by Terry Shames
“I don’t know, but it sounds like you have a bit of a temper, and the two of you have had problems.”
“I think you’re trying to stir things up.” Before I can reply, he says, “And you stirred up my wife, too. Like I told you on the phone yesterday, I don’t see any need for you to bother my wife. We’re trying to work things out between us and you don’t need to upset her.”
“I didn’t have any intention of doing that. She didn’t seem to mind talking to me.”
All the anger seems to go out of him, leaving him deflated. “She’s a nice person. You can see why I don’t want to lose her. Sorry if I overreacted.”
We part amiably enough, although Eddie isn’t happy that I won’t leave him the key Jenny gave me. “Never mind, I’ll get it from her. She’s going to have to turn the house over to me sooner or later.”
I stop by Bobtail Police Headquarters, but Wallace Lyndall is out on a call. I get him on his cell and tell him I’ve got news about the Borland situation. He says he’ll meet me back here in an hour.
With an hour to kill—not enough time to go back to Jarrett Creek and get anything done—I go over to the hospital. There’s a loose end I want to tie up. I track down Vera Sandstone’s nurse, Monica, and ask if she has a few minutes to talk to me.
“You’ve been nothing but trouble since the minute you showed up here,” she scolds. “What is it you want?”
“I want to talk to you about Vera Sandstone’s son, Eddie.”
She goes still and I watch her make a decision. “Go on down to the waiting room at the end of the hall. I have a couple of things I have to do first, but then I’ll come and talk to you.”
There’s no one else in the waiting room, which is a dreary room with no outside windows. Someone waiting here for news that somebody is coming out of surgery would probably rather be anywhere than this room. It’s stuffy and quiet, which is why I’m almost asleep when Monica comes back. I stand up, and my neck has a crick in it from my head slumping sideways.
“I’ve got a full ward, so we have to be quick,” Monica says, frowning at me. “What is it you wanted to know about Vera’s son?”
“I’ll come right to the point. Was she afraid of him?”
She studies me, thinking. “I don’t know. I thought there was something wrong between them, although it didn’t occur to me that she would be scared of him. He seemed sweet to her. But she was definitely glad when he left the day he visited.”
“He was only here once?”
“Once when I was on duty. But he came back the day before she died, when I was off duty.”
“How did you hear that?”
“He upset the little nurse who was on that night. He wanted her to sign as a witness to something, and she didn’t know whether she should. She’s a young nurse. She said Vera told her it was okay, and I told her she didn’t do anything wrong, if she signed with Vera’s consent.”
“Can you tell me her name? I’d like to ask her a couple of questions.”
Monica sighs. “I’ll tell you her name, but don’t push her too hard. She’s skittish as a kitten, and we have a shortage of nurses as it is. We can’t afford to lose her.”
I find out that the nurse, Betsy Ferris, will be coming on at 4:00 this evening. “I’d like to get her number at home,” I say to the woman I talk to behind the nurses’ desk. “I’d rather not bother her at work.”
For once today, I’m lucky and she’s home and says she’ll talk to me if I can come right now, but that she has to pick up her little girl from a play date in an hour.
She lives in a nice brick house in a new subdivision called Tuscan Hills. There are no hills here, and the only bow to Tuscany is that every one of the houses has an arch over the doorway. It makes me think of Bobtail Ridge, the subdivision that’s being torn down. Not a ridge in sight.
A tiny woman, barely over five feet tall with a pixie grin, Betsy Ferris tells me they moved into their house a year ago when the place was new. “My husband is a dentist. We wanted to live close to his office so he could bike to work. He’s big on saving the environment.” She beams at me like she couldn’t be prouder of him.
She shows me into a pristine living room with mostly beige and white furniture. The only art on the walls is a commercial print of a painting by Modigliani, which kind of surprises me because his work hasn’t been in style for a long time. She perches on the edge of a chair that dwarfs her, looking like a hummingbird that has come to rest. I sit in a matching chair facing her.
“I want to find out a few details about something that happened a couple of weeks ago. You had a patient by the name of Vera Sandstone.”
“What a sweet lady she was. I was sorry when she passed away.”
“Her son asked you to witness a document that he got her to sign?”
Her cheery face closes up. “I hope I didn’t do the wrong thing. Vera said it was okay with her.”
“No, no, no problem with that. I’m more interested in Mrs. Sandstone’s state of mind when she was talking to her son.”
“State of mind?”
“Was she happy? Or did she seem troubled at all?”
Betsy cocks her head at me. “You want to know something? That’s why it bothered me to sign that paper. I got the feeling she felt trapped.”
“Trapped?”
“Like she didn’t want to sign it, but she couldn’t think of a way out. That’s the best way I can say it. The way she looked at her son was like she wished there was some way to get away from him. Not scared, exactly, but more like she didn’t like him much. Does that make sense?”
I nod. “You’re a good observer.”
She flushes. “I want to help people. I thought maybe Mrs. Sandstone didn’t want to sign that paper, and that’s really why I said I didn’t know whether I should. But she said to go ahead. So I did.”
“Did you talk to her afterward?”
She shakes her head. “It got busy after that and I didn’t have time to stop and talk. I was off work the next day. When I came back to work, they told me she had died.”
“Did you hear her son talking to her about signing the paper?”
“No, he was there when I came in.”
“What kind of mood was he in?”
“He was smiling. He seemed like a nice enough man. He was holding her hand and telling her how much he loved her. That kind of thing.”
“But she wasn’t happy with him there.”
“It was unusual. You know, some of my patients don’t have anybody who comes to see them. So you’d think she would have been thrilled that he was being so nice to her. But she seemed nervous, like you get when you’re not sure what somebody’s going to do next.”
“I’ll be damned,” Wallace Lyndall says when I describe last night’s run-in with the boys sneaking into Jenny’s barn.
“They said Jett Borland promised to pay them if they slipped the horses some pills.”
“Looks like now we’ve got something on them.”
“I’ve got the vet testing the pills to see what they are,” I say. “The problem is, I’d like to avoid having the boys identify Borland. I don’t want him or his daddy to know they ratted on him if we can avoid it.”
“We might need their testimony.”
“Let’s wait and see what comes up. At least the boys confirmed that Jett was involved in the attacks on the horses. And the Borlands aren’t likely to stay out of trouble. We’ll nail them before too long.”
“Sounds like a couple of kids need watching, too.”
I think of the blond boy’s fear and distress when they got caught. I suspect his life of crime is over. “One of them does anyway.”
CHAPTER 25
I’m no sooner in the door when Loretta calls me on the phone. “Can you come down to my house? I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Let me get some dinner first. I’ve had a long day and no time for lunch.”
“I’ve got enough for two. Come on down.”
&
nbsp; I’m glad I don’t have to cook, even if I had only planned to warm up some chili, but I’d like not to have to have a conversation. After last night I want nothing more than to eat a bite and crawl into bed. Still, it’s unusual for Loretta to call me in the evening. She likes to eat early and watch her TV programs. She must have something important on her mind. I tell her I’ll come on down.
As soon as I walk into Loretta’s house I’m glad I decided to take her up on the meal. “Whatever you’re cooking smells good,” I say.
We eat at her kitchen table. She dishes up chicken and dumplings with green beans. “While we eat, why don’t you tell me what you’ve been up to,” she says. She asks for my version of how the prom went. “I’ve heard the opinion of everybody else and I’m worn out from all the complaining.”
I’m surprised. “Seems to me it went off pretty well.”
“The prom itself did. But you probably didn’t hear that a bunch of the girls had a slumber party over at little Tricia Ford’s house and the boys sneaked in with beer. Now everybody is blaming Emily and Jake Ford for having that wine party and making the kids think it was okay to drink.”
“As far as I know, nobody called us down at the station. What happened to the boys?”
“The Fords called Diane Hanscomb—her boy was one of the ones who snuck in—and had her and her husband come over and take the kids home . . . girls and boys both.”
“Well, now the kids know it’s not okay with the Fords to drink at their house.”
She laughs. “You must not know Diane Hanscomb. She was furious that she had to haul the kids around in the wee hours of the morning, and she hasn’t stopped complaining yet.”
Without naming names I tell her that I caught two boys getting into mischief. “They were from Bobtail, so I was over there straightening things out today.”
“What did they do?”
“They were trying to sneak into Jenny Sandstone’s barn and slip a drug to her horses.” I haven’t told her about the other incidents because I didn’t want her to get scared, but now I think it’s time to spread the word in the community. It will help keep the horses and Jenny safe if people are alert that there’ve been problems at her place. “That’s not the first incident.” I tell her about the others.
She jumps when I tell her about the snake. “Ugh! I can put up with a little garden snake, but not rattlers. You think the boys put the rattlesnake in the barn?”
“They said they didn’t. One of them was deathly afraid of snakes and said he’d never do anything like that.”
Loretta has a calculating look in her eye. “All this that you’re telling me makes some sense.”
“Makes sense of what?”
Loretta gets up and clears our dishes. “You want a little dish of ice cream?”
“If you’re having one.”
“I only have vanilla. That’s the only kind I like.”
“I’ll take a taste of vanilla. But tell me what you called me down here for. I’m not going to last too much longer. Between not getting any sleep last night and this big dinner you’ve fed me, I’m ready to get to bed.”
She gets the tub of Blue Bell Ice Cream out of the freezer and pulls two bowls out, moving deliberately. “Clara White went to see Jenny this afternoon to take her some dinner, and she told me that Jenny was acting like she was drunk.”
Suddenly I lose my appetite for the ice cream. “She was probably exaggerating.”
“Maybe. But Clara’s not real judgmental. She’s more live and let live. She told me she didn’t know quite what to do. She was afraid Jenny was going to fall down. She knew I was friendly with Jenny and wondered if I’d go talk to her. I thought it was best to leave it to you.”
“Might have been that she’s in pain and took some medication and maybe took too much.”
She sets the bowls of ice cream down on the table. “The thing is, Clara said she went into Jenny’s kitchen, and there was an open bottle of Jack Daniel’s right on the counter, and that Jenny had a glass that looked and smelled like whiskey. I wonder if you ought to go talk to her. If she’s taking pain medication and drinking, that’s a bad idea.”
Loretta likes a good bit of gossip and is interested in people’s business, but I’ve never known her to be mean. I know she’s telling me this out of concern for Jenny, not because she wants to be malicious.
“I appreciate you telling me this. If you don’t mind, I’m going to eat and run. I think I’d like to stop by and make sure everything is all right next door.”
“Good. I know Jenny has had a hard time the last couple of weeks and somebody needs to keep an eye on her.”
I’m so tired I could lie down on the sidewalk, but I head straight for Jenny’s. I’ve never known her to drink hard liquor. I don’t know everything about her, and maybe she has a regular habit of drinking a cocktail when she comes home. But I remember two nights ago when I was there and she had put away at least a bottle of wine. It makes me queasy to think of her heading for the bottle to solve her misery. I don’t have much patience for drunks, having had a daddy and a brother who killed themselves with drink, and having seen the way alcohol has destroyed Rodell’s health. But something is eating at Jenny, and I can’t turn my back on that.
I ring the doorbell and get no answer. It’s only 7:30, still light out, so I doubt Jenny has gone to bed. If she has, she won’t thank me for getting her up. But I’m not going to let that get in the way of insisting that she answer her door. After the second ring, eventually the door opens, but there’s no one there.
“Jenny?”
“Come on in.” She’s standing behind the door. Her voice is slurred.
“I’ve been gone all day and didn’t have a chance to talk to you last night so I wanted to check in and say hello.” I feel like a fool, with my voice sounding as cheerful as a high school cheerleader with the team behind ten points.
She doesn’t reply, so I step in. She’s drunk. There’s no getting around it. She’s standing up, but she’s swaying and squinting at me like she’s having trouble focusing. Her hair is all frowzed out as if she’s been pulling at it, and she has food stains on the front of her T-shirt.
“Here now!” I say. “You’re not feeling too good. Let’s get you off your feet.”
“I’m drunk,” she says, and gives a soft belch that sends a cloud of alcohol fumes my way. “And happy to be.”
“I still think it’s probably best to get you seated. It won’t do your stitches any good if you fall down.” My heart is beating hard. I don’t like to deal with people who are drunk—especially people I care for.
“Huh!” Her bark of laughter has an ugly sound to it. “You sound like Little Mary Sunshine,” she says.
“I don’t feel like that,” I say. “I wish you’d tell me what makes you think it will do you any good to be drunk at 7:30 at night. Let’s go into your living room and sit down.”
She lets me take her elbow, but then she wheels away toward the kitchen. “I need to get me another drink.”
“Let me get you situated, and then I’ll get you a drink,” I say.
She peers at me, her head weaving. “I know you. You say you’ll get me a drink, but then when you get me sat down, you’ll think of some excuse not to.”
“If I promise to get you a drink, will you let me get you into the living room?”
“A stiff drink. Not some sissy drink.”
“Whatever you want.”
I guide her into the living room and keep a firm hold on her as she sinks onto the sofa. Her head flops against the back so she’s staring at the ceiling. “Oh, it’s like being on a carnival ride.”
“I imagine it is. What’s your favorite ride?”
She starts laughing, and the sound is unpleasant. “Like I said, I knew you’d try to weasel out of it. You promised though. Bring me a drink. Please. Pretty please.”
“What do you want? Wine?”
“No, hell no! Whiskey. It’s on the counter.”
; “Mind if I get one, too?”
“Help yourself.”
I go into the kitchen and make a lot of noise, opening and closing cabinets, opening and closing the refrigerator, dropping ice cubes into glasses. And then I wait. After five minutes I walk back into the living room. Jenny has sagged sideways on the sofa. I go back in the kitchen and pour some water over one of the glasses of ice and bring it back in and sit down on the easy chair across from her. I don’t know if she’s taken pain medication, but if she has, I worry that it won’t mix well with the alcohol. I’ll stick around until I’m sure she’s okay.
An hour into my vigil, Jenny wakes with a start and babbles something unintelligible, but then drops back to sleep. Somewhere along the line I realize that I’m in over my head with Jenny. She needs a therapist to help her through whatever has thrown her for a loop. I can imagine her response if I suggest such a thing. I drift off to sleep for a bit and then wake up.
Around ten o’clock I begin to think over my conversation with Eddie Sandstone today. He seems like a nice enough guy, but there’s something I don’t like about him. I haven’t been around him enough to pin down what it is. But that doesn’t mean he’s lying when he says his spat with Jenny is because of her being jealous. His estranged wife said much the same thing, although I suppose whatever she understands of Jenny is through what Eddie said.
I get up and head outside. To stretch my legs, I go down to the barn to check on the horses. I surprise Alvin Carter propped up against the wall facing where the horses are quiet in their stalls. “What are you reading?”
Carter looks guilty. “Something stupid. I found it in the tack room and thought I’d see what all the fuss is about.” He holds up the book. He’s reading a tattered copy of a thriller that was wildly popular years ago. I wonder what it was doing in the tack room.
We talk of this and that for a few minutes. He tells me he’s decided to go back to college, and we kick it around a little bit, me encouraging his decision.
Jenny’s still passed out, but her pulse is strong. Back when my daddy drank, I always worried that he’d pass out and not wake up. My mamma didn’t seem to take it seriously. I wonder whether I ought to wake Jenny and make her get into her bed, but instead I drape a blanket over her and prop her up on pillows.
