Ten Little Bloodhounds

by Virginia Lanier

  I grimaced. “Been there, done that,” I uttered. “Remember when Bubba forced my van off the Tom’s Creek Bridge?”

  “Those memories never came back,” Jasmine added softly. “Don’t let it worry you, it’s only two days this time, and Evan can tell you every detail.”

  I felt uneasy, and I might as well bite the bullet and tell her while I was hurting. Maybe she would forgive me faster, knowing that I was ill.

  “I have a confession to make, Jasmine. I did remember it was Bubba in just a few days, but I had a good reason for not telling anyone. I had rather he dreaded my memory returning than admitting I remembered, and lose the case in court. You know how lawyers can twist things around. Forgive me?”

  “You let me silently worry and stew for months on end about your lost memory, and didn’t tell me you remembered it all? How could you!”

  “Don’t yell,” I said, making my voice quiver. “Oh, my head!” I moaned.

  She wasn’t buying it. “More than your head will be hurting before I’m through with you!”

  “Jasmine, I didn’t know you were worrying about me, you should have told me and I would have enlightened you.”

  “Now it’s my fault that I suffered?”

  “You’re beginning to sound just like Susan,” I murmured waspishly. “Did you know that she wore a red dress to my funeral?” I’d had another flash on my interment.

  Jasmine’s voice softened and she gave me a false smile of forgiveness.

  “Forget what I said, I was just kidding.” She thought I was babbling nonsense.

  “Thanks,” I weakly agreed. Peace had been restored.

  “Who is Evan? Oh, you mean the pilot from Moody? He’s the one I was waiting for on Tuesday, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.” She breathed with relief that my mind was now functioning correctly. “You’re remembering!”

  “I’m still on the porch last Tuesday morning. I just recognized the name from him apologizing for his colonel’s rudeness over the phone to me on Monday. All the rest of Tuesday is a blank. Care to fill me in?”

  “Evan’s sitting in the waiting room right now. He could give you more detail than I can. He also came yesterday. He’s been very worried about you.”

  “I’d rather hear it from you.”

  “He could do it better.”

  “Jasmine, you know I have a rather large ego. What if I screwed up sometime Tuesday? I want to know the facts so I can have a rebuttal in place, if I did.”

  “According to Evan you behaved admirably, he was the one who screwed up.”

  “You tell it, please?”

  “I will, after I call a nurse to see if you can have something for your headache. You’re almost cross-eyed with pain. I can tell by the way you’re scrunching your eyes.”

  “Won’t happen, but you might get the ball rolling. He hasn’t penciled in pain medication orders on my chart because I’ve been unconscious. Now that I’m conscious, he’ll have to have more tests before he’ll prescribe anything, either an X ray of my cranium or a blood test, or a personal inspection of my eyeballs.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Trust me. I’m an expert on hospital procedures. Ask me anything. I’ve been down this road many times.”

  “It won’t hurt to ask.”

  “Fire away.”

  She picked up the phone and asked for the nurses’ station for the second floor.

  I inspected the IV stand, and the length of tubing running from bottom of the saline solution bag and into my arm, in relation to the distance to the bathroom. I had to pee, but I would just tighten the puckering strings. It was either unplug the IV machine and listen to a constant irritating beep until a nurse strolled in and adjusted it, or a bedpan. I didn’t fancy either choice.

  “Jo Beth Sidden is awake and needs something for her pain. She’s in Room Two-ten. … Thank you.”

  “She’s checking my chart,” I said.

  “Do you have any idea when he’ll come?” Jasmine asked, sounding subdued. Then she said, “Thank you.”

  “I have to wait for Dr. Sam when he makes his evening rounds. He usually makes them between five and six-thirty. He has to eyeball me personally, right?” I shot her a triumphant glance.

  “I shouldn’t have bothered,” she said, nodding. “How about food, are you hungry? I might be able to order you a tray. I see they eat supper here real early, they are delivering trays now and it’s only five!”

  “They’re running late, usually you’re fed at four-thirty. To get a hot meal for supper, the order has to be in the kitchen before three-thirty. After the order is written that I can have food, and it trickles down the chain of command, I’ll be lucky if I get a cold sandwich or maybe some crackers and milk by eight P.M.”

  “I’ll take your word for it this time,” she said.

  “Drag up a chair, and tell me a story.”

  It took Jasmine twenty minutes to relate what had transpired up until I shot the gator. I interrupted her.

  “Did you see him? How long was he? I sure would have liked to save the hide. I could have had it stretched on a big board. Have you seen one made like that? They take these slender new nails, and place them real close together, and leave them in the board. Looks real neat. I bet y’all didn’t give it a thought, did you, about saving it?”

  “Sure we did,” Jasmine muttered sarcastically. “All the time that the medics were working on you so you could be medevacked out by helicopter, all of us discussed the pros and cons of field-skinning your gator. We finally decided we’d save you!”

  I assumed a hangdog look. “Forget I mentioned it.”

  “Certainly,” she breathed, with fire in her eyes.

  She resumed the tale.

  “Evan couldn’t raise me after you were in the land of nod, so he systematically began putting out a mayday on every channel whether he received an answer or not. After about six tries, he lucked out and tuned into the Georgia Highway Patrol’s emergency channel. They told him to keep the channel open, and called Hank. Hank called Moody and requested a chopper with medics. They couldn’t refuse, especially after they discovered that one of the victims was theirs and you both were searching for their downed aircraft. Hank called me and Circe and I stepped into the helicopter when it landed by the kennel, just like we had been doing it all of our lives. It was the first airlift for both of us. It was really scary for me. Circe took to flying like a duck to water. It wasn’t too hard to find the van because Hank was there and had the area lit up, but finding you two was a doozie. They insisted on flying a twenty-mile grid, not five miles, like Hank and I suggested. They didn’t believe that you couldn’t walk twenty miles on land using a trailing dog, much less through the Okefenokee. You only carry three night flares. After Tuesday night, I think you ought to carry ten. Evan had fired the third one before we spotted the glow.

  “Anyway, by the time you were loaded and on board and we were out of there, it was midnight.”

  “Thanks, Jasmine. I owe you.”

  “Just promise me one thing, and we’re even.”

  I had a suspicion about what she wanted me to promise. I quickly slipped both hands out of sight under the sheet.

  “Just ask,” I vowed.

  “Don’t ever lie to me again.”

  “You’ve got it,” I promised, crossing my fingers.

  “I want to see both hands in clear sight when you repeat that,” she demanded.

  “God, Jasmine, you wound me!”

  I looked her straight in the eye, and said the words again. I had hooked one toe over the other on my right foot but the left was too sore to cooperate. One toe cross should be enough for little white lies that were for her own good, shouldn’t it?

  23

  “Making Friends Far and Wide”

  October 16, Monday, 9:30 A.M.

  I sat with my gimpy leg propped on an upside-down trash basket with a pillow on top. The small side chair was rigid and uncomfortable. Hospitals suck! I gave a disg
usted look at the lump that was supposed to be a cushion to support my injured leg.

  In the five days I’d been an unwilling visitor, I had experienced a new marvel of hygienic efficiency, the disposable pillow. It was disposable waste they couldn’t find any other way to dispose of, encased in a paper and plastic cover. After two hours of trying to sleep on it and plump it up, it lumps and clumps and is unrecognizable as a bed pillow. Obviously they had an inexhaustible supply. I had one under my leg, and three on the bed. I had been told they had to leave with me, whether I wanted them or not.

  Then there was the large five-inch-thick slab of blue foam. It was rolled up and awaiting disposal, and I was the designated disposee. It was as bulky as a bale of hay, and just as ungainly. Sitting on the floor near the door was a book bag, a shopping bag, my overnight case, three potted plants, and two half-dead bouquets. I tried to picture Jasmine and me rolling down the hallways with the wheelchair and a teetering mountain of baggage.

  I picked up the phone. It still held the residual warmth from my hand in making prior calls. I hesitated. I had called her twice already … I dialed the number.

  “Hello.”

  “You haven’t left yet? It’s almost ten!”

  I heard Jasmine’s patient sigh.

  “Has Dr. Sellers been in?”

  “Not yet, but he’s due here any second!”

  “Then when he’s examined you, and deduced that you’re able to leave, he’ll then continue his rounds and when he finishes them, he’ll sit down within the nurses’ station area and write up all the orders, for medication and possible discharges, right?”

  “Yes … but …” I could see where this conversation was headed.

  “Then the nurse comes in and says you’re free to go home, and sends for an attendant and a wheelchair to escort you to the curb, which usually takes thirty minutes from request to fruition. I’m ten minutes away from your room. Fifteen minutes after the request is when to call me, right?”

  “Right.”

  I listened to the dial tone. Jasmine was getting testier every day. She had been just as anxious to get home when she was in here with a broken leg. How quickly they forget! I reached for my address book and looked up Sheriff Beaman’s number, again. He sure worked bankers’hours. I’d been trying to reach him since seven damn A.M. After holding a long while, I finally heard his voice.

  “Sheriff Beaman, this is Jo Beth Sidden calling. You’re hard to reach!”

  “Sometimes,” he answered cryptically. “I was informed of your four prior calls, Miz Sidden, but I’ve had a busy morning. Now that we are connected, what can I do for you?”

  “We are still speaking to each other, aren’t we? You’re not dodging my calls, by any chance?”

  “Since we’re talking to each other now, I think that takes care of your first question. Surprising as it may seem, I’m not dodging your calls, Miz Sidden. We had an armed robbery at a convenience store just after six A.M. I’ve been working the case.”

  “Did he drive away or was he on foot?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me,” I said calmly. “Humor me, I have a reason for asking.”

  “On foot.”

  “Did the description of the perp sound something like this: lone male, black, five-foot-seven to five-foot-ten, weighs around one hundred fifty pounds, loose T-shirt, jeans, and very expensive athletic shoes?”

  “Right on the money.”

  My heart began to pound against my ribs. This sucker had struck twice here, in Balsa City. We hadn’t caught him, but I had two frozen pads in the freezer in the grooming room of the kennel that would nail him for two local robberies. Now to make sure it was the same one. I was already relishing the amazement that would be in Beaman’s voice when I sprang my surprise.

  “Did he also wear a bright yellow bandanna tied over his nose like the old Western bandits, and come into the store clutching his own bank bag to carry away his loot?”

  “Yep.”

  “You don’t sound surprised at all!” I accused, suddenly smelling a very dead rat.

  Sheriff Beaman roared a booming laugh. “Don’t stop now, Miz Sidden, I sure was having a good time. You know, Hank and I were sharing all-points bulletins on our various crimes long before you started training bloodhounds. We have helped each other from time to time. By seven this morning I recognized that Hank had some visits by the same perp. We had a lucky break. I had an officer cruising two blocks west of the robbery, as it was going down. He turned the corner, and there were three teenagers scattering in all directions like crows. He collared all three. We also found the money bag and bandanna less than a block away, stuffed down in a trash dumpster.

  “I gather that Hank hasn’t told you about it. He said you’re in the hospital with an injured leg. He won’t be able to bring the dog and the handler over here until two, so we’re just waiting to find out which one of the three boys is the culprit.”

  I was boiling, but held on to my temper.

  “I’ve been out of the loop for the last few days. Thanks very much for answering my questions, Sheriff.”

  “Did you want to ask me anything else?”

  “No … just checking. Talk to you later, Sheriff. Thanks again.”

  “It was my pleasure,” he answered wryly.

  Hank. That absolute worm! He was going to keep this from me, and Jasmine was aiding and abetting him! They were planning on sneaking Jasmine out this afternoon with a dog and identifying my perp. They had another think coming. I had spent long hours trying to trap that sucker, and they thought they were going to be in on the kill without me? No way. I punched in Chet’s extension at the agency in New York.

  “This is Jo Beth,” I told him when he answered. I didn’t forget the code. “Bobby Lee is doing fine. I’m still at the hospital, but I’ll be home before noon. Have you heard anything new?”

  “Good morning, Jo Beth, how is the new litter doing?”

  “Great, I’m told.” It’s hard to be civil when you’re fuming. “I’ve read the reports that Jasmine brought up here Friday, and frankly, they’re skimpy at best.”

  “I know, but it’s like I explained to you, we’re gathering information daily. My desk is piled high this morning. I’m going through the reports that came in over the weekend. I should have the information compiled by this afternoon. I’ll call you when I’m ready to fax.”

  “Anything interesting in what you’re reading?”

  “Nothing that raises any alarms. The Kingsleys, Catherine née Cancannon and Lawrence, her husband, filed for bankruptcy last year, but withdrew it from court records less than two weeks later, and promptly paid all the debts listed, something like ninety thousand.”

  “Auntie Alyce bailed them out.”

  “Most likely, but we’re checking it out. Guess what they did the following week? They flew to Port Royal for ten days, while they both were unemployed, and ran all their credit cards up to the limit.”

  “South Carolina, or Jamaica?”

  “What?”

  “It was a joke, Chet. You said Port Royal, like everyone in the world should automatically know its location, and I bet only less than ten percent of the populace knows it’s the former capital of Jamaica. I said South Carolina to show off my knowledge that there were two Port Royals … I was … It’s hard to explain a joke,” I snapped testily.

  “I get it, I get it,” he chuckled amicably. A representative of a large estate with bottomless pockets is treated like a VIP, whether he understood my sarcasm or not.

  “Just call when you’re ready to fax.”

  “I sure will,” he returned and I hung up.

  I sat and drummed my fingers on the phone held in my lap. Should I or shouldn’t I? I should. I called Hank.

  “Hank?”

  “It’s me. How are you feeling this morning?”

  He automatically lowers his voice to almost a confidential whisper when he recognizes my voice. I had always thought that he didn�
�t want any of the others who might possibly overhear his conversation to hear anything they could rag him about, like calling me sweet stuff or babe, some endearment. A new thought flashed in my mind. What if it was because he didn’t want them to hear because he was ashamed of me? It dried up my usual banter in a heartbeat.

  “Honey, are you all right?” I hadn’t answered fast enough.

  “A nurse just walked in, I’ll talk to you later.”

  Suddenly I couldn’t bear to hear his voice.

  Time dragged as though I were in solitary confinement. There was a great deal of traffic in the hall, and plenty in and out of my room. I sat like a sphinx, ignoring their chirpy greetings and disgruntled servitude. I asked for no riddles to be answered. Dr. Sellers arrived and departed, accepting my silence as punishment for being late. Jasmine loaded up what she could handle, and made a second trip for the rest of the baggage after I was installed in the front seat.

  She shot quick glances at me from time to time, but didn’t ask me what was wrong until we were alone.

  “Will you please unload the pillows, that roll of foam, and the dead flowers here at the curb?” I asked.

  “Here?” She looked startled. “I can take them to the dump—”

  “Here.” My voice was polite but firm.

  “But it’s littering!”

  “We are on hospital property. I feel no compunction to haul off unwanted items. They can cut costs some other way than trying to get their patients to do their chores. They are being well compensated for my stay.”

  “They’ll know it was you.” She was trying to change my mind, and sounded amused.

  “Do you think they’ll arrest me for littering? I would welcome the challenge, I’d bury them at trial.”

  “What’s gotten into you? You’re not acting like yourself. Anything I can do?”

  “Unload the trash at the curb, please.”

  She still hesitated.

  I reached for my door, and cracked it open.

  “All right, all right!” she said, throwing up her hands. She emptied the offending pieces and piled them neatly on the sidewalk. She slammed the van door on her return.