Murders on the Edge

by Andie Alexander

“Sure.” He chuckled and helped me into bed. “Don’t get up until late tomorrow. I want to see if you’re doing any better.”

  “As long as you don’t divorce me before I get up, I’m good.”

  “Never.”

  I closed my eyes and that was it for me.

  ~~~~~

  Someone was taking my blood pressure. “108 over 68,” Jim said. “Normal for her.”

  “So?” I asked with my eyes still shut.

  Laughter.

  I opened my eyes to see all the DHS goons around the bed, as I lay sideways across it. Jim was seated beside me, warming up his stethoscope.

  “Don’t touch me. I have a hangover.”

  “You don’t have a hangover,” Jim said to me. “You’re coming down off a bad trip. Behave and I’ll have something good for you for breakfast.”

  “Breakfast? I don’t think so.” I rolled over and covered my head with my pillow. “Go away.”

  “Hold her down, guys,” he said.

  I was rolled onto my back and held down, while Jim stuck the stethoscope down my top, listening.

  “Fresh,” I said.

  “Shhh.” He turned his head toward Chris. “It’s still fast.”

  “Doctors are hot,” I whispered, while laughing at him. “They make my heart race.”

  With a chuckle, he removed the stethoscope from his ears, and looked into my eyes with a stupid light. When the guys let me go, I was ready to beat him up, just for fun.

  “She’s fine,” he said.

  “My head hurts.”

  Jim nodded. “We know. I did the analysis on your blood from last night and whatever hit you, hit you hard. You had amphetamines, morphine, two different ED drugs and something unknown in your system.”

  “Don’t give me letters. What’s ED?”

  “Erectile Dysfunction.”

  “What? How did I get those things and why would anyone give me that? I’m a woman. We don’t take ED drugs, right?”

  “You’re right, but that would explain you trying to attack me last night, and why you didn’t feel any pain for your ankle, along with the adrenaline rush. However, it went through your system really fast, which makes no sense to me. They must have added something to make it go fast, or you had such a small dosage, it just hit you in a weird way.”

  “What can I say? I’m weird. Now can you give me something for a hangover?”

  “No, I don’t have anything I want to give you. You should’ve slept that off.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Four.”

  “In the morning?”

  “Afternoon. Today is Sunday. I called Pearl and talked to her. She wants to stop by to see you, but not until you feel better.”

  Wonderful. The curmudgeon in me was coming out, full force. “Great. A visitor. Do you know how much I dread that thought? She’ll talk loudly and want to ask me questions about our relationship. I can’t lie.”

  “Tell her we got married yesterday.”

  I rolled to my side. “Very funny. I want to sleep. Can you guys go away?”

  “Nope.” Jim lifted me to a sitting position. “You need to get up. We have a job to do tonight.”

  “You do. Not me. I’ve put myself on the injured list as of right now.”

  “No, you don’t,” Jim said.

  Jim and Chris lifted me to my feet while I held my head. They stuck the crutches under my arms and stayed on either side of me.

  Jim leaned closer to my ear. “Take one step at a time.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have a sore foot.”

  “Ankle. They’re different parts of the anatomy.”

  “Same thing. They’re both attached to my leg.” I hobbled out the door and toward the stairs. “What did you guys have for breakfast?”

  “Dinner,” Jordan said.

  I stopped walking and turned toward him. “You had dinner for breakfast? No wonder you’re all crabby.”

  The guys all laughed behind me, while I bounced down the stairs then stopped suddenly. “Wait. I need a shower.”

  “No, food first,” Jim said. “Then I’ll help you in the shower. You can’t get your ankle wet.”

  I turned toward him. “Oh, together?”

  “The ED drugs didn’t wear off yet,” Chris muttered. “Good luck with that.”

  “I know of a cure,” I sang to Jim with a grin.

  “What did I marry?”

  As we continued down the stairs, Jim waited for me. When I got there, he put his arm on my shoulder and leaned closer to my ear. “I want you to fill another vial for me.”

  “With what? Spit again?”

  “No, another urine sample,” he whispered.

  “Pee in a cup?” I yelled. “But I already did that for you.”

  He kept his voice low. “Yes, you did. I just want to make sure everything’s out of your system. This guy has to coolest toys to play with over there, and I need a sample of something to use.”

  “Ask one of your guys to do it.”

  “No, you’re the one who had the drugs in their system. Just humor me, okay?”

  “Sure.” I hobbled toward the bathroom. “Get your vial and get it in here, right now.”

  Jim turned toward Archie. “Protein. She’s getting nasty.”

  Archie ran toward the kitchen. “I’m on it, boss.”

  “I’m not nasty.” Jim left my side, and I hobbled toward the bathroom. “You’d better hurry,” I shouted.

  Before I could shut the door, Jim was inside the bathroom, helping me. It’s not that I needed help, but that stupid cast was more than I wanted to deal with so early in the morning…or afternoon. If I ever found out who gave me those drugs, I was going to tie them up and make them beg for their lives. That’s how upset I was.

  Chapter 15

  When I was finally done satisfying Jim’s urine craving, or whatever it was, I left the bathroom and hobbled into the kitchen. A plate with bacon, eggs, toast, and fruit awaited me, along with a glass of orange juice.

  But when I stared down at it, my stomach churned. “I really appreciate the thought, but do you think I’m going to be able to keep this down with a hangover?”

  “Yes,” Jim said. “You’ll be fine. Once I run this urine through my toys over there, I can even give you something for your head.”

  “Don’t you want a gallon of blood to go with it? The colors look great together.”

  “Blood. Hmmm….great idea. I’ll be right back.”

  His fascination with his job was more than I wanted to deal with.

  He ran out of the room, returning in a minute with a box containing a syringe and a huge vial to collect all my blood. I held out my right arm and stuck a piece of bacon in my mouth with my left hand. It almost tasted good, and considering how I felt, that was the best it could be.

  Jim stuck the needle in my arm after dousing it with a gallon of alcohol, and took every last drop of blood from my body. It made me rather queasy, seeing the red blood in that vial. I lowered my head to the table and just watched him.

  His leaned down, his eyes meeting mine. “Are you sick?”

  “Yeah. Can you hurry up? I’m lightheaded here.”

  He yanked the sharp metal object from my arm, stuck a wad of gauze on the giant hole he’d created, and bent my arm at the elbow. After placing the blood mess into the box, he grabbed a bandage and stuck it over the gauze.

  “You’re done. I’ll be back.” He ran off like a little kid with a new toy.

  “We won’t be seeing him for a while,” I said. “Anyone want to play cards?”

  Chris chuckled and brought me a donut. “I have a feeling he’ll be back to report your bodily fluid results.”

  “I hate that. Why me?”

  He sat down across from me. “We’ve been talking about that. We think it’s the cookies or the bottled water, but if it’s not, we have no leads. Archie and I went into town this morning and took a bunch of samples, and we’re sending them off to a lab in
Albuquerque. Jim took a few of the liquid samples and ran some tests, but has come up negative. He doesn’t have the equipment to run any extra tests here.”

  “Do you think this has anything to do with Grande Mesas?” I asked.

  Chris shook his head. “No. They had a nuclear leak from their power plant, and it got into the water supply. They checked everything around that town. It’s so far away from here that it wouldn’t affect this area. No, this is something different. They don’t even have a nuclear power plant here.”

  “What kind of power do they have?”

  “Wind. Outside of town, they have a huge wind farm. They also use solar energy, and get some of their power from neighboring towns, like Hachita.”

  Jim returned to the room, shaking his head. “Everything’s gone from her system. It’s very unusual, because I’d think there would be traces of something, since she hadn’t eaten.”

  I shook my head. “Think about it. These townspeople party at night. They have to function during the day, or the place would fall apart. So it makes sense.”

  “Sure.” Jim put his doctor bag onto the floor and grabbed my right hand, still covered in gauze. “I want to see this.”

  “It’s all yours.” I shifted my fork to my left hand, and tried to grab some egg. I was definitely right-handed, so I dropped the fork and lifted the toast to my mouth.

  Jim unwrapped the bandage, letting it fall to the floor. When he got to my skin, he just stared. I joined his gaze, amazed myself.

  “What happened?” I asked. “I was bitten, right?”

  He shook his head, his face covered in confusion. “Yeah. But there’s nothing there now.” He examined it closer, even turning my hand over. “How is that even possible? It was infected, but now, there isn’t even a scar.”

  “The combination of drugs in my system?”

  “I don’t think so. See how it feels.”

  I moved my fingers and wrist, but felt no pain. “It feels great. It’s not even stiff.”

  “Hurry up. I want to X-ray your ankle.”

  “Sure.” I grabbed my fork and shoveled the food into my mouth.

  The doorbell from the office next door rang and Jim lifted his head, staring at everyone. “A customer? But it’s Sunday.”

  As Chris removed his gun from his pocket, the other two joined him. They all headed into the office next door while I continued eating. Food just tasted good, but it made no sense, given the hangover feeling I was experiencing. Maybe I had the munchies?

  Chapter 16

  As soon as I finished eating, I went to the doctor’s part of the house on my crutches, where Jim and the guys were standing with a man and a woman. The couple each looked like they’d just walked off the farm and hadn’t seen a toothbrush in years.

  “Come with me,” Jim said to the man. He took him into an examining room and I hobbled up beside our guys.

  “What’s going on?”

  Chris leaned closer to me. “That man said he’s missing time.”

  “He is,” the woman said. “He was at the party last night. He disappeared until just now. That was around seven at night and I was with him.”

  “Were you guys doing drugs?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “Just drinkin’ and settin’ off fireworks. As soon as I seen him missin’, I gathered my friends and we went lookin’ for him. I wanted to make sure he warn’t in the brothel.”

  “I was there and I didn’t see him,” I said.

  “You was in the brothel?” She raked her eyes down over me. “Is you a hooker?”

  “No. I was working at the mortuary last night and something really odd happened to me.”

  “Did ya want to party?”

  “Yes, I did and I’m not a partier. What happened to me?”

  “It’s the sickness. It happens every once in a while but it’s gettin’ more frequent. We think there’s somethin’ in the air, because it always happens in town, but not to the country folk.”

  “Has anyone tested the air?” Chris asked.

  “Yeah. The EPA was in here after that Grande Mesas mess, but they never found nothin’. They said it was probably just a flu and went away.”

  “A flu? How long has this been going on?” I asked.

  “Two years now. And it’s not predictable. Some nights the whole town goes out and other times, no one’s there. This past week, we was out every night, just havin’ fun. We pay for it the next day.” She looked around the corner to where Jim had taken the man. “Last night, with Clyde missin’, that was the last straw.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  She hit her fist into the palm of her other hand. “We’s takin’ out the town, one by one. Someone knows what’s goin’ on and we’re gonna kill everyone until we find out who’s doin’ it.”

  “Wait just a minute,” Chris said. “That’s not the smart thing to do.”

  “Is you callin’ me dumb?”

  She looked crazed, and the three men just stared at her.

  “I’m the new sheriff in town,” Archie said. “I think we might want to take a trip to my office.”

  He reached out and grabbed her arm, but she pulled away. “No, I’m fine.”

  “No,” he insisted, taking her arm again. “I think we need to take a trip. Since the old sheriff died last night, I was sent here by the big shots to fill in. I was visiting the doctor to find out where I need to report.”

  “I can show ya, but ya have to promise not to lock me up.”

  He let go of her arm. “Don’t make threats and I won’t. Now what’s going on in town? Why are people acting weird?”

  “No one knows, like I told ya.”

  “Someone has to know. Has anyone new come into town recently?”

  She looked at all of us. “Besides you guys?”

  “Yeah, besides us,” he said. “They would’ve come into town when this all started.”

  “Nope.” She thought for a moment. “Wait, Tilvin’s friends are kinda newcomers, but they were just movin’ over from Grande Mesas, so they’re kinda local folk. I don’t know of anyone else.”

  They were the guys who should be dead but weren’t. That was fishy enough for me. I stared up at Jordan, who seemed to be making mental notes.

  “Tell me about them,” Jordan said. “Who are they?”

  “They roam the streets at night. No one knows where they live, because they just come out at night.”

  Jim left the examining room and joined us. “Your husband’s getting dressed. I ran every test I could, and even X-rayed him, but nothing impressive stuck out to me. He’s just missing time. Also, you both might want to see a dentist.”

  “There ain’t no dentist in town. Our dentist was in Deming, but he went out of business.”

  “Time to find a new one,” I muttered.

  She looked at Jim, ignoring me. “Did he tell you about his broken leg a year back?”

  “No.” Jim shot me a look before returning to the woman’s face. “What happened?”

  “He broke his leg while we were partyin’ in town. The idiot tried to jump over a car and rammed his leg on the top. If it just were a convertible, he mighta cleared it. But it was a van. Anyway, his leg was broken, he found out the next day. Doc Barr set it, and the day after that, he said it didn’t hurt no more. He came back here to see Doc Barr, and Doc Barr ran tests. His leg was normal, like he’d never broke it. It was even healed where the bone had come out of his leg.” She thought for a moment. “When he broke it, he just pushed the bone back inside his skin and wrapped it with his shirt. There was a huge cut, but Clyde never felt it. The cut was even gone the next day. It was the weirdest thing I ever seen.”

  Jim glanced at me, and I could tell what he was thinking. He addressed the woman again. “Did that happen to anyone else?”

  She thought for a moment. “No, come to think of it. Everyone I know’s been really healthy.”

  “No colds or the flu?” Jim asked.

  “Nope. Is that weird?�
�

  He shook his head. “I’m not sure yet. But your husband’s case isn’t normal.”

  Clyde walked out of the room. “Thanks, Doc. What do I owe you?”

  “Nothing. It’s on me, because I’ve never heard of anything like that before. Have you?”

  Clyde nodded. “Almost everyone in town has lost time. I just thought they were drunk, but last night, I didn’t drink much. I just don’t remember what happened.”

  “Well, don’t worry about it.” Jim put his hand on Clyde’s shoulder. “And tell the others not to worry, either. I’ll figure it out, eventually.”

  “Can you show me the sheriff’s office?” Archie said to the woman. “And what’s your name?”

  “I’m Marsha. Clyde and me’s been married for ten years now. We don’t have any kids, but we both work at a landscaping business. We plant trees, do mulch, plant flowers, and things like that. Is ya gonna arrest me? I didn’t mean nothin’ about killin’ no one.”

  Archie shook his head. “It’ll be fine. I think you’ve calmed down now. I’ll follow you in my car to the sheriff’s office.”

  “Ours is the truck.” Clyde pointed to the rusted red clunker in the front yard, through the plate-glass windows.

  “I see that.” Archie followed them out of the office, and they drove away before anyone said anything else.

  “Anything weird?” Chris asked Jim.

  “He has high blood pressure, but he said he’s had that for years. Two years to be exact.”

  “That’s how long this has been going on, according to Marsha,” Chris said. “I honestly think Tilvin’s friends are in on this, but can’t prove it.” He turned toward Jordan. “What do you think?”

  “I think we’re in over our heads. She’s seen me, so how am I to be a surfer dude now?”

  “You were visiting the doctor,” Jim said. “You just happened to be seeing me for jock itch or something.”

  “Jock itch?”

  “Yep.” Jim chuckled then turned to me. “Come with me, my darling. We have an appointment with various machines.”

  “Various?”

  “Yes ma’am.” He helped me into the examining room, through the back door, and into the X-ray room. “Ankle first. I bet you’re all better.”

  “That would be great. Do you think my hangover will cure itself, too?”