Two Bites Too Many

by Debra H. Goldstein

  Finally, with a nudge from Harlan, Chief Gerard permitted them to go.

  Maybelle jumped to her feet, causing Fluffy to move quickly to avoid being stepped on. “What about Fluffy?”

  “I guess Alvin will have to take her to the shelter,” said Chief Gerard.

  “You can’t do that. She saved George.”

  “Maybelle, I understand how you feel, but there’s nobody to care for her. George can’t, and those nephews of his are both at the hospital. The shelter will find a place for her.”

  “We can take her.”

  Sarah wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. Her mother, who swore she was allergic to every animal under the sun, was not only volunteering but insisting Fluffy come home with her?

  As if she knew she was being talked about, Fluffy cuddled closer to Maybelle’s legs. Sarah watched Chief Gerard look from the dog to Maybelle and back to Fluffy again. “Ah, Maybelle, I’m a dog man, too.” He bent and gently picked up Fluffy.

  Sarah tried not to laugh. She could swear Fluffy’s chocolate eyes were focused on him as if she were romancing him to get her way.

  He gently rubbed Fluffy’s ears. “You’ve been through a lot today, girl. I’m not going to upset you any further.” The chief handed Fluffy to Maybelle. “You can take her home until we sort this out.”

  Maybelle clutched Fluffy close to her and thanked the chief. Given the green light to leave, Maybelle led Harlan and Sarah from the fellowship hall. Once the group was out of the room, Maybelle sneezed. She thrust Fluffy at Sarah, who was already carrying RahRah. “I couldn’t let him take her to the shelter, but you’re going to have to take her home.”

  “Mom, I have a cat. I doubt RahRah and Fluffy are going to do well together. You asked for her, why don’t you take her to your house?”

  Another sneeze provided her mother’s answer.

  “Harlan?”

  “No pets allowed in my building. Guess you’ll have to help RahRah and Fluffy make friends with each other.”

  Maybelle cut Sarah’s answer off. “Enough discussion. I want to go to the hospital.”

  “I do, too, Mom, but I need to take Fluffy and RahRah home first.”

  “Harlan, will you please take Sarah to her house? She’s right about needing to drop Fluffy and RahRah off. I don’t want them to have to stay in my car while we’re in the hospital.”

  “Maybelle, I’ll be glad to do that, but why don’t I take you in my car straight to the hospital while Sarah uses your car to take RahRah and Fluffy home?”

  “Thank you, Harlan. George wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for me.”

  “Mom, you didn’t attack Mr. Rogers. How can you blame yourself? You’re the one who found him and probably saved his life.”

  “Sarah, if I’d been willing to talk to him, he wouldn’t have been in that hall. We would have stayed in the fellowship hall and I’d eventually let him apologize to me.”

  “I think you were the one who owed him an apology.” Sarah clamped her mouth shut. There was nothing more to say. While she didn’t blame her mother, Sarah agreed a different course of events might have produced different results. Had Mr. Rogers been in the big room or had she followed him into the hall, he might not have been attacked. Then again, if her mother had been in the hall with him, she might have been injured, too.

  Maybe it was her own guilt, but like her mother, Sarah felt a need to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. She only hoped, when she got home, the carriage house would still be in one piece. Whether she left Fluffy and RahRah in two rooms or together, it probably wasn’t going to be pretty.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  At the hospital, Sarah was directed to the surgical waiting room. Her mother and Harlan were sitting together while Cliff paced in front of them. Thomas sat in a corner, isolated from the other waiting families. From the stack of Food & Wine and Southern Living magazines in the chair next to him, Sarah had a pretty good idea what Thomas had been doing.

  “Thank you for coming. It will mean a lot to Uncle George to know you cared. Isn’t that right, Cliff?”

  Cliff grunted an acquiescence but didn’t sit.

  “Excuse my brother. Since we got here, he’s been pacing incessantly.”

  “I understand. I’m so sorry,” Maybelle said. “When George wanted to talk, I should have listened. If I had, he wouldn’t be in surgery now.”

  Sarah again assured her mother it wasn’t her fault. “Are they having to relieve the pressure on his brain?”

  Cliff stopped walking. “They’re not operating on his head.”

  “But all that blood.”

  “Only a laceration. Head wounds bleed badly, but he only needed a few stitches for that. They think he was pushed or hit from behind. When he put his arm out to break his fall, he either got twisted up with his own feet or rammed his arm into some of the equipment in those boxes, smashing the shoulder of his dominant arm. Right now, they’re pinning it. He’ll have a long recovery, but he’ll make it.”

  Maybelle sat in a chair and put her face into her hands. When she lifted her head up, Sarah could see wet lines where her tears fell. “I’m so relieved. Don’t you boys worry. I’ll help him when he gets out of here.”

  Cliff clumsily put a hand on Maybelle’s shoulder. “I’m sure you will. I bet he’ll like that.”

  “Even if he doesn’t, I’ll be there for him.”

  Harlan grinned. “How could he not appreciate the attention? I bet he’ll be tickled pink.”

  They were all laughing at the image of Mr. Rogers and his bow tie tickled pink when the doctor joined them.

  Cliff jumped into the doctor’s private space. “Is my uncle okay? Can we see him?”

  The doctor held up his hands in a push-back motion. “Which of you are the family?”

  “All of us,” Maybelle said.

  The doctor laughed. “No, really.”

  Cliff and Thomas identified themselves, and the doctor invited them to join him in one of the patient/doctor meeting rooms. He held his hand out so Cliff and Thomas could precede him, but Harlan blocked him from following them.

  “Is he really okay?”

  “Yes, but HIPAA prohibits me from going into any detail with an unauthorized person. I’m sorry. Excuse me, now.”

  Harlan stepped to the side and let him pass. Once the doctor was gone, Harlan turned back to Maybelle and Sarah. “What do we know?”

  Sarah wrinkled her brow. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

  “I’m taking a leaf out of your book and trying to help you do the professionals’ work for them. So what do we know?”

  Maybelle nodded. “I get it. We know I didn’t kill Lance or attack George, no matter what Chief Gerard thinks.”

  “We know lots of people went in and out of the hallway where George was attacked.” Sarah thought for a moment. “And we know that was also true that day at Lance’s office.”

  “Who are our suspects? Is there anyone we can put in both locations?”

  Sarah smiled. She was getting into this mental exercise. “You’re off the hook because you weren’t seen at the bank on the day Lance was killed.”

  “That’s probably true, but we’ll never know who went in or out of the alley entrance. The tape didn’t record anything.”

  “What? I thought they had state-of-the-art cameras?” Sarah stared in disbelief at Harlan. “I know you said they were having some problems, but wasn’t the lab able to retrieve the film?”

  “No. The feed on that one camera was corrupted.”

  “Corrupted or deliberately damaged?”

  “They’re not sure, yet.”

  “So,” Maybelle said, “there isn’t a record of any of the alley comings and goings or that the door was open.”

  “I’m sorry, Maybelle. I’ve been nagging Dwayne for access to the tape, but he kept saying it was at the lab. When we were in the fellowship hall, he told me they just got the report back that the lab can’t restore the tape.”
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  “Where does that put my mother, Harlan?”

  “Back to square one. That’s why we need to figure out who the suspects in both incidents are. Besides the two of you, who do we know for sure was at the bank and attended the Blessing of the Beasts?”

  Maybelle and Sarah started making a list of who they had seen in both places: “Eloise, Bailey, Cliff, the teller who was promoted to Eloise’s spot. Don’t forget Thomas. Eloise saw him there.”

  “There probably are others we haven’t even thought about because we don’t personally know them. Harlan, there are even some people who are so obvious we haven’t considered them as suspects.”

  “Like who, Sarah?”

  “Alvin Robinson met the chief here today because he already was here. He was moonlighting doing security work during the service.”

  Harlan snapped his fingers. He put his hand up to his mouth in thought. “And he was doing the same thing at the bank the day Lance was murdered. What do we know about him, except he recently moved here from Mobile?”

  “Other than seeming like a real nice guy, I don’t know anything else about him. Do you, Harlan?” Sarah asked.

  “Not really.”

  “But let’s get back to my point about others we don’t know. Just like Mom and I didn’t see Thomas Howell in the bank, there could have been others either in the lobby or who went in and out of Lance’s office who were here with a pet today.”

  “Or maybe without a pet,” Maybelle suggested.

  “Right. Harlan, is there any chance we can see the tapes made from the different bank lobby camera angles? That way we could see if any other suspects jump out at us.”

  “I’ll try to see what I can do. Chief Gerard didn’t mention them.”

  “You do think they pulled the tapes, don’t you?”

  Harlan grimaced. “I hope so. They run on either a forty-eight- or seventy-two-hour continuous loop feed, so if they didn’t pull them, they’ve been taped over again by now.”

  As what Harlan said sunk in, Sarah glanced across the waiting room and saw Cliff.

  “I’m glad the three of you are still here. This HIPAA stuff is for the birds. I didn’t think anything could be worse than OSHA standards, but it is.”

  Sarah looked around the waiting room. “Where’s Thomas?”

  “He had to go back to Birmingham. The doctor said Uncle George would sleep for a while, but I’m going to sit with him for a bit. There’s no need for the three of you to stick around, but, Sarah and Maybelle, I want to thank you again. Uncle George lost a lot of blood from his head laceration, but because of the two of you, it turned out to be relatively minor. If he lay there bleeding much longer, this story could have been quite different.”

  Cliff knelt in front of Maybelle’s chair. “You don’t have to beat yourself up for not talking to him. You were his angel.”

  Maybelle blushed as he stood. “Do you know when George will be allowed to go home?”

  “The arm is going to be a problem. It’s a bad break and, even with pinning, at his age, there’s no guarantee he’ll get full mobility back. Instead of sending him home, he’ll be released from here to a rehab center. We’ll have to see how things go from there.” He frowned. “My brother might get his wish after all.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  By the spring in her mother’s step and her once-again insistence upon being called Maybelle, Sarah knew her mother was no longer fretting as deeply about Mr. Rogers. For that matter, Sarah felt relieved, too. He might be set in his ways and, truth be told, a little kooky, but he was her neighborhood kook.

  Calmed down, Maybelle insisted she wanted to go home rather than spend the night in Wheaton. Sarah tried to argue her out of her decision, but her mother was adamant. “Sarah, you have a regular menagerie at your house. I wouldn’t sleep a wink because I’d be sneezing all night.”

  Rather than continuing the fight or suggesting she follow her home to make sure Maybelle got there okay, Sarah offered up a little white lie. She told her mother that, with everything that had happened, she wanted to check in on Emily in Birmingham. Her mother’s acceptance of Sarah’s rationale for driving to Birmingham belied her true state of mind.

  While Sarah and a sneezing Maybelle were at the carriage house, Sarah walked Fluffy and made sure Fluffy and RahRah were in separate rooms, with fresh water and food. She decided more extensive introductions between the two would wait until she returned from following Maybelle to Birmingham.

  As her mother put her key in her door, Sarah could tell she again was subdued. Sarah made a joke, but her mother didn’t laugh. Sarah hated seeing her mother devoid of her sense of humor. “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  “I guess I’m still upset about everything that happened last night and today.”

  Sarah followed her mother into Maybelle’s living room. Although Sarah favored modern furniture and fixtures, this very traditionally decorated room was Sarah’s favorite in her mother’s home. She loved knowing the mahogany furniture and Capodimonte lamps once belonged to her grandmother and great-grandmother and that there were touches of Maybelle scattered throughout, too. “Aren’t you the one who taught me not to kid a kidder? Are you worried about Mr. Rogers being in the hospital?”

  “No, I’m dreading when they release him. George is a proud man and he’s not going to like being in a rehab hospital or perhaps having to go to assisted living.” Maybelle turned on the lamps in the living room. “It’s a fear most of us have.”

  Sarah was confused. “I haven’t given much thought to it for either you or me.”

  Her mother laughed. “One day you will. You’ll wake up and wonder where the years went. How you suddenly have children as old as you feel on the inside. And on the day that happens, you’ll have a moment of fear about how much time the future holds and if you’ll be able to enjoy it.”

  Maybelle grabbed a pillow lying flat on the couch, fluffed it, and repositioned it in the corner of the couch. “That’s better.”

  She sat in the barrel chair, which was angled so she could see the couch clearly.

  “Is it?” Sarah gazed at her mother, wondering if Maybelle would give her another glimpse within her soul. The sound of the front door opening destroyed any chance of that happening.

  “Hello!” Emily called.

  “Mom and I are in the living room.”

  Emily joined them. She dropped her backpack on the floor and threw her jacket on it. From the quickness of her movements and the tense lines crossing her forehead, Sarah knew something had happened. “What’s going on?”

  Emily pulled a check out of the pocket of her jeans. “Thomas came back from the hospital and fired me.”

  “Why? You’ve been doing such a good job for him.”

  Emily sat on the couch and grabbed the pillow her mother had just fluffed. She ran her fingers over the pillow’s cording. “Thomas came into the kitchen as we were putting the last touches on tonight’s dinner service. He asked everyone a few questions about the evening meal and told them about the Blessing of the Beasts and what happened to his uncle.”

  “Was he upset?”

  “Not enough that he didn’t ask questions about the dinner service first.”

  “Figures.”

  “You got that right. Anyway, after he told us his uncle would eventually be okay, he asked to speak to Grace and me for a moment. He led us to a corner of the kitchen, away from the other employees, and told us he didn’t think things were working out. Grace pointed out that meal service and sales were up since we took over the kitchen. He acknowledged that but said the incident with Anne and now my mother and sister being involved with his uncle’s attack put our working relationship in a bad light. Consequently, he thought it best we sever our relationship immediately.”

  Maybelle leaned forward. “What! What did you say to him?”

  “Nothing. I was flabbergasted. Before I got any words out, he pulled two checks from his pocket and announced they covered what we had worked plus sever
ance pay. Grace and I looked at the amounts on the checks, and I challenged them as not reflecting what we agreed upon.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He reminded me we never reached the contract stage and he didn’t see how, under the circumstances, we could do so now.”

  Emily held up the check again. “He knew what he was doing. He had these checks fully made out before he came into the kitchen. I was so mad, I almost threw it back in his face, but then I remembered what you said about getting a contract and decided to hold on to it.”

  Emily made a noise somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “You might as well say I told you so.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You should. Do you know, I think he expected me to throw the check back at him rather than accepting it? He got the weirdest expression on his face when I shoved it into my pocket. I can’t believe for the past two weeks I shared so many of Marcus’s and my secrets, tricks, and shortcuts. How could I have been so stupid?”

  “Emily, this may sound strange, but, considering everything I’ve been hearing, do you have your phone?”

  “Sure. In my backpack. Why?”

  “I know you bank from your phone. Deposit that check right now and call Grace to do the same. This way, you’ll be ahead of the game if Thomas stops payment on the checks or is a little short on cash in his account.”

  Emily pulled her phone from her backpack. She called Grace and then opened her banking app, snapped a picture, and deposited the check. “You know what’s even more ironic? He gave Grace one week of severance pay, but he paid me for two.”

  “Probably for all those secrets you shared.”

  Emily hit her head. “I was such a fool.”

  “In more ways than one,” Maybelle chimed in. “Seems to me this is a closed chapter, but you have some things to address back in Wheaton. How long are you going to be a fool about those things?”

  “Not very long.” Emily stood, picked up her jacket and backpack, and gave her mother a kiss.

  Once Emily left, Sarah was ready to rehash everything, but Maybelle hushed her. “Past history. It’s not worth dwelling on. Eventually, he’ll get his due—perhaps from his uncle.”