by Ann B. Ross
“Well, that’s thoughtful of you,” I said, wondering what in the world she’d think of next. “But I’m not sure I’d trade in a car he loves, even if he can’t drive it, without mentioning it to him first. The shock might set him back.”
“Hm-m,” she said, “I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe I’d better discuss it with someone who knows something about cars. Somebody who’d know how much of a shock it’d be to find, say, a Mercedes S-Class in the garage rather than a Porsche Boxster.”
“Good idea,” I said, then, almost asleep on my feet, I went on. “And I know just the someone you need to talk to. J. D. Pickens is an expert on cars that meet the needs of each particular driver.”
Chapter 28
*
The next day or so brought a hint of spring—the temperature rose into the fifties, then we were in for more raw and rainy conditions. The weather was the least of my concerns, though, for I was beginning to think that I’d found a home in a hospital waiting room. Mildred not only wanted, but expected, a companion on her daily visits to the ICU. I realized that I was wanting Ida Lee home more than Mildred was, but a spring snowstorm was delaying departures from Chicago.
Niggling around in my mind, however, was that flame of righteous anger at Dr. Don Crawford, who, to my mind, was not fulfilling his obligations either to Bob Hargrove or his patients. Oh, he’d come by to look in on Horace, all right, but that was all he’d done. He had apparently taken no interest in looking over his chart, checking his medications, or noting the results of the tests that had been performed on Horace. He had made no more than a drop-in visit, the likes of which any acquaintance might make.
Horace, however, seemed to continue to improve, although he had no memory of what had put him in the hospital in the first place. He hardly had time to worry about that, though, for after three days of intensive care, he was abruptly moved out.
Getting everything secondhand from Mildred, I gathered that Medicare would pay for only three days and, despite the fact that the Allens could afford a longer stay, out he went. And ended up in rehab—a term that brought visions of celebrities’ addiction problems, which, being neither a movie nor a rock star, Horace most assuredly did not have.
Come to find out that rehab simply meant a place of physical rehabilitation—like a gym or something—after a stroke or a heart attack, for which Horace certainly did qualify. He was admitted to The Safe Harbor to begin a fairly rigorous regimen of physical therapy for twenty-one days, no more and no less—Medicare requirements again.
“My word, Sam,” I said one evening as we discussed what was going on, “it’s not just hospital administrators who’re running the practice of medicine. It’s also the government. Somebody, somewhere has decided how long a patient needs to recover from a heart attack, and it seems that one size fits all.”
“So it does,” he said, nodding agreement.
“Well, I don’t like it. Horace is still under the care of a group of hospitalists and specialists, but he has no personal physician—certainly not Dr. Crawford, who hasn’t shown his face since that first day. What has he been doing, I’d like to know.”
“Well,” Sam said, “where Horace is now isn’t conducive to daily visits by a busy practitioner. The Safe Harbor is way out in the sticks, or haven’t you noticed?”
“I certainly have. It’s almost a forty-five-minute drive out in the county and forty-five minutes back. And I ought to know since I’ve driven it every day since Horace has been there. I’ve thought of letting Lloyd drive us since Mildred wants to go only in the afternoons when he’d be out of school anyway. You know, to give him more experience and to keep me company while Mildred goes in to see Horace. But, Sam, once you get out of town, that road has almost no shoulders and there’s a weed-filled ditch on both sides. So if Mildred thinks she’s too nervous and upset to drive herself, I’d hate to think how she’d feel with Lloyd at the wheel.”
“Why isn’t Ida Lee driving her? She’s back, isn’t she?”
“Yes, but Mildred claims that Ida Lee is too busy, so that leaves me who has to take her.”
“I know, honey, but you’re being a good friend. Let’s just be thankful that Ida Lee is back. You could be spending nights with Mildred instead of with me.”
I smiled. “I’d draw the line at that.”
* * *
—
It was a fact that Mildred tended to put her own needs before those of anyone else. Perhaps we all do, but not to the extent that she did. Yet she was a dear and close friend, and of all the women I knew, the most like me in what and how I thought about things. It was only her tendency to expect constant attendance during one of her stressful times that began to rub me the wrong way.
I mean, I had my own obligations and my own needs to deal with. I couldn’t dance to her tune day in and day out, yet that was what she expected. Of course, different people respond in different ways to stress. I, for instance, tend to withdraw into myself to suffer alone and in silence. But not Mildred. She needed an audience, someone to listen and to sympathize with her expressions of agony.
Take the day that Horace had been in rehab only a few days. That morning, Mildred called early while I was still in the bathroom, only half dressed.
“Julia,” she said, a pitiful note in her voice, “I’ve just been lying here thinking about what you said. Does that husband of Hazel Marie’s really know how to match a man with the exact car he needs?”
“Mildred, for heaven’s sake, it’s not yet seven o’clock. What’re you doing awake and thinking of such a thing?”
“Well,” she said, “with Horace away, I’m not sleeping well these nights.”
That, of course, was understandable. I knew she was concerned about her husband, but I also knew that she was rarely out of bed before noon even when Horace was in health. She could make up for hours of sleeplessness by staying in bed all morning, and often did.
“Anyway,” she went on, “I’d like to speak with Mr. Pickens, but you know him better than I do. Would you bring him over maybe late this afternoon when we get back from seeing Horace? I want to hear what he’d suggest for Horace, and I want you to be here, too, if you will. I’ll want to talk it over with you afterward.”
“Mildred—” I began, my patience wearing thin. Then I gave up. “I’ll see if he’s free and let you know.”
* * *
—
“She wants what?” Mr. Pickens let his tape measure snap closed as he stared at me as if I were crazy.
Knowing that he and Lloyd would be working late at the house on Rosewood, I had dropped by to propose a consultation with Mildred about vehicle appropriateness vis-à-vis a special-needs driver.
“Well-l,” I said, hedging a little, “I know it sounds odd, but Mildred wants to reduce any extra strain on Horace’s heart. It’s already damaged, you know, and she worries that all that gear-shifting will cause another attack. Or maybe she’s thinking that the excitement of driving a Grand Prix race car will be too much for his heart. I know that the sound of that huge engine revving up is enough to stop mine.”
“If he’s that bad off, he shouldn’t be driving at all.” Mr. Pickens wiped his sweaty face with a filthy rag, creating strange shadows on the exposed studs of the wall. Lloyd had stopped whatever he’d been doing and now leaned against a sawhorse to listen to us.
“I can’t disagree with that,” I said, in an attempt to mollify his reaction. “But until a doctor tells him he can’t drive, you know he will. And she wants to be prepared before the thrill of driving that souped-up car—and shifting all its gears—strains him too much. She wants to replace it with something more sedate.”
Lloyd straightened up and, giving Mr. Pickens a teasing look, said, “I know where there’s a real sedate car she might like.”
“You wish,” Mr. Pickens said, glancing at him with a grin. Then he turned to me. “Sure, I’ll t
alk to her, but only in general terms. I’m not about to choose a car for Horace—that’s up to him in my book.”
“Well, you know Mildred,” I said and left it at that because we both knew who held the purse strings in that marriage.
Mr. Pickens grunted in reply, then extended his tape measure and made a pencil mark on a board. “Can’t do it till sometime over the weekend, if she’s in that much of a hurry. Pickens and Son have their hands full here.”
* * *
—
Agreeing to meet him at Mildred’s whenever he had time for her, I turned to leave. Already, though, dark had fallen and Mr. Pickens, holding a flashlight, insisted on walking me to the car.
Looking across the narrow yards at number eighteen Rosewood, which also had lights burning, I said, “Looks as if Nate Wheeler is working late, too.”
“No, he knocks off about five-thirty, but he gets in a full day—not like us who’re more hit or miss. That’s Don Crawford checking on things. See, there’s his car.” Mr. Pickens nodded toward the shiny Lexus parked under a streetlight at the curb. I recognized the luxury car only because Sam had considered buying one the last time he’d had new car fever.
I sniffed. “Ever since he left Horace Allen to strange doctors, I’ve just had no use for him.”
Mr. Pickens’s white teeth flashed in a quick grin. “But Horace is getting better, isn’t he? Maybe that’s why.”
That was one way of looking at it and, as I considered his comment, Mr. Pickens opened the door of my car. “Here we go,” he said.
Recalling Nell Hudson’s passing along of inappropriate information, I hesitated before getting in. “Have you heard that Dr. Crawford is looking at some county property? Why would he do that if his main interest is rental houses?”
“No idea,” Mr. Pickens said with a glance at the lighted windows of the house next to his. “And I hadn’t heard that he’s looking at anything else. Long-term holding, maybe, thinking it’ll increase in value. And he may be right.”
“Huh,” I said, sliding behind the wheel, “that’d be the only thing he’s gotten right.”
Chapter 29
*
That following Saturday morning, I kept waiting to hear from somebody—Lloyd, definitely, but Hazel Marie would’ve done.
When eleven o’clock came and went, I could wait no longer.
“Hazel Marie?” I said when she answered the phone. “How did it go last night? Did Lloyd have a good time?”
“He must’ve,” Hazel Marie said with a laugh. “He was still in bed at eight o’clock this morning, and J.D. had to roust him out to go work on the house.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. The boy needs his sleep.”
“They’re putting up drywall today—which is hard work—so he’ll probably be in bed by sundown. You know he’s not used to staying up late, and he and J.D. didn’t get home till well after midnight last night.”
“My goodness,” I said. “I didn’t know a school dance would last that long—a prom, maybe, but not a Sadie Hawkins dance.”
“Oh, it didn’t. It was over at eleven-thirty, but then they went to the IHOP and J.D. treated them all to breakfast. He said he sat at a table by himself so Lloyd and his three dates could have some privacy in a booth. He said they had a grand time discussing who had come with who, what they were wearing, and who had been the best dancers. J.D. said it sounded like a debriefing after a hazardous mission.”
“So Lloyd had a good time?”
“Oh, my land, yes,” Hazel Marie said. “Although he’s paying for it this morning. I took them some coffee and doughnuts about an hour ago, and he almost went to sleep sitting straight up.”
I made a successful effort not to remind her of the dangers to the boy’s health that lack of sleep could cause. Instead, I told her that Sam and I were eager to hear about the dance from Lloyd himself.
“We want to know how the triple date went,” I said, laughing. “That was Sam’s idea, you know.” Still smiling as we hung up, I felt a surge of pride for our boy who had handled a dicey situation so well.
* * *
—
You could tell that spring was trying its best to overtake winter—fruit trees were budding, boxwoods were bright with new growth, dandelions dotted the front lawn, and daylight lasted a few minutes longer each day. Yet there was a freeze warning for that night.
By late Sunday afternoon the clouds had rolled in and the temperature began to drop again, but that’s when Lloyd came over to visit.
Sam and I were sitting in the library by the open fire, both near asleep after reading the paper and having a light supper, when Lloyd rang the back doorbell. Sam had spent a couple of hours helping Pickens and Son that afternoon, so he was in a deeper doze than I was. With the kitchen empty on a Sunday when Lillian was off, we usually kept the doors locked, so I let Lloyd in.
“I thought you’d still be working on the house,” I said as we walked to the library. “I mean, since you usually work long hours on Sundays.”
“No’m,” Lloyd said, divesting himself of a car coat. “We put in a couple of hours today, and Mr. Sam really helped out. But I think J.D. was getting tired, so we quit early today. He said he needed to spend some time with the little girls but he was asleep in his chair when I left.” Lloyd grinned at the thought.
“I’ll tell you,” Lloyd went on, “putting up drywall is not an easy job. That stuff’s heavy and hard to handle, but we’re moving along on it. If,” he said with a grin, “J.D. doesn’t give out.”
“Hm-m, well,” I said. Hearing that Mr. Pickens was running out of steam, I thought he might welcome the services of an experienced designer. I was still looking for something to do.
“I thought you were going to use the old walls—that so-called shiplap. It’s so old-fashioned that it’s modern again.”
“No’m,” he said, plopping down on the sofa across from us. “Most of it was in bad shape, but we saved some of it. J.D. thinks we can use it as an accent wall in the bedrooms.”
An accent wall? Who would’ve thought that a private investigator would even know what that was? I sighed, accepting the fact that I had arranged myself out of a job.
“Well, come on, Lloyd,” Sam said, fully awake by now, “tell us about the dance and how you managed three dates.”
Lloyd leaned back against the sofa, grinning with self-satisfaction. “It went great. I had a great time. But,” he said, sitting up, “I’ll tell you this. I was about wore out by the time we got there. See, I had to park the car, get out and walk up to three front doors. Then meet and talk to three sets of parents, have my picture taken three times, then walk a girl back to the car three times and get each one settled in the backseat. Then I had to dance every dance with one or the other of three girls, then walk each one back to the door when we took them home. I was beat.”
Sam grinned at him, then said, “No good-night kisses, Lloyd?”
Lloyd laughed, knowing that he was being teased. “With J.D. watching from the front seat? No, sir!”
* * *
—
It was beginning to get dark, but still not that late, when I slipped on a heavy coat to go over to Mildred’s. Lloyd had left a few minutes before, having given us a blow-by-blow account of the perils of triple dating.
“Sam,” I said as I buttoned my coat, “you sure you don’t want to go with me?”
“I’m sure,” Sam said, and grimaced as he turned to look at me. “But before you go, do you know where the heating pad is?”
“Heating pad? Why? What’s wrong?” I started unbuttoning my coat.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I must’ve pulled a muscle in my back today.” Sam gave me a wry grin. “That’ll teach me to leave drywall alone.”
“Have you taken anything? You want some aspirin? Advil? Tylenol?”
“No, just the heating pad, if yo
u don’t mind.” He was sitting, somewhat crookedly, in the chair and made no effort to rise. It was so unlike Sam to ask someone else for something that I was immediately concerned.
“Of course I don’t mind. And I know exactly where it is, along with an extension cord. Don’t move, I’ll get it.” And so I did, although I almost tripped going up the stairs.
Back in the library, I plugged it in, adjusted the setting, and helped Sam sit up so I could put it against his lower back.
“Don’t you want to go to bed?” I asked. “Let me help you before I go. In fact, I won’t go. Mildred doesn’t need me to hear Mr. Pickens hold forth on the virtues of one car after another.”
“No, no, you go on. It’s too early for bed, and with a little heat, I’ll be all right. Go on, honey, then come back and entertain me with what happened. Besides,” he went on, “if you don’t, you know Mildred will be on the phone telling you all about it.”
He was right, so, slightly concerned about leaving him in pain, I told myself that I had a good excuse not to linger at Mildred’s. Even if she wanted to go over Mr. Pickens’s recommendations a dozen times.
* * *
—
Mr. Pickens was already ensconced in Mildred’s living room when Ida Lee welcomed me, took my coat, and led me to them. A plate of sliced pound cake and a coffee service was on a tea table in front of a damask-covered sofa. Mr. Pickens was already sampling the cake, although he got to his feet when I entered.
