s grey-streaked blonde hair. “Just stop crying and you won’t need to worry about it.”
Rodney Cerelli, a first cousin to John, held up his arm to Grandma Elizabeth. “Time to go.”
“Aren’t you a handsome young man,” she muttered, taking his arm.
James Cerelli, Rodney’s brother, cocked his right arm and looked at Della. “You’re next.”
Claire backed up so that she wouldn’t be seen. After her mother was seated, she watched as John and his groomsmen took the stage.
And then the organist began to play, “I Know That My Redeemer Lives,” the hymn she had picked out for the processional. One by one, Claire watched her bridesmaids go before her. Last, she kissed Margo, who brushed away a tear, and sent her on her way.
When the organist was ready for the final verse, she sounded a repetitive cadence calling all to rise, and then launched into the final verse. Although it was organ music only, the words which Claire had memorized came flooding back as she walked.
He lives all glory to his name;
He lives my Jesus still the same.
She looked ahead to see John’s smile, with the promise of the song ringing in her heart. It didn’t matter what life would bring. Jesus was with them, unchanging.
She stepped slowly, memorizing the smiling faces. Lena and Billy Ray Chisholm were there, having reconciled after Billy stopped drinking. Lucy, her office nurse, wiped a tear away and grinned. Edna Shaffer and her grandson Stevie were there. The memory of the day Stevie came to her office with his tongue stuck in a bottle made Claire smile. Ginny Byrd, Claire’s genetics counselor, was there. She and Claire had plowed a lot of ground in helping Claire come to grips with carrying the Huntington’s disease gene. In the next row, Claire saw Mable Henderson, a diabetic patient, sitting next to Buzzy Anderson. In front of him was Brittany Lewis, another patient of Claire’s, one with whom she shared a special bond, as they had both been assaulted by the same man.
Her heart soared with the song.
He lives triumphant from the grave;
He lives eternally to save.
She looked back at John and smiled. He looked so handsome now that his hair had a chance to curl again.
She paused at the second row and laid a single rose on the empty chair next to her mother. John joined her by the front row and escorted her the final steps to the altar. There, Margo helped spread out her train and Pastor Phil began, “We are gathered here today . . .”
Joel Stevens had been a detective with the sheriff ’s department for three months. He hadn’t had a chance to work a murder case before. Now, under Randy Jensen’s direction, he was getting his first taste. He looked up from the nurses’ station as Samuel Harris, another deputy with the sheriff ’s department, approached. “Joel, can we talk?”
Joel looked at the notes in front of him and nodded. Before he stood, he shook hands with Emma Johnson, a nurse’s aide. “I think that will be all, Ms. Johnson. Thanks for your patience with all of the questions.” He walked a few feet into the hall to conference with Randy and Sam. “What’s up, Sam?”
“I just got the Drug Enforcement Agency trace on the morphine. That lot number was sold to Stoney Creek Family Medicine clinic.”
Randy groaned. “Okay, tell me about the interviews. Did any of the staff see anyone visit Wally McCall this morning?”
Joel nodded. “Emma Johnson, Jane Stevens, Sally Weathersby, and Troy Johnson all saw Claire McCall model her wedding dress. Blanche Trainum, the receptionist, confirms her arrival and departure times. No one saw anyone else in that room.”
“What time did Blanche say she left?”
“Somewhere between 10:00 and 10:15.”
Randy rubbed the back of his neck. The security camera showed Claire re-entering the building through the emergency exit at 10:30, the precise time that Jane Stevens and Troy Johnson took a coffee break. “I don’t like this. Not one bit.”
Joel frowned. “We’ve got to pick her up, Randy. Wedding or no wedding. I’m sorry.”
Randy shook his head. “I promised Della — ”
“You promised Della that you wouldn’t tell Claire about her father’s death. But it’s pretty obvious that that isn’t going to be news to her.”
“But on her wedding day — ”
“Randy, she’s a flight risk. She’ll leave for her honeymoon.”
“But she’s been through so much.”
“Boss, you taught me that an investigation requires objectivity, emotional detachment, and — ”
Randy waved his hand. “I know, I know. Just do me a favor, don’t make a scene at the wedding or the reception.”
“We’ll tail her from the reception to her hotel, okay?”
Randy nodded. “Let’s go talk to the magistrate. I think Robinson is on. He’ll give us a warrant.”
Joel looked at his watch. “We’d better move. The ceremony has started. Her reception will be in full swing soon.”
In the final moment before Claire McCall Cerelli slid into the limousine, her eyes locked with Della’s, and the mother-of-the-bride makeup could not disguise the fear.
It was only a glimpse, but the communication between mother and daughter passed without hindra
nce, a wordless message that whispered anxiety. Claire was already in motion, and in a second she was beside John and when she opened her mouth to call her mother’s name, she was met face-on with John’s mouth against hers in a wet embrace.
She twisted away to wave to the faces plastered against the tinted window.
“They can’t see us,” John whispered, trying now to find the back of her neck.
“Mom.” Claire placed her hand against the glass as the limousine pulled away from the reception.
John struggled to lift the back of her veil and her blonde hair to plant his face against her.
She stiffened.
“What’s the matter?”
“Mom. Something’s wrong. I’ve seen that look before.”
He straightened, untangling his face from her hair. “That look?”
“Just now, before we left. She is carrying something. Hiding something she’s not sharing with me. But at the last moment, she let down the happy mask.”
“She’s losing her baby girl, Claire. That’s all.”
Claire sighed. “I hope you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right.” He paused. “When we’re together, we’re all right.”
She stopped him with a finger on his lips, followed by her own mouth against his. It had been a fairy-tale wedding. She felt the leather seat beside her. “Can you believe this?” She shook her head. “Leave it to Grandma Elizabeth.”
He returned her smile. “You’re beautiful.”
She looked out the window toward the edge of the parking lot. A police cruiser sat poised at the driveway. “Look, John. The sheriff ’s department is still protecting me.”
He laughed. “Tyler Crutchfield will never find us tonight.”
They looked as the police car pulled out behind them. “We’ve got an escort.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to concentrate on how wonderful it felt to have the wedding behind her. She was Claire Cerelli!
As the tension of the wedding began to melt away, tears moistened her cheeks. “We’ve been on quite a journey,” she gasped.