Sometime later, the night nurse tiptoed in and took my blood pressure.
Shortly after which, the world turned wild, the mundane hospital tedium going haywire—doctors and nurses pouring in, frantically pushing equipment.
Panic spiked through me. Was something wrong? Something wrong with me?
But the parade passed my bed, converging on Linda’s side of the room.
Soon it was clear …
…my roommate was in serious trouble.
I clasped my hands, and like any true agnostic in trouble, I began to pray: Dear Lord, make her journey painless …
“Stand back!”
… give her peace …
“Again!”
… bring comfort to her family …
“Stand back!”
… and friends.
“She’s gone.”
Amen.
A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip
“You break it, you bought it.” Don’t you believe it. See Minnesota ruling, Ye Little Ol’ Antique Shoppe vs. Kafer.
Chapter Nine
Clock on the Wild Side
The day after the death of my hospital roommate, my life began again.
My brain scan came back okay, and Dr. Englund came around for one last look, after which I was released. Even though I felt perfectly fine, and had been making my way to and from the restroom all by myself like a grown-up, a nurse’s aide insisted on taking me out in a wheelchair—hospital policy, protection against lawsuits, no doubt. The aide, a heavyset young woman (who thankfully was not attired in the Teddy-Bear Brigade uniform), deposited me at the curb like luggage at an airport. Lawsuit threat or not, the aide disappeared back into the hospital with an automatic-door’s whoosh while I waited alone for Peggy Sue to bring her car around.
The parking lot was busy with patients and visitors, and assorted others, including Jennifer, who had arrived for her stint in the flower shop and was getting out of her emerald-green SUV. She saw me and waved and summoned up a small smile. I half waved back and gave her a slightly bigger one, trying to meet her more than halfway. Like she’d said, this was a small town, and if we took a stab at civility, the notion of me going after her husband again would remain buried for both of us.
But I wasn’t disappointed that Peggy Sue pulled her chocolate-brown Montana up to the curb in time for me to avoid another stilted exchange with Jen.
Peggy Sue was a chatterbox driving us to her house; she loves to take charge of a crisis, especially when it doesn’t directly involve her.
She was saying, “We’ll put Mom in the upstairs guest room, and you can have the daybed in the basement sewing room. It’s small but not really cramped. It’s just for sleeping, anyway.”
I nodded.
She gave me her most patronizing smile (which was pretty damn patronizing). “Of course, I’ll expect a little help out of you girls—you know, do your own laundry, cook a few meals now and then …”
I gave her a sideways look, and she corrected herself. “Well, Mom can cook … I realize that’s not your strong suit.”
“Remind me to be offended later.”
She pretended to find that funny, then said cheerfully, “You better just stick with cleanup patrol.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.”
She chattered on, and I looked out the window, barely listening, only enough to recognize a cue where I was meant to leap back in; those wouldn’t come often.
After a while, my sister took her eyes off the road for a moment. “You’re kind of … quiet.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“… Are you feeling all right?”
“I guess.” I gave her an arched-eyebrow look. “You know, I did just get out of the hospital.”
We turned off the bypass and onto a blacktop road that led to her upscale housing addition.
She asked, “Brandy, is it … is it that woman who passed away that’s got you down? The one in your room?”
I nodded.
“These things happen,” she said. “I’m sure God had a reason.”
“For a woman dying of complications of a hysterectomy? And what reason would that be?”
Peggy Sue pulled up into her driveway. “Well … I don’t claim to know.… But I’m sure there is one. The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
I said, “Doesn’t He, though?”
She shut the car off, sighed. “Brandy, we’re going to be sharing living quarters until the new house is built … so I hope you’re not going to make your stay unpleasant.…”
I gave her my sweetest and most insincere smile. “Not any more than usual.”
“You are guests.…”
“I know. And I appreciate this, Peg. I really, really do. But let’s just try not to impose on each other, any more than we have to.”
She blinked, as if trying to translate my words from Esperanto. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, Mom and I will stay on only as long as we absolutely have to. And we’ll do our share. But spare me the ‘Christian’ values. You’re red state, I’m blue state, and never the twain shall meet.”
Peggy Sue looked mildly horrified. “You and Mother are Christians—aren’t you?”
“By our definitions, yes. Maybe not by yours. And that’s somewhere I think we shouldn’t go.”
“Well …”
“I’ll gladly sleep in the sewing room and be grateful for the privilege—really, truly. But Mom and I don’t need to be preached at, in either the spiritual or secular sense. Capeesh?”
“What a terrible thing to say.”
“It’s Italian.”
Peg’s eyes and nostrils flared. “That’s not what I meant!”
I held out my hand. Absolutely straight, I said, “Truce?”
Her hard look melted, and for a just second there, I thought maybe she really did love me.
“Truce,” she said, and took my hand and squeezed it.
Uncle Bob, Ashley, Mom, and Sushi were waiting in the large sunny kitchen where a computer banner welcoming me home—well, welcoming me to their home—had been slung across the doorway. Nearby, on the round oak table in the casual dining area, was a white sheet cake decorated with one word: KA-BOOM! (Mother’s touch, I’m sure.)
There were hugs and kisses and promises to get along, and I even got a little teary-eyed; maybe it was the extra medication. Then we served up the cake and Whitey’s peppermint ice cream, my favorite. I even gave a little tiny spoonful to Sushi (but don’t tell the vet).
When the dishes were done—by yours truly—Mother helped me get settled into my temporary digs downstairs. Tina, bless her generous heart, had earlier in the day dropped off a big box containing some of her summer clothes, shoes, and purses, which Mother and I unloaded, and began hanging on a portable clothes rack. A note pinned to a Trace Reese dress of hers I’d coveted last year claimed that the donation hadn’t even made a dent in her closet.
What a pal!
I don’t care what anybody says: it pays to have a clotheshorse for a friend.
If you’re wondering what Mother was doing to take the place of her demolished attire, here’s the wacky if not unexpected lowdown: she raided the community theater’s wardrobe department. At the moment, Mother was dressed as the title role of Madwoman of Chaillot in an 1890s black lace blouse with mutton sleeves, a black alpaca skirt, a half dozen long-beaded necklaces, and a white feather boa. But instead of button-top shoes, she wore Birkenstocks.
The most chilling thing about the ensemble was how natural it looked on her.…
My temporary quarters consisted of a brass daybed, a modern white dresser, and a full-length oval mirror on an oak stand. An expensive, state-of-the-art sewing machine against a wall meant I had no excuse for walking around with a split seam.
On the pale yellow walls were framed samplers Peggy Sue had created, her initials in the corners. A few were sayings, painfully cornball, like HOME SWEET HOME and A PENNY EARNED IS A PENNY SAVED (like she’d ever saved a penny!), but others wer
e sentimental scenes of bygone times, like Christmas carolers, and Victorian children sliding down a snowy hill. I had no idea my sister was into that kind of thing, and it gave me a twinge of sadness that I hadn’t.
Mother, finished with her fussing, joined me on the edge of the daybed.
I began, “There’s no sense worrying Peggy Sue, so let’s keep this conversation between us.…”
Mother, always up for a conspiracy, nodded, eyes dancing with childlike excitement … and deviltry.
I continued: “It’s now become crystal clear that …” I found myself goggling at her madwoman getup. “What else was available in the wardrobe room?”
“That fit me? Lady Macbeth.”
Define “fit.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well. Nothing contemporary?”
“Just Everybody Loves Opal, but I can’t risk wearing costumes from an ongoing production. That way lies madness.”
She always has a reason, yes she does; deeper you probe, the more likely you are to find one, and the less likely you are to like it.
Mother patted my hand. “Go, on, dear.… Your line was, ‘It’s become crystal clear that …'?”
“It’s not a ‘line,’ Mother—it’s real life!”
“I know, dear. Our house exploded. I was there.”
I gave her a disgusted smirk. “Well, keep that in mind. Because what’s clear is that I’m somebody’s target.”
“Target? For what?”
“For what else, Mother? Harm!” I leaned closer. “What if I really was meant to drive out to Carson’s house that night, straight into a murder frame-up?”
I was immediately sorry I’d used the words “murder frame-up,” because her eyes went wide at a term her Red-Hatted League had encountered many a time in the pages of Agatha Christiean unreality. And I needed her to focus on the reality of the threat that she herself had pointed out, days ago, and that I was increasingly convinced of, myself.
She clasped my hand, too tight. “What has brought you around to my way of thinking, dear?”
The notion that I had come around to her way of thinking was unsettling.
“Oh, I don’t know—maybe … our house blowing up?”
Mother’s eyes narrowed behind the magnified glasses, as much as they could, anyway. “Good point.”
“And what if it was me who was supposed to die last night? Not Linda Taylor.”
Mother shook her head, waved that off. “Brandy, that poor woman died from complications of her operation. It was her time, that’s all.”
I lowered my voice. “What if it was supposed to be my time—what if it wasn’t God or the Devil or the Guy with the Scythe who came around that hospital room, last night, looking for Linda Taylor … rather, Clint Carson’s murderer looking for Brandy Borne?”
The eyes were huge and buggy now. “How is that possible?”
“It’s ridiculously possible, Mother—and I caused it.”
“You?”
“I traded beds with her. Trying to be nice.”
Mother was shaking her head. “But wouldn’t the … the murderer have recognized his own victim?”
Now I shook my head. “The room was darkened, Mrs. Taylor sleeping, covers pulled up around her face. I was in the next bed, sleeping, not looking like me. It was something that had to be done quickly—would have been easy for the murderer to be interrupted, so haste was unavoidable.”
Mother still wasn’t getting it. “Why didn’t you look like you?”
I gestured with open hands, in frustration and bitter amusement. “Tina had come in and given me a hospital room makeover, to improve my spirits—straightened my hair.… Don’t you see?”
Mother’s expression went from disbelief to realization in three seconds flat. “Oh my …”
“And after they took Mrs. Taylor out, they moved me … up to the next floor, in a room by myself, right across from the nurses’ station … and didn’t put my name on the door.” I shook my head. “Everyone was acting so weird.”
Mother said, “Well, they had just lost a patient, after all.”
Shaking my head firmly, I said, “No, it was more than that … it was lots of things, including the way the nurses were whispering. Once, in the night—I couldn’t sleep—I came out of the room and they were like, ‘What are you doing? Get back in there! Keep that door shut!’ and all. Not mad, concerned. And not just concerned, but … spooked.”
“Oh dear.”
“‘Oh dear’ is right, Mother. Those hospital types, nurses and doctors, they’ve seen it all—since when do they get spooked over a death in the night?”
“Seldom, I would say.”
“I would, too. And I thought I heard Officer Lawson’s voice out in the hall, but was too doped and sluggish to go have a look … besides thinking those nurses would jump on me again.”
Mother was frowning in alarm. “The police came?”
“Well, I’m not positive about Lawson. But I am about Cassato.”
“The chief himself?”
“That’s right. No minor underling like Lawson this time, oh no. Chief Tony Cassato, Serenity PD numero uno, started asking me lots of questions, like about who I remembered came into the room that night and when.”
“What did you tell him, Brandy?”
“About who came in?” My frown made my chin crinkle. “That’s just it, Mother … I don’t remember who all came in. That’s the downside of that pain medication—and you can even hallucinate on the stuff, so my memories aren’t reliable.”
“When you spoke to Tony—Chief Cassato—did you learn anything? Get anything out of him?”
I shook my head. “Bubkes. Not that I didn’t try—but you know Tony, half professional, half enigma. He was typically tight-lipped.”
Mother’s voice was soft and unnervingly sane. “And what did you garner from his reluctance to share information about your own dire situation?”
“His clamming up only confirmed my belief that my roommate’s death was suspicious.”
“He didn’t confirm that, directly? Didn’t tell you what it was that caused Mrs. Taylor’s death?”
“No. Oh, I asked, and he said only, ‘Autopsy will tell.’ When it does, though, I bet he still won’t.…”
Mother stood suddenly and began to pace in front of me, like a lawyer in front of a jury box, during summation. But Mother wasn’t summing up; she was still questioning—me.
“Dear, whoever would want to harm you?”
I said, “Honestly, I can’t think of anyone—a few people have grudges against me, but nothing that justifies murder. And I haven’t been home long enough to make any new enemies.”
“Then why you?”
“Maybe it isn’t me, personally, so much as something I … we … have stirred up.”
Mother nodded. “You could be right, dear.” Then she asked, “Who did come to see you in the hospital? That you can remember?”
I shook my head. “Coming up with a list of visitors is pointless, Mother.”
“Why?”
“It’s a hospital, not a prison—visiting hours or not, anybody can get on any elevator in that place and come up to whatever floor he chooses. Anybody who walked by my door could see my name, and what bed station I had been assigned.”
She planted herself suddenly and her eyes blossomed hugely behind the glasses. “Some of the Romeos were at the hospital!”
“Really?”
“Yes, yes—the day after you were admitted—Harold and Marvin. You were still unconscious, but they came in while I was with you and—”
I cut her off: “What significance could that have?”
“Well, both gentlemen had serious run-ins with the murder victim. Neither exactly shed a tear when Clint Carson went to that great flea market in the sky … or, more likely, rummage sale down below. What if one of them killed him?”
I was shaking my head again. “And, what? Tried to pin it on me, and when that didn’t work, attempted to murder me? I could see one of
them waging a vendetta against Carson, but involving me, in that convoluted fashion? And sacrificing you, who were also in the house when that gas was turned on? That doesn’t make any sense.”
Mother sighed, obviously disappointed that her old friends hadn’t wanted to kill her. “You’re right, of course, dear. Anyway, Harold and Marvin were probably principally at the hospital to lend support to Floyd Olson, who was in Short Stay for a colonostomy.”
Little in town got past Mother.
She said, “Well, it becomes painfully apparent that you need protection, Brandy. Why don’t we go see that nice young handsome policeman—Officer Lawson? Is he married, by the way?”
“Mother …”
“Tell him our concerns. Perhaps he can help.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
She frowned. “Why ever not?”
“Because I don’t trust him.”
And I told her about Lawson possibly being seen with Mia at Wild Cat Den.
Wearily, she plopped down next to me on the daybed. “How terrible. Seems you can’t trust anyone these days.… Why didn’t you tell me about your Wild Cat Den adventure before?”
I hadn’t wanted to encourage her in the amateur sleuth area, but I said, “I wasn’t sure I’d come up with anything pertinent.… Anyway, why didn’t you tell me about my old friend Mia? Clue me in about this whole police-force drug scandal?”
Knowing Mother, she’d have followed every aspect of the case in the local media down to the smallest detail.
“Because you and Mia were friends, once,” Mother replied, “and I didn’t want you getting involved with her again. A good parent doesn’t want a child running with a rough crowd, you know.”
My eyes popped. “Mother! I think I’m old enough, and wise enough, to make that decision myself.”
She raised an eyebrow, eloquent in its reminder that my life had recently fallen apart and I’d had to come running home to, yes, Mother.
We fell silent, lost in thought.
After a moment, I expressed mine. “And Mia was seen recently with Ginger.…”
Mother’s brow knit. “Who?”
“Oh—that clerk at Carson’s store … that’s how I think of her—Ginger, not Mary Ann.”
“Tanya, dear. Her real name is Tanya, or at least that’s what she uses. Who knows if anyone in Clint Carson’s life is what he or she professes to be!”
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