Stuck in Manistique

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Stuck in Manistique Page 24

by Dennis Cuesta


  Yvonne grabbed at her chest and gasped, “He stole my necklace!”

  “No, no,” Mark insisted. “You left it in the car.”

  “No I didn’t!”

  Mark pressed his lips together. Then a rigid smile appeared. “He’s at the Cozy Inn. Just go see him, and you’ll get it back—or actually the restaurant next door.”

  “Big Joe’s?” Bear Foot said.

  “I don’t know. Whatever’s next to the Cozy Inn.”

  “Yeah, Big Joe’s. Great coffee.”

  “Do you recommend the fish?” Emily asked. Mark flicked her in the arm.

  “It’s not bad, but—”

  “Why didn’t he just leave it with you?” Yvonne asked, an irritated look on her face.

  Mark’s eyes darted down the street. “He said how important it is to you and wants to make sure you get it back personally.”

  Yvonne nodded and turned to Bear Foot. “Can you take me there?”

  “Of course,” Bear Foot answered. He shifted the truck into Drive.

  “Wait!” Emily exclaimed. “I’m getting out.” She fumbled with her seatbelt.

  Mark pulled open the door, and she jumped out.

  “Who’s that at the house?” Bear Foot said with a head jab.

  A man standing on the front porch was smoking a cigarette. She figured it was the coroner.

  “Uhhh . . ." Mark shut the door. “Cleaning crew.”

  “Was I supposed to have checked out already?” Yvonne asked.

  “No, no. Don’t worry about it. Please take your time. Go get your necklace. Have a cup of the great coffee. Don’t rush.” Mark pulled Emily back away from the truck. “We’ll see you later.”

  The truck sputtered, turned around, and then roared away.

  “He’s going to take her to Green Bay in that?” Emily asked. “I don’t think they’ll make it.”

  Mark headed quickly back to the house.

  “I suppose that’s the coroner?” Emily called out, hastening to catch up. The man on the porch had walked down the steps.

  Mark nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Cleaners,” she scoffed.

  Reaching the front path, Mark called out, “Anything wrong?”

  The coroner shook his head. “Nothing. Just having a cigarette.”

  “Sorry, I hate to rush you but I’ve got people coming back in about ten minutes, and I was hoping you’d be done before they got back.”

  “Ten minutes?”

  “Yeah, can you do it?”

  The coroner shrugged. “We can try.”

  Dr. Currant popped out of the house. “Hi, Dr. Davis,” he said.

  “Hello.”

  “Very sad . . ."

  “Yes.”

  The coroner tossed the cigarette on the ground and hurried up the steps. “Hey, Ronnie, we got ten minutes to do this!” he yelled.

  A voice came from inside the house. “Ten minutes? . . . Okay.”

  Mark, Emily, and Dr. Currant stood on the porch watching Ronnie and the coroner head to the van.

  Emily glanced at the doctor, eyeing him. Shorter than Mark by a few inches, he was cute, with his slightly mussed hair and crooked glasses—a younger John without the arrogant slant.

  “Em, guess who usually helps the coroner,” Mark said with an impish grin.

  “I don’t know. Who?”

  “The kid.”

  She made a quizzical expression. “What kid?”

  “The kid who cut his hand yesterday.”

  “Conrad?”

  Letting out a slight laugh, Dr. Currant said, “Yeah, that’s right. He works at the mortuary. That’s one of his jobs.”

  Behind the van the coroner took hold of one end of the stretcher.

  “I didn’t realize my real estate agent was the backup assistant,” Mark said.

  “Your real estate agent?” Emily muttered.

  “His uncle used to own the mortuary,” Currant explained. “Maybe his family still owns it, I don’t know. Anyway he worked there at some point.”

  “Maybe it’s good for business,” Mark said. “You find out who dies, get a leg up on a potential sale.”

  “Maybe,” Dr. Currant replied with a slight smile.

  The coroner pushed the stretcher, with Ronnie helping to steer and jump the curb.

  The three of them parted as the stretcher was lifted onto the porch and brought inside the house. Dr. Currant followed.

  “What’s the true story behind the necklace?” she asked Mark.

  “What do you mean? There is no story. Peter has it.”

  “I thought it might be one of your schemes. It had that kind of ring to it.”

  “Scheme? No, of course not. The only scheme, if you want to call it that, is that I told Peter to give it back to Yvonne himself.”

  “I knew there was something more.”

  He shook his head at her. “Peter told me that George reminded Yvonne of her father. Can you imagine her reaction if she found out he was dead, watching the coroner bring down her lookalike dad in a bag?”

  Emily shook her head and sighed. “No, probably not a good idea. She is a bit . . ."

  “Loopy?”

  “Don’t be mean,” she said, but then she nodded.

  Emily and Mark walked inside the house and stood in the entry as the coroner and Ronnie talked, with the stretcher at the base of the stairs. The coroner said, “Yeah, we’ll have to carry him down.”

  The two men plus Dr. Currant headed up. As the three neared the landing, John appeared. He stood at the top and pronounced: “I think you’ll find ARF as a result of acute MI.”

  Emily cringed, embarrassed at the imperious way John shouted out the cause of death.

  “Huh?” Mark said.

  After pausing momentarily, the three continued toward the second floor. John’s eyes lit up when he saw Emily. “There you are,” he said and scurried down the remaining steps.

  “Hi,” Emily said blandly.

  “You seem upset or something.”

  She shrugged. “Sad about George.”

  “He died quickly. He probably didn’t suffer.”

  “Well I feel better,” Mark exclaimed. He bumped Emily’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “Don’t you?”

  She shook her head reproachfully.

  After a heavy sigh, he said, “Time to clean up the kitchen and eat five servings of French toast.”

  “Sorry about that.” Her eyes flitted to John and then back to Mark. “I’ll have some later,” she insisted.

  “Sure,” he sighed, and disappeared into the kitchen.

  “So what are you doing here?” she asked John.

  “You said you’d call me in the morning, and you didn’t.”

  “Yeah, about that—”

  “I can stay another day.” His eyes had that intense beady look she hated.

  “What?”

  “I worked it out. One more day. Stay with me at the Cozy Hotel.”

  “No . . . no.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because—” she stopped herself. “Come outside.”

  They moved to the porch and Emily shut the front door. “We can’t do this anymore. I told you that yesterday.”

  “I thought I solved your issues.”

  She shook her head gently. “No.”

  “What, then?” he asked in an exasperated tone. Deep lines appeared on his long forehead, making him look his age. Older. “What else do you want from me?”

  Emily took a deep breath. She knew how upset he could get. “This is difficult for me—”

  “Only because you’re making it difficult.” His cell phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket. “I need to take this.” He turned around and cleared his throat before answering, “Yes,” in that haughty voice. “When I get back . . . Yes, I need to see him first thing on Tuesday . . ."

  Emily stopped listening and stared out at the balsam fir. She imagined what fun it would be to string lights on that tree for Christmas. What a job! Maybe
Bear Foot would do it. It’d look beautiful.

  A commotion erupted inside. Emily walked to the door and peered through the glass but couldn’t make out what was happening. She figured they were maneuvering George’s bagged body down the stairs.

  “—I asked for some big favors.”

  Emily wasn’t sure if John was still on the phone or speaking to her. When she looked his way, the phone was by his side. “What?” she said.

  “I asked for some pretty big favors so we could be at the same hospital.”

  Horrified, she shot John a confused look. It was John who had encouraged her to interview with Lincoln Presbyterian Hospital and to put LPH at the top of her list. But now she wondered—had they picked her because John intervened?

  Emily flinched when the door opened. She stepped out of the way, and Ronnie came walking backwards through the door, rolling the stretcher.

  “We should carry it now,” the coroner insisted.

  “Yep,” Ronnie heaved. He hit a lever and lowered the stretcher.

  The men bent down, picked up the stretcher, and carried it out the door and across the porch, between Emily and John. She touched the corners of her eyes as George’s body, wrapped in a black bag, floated by. John maintained a delicate frown.

  When they came to the pathway, the men stopped and raised the stretcher. They continued rolling it toward the van, wheels squeaking loudly.

  Emily reached inside and pulled the front door shut. “Did you interfere in the match?” she asked firmly.

  John turned away with a sideways smirk. He gently shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t call it interfering,” he said with little conviction. “They really liked you,” he added.

  “You mean, I wasn’t at the top of their rankings?” She crossed her arms.

  “I was a reference. I told them nothing I wouldn’t have told them if—”

  She grunted. “I can’t believe this. You put your thumb on the scale.” Getting matched with LPH had been momentous for her—a boost she needed after Nicholas’s death. But now she knew the truth. John had meddled.

  “Don’t worry about the details. Just be glad it all worked out.”

  The men pushed the stretcher into the white van. The black bag vanished away. The doors slammed shut.

  An anger that had been tamped down for a long while now burst. “It didn’t work out!”

  “Calm down, Emily,” he said with clenched teeth.

  “I’m done with being calm,” she fired back.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Dr. Currant opened the door and stepped onto the porch. “Sorry. Excuse me,” he muttered.

  Emily’s eyes fell, and her anger melted into a deep embarrassment.

  “I have to get back to the hospital,” he said, his head down. He scurried down the porch stairs.

  “Goodbye,” was all she could manage to say.

  He raised his hand without turning around. The van started and drove off.

  “Well I’m not going,” Emily said.

  “Going where?”

  “To Lincoln Presbyterian.” Her eyes moved away from John, and she watched as Dr. Currant in his white coat disappeared down Lake Street. She envied him.

  John sighed deeply. When she looked back at him, he was shaking his head. An incredulous grimace creased his mouth. “You are completely overreacting.”

  “No. I don’t think I am at all.”

  The door opened again. Mark popped out. “Are they gone?” he asked. He stood between Emily and John.

  Neither one answered. Emily finally said, “Just left.”

  John grumbled, “Is there somewhere we can go?”

  After briefly looking at Emily, Mark pointed back to the house. “I’ll just pop back inside.”

  He started, but Emily hooked the crook of Mark’s arm before he could turn away. “No, we’re done here.”

  John’s eyes focused intently on her. “You know what? I don’t need this drama from you. Especially you.”

  Mark leaned toward him slightly. All she could think about at that moment was that Mark could take him. And for a small moment, she wished he would.

  Instead John stomped down the porch steps. At the bottom, he turned abruptly. “You’re going to regret this.” Pointing his finger at her, he added, “You should be grateful for what I did.”

  “Ha!”

  Mark took a step toward him. John turned and left.

  “What a jerk,” Mark said.

  Emily, arms crossed, clenched her anger tightly, damming up the tears that yearned to spill. When Mark twisted back toward her, she darted inside.

  She shut the door behind her and stood near the entry. Breathing as slowly as she could manage, she regained a bit of control.

  Mark came inside after a minute. “You all right?”

  Emily kept her back toward him. She nodded at first but then shook her head. “I just threw away the best opportunity of my life.”

  “What? That guy? No way!” He came around and stood in front of her.

  “No, I mean—” She stopped. “I didn’t deserve it anyway.”

  “Come on. You can do way better than him.”

  Then it sank in. All of it. The affair. The boy who wouldn’t have died if she hadn’t been involved with John. She buried her face in her hands and cried. She didn’t flinch when Mark put his arm around her, pulling her toward him.

  Emily sobbed.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Emily lay in the living room reading Doctors on the Borderline, her legs fully stretched out on the couch. Mark liked seeing her like that, at ease in the house. He stared at her only briefly, long enough to realize that while he had no romantic inclinations toward her, he certainly had a strong concern for her well-being. For the first time, she seemed fragile to him.

  Judging by the crack in the book, she was reading a different story. A new place, not Sarajevo. A new person, not Vivian. He approached, and he smiled a little, glad that she had dumped Dr. Butcher, and glad that Peter and Yvonne were gone. Though George’s death still lingered. His belongings were upstairs, and his family was still unaware.

  He plopped down across from Emily. She didn’t look up. “Hi,” he said.

  Emily dropped the book on her lap. She turned toward him and managed a crooked smile. “Hi. What’s up?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. Just seeing what you’re doing.”

  She lifted the book and held it.

  “I know you’re reading. I meant—never mind. What do you want to do about lunch?”

  She shrugged. “Not really that hungry.”

  “It’s almost noon. Let me know when you do get hungry.”

  “You don’t have to wait for me.”

  “No, I’m fine waiting.”

  She smiled before returning her attention to the book.

  “Did the dealership get back to you yet?”

  She shook her head. “No, not yet.”

  “Really?” he questioned, then cowered a bit under her glare.

  She sat up, planting her feet on the floor, and pulled out her phone. After dialing the number, she sat up straighter.

  “Hi Barbara, this is Emily again,” she said pleasantly. The longer she listened the wider her mouth gaped. “So what now?” A tinge of tension cut her voice. She repeated “Okay” several times, then a sudden “Huh?” Her eyes grew wide. “What about tomorrow? . . . You’re not open on Sundays?” She sighed. She listened for a few seconds before she said, “Please let me know as soon as you can. I’ve been here since Thursday.” After a hollow thank-you, she ended the call and flung her phone on the cushion.

  “What happened?”

  “No one’s in a hurry around here,” she said with an exasperated sigh. “They can’t reach the installer.”

  “Have they checked the jail?”

  She rolled her eyes at him.

  “Isn’t there anybody else who can do it?”

  “Yes, but they can’t get ahold of him, either. Apparently he�
��s not normally available on Saturdays. So if they can’t find the first guy in the next couple of hours, it won’t be ready until Monday, because the dealership is closed on Sundays.”

  “Look at the bright side.”

  She glowered at him. “Which is what?”

  “You’re getting the deer-car rate.”

  Emily sighed and hung her head.

  “Well you’re welcome to stay here as long as it takes.”

  “Thanks. At this pace, it might be a while.”

  “Fine by me. The house won’t be sold for a while.”

  “So you’re going to sell it? I thought you were thinking about keeping it.”

  “I am, sort of. I don’t know. Regardless you have plenty of time to get your car fixed. Average selling time here is a long time—172 days.”

  “Why?”

  Mark exaggerated a shrug. “Because not a lot of people want to live here.”

  “No, I mean, why don’t you keep it?”

  Her phone rang. She leaned over and looked at it. “It’s the dealership,” she said and then answered.

  “What? You’re kidding,” she sighed into the phone.

  Mark started thinking about changing his flight, going back on Monday evening instead of Sunday—

  “Unbelievable,” Emily said after hanging up.

  “What? What happened?”

  “The installer. He’s off turkey hunting until the middle of next week.”

  It was around one o’clock when the doorbell rang. Mark was in the library reading History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan. He headed for the front door and saw Emily, her neck craning. “Look, I didn’t budge an inch.”

  “Your hotel training is complete.”

  “I’m starting to get hungry, by the way.”

  “Good. After I get this, we’ll go get something.”

  When he got closer, he said, “It’s Officer Bryst.”

  He opened the door and did a double take, mostly because of the uniform. “I was expecting your brother.”

  “Yeah, he isn’t feeling well and asked if I would take care of this since I had encountered the decedent yesterday.”

  “Did he eat the fish at Diner 37?” Emily yelled out.

  The trooper poked his head inside. “Who was that?”

  “Emily. Remember? Deer-car. Come on in.” Mark stepped aside.

  “Oh, you’re still here,” he said, walking in.

 

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