by Janet Dailey
“I feel like this champagne,” she remarked, “sparkling with a heady glow. This is a better birthday celebration than having a crowd of people. How do you know where all these wonderful, little out-of-the-way restaurants are? This place has everything—atmosphere, a sense of quiet elegance, and privacy.”
“Why do you think I chose it? This is where I bring all my girl friends,” John chuckled and leaned forward in an air of confiding. “I am the envy of every man in this room.” His eyes danced with a wicked mischief. “Everyone is wondering whether you are my granddaughter or my mistress. Can’t you just hear those women asking what a dirty old man is doing with such a young and attractive woman?”
“I’ll bet they are wishing they were in the company of such a distinguished-looking man,” Lanna retorted. The tarnished silver of his hair glistened in the candlelight, vitally thick and wavy. In a dark suit and tie, he looked at ease in the formal attire, maturely masculine and relaxed. “You look very handsome in that suit. Do you know this is the first time I’ve seen you wear something other than your everyday work clothes?”
“I haven’t been a night watchman all my life. And quit looking at your watch,” he ordered gruffly.
“I was thinking we should order.” Lanna defended. “I don’t know how long it will take to get served, and I don’t want you to be late for work.”
“Didn’t I tell you?” John straightened in his chair. “I have the night off, so there isn’t any rush.”
“No, you didn’t tell me.” The initial rush of pleasure had barely passed when a flicker of guilt crossed her expression.
His keen gaze noticed it. “Is something wrong?”
“I was just thinking.”
“About what?” John persisted.
Lanna smiled at him and warned, “You aren’t going to like it.”
“Then it’s my fault for asking. What is it?”
“When a man has a Friday night free, he should spend it with his wife and family.” She met his gaze with a little toss of her head. John had never discussed with Lanna the details of his marital problems, but she knew the relationship with his wife was strained from the odd comments he’d made.
“As it happens, my wife is out of town,” John stated. “She took my grandson and daughter-in-law north for a visit. And my son had other plans for this evening. So if I had stayed home, I would have been alone. Having dinner with you isn’t interfering with any family duty at all.”
“I’m glad.” A curiosity that had been plaguing her refused to be denied its satisfaction any longer. Most people his age talked nonstop about their children and grandchildren, but John rarely mentioned his. “Don’t you get along with your sons? You never talk about them. I don’t even know their names,” she realized. “Do they live here in Phoenix?”
“My eldest son does.” He paused a second. “It’s very hard to describe your own children. My youngest is sharply intelligent with enormous potential, yet he doesn’t seem to have any ambition. We don’t get along very well. Now, my oldest son … I guess he reminds me of myself in a lot of ways.” He looked up, a gleam in his eye. “I don’t know whether I’ve told you this or not, but I’ve never had a woman friend before. Or maybe I should have said a friend who was a woman,” he corrected with a laugh.
“The reverse is true for me,” Lanna admitted, aware that he had again deftly changed the subject, but since he was reluctant to discuss his family, she didn’t pursue it. “I have never enjoyed a genuinely platonic relationship with a man before. It’s a first for both of us.”
“The time I have spent with you has made me the happiest I’ve been in years. For some reason, people don’t get around to saying things like that to the people who are important to them, but I want you to know how I feel.” Tears pricked her eyes at his touchingly serious confession only to have him suddenly wink and raise his glass. “Enough sentimentality. For the rest of the night, we are going to eat, drink, and be merry. Happy birthday, Lanna.”
They did all three. Lanna’s wineglass was never fully emptied of champagne because John constantly kept refilling it despite her laughing protests. A thick, juicy steak dwarfed her plate, accompanied by tender asparagus spears and a baked potato drowning in butter and globs of sour cream. To top off the gluttonous repast, there was a miniature birthday cake complete with a burning candle. Most satisfying of all was the lively conversation between the two, the lulls never lasting longer than a bite of food.
Sated, and just a little tipsy, Lanna was reluctant to move when John stopped the borrowed station wagon in front of her apartment. With an effort, she turned her head to look at him, a dreamy contentment in her smile.
“Will you come in for coffee?” she asked.
He hesitated, then nodded. “Of course.”
But Lanna heard the thread of weariness in his voice. “Tired?”
“I’m getting too old for this drinking and carousing around,” he joked and stepped out of the car.
Her legs were unsteady when he helped her out of the car. The coolness of the desert night air made her head swim with the aftereffects of all that champagne. She swayed against the support of his hand under her elbow.
“Whew! I’m a little light-headed,” she admitted with a self-conscious laugh. “I’ll need more than one cup of coffee. Are you good at sobering up your friends, John?”
“I have a great hangover cure. Should I leave the recipe in case you need it in the morning?” His twinkling glance mocked her mellow state as he guided her to the building entrance.
“I’ve never had a hangover in my life, but I’ve never gotten drunk on champagne before, either.” In front of her apartment, she stopped to dig to the bottom of her evening purse for the door key.
“You’d better let me do that,” John suggested when she found the key, but had difficulty getting it to go into the lock.
“Gladly.” She surrendered the key and stood back while he unlocked the door.
Directly across the hall from her apartment, a door opened and Mrs. Morgan walked out. There was a sickly pallor to her face. Lanna’s concern was instantaneous.
“Is something wrong, Mrs. Morgan?”
“Influenza. It’s going around again. It came on me this morning. I can’t work at the plant like this, but it doesn’t stop me from doing my laundry. Late at night is the only time you can find an empty washing machine in the building.”
“How true,” Lanna murmured in agreement.
But Sylvia Morgan had already been distracted by the sight of John dressed in his dark suit. Her scrutiny was so pointed that Lanna felt obligated to make an introduction.
“I don’t believe the two of you have officially met, have you?” she began. “John, this is my neighbor, Mrs. Sylvia Morgan. My friend, John Buchanan.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Morgan.” John acknowledged the introduction with a polite nod of his head as he returned the door key to Lanna.
“Don’t I know you?” Mrs. Morgan frowned and tipped her head to one side.
“I’m sure we have never met,” John replied on a faint thread of amusement.
“You look so familiar to me. I just know I’ve seen you before, but I can’t remember where. Things like that bother me,” the woman sighed. “You look like someone I should know.”
“I have that kind of face.” He smiled his unconcern. “People are always telling me I remind them of their uncle or cousin or some character actor on television.”
“Maybe that’s it.” Mrs. Morgan seized the possibility. “Maybe you remind me of an actor. I never thought about that.”
“Did you say you had your clothes in the washing machine?” Lanna prompted.
“Yes. Yes, I did.” The woman hesitated, as if reluctant to leave. “I’d better be getting them into the dryer or else I’ll be up all night. Probably will be, anyway,” she grumbled.
Lanna made no move to enter her apartment as she watched her neighbor walk down the hallway toward the building’s laundry. S
ylvia Morgan paused at the corner to look back, then disappeared down the connecting corridor.
“She was waiting to see if I was going to invite you in,” Lanna explained as she entered the apartment ahead of John. “She’s convinced you are my sugar daddy.”
John laughed, but the sound lacked it’s usual heartiness. “I’m not surprised. It’s a conclusion more than one person would reach if they saw us together.” He moved across the room to sit heavily on a chrome chair at her breakfast table. “Don’t take too long making that coffee. My old bones need a pick-me-up.”
“It won’t take long for the water to boil,” Lanna promised, disappearing into the kitchen alcove.
Her high-heeled shoes seemed to add to her wobbly sensation, so Lanna kicked them off, the coolness of the tiled floor pleasant on the bottom of her stockinged feet. She filled a tea kettle with water and put it on the stove to boil, almost turning on the wrong burner. She turned toward the cupboard a little too quickly and had to grab the edge of the counter as a wave of dizziness swamped her.
“Did I tell you I ordered the wallpaper for the bathroom?” she called to John while she opened the cupboard to take down two cups. “It should be here next week. Do you want to give me a hand papering the bathroom next Saturday?” Something hit the floor with a heavy thump. “John?” Lanna turned to look across the breakfast counter. The chair where John had been sitting was empty. Then she saw his body slumped on the floor. She sobered up in an instant. “Oh, my God!” she whispered.
Years of professional training kept her from panicking. She hurried to the fallen man and turned him onto his back, struggling with his heavy frame. Loosening his tie, she unbuttoned the collar of his shirt and adjusted his head, clearing the breathing passages. Her fingers found the vein in his neck and felt the thin throbbing of his pulse. Absently, she noticed the opened box of pills and the white tablets scattered on the floor near him.
She left him long enough to go back to the wall telephone in the kitchen and dial the emergency number. Her voice was clear and concise as she gave her name and address, and requested that an ambulance be sent immediately, advising them it was a heart attack. The phone call didn’t take more than a total of thirty seconds.
Assured that help and equipment were on their way, her mind divided into different compartments. One, guided by professional instincts, concentrated on her patient, while her hearing strained to catch the wail of the sirens. A third part was berating herself for not seeing the signs that should have forewarned her. John had probably taken care to conceal them from her so he wouldn’t spoil her birthday celebration.
It seemed ages before she heard the wavering scream of the ambulance outside the apartment building. Rationally, Lanna knew it had only been a matter of minutes, but it seemed much longer. Doors were slamming; footsteps hurried along the hall to her door; anxious voices issued questioning exchanges; then there was the sharp knock.
Lanna paused long enough to call, “It isn’t locked. Hurry!”
The door was pushed open and white-coated attendants rushed in, carrying their boxes of equipment and pushing Lanna out of the way. She stood back gratefully while they took over with swift efficiency.
One of the men began shooting questions at her. “Are you related to him?”
“No. We’re just friends.” She leaned shakily against the table, aware that the trembling came from shock.
“Name?”
“John Buchanan.”
“Age?”
For a moment, she drew a blank, then resolutely shook her head to get a grip on herself. “Sixty-three.”
“Do you know if he has a history of a heart condition? Is he on any medication?”
“Yes, he is. His pills are there on the floor. The prescription information should be on the box.”
The attendant grabbed it up and a few of the tablets. “It’s blank. Do you know if he took one of these?”
“No. I was in the other room,” Lanna explained. “I heard him fall.”
The second medic spoke up. “He’s stable enough to transport.”
“Please, may I ride with him?” she asked.
“Sure.” The permission was granted as the two men lifted the body onto a collapsed stretcher.
Lanna hurried into the kitchen for her shoes, pausing to turn off the burner and remembering at the last second to grab her purse. The men were wheeling the stretcher past a wide-eyed Mrs. Morgan in the hallway outside Lanna’s open door.
“What happened? Did he have a heart attack?” Her neighbor hurled the demanding questions at Lanna, who ignored both the questions and the woman in her haste to follow the ambulance attendants. “I knew something like this would happen. A man of his age just can’t take very much excitement.”
Lanna shut her mind to the implication of that statement and climbed into the back of the ambulance. The doors were slammed shut and the vehicle took off amidst the mournful wail of the siren and the rotating flash of light.
The arrival at the emergency ambulance entrance of the hospital started a procedure that was all too familiar to Lanna. Yet, in its familiarity, there was a strange unreality. The nurses and interns waiting at the door to wheel the stretcher-bound victim down the corridor, the clipped, hushed orders issued in calm authority, and the sterile, antiseptic smell of the hospital became pieces of a nightmare. Lanna was kept from taking part in it by an admissions nurse.
“We’ll need some information, Miss.” The white-uniformed figure with a white cap perched on gray-brown hair blocked her path; a hand laid gently but firmly on her arm.
Lanna stared after the stretcher, reluctantly tearing her gaze away when it disappeared through a set of swinging doors. Dazed, she tried to remember what the nurse had just said.
“Yes, of course,” she remembered and followed the woman into a small office cubicle, where she was seated in a straightbacked chair. Threading her fingers together in her lap, Lanna repeated the sketchy information she had already given the ambulance attendants.
“Do you know where Mr. Buchanan lives? His address?” The businesslike tone held no sympathy, its briskness designed to obtain the needed statistics without arousing an emotional reaction.
“He lives here in Phoenix.” As she mentally clawed through her memory, Lanna raked her fingers through her hair, dislodging a comb. “I don’t know the address.”
“What about a home phone number?” the nurse questioned.
“I don’t know it.” Lanna shook her head.
“Does he have any immediate family? Someone we might contact?” The voice remained unruffled, helping Lanna to hold onto her composure.
“He has a wife. Her name is Katheryn,” she remembered and felt the brief, speculative glance the nurse gave her, but the glimmer of curiosity was quickly masked. “He mentioned she had gone out of town … north somewhere on a visit. John said their daughter-in-law and grandson had accompanied his wife.”
“His son? Perhaps you know where he might be reached?” the nurse suggested.
“No. John said he had an engagement this evening. I’m not much help, am I?” Lanna sighed as the teeth of the hair comb bit into her palm. Then her head jerked up. “Wait. John works for Falcon Construction. He’s a night watchman on one of their sites—the new medical building. They’ll have his records on file.”
“There, you see, you did know something, after all,” the nurse declared with an encouraging smile.
In the hospital corridor there was a sudden flurry of activity. Low voices carried a disturbed note that Lanna was quick to feel. A nurse came bustling into the cubicle to hand the packet containing John’s personal possessions to the admissions nurse. A bright flame of agitation burned in the eyes of the nurse facing the desk.
“All hell’s broke loose out there.” Her voice was sharp with criticism, savagely low. “The next time, you tell those ambulance attendants not to write down half a name. That’s John Buchanan Faulkner we’ve got in there!”
The name slapped
at Lanna. “There must be some mistake,” she protested.
The nursed turned, as if noticing her for the first time. Lanna had encountered looks like that before—the icy steel gaze of a head nurse that would tolerate no nonsense.
The admitting nurse identified her. “This is Miss Marshall. She was with … the victim when he suffered his attack.”
“He’s John Buchanan,” Lanna reasserted. “I’ve known him for months. He’s a night watchman, for heaven’s sake. I don’t know where you got the idea—”
“From his wallet, Miss Marshall, when I checked it for any medical advisories it might contain. After I saw his identification, I recognized him as being J. B. Faulkner.” Her gaze swept over Lanna’s face and the pale amber dress that so classically draped her curving figure. “I’m sure you had reasons of your own for wishing to conceal his identity.”
Lanna’s cheeks flamed red at the insinuation, but she answered back, “You are quite wrong, Nurse. I knew him as John Buchanan; therefore, that was the name I gave you.”
“It’s immaterial now who was misled.” The nurse turned away from Lanna to address her subordinate. “There are several emergency numbers listed. You had better start trying to reach someone.” Pivoting, the nurse swiftly left the cubicle, her rubber-soled shoes making no sound. There was only the soft rustle of her uniform.
Lanna looked at the admissions nurse and repeated her assertion in a controlled voice. “I didn’t know.”
The woman’s mouth curved in a distant smile, but she made no direct response to the statement. “If you’d care to sit in the waiting room, Miss Marshall, I’ll advise you when there is something to report on his condition.”
“Thank you.” Lanna rose, subdued, her presence superfluous, and retreated to the empty lounge area near the emergency entrance, consigned to the nerve-wracking task of waiting for word.
Chapter X
