by Sofie Kelly
I smiled back at her, glad that the conversation had taken a lighter turn. “I’m going to see Angie as soon as she’s allowed to have visitors. I can take it to her if you’d like.”
Molly had reached the front yard ahead of us. She was kicking a pink soccer ball across the grass.
“Backyard, sweetie bug,” Katie called just as the child’s foot connected with the ball, sending it tumbling across the street into my yard. It came to a stop at the edge of the driveway, where Elvis had been sitting watching the goings-on at Tom’s house. Now the black cat dipped his head and butted the ball, rolling it across the pavement toward Katie and me. I bent down and caught it. Molly came racing over, blond pigtails bouncing, and I handed her the ball.
“What do we say?” Katie prompted.
“Thank you,” Molly said.
“You’re welcome,” I replied, smiling down at her.
“Backyard,” Katie reminded her daughter. Molly nodded and ran toward the house. Katie turned to look at the cat, who was still sitting at the bottom of the driveway. “I’ve always been more of a dog person,” she said. “But Elvis is turning me into a cat person.” She glanced in the direction of Angie’s house. “I like him better than some people.” She smiled.
I smiled back at her. I didn’t say anything, but the truth was, I liked Elvis better than certain people, too.
I repeated my promise to take Molly’s card when I went to visit Angie, and I headed home. Elvis followed me up the driveway. He waited by the door while I got my purse and a bag of vintage Good Housekeeping magazines. Rose had left very early to help get ready for a bake sale at the library.
Elvis settled himself on the passenger side of the SUV and turned to look over his shoulder. “Thank you for getting Molly’s ball,” I said, reaching over to stroke his fur. I was certain whoever the cat had lived with before me had driven around a lot with him. Elvis was a bit of a backseat driver, looking attentively at the road through the windshield and making grumbling noises if I tried to stretch a yellow light.
I backed out of the driveway and started for the shop. “I’m afraid Tom is going to do something stupid,” I said as we reached the stop sign at the corner.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Elvis glance away from the street ahead of us and look over at me, green eyes narrowed as though he somehow understood that I was worried. “Mrr,” he said.
I’d considered calling my friend, Michelle Andrews, who was a detective with the North Harbor Police, but I didn’t really know what she could do. Jason wasn’t breaking any laws. He was just a jerk.
I’d even thought about asking Nick to stop by. Nick Elliot and I had been friends since we were kids. He was a big man and he could be intimidating if you didn’t know what a teddy bear he really was. But Nick was away on a two-week course for his job as an investigator with the medical examiner’s office.
“I don’t like the way things are changing,” I said with a sigh. “Liz would say I’m an old fuddy-duddy.” Liz French was another of my grandmother’s friends. She was part Terminator, part Fairy Godmother, in elegant and impossibly high heels.
“Mrr,” the cat said again, crinkling his nose so it looked like he was disagreeing with me.
I laughed. “Oh, so you don’t agree? Are you just trying to charm me so you can have another sardine?”
“Merow!” Elvis exclaimed loudly.
“You’re not exactly subtle,” I said as we started up the hill.
I pulled into the parking lot at Second Chance and climbed out of the SUV. “Remind me to call Cleveland about Tom’s birdbath,” I said to Elvis.
“Mrrr,” he replied.
I leaned over and scratched the top of his head. He nuzzled my splint with the side of his furry face.
“Even with sardine breath, I really like you better than some people,” I said.
He gave me a wide-eyed stare as if to say, “Why wouldn’t you?”
That afternoon I called the hospital and found out that Angie was finally well enough to have visitors. After supper I went over to get Molly’s card. The little girl had copied the words “Feel Better” in purple marker on the front and drawn purple flowers on the rest of the page. Inside was a drawing of a smiling face with yellow pigtails and “Molly” carefully printed below it.
“That’s you,” I said, pointing at the face.
The four-year-old beamed at me. “That’s so she won’t feel lonesome.”
“No one could feel lonesome with a smile like that to look at,” I said.
Molly flung her arms around my legs, hugging them tightly. “And this is a hug for her.”
“I’ll give it to her,” I promised.
I got to the hospital about three the next afternoon. Angie’s room was on the second floor of Northeastern Medical Center. “Left, left and straight through the double doors.” I repeated the directions I’d been given at the patient information desk silently to myself as I got off the elevator.
Angie was sitting on the edge of her bed in pajamas and a rumpled hospital robe, her left arm in a sling when I tapped on her door. Her face lit up when she saw me.
“Oh, Sarah, it’s so good to see a familiar face,” she said. “I was just sitting here trying to figure out if I could tie the sheets together and rappel down to the parking lot.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner,” I said. “Tom and Katie say hello and Molly made you this.” I handed over the card.
Katie had slipped it into a large brown envelope. Angie pulled out the folded sheet of construction paper and smiled. “She made this all by herself?”
I nodded. “That’s a self-portrait inside so you won’t feel lonesome.”
Angie looked at Molly’s drawing. “It looks like her,” she said. “Do you think Katie and Matt would let me give her art lessons for her birthday?”
“Maybe you could start with some art supplies,” I suggested.
I set a china cup and saucer down on the tray table next to the professor’s bed. It held a small green and white Haworthia plant. We sold the tiny arrangements at Second Chance, and they seemed more like Angie’s style than an arranged bouquet of flowers.
“Sarah, that’s beautiful,” Angie said, turning the saucer in a slow circle on the table.
“I’m glad you like it,” I said. “Oh, and I almost forgot.” I leaned over, careful to avoid Angie’s injured arm and gave her a sideways hug. “That’s from Molly, too.”
“Better than any medicine,” she declared. Her hair was pulled back in a loose braid and I could see the edge of a bandage peeking out of the neck of her pajamas.
“How does your shoulder feel?” I asked.
“Pretty good, actually,” Angie said. She gestured at my splinted left hand. “How’s therapy going?”
“Not as fast as I’d like,” I said. “But it’s been suggested that I’m a little impatient.” I looked around the small room. “Would you like to go for a walk?”
Angie nodded. “Please. Or I really might start tearing up the sheets.”
We headed down the hallway together and Angie explained the surgery that had repaired her broken clavicle. A nurse in lavender teddy bear scrubs passed us, smiling at Angie.
She caught the woman’s arm. “Could I go outside to the garden?” she asked.
“I’ll stay with her,” I offered.
“All right,” the nurse said. “But don’t overdo it.”
“I won’t,” Angie said. “Thank you.”
The garden was a small outside terrace at the end of the hall, with benches and raised planters. Angie turned her face up to the afternoon sun and sighed happily. “It feels so good to be outside.”
I steered her over to a bench, mindful of the nurse’s admonition not to overdo.
“I’m so glad you came,” Angie said, pulling the wrinkled blue robe a little tighter aro
und her. “You’re my first visitor since the surgery.”
Jason hadn’t been to see his aunt, I realized, even though family had been permitted to visit Angie from the beginning.
“Tell me what I’ve been missing,” she urged.
I told her about Elvis having dispatched the vole that liked to eat Tom’s flower bulbs and how I’d used peanut butter to get the burdocks out of his fur. I didn’t say anything about Jason’s interactions with Tom and Katie. There was nothing the professor could do, and I didn’t want her to worry.
“I hope I can come home in a couple of days,” Angie said, shifting on the bench. I noticed her wince and guessed that the shoulder was a bit more painful than she was letting on. “Jason is between jobs at the moment so he’s offered to stay and help me for a while.”
My heart sank. I hoped my face didn’t give my feelings away. “Are you going to have the carpet taken off the stairs?” I asked.
Angie nodded. “Jason is going to do that for me. I don’t have a lot of faith in that installer. He was supposed to have fixed that loose edge but I think he just made things worse. Not only was that section still loose but Jason said there was a small nail that hadn’t been hammered in all the way.”
Katie had said that the carpeting on the stairs had looked fine to her. Could she have been mistaken or . . .
“Jason thinks I should sue,” Angie was saying. “But I have to take some of the blame.”
I frowned. “What makes you say that?”
The professor gave me a wry smile. “I was so sleepy that night I could barely keep my eyes open. Jason and I were having tea and I almost dozed off there at the table. I was on my way up to bed when I caught my foot on that loose piece of carpet. Maybe if I hadn’t let myself get so overtired, I might not have lost my balance.”
“It’s good that Jason was there,” I said. Even though the sun was warm on my head and shoulders, I gave an involuntary shiver.
Angie nodded, her hand going to her injured shoulder. “I know Jason can be”—she shrugged—“well, a bit of a jerk sometimes. He’s just like my brother James. But I don’t want to think what could have happened if he hadn’t been around to call 911.” She ducked her head and studied her hands for a moment. “I feel a bit guilty.”
“What about?”
Angie looked up at me then. “I had been planning on amending my will and leaving less of my estate to Jason because he’d never really seemed that interested in staying in touch. But then he stepped up after the accident and he offered to stay for a while to help out. So I decided to leave things the way they were.” She shrugged. “I guess you can’t always tell what people are capable of.”
I had a sinking feeling I knew exactly what Jason Bates was capable of.
When I got home, I half expected to find Elvis sitting on the veranda railing, but there was no sign of the cat. Liz had offered to bring Rose and Elvis home, and I realized he was probably in Rose’s apartment.
She was feeding me again and I hated to show up empty handed so I went to the front of the house to cut the last of the narcissus, arranging the stems in a mason jar of water and tying a length of wide green paper ribbon in a bow around the neck. I was about to head for Rose’s apartment when I heard shouting from outside.
I went out into the hallway. Rose was standing in her doorway, a yellow-flowered apron tied at her waist. Elvis was at her feet. “What’s going on?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I opened the front door.
We heard a shout. “Help! Somebody help!”
“That’s Tom,” Rose said.
I bolted across the grass, through the gap in the hedge, into the Tom’s backyard. He was crouched on the lawn, leaning over Matilda. The little corgi seemed to be having a seizure.
My chest tightened. “What happened?” I said, bending down next to the old man.
He looked up at me, his face ashen. “I don’t know. I was just throwing the ball for her. She was bringing it back to me when she suddenly stopped. She took another step and then she just fell over and started shaking.”
I put a hand on his back. “I’m going to get the car and we’ll take her to the vet.”
Rose was behind me. “What happened?” she whispered.
I gave my head a little shake. “I don’t know.”
Rose dipped her head in the direction of my SUV. “Go,” she said. “I’ll stay here.”
I ran back to the house, grabbed my purse and keys and hurried back out to the SUV. I pulled into Tom’s driveway and grabbed the blanket I kept on the backseat. “Here,” I said to Rose. “Wrap her in this.”
Rose swaddled Matilda in the blanket and I helped Tom get to his feet. The corgi’s eyes were open and she wasn’t seizing anymore but she seemed lethargic and disoriented.
Rose was still holding the little dog. Tom put one hand on the blanket and they moved toward the car.
“Matilda may be little but she has a big heart,” Rose told the old man.
Elvis had followed us over to Tom’s yard. He made his way to the knobby red ball Matilda had been chasing and craned his neck to sniff at it. Then he made a face and turned to look at me.
“I’m sorry. I have to go,” I said.
Elvis gave the ball a nudge in my direction, meowed loudly and looked at me again. There was something about that ball he wanted me to see. I hesitated and then pulled a nylon shopping bag from my purse, picked up the ball carefully between my thumb and index finger and dropped it in the bag. That seemed to satisfy the cat.
Rose was just reaching around Tom to fasten his seatbelt. Matilda was on his lap, wrapped in the blanket. I pulled a key off my key ring and held it out to Rose. It was Tom’s spare that I kept in case of an emergency, which this definitely was. “Would you lock up Tom’s house, please?”
Rose took the key, turning it over in her fingers. Of course, dear,” she said. “I hope Matilda will be all right.” She pressed her lips together.
I nodded. “Me too.” I slid behind the wheel, started the car and backed out of the driveway. Beside me Tom was talking softly to the little dog. As we drove by Angie’s house, I noticed Jason watching from the living room window.
When we got to the animal hospital, Tom and Matilda were taken to an examining room right away. I dropped into a chair and took several slow, deeps breaths. Rose was right. Matilda might have been a little dog but she did have a huge heart.
I’d been sitting there for maybe five minutes, watching the door, hoping Tom or someone would come out and tell me what was going on, when Dr. Davenport came in from outside. She was dressed in jeans and a chambray shirt, which probably meant that this was her farm visit day. She smiled when she caught sight of me.
“Sarah, hi. What are you doing here?” she asked. Abby Davenport had been Elvis’s veterinarian from the day Sam conned me into taking the cat. I got to my feet and gave Abby a hug. “My neighbor’s dog, a corgi, had what I think was a seizure. I drove them over.”
Abby gave me a reassuring smile. “Ben’s working today. Your neighbor’s dog is in good hands. I promise.”
I reached for my purse on the chair behind me. I didn’t stop to decide whether or not what I was about to do was a good idea or not. “Abby, I may just be way too suspicious, but I think it’s possible someone may have put something toxic on Matilda’s ball. She was playing with it right before she got sick.” I pulled the nylon shopping bag out of my purse and held it out.
“This is it?” the vet asked.
I nodded.
Abby opened the bag. The sharp chemical odor on the knobby plastic ball was impossible to miss.
The veterinarian’s eyes narrowed. “May I take this?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“I’ll see what I can find out.” Abby gave me a reassuring smile and headed for her office.
Tom came out to the waiting room about twenty minutes later. Relief had smoothed out the lines on his face. “She’s going to be okay,” he said.
I smiled at him, the good news making my legs feel wobbly for a moment.
“Dr. Kessler thinks she ate or drank something that made her sick, but he can’t say what at the moment.” Tom ran a mottled hand through his hair. “Matilda has to stay the night but she should be able to come home tomorrow.” He smiled at me. “I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t been there.”
“I’m so glad everything is all right,” I said, giving him a hug. The metallic chemical scent from the red ball had seemed to linger in the back of my throat, and along with it was the feeling that things weren’t going to stay all right for long.
Tom was quiet on the drive home. “It’s my fault,” he finally said.
I knew he meant what had happened to Matilda. “You said the vet didn’t know what made her sick.” I glanced over at him in the passenger seat. His expression was grave, and he was picking at one of the buttons on his yellow golf shirt. “I don’t think you did anything.”
“I let her have some of my Chinese takeout for lunch—duck with orange sauce. All that fat and MSG can’t have been good for her.”
“Don’t blame yourself for something that might not be your fault,” I said gently. I thought again about the ball I’d given to Abby Davenport. There would be lots of time to tell Tom about it once we knew if there was anything to tell.
Rose was sweeping the front steps when we got home, a make-work job, I suspected, so she could keep an eye on the street. We pulled into Tom’s driveway and Rose walked over to join us. “How’s Matilda?” she asked, concern evident in the lines around her mouth and eyes.
“She’s going to be fine,” I said, taking back the spare key that Rose held out to me. “They’re keeping her overnight just to be safe, but Tom can bring her home tomorrow.”
A smile spread across Rose’s face, and the tension in her body seemed to sink down into the ground as her body relaxed. “Oh, I’m so glad to hear that.”
“Thank you for locking up for me,” Tom said, giving her a tired smile.