Dead in the Water

by Annelise Ryan

  CHAPTER 6

  Even though I’m running later than planned, I spend a long time in the shower, trying to wash off the smell of death. Once I’m as scrubbed as I can get and dressed in fresh, clean clothes, I head to the front desk. Our receptionist, Cass, is there—at least I think it’s her—preparing to leave for the day. The fact that I don’t recognize the woman standing by the desk is my first clue it’s Cass. She’s a dedicated thespian who believes in embracing her roles in every way possible. She embodies her characters day in and day out, dressing as them, speaking as them, wearing whatever makeup she needs to look like them. I’ve seen her in getups that range from a young boy to an elderly woman, and from a young girl to a sassy French whore. Today she is dressed in a man’s pinstripe suit, replete with a tie and a creased white shirt. She has a mustache and full beard, and her hair is cut short in a style that would work on either a man or a woman. It is currently styled with some sort of pomade and has a side part that looks like it was made with a cleaver.

  “Oh, good,” she says when I walk in. Her voice is low and husky and she’s speaking with some sort of accent. “I was just about to come and find you. Dr. Morton said to be sure you got his phone number.”

  She hands me a slip of paper with the number on it and I promptly enter it into my cell. “Have you heard from Hal yet?” I ask her.

  She nods. “He called in about twenty minutes ago and said he was at home. So you should be good to go.”

  “Great, thanks.” I turn to leave, but can’t resist asking, “What character are you supposed to be?”

  “Sigmund Freud,” she says. “Can’t you tell?”

  “Oh, okay. Now I see it. Are you performing tonight?”

  “Dress rehearsal,” she says, shaking her head. “We have them all week and then our first performances are this weekend. You and Hurley should come.”

  “We just might do that.” This is a lie. I know I’d have to kill Hurley before I’d be able to drag him to a play, but I might try to hit up one of the performances on my own. I love local theater productions and Dom is a part of the same group Cass is, so he’s often got a role in whatever play is being done at the time. It just so happens he isn’t in this one, mainly because he has new duties at home. He and Izzy adopted a three-month-old baby girl in March.

  I bid good night to Cass/Sigmund and head down to the garage, where my hearse is parked. Ten minutes later, I’m standing in the living room of Izzy’s house, though the room looks more like a makeshift nursery. In addition to the couch, chairs, and TV that have always been here, the room now contains a playpen, two toy boxes—both of which are typically filled to capacity when the contents aren’t in use—a bassinet, and a large, colorful rug with big letters on it.

  “Mama!” says the tiny voice I love, and my son, Matthew, hops off the couch, where he was sitting next to Dom, the two of them reading a Dr. Seuss book. Juliana, Izzy and Dom’s new daughter, is asleep in the bassinet.

  Matthew runs into my arms and I scoop him up and give him kisses all over his face. This makes him giggle hysterically, which then makes Juliana awaken. She starts to cry and I give Dom an apologetic look. “Sorry,” I say. “Matthew forgot to use his inside giggle.”

  Dom smiles. “I’ve been wanting her to wake up anyway,” he says, and judging from the beaming expression on his face, I believe him. “It’s time for her to eat.”

  Matthew sandwiches my face between his palms and turns it so that he and I are nose to nose. “Eat, Mama,” he says, and I have to laugh. His eyes are big, his expression eager. Clearly, my son has inherited my love affair with food.

  “What would you like for dinner, Matthew?”

  “Macka-kee.”

  “He said that to me earlier,” Dom said. “It’s a new one to me. What does he mean?”

  I smile and wink at Dom. “Macaroni and cheese. Clearly, he takes after me.” I have yet to meet a cheese I don’t like.

  “Ah,” Dom says, nodding knowingly as he gets up from the couch and heads for the bassinet. “His verbal skills are really coming along. And we played a little game of find the match today, where I hid items in pairs around the room. He caught on super quick and finished the game in no time.” Dom hoists Juliana into his arms and she immediately stops crying.

  “How is Izzy?”

  Dom frowns. “Not good. He’s been sick to his stomach all day, and when I checked on him a little while ago to see if he wanted some broth or toast, he looked pale and kind of sweaty.” His frown deepens and he shoots me a concerned look. “He’s going to be okay, isn’t he? He’s never sick. I’m not used to seeing him like this.”

  “Some of these GI bugs can be quite vicious. I’ll go check on him if it will make you feel better.”

  “It would,” he says with a grateful smile. “Give me Matthew and I’ll go fix a little snack for him while I feed Juliana.”

  I put my son down on the floor and he immediately raises his arms, opens and closes his little hands, and says, “Me up,” with an imploring face.

  “Give me a minute, Matthew,” I say, rustling his hair. “I need to go check on Uncle Izzy, okay? You go with Uncle Dom.”

  Dom holds a hand out and says, “Come on, Matthew. I’ve got peanut butter and crackers.”

  “Cacas!” Matthew says, his attention fully diverted for the moment. He takes Dom’s hand and the three of them head for the kitchen.

  I make my way upstairs to Izzy and Dom’s bedroom. The door is closed, so I knock. I listen for an answer, but don’t hear one. I debate simply walking away—if Izzy is sleeping, I don’t want to disturb him—but I promised Dom I would check on him. So as quietly as I can, I open the door and step into the bedroom. The bedclothes on the king-sized bed are heaped up on one side and I make my way to that side of the bed. Near the pillow, I see Izzy’s dark hair—what little of it he has—protruding out from the covers. The rest of him is hidden.

  “Izzy?” I call out.

  He stirs; an arm comes out and pushes the covers down partway. He is lying on his side, but he rolls onto his back and hoists himself up on his pillow. Dom was right; Izzy doesn’t look good. His color is ashen; his hair is damp; there is a sheen of wetness on his face.

  “Mattie,” he says. His voice is weak, tenuous, very unlike Izzy. I feel a burn of worry start in my chest.

  “How are you doing?” I ask, walking closer.

  He shakes his head. “I’ve been better. This damned bug has really taken me down a notch.” He makes a fist of his left hand and rubs it over the center of his chest. “I’ve only vomited once, but I have a terrible case of reflux.”

  My worry burn starts to flame. “You have pain in your chest?”

  He senses where I’m heading right away and the hand massaging his chest waves away my concern. “It’s just some heartburn.”

  I’m at his side now, and I reach down and take hold of his right arm, my fingers palpating his radial pulse. His arm is cool and clammy; his pulse is rapid and irregular. My eyes take in his overall appearance, not missing the fact that he grimaces and hunches forward—that fist massaging his chest again.

  “Izzy, you need to go to the ER.”

  “Don’t be . . . ridiculous.” He grunts in between the words. Not a good sign.

  “Don’t argue with me,” I tell him in my sternest ER nurse voice. “You look like you’re having a heart attack.” He starts to protest again. However, before he can get a word out, I continue. “And even if you’re not, you’ll feel a lot better with some IV fluids to perk you up and some medication for the nausea.” I take out my cell phone, preparing to call 911.

  “Damn it, Mattie, I’ll be fine,” Izzy grumbles.

  “Shut up and listen to me for once, would you?” He sighs as I punch in the numbers for 911 and an operator comes on the line a moment later. I explain what I want, alarmed by the fact that Izzy has capitulated so easily. He’s worried, too, I realize.

  I walk out of the room and over to the top of the stairs, where
I yell down to Dom. “Dom? I’ve just called an ambulance to take Izzy to the hospital.”

  There is a moment of silence and then Dom dashes up the stairs, his normally pale face whiter than I’ve ever seen it. With one arm wrapped around Juliana, he runs a hand anxiously through his strawberry blond hair and stops at the top of the stairs. “Matthew’s in his high chair,” he says quickly, lest I think he’s abandoned my boy to run amok downstairs. “What’s wrong?” His eyes are wide with worry.

  With anyone else, I might take a few seconds to try to reassure them, but I know Dom can handle the truth and function in a crisis, as long as he doesn’t see any blood. When he witnessed me giving birth to Matthew in my bathtub, he passed out cold. Knowing there will be a lot of hubbub going on when the EMTs arrive, and if we start an IV on Izzy here—and I suspect we will—there will also be blood, I stop him with a firm hand to his chest just the other side of Juliana.

  “I don’t like the way Izzy looks and he’s having some chest pain,” I tell him. “I think we need to play it safe and get him checked out. I’m going to stay here with him. You go downstairs and stay with the kids. Send the EMTs up here when they arrive. Go!”

  I see tears well in Dom’s eyes, but to his credit he nods, turns around, and heads back downstairs. I return to Izzy’s bedside.

  “Got any aspirin?” I ask him.

  He nods toward the bathroom that’s attached to the bedroom and I head in there and open the medicine cabinet. Inside I find a bottle of baby aspirin and shake four of them out into my hand. As I go to put the bottle back I see a few other prescription bottles, and one small brown bottle. I shut the medicine cabinet door and hurry back to the bedside.

  “Here, chew these up,” I tell him, handing him the baby aspirin.

  He does so without argument and that stokes my worry flame.

  “This isn’t the first time you’ve had chest pain, is it?”

  He doesn’t answer me, but his sheepish look tells me all I need to know. “Damn it, Izzy, how long have you been having chest pains?”

  “It only happened once,” he grumbles. “A couple of months ago. I went to my doctor when it happened and my EKG looked fine.”

  “Did he prescribe you the nitro?”

  Izzy looks guilty again and shakes his head. “No, they’re my mother’s.”

  Belatedly I remember Sylvie, who is now living in the small cottage behind Izzy’s house, where I used to live. I can hear sirens approaching, and when they pull up in the drive, she’s going to wonder what the hell is going on. I walk over and push aside the drapes on the window overlooking the shared driveway out back. Dom is out there, holding Juliana in one arm, his other hand with a firm grip on Matthew. Sylvie is standing next to them with her walker, listening as Dom talks to her.

  A cop car whips into the driveway and Patrick Devonshire gets out. I watch as Dom says something to him and gestures toward the house. Patrick goes around to the trunk of his car, opens it, and removes an automated external defibrillator. Then he hightails it toward the house. More sirens close in on us, and as Patrick enters the bedroom half a minute later, his face flushed from his exertions, I see the ambulance pull up.

  “Need this?” Patrick says, proffering the AED.

  I shake my head. “Not yet, but stand by, okay?”

  A moment later, an EMT comes rushing up the stairs carrying a large case in one hand. His name is Joshua and I know him from when I worked in the ER.

  “He’s having chest pain, and he’s diaphoretic and clammy. Give me the stuff to get an IV started. Get him on a monitor and check his blood pressure.”

  Joshua nods, sets down his kit, and opens it. By the time I have a tourniquet on Izzy’s arm and I’m ready to poke him, the other EMTs arrive in the bedroom with a stretcher. Joshua finishes taking Izzy’s blood pressure.

  “It’s eighty over fifty,” he says, the worry clear both on his face and in his voice.

  Things move quickly after that. A little over ten minutes later, we have Izzy downstairs in the back of the ambulance, an IV in his arm. The EKG machine is being attached as Sylvie and Dom, with the children, stand off to one side at the back of the rig, both adults looking terrified. Another car pulls into the drive and I’m relieved to see it’s Hurley. He parks off to one side, leaving a clear path for the ambulance when it’s ready to go.

  “What’s going on?” he says, hurrying over to where I’m standing by the rear ambulance doors. I’ve been keeping one eye on Izzy the entire time, the fact that he hasn’t protested or uttered a single word throughout all of this very worrisome to me.

  The EKG machine is now hooked up and it spits out a strip of paper. Joshua rips it off and hands it to me. The flame in my chest grows into a conflagration.

  “He’s having an MI,” I say to Joshua. “You need to go, now!”

  Sylvie has walkered her way closer to us. Her thin white hair is standing up in tufts on her head, and her dark eyes are red-rimmed and watery. The skin on her arms is so thin I can see tendons and veins beneath it, and her hands are opening and closing, opening and closing, around the handles on her walker in an effort to control their shaking.

  “Oy vey,” she says in a quivery voice. “What’s an MI? What’s happening?”

  I walk over to her and put an arm over her shoulders. “Izzy is having a myocardial infarction, a heart attack,” I tell her, trying to keep my own voice calm. “He needs to get to the hospital right away.”

  “Heart attack?” Sylvie says, her voice rising to near hysteria. “My boy’s having a heart attack? Oy vey!” She lifts the walker and tries to squirm out from under my arm, heading for the back of the ambulance. I grab her arm in a tight grip, and as I try to reel her back in, the walker whirls around and hits me in the shin. “Sylvie!” I say with a wince. “Get a grip! You need to be strong right now, okay?”

  Her eyes are wild-looking, and for a few seconds, she tugs against my grip, the rubber feet on the walker scraping across the concrete surface of the driveway. Then she stops and her shoulders sag. Her head hangs as the ambulance doors slam shut and the rig starts to turn around. With the sound of the backup alarm, something seems to click with Sylvie and she straightens up, squares her shoulders, and turns to me, setting the walker down firmly in front of her.

  “We go to the hospital,” she says, suddenly all business.

  “I’ll take you,” I tell her. I look over at Hurley. “Can you take Matthew?”

  “Sure.” He walks over to Dom, scoops our son up in his arms, and heads back to his car.

  The ambulance has reached the bottom of the driveway and the driver turns on the siren. Matthew startles for a second, staring at me over Hurley’s shoulder, and then he smiles. “Woot, woot,” he sings, mimicking the siren sound. “Mama, woot, woot!”

  He is still woot-woot-ing as Hurley fastens him into the child seat in the backseat of his car and shuts the door.

  “I’m going to take him home,” Hurley says. “Call me as soon as you know anything.”

  I nod, and as he gets in behind the wheel, I turn my attention back to Dom, Sylvie, and Juliana.

  Dom is surprisingly calm at the moment, perhaps putting on a front for Sylvie’s sake, or perhaps not wanting to rile up Juliana. Maybe it’s both, but whatever the reason, I’m grateful for it. “I need to grab a diaper bag,” he says.

  “Do you want me to wait and drive you to the hospital?”

  He shakes his head. “No, I’ll be fine. I can drive myself.” I take a moment to gauge the truth of his statement. He looks concerned but calm, and I’m inclined to believe him.

  I nod and turn my attention back to Sylvie. “How about if I drive you to the hospital? Dom can follow along behind us.”

  Sylvie shoots a disapproving look at my hearse and shakes her head. Then she looks at Dom and shakes it even harder. “Oy vey,” she mutters. “Not much of a choice here, eh? I ride in the car of death, or I ride with the sinner and my granddaughter.” She juts her chin defiantly. “I thin
k maybe I can walk.” With this, she lifts the walker, sets it down, and steps up to it. She repeats this three more times while Dom rolls his eyes and I let out a sigh of exasperation. Sylvie doesn’t approve of her son’s lifestyle and she almost never passes up a chance to let anyone who will listen know how she feels.

  “I told him,” Sylvie says, lifting the walker again. “I told my boy that his sinning would catch up to him.” She halts her progress long enough to gesture wildly with her tiny, stick arms in the general direction of the ambulance. “Now look what happens!” She flails her fists at the air a few times and then grips the walker again, ready to continue her painfully slow march.

  Under normal circumstances, I might take the time to try to reason with the woman, or to cajole her, but these aren’t normal circumstances and I don’t have the patience. “Sylvie, knock it off,” I say irritably, walking up and positioning myself in front of her walker. “Are you really going to stand here and get all pious and preachy? Your son could die at any moment.” I hear Dom utter a little gasp and hate that I’m upsetting him as well, but I know Sylvie well enough to know that if I’m not blunt and firm with her, she’ll continue her stubborn rant. “I don’t want to hear one more word of your opinionating. Now turn around, get into my car, and let me drive you to the hospital. Do it now on your own, or I’ll pick you up and put you in the back. Your choice.” I take one more step toward her, my feet coming to a stop between the front legs of her walker, my body looming over hers. I stand with my hands on my hips, my lips clamped firm, and look her right in the eye, which is almost like looking at my feet. Sylvie is just under five feet tall. If I step any closer to her, I won’t be able to see her because my boobs will be in the way.

  Her eyes look fierce, her expression defiant, and for a second I think I’m actually going to have to haul her into my car. But a loud crack emanates from her neck as she tips her head back to look up at me and it seems to suck all the wind from her sails.