The Poisoned Pen

by E. Joan Sims

  When I opened my eyes again, struggling out of the dark fog of my dreams, I saw

  Cassie and Mother and Horatio hovering over me.

  “Oh, thank God!” sobbed Mother. “Paisley, darling, are you all right?”

  “Wasss.…” I croaked, then cleared my throat and tried again. “What’s going on?”

  I was not in my own wonderfully cozy bed with the luxurious silk comforter and soft pink sheets—that much I knew for sure. These sheets were scratchy—something my mother would never stand for, and the mattress made funny plastic noises when I moved.

  “Don’t try to sit up, Mom,” cautioned Cassie. “Dr. D. wants you to stay absolutely still until he sees your x-rays.”

  “X-rays? X-rays of what? Will somebody please tell me what’s going on?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dr. Saijad Dhanvhantari answered my questions while I pretended to eat a cold hospital breakfast of green eggs and something indescribable that definitely was not ham—or anything else I had ever seen before.

  “I think you were hit over the head with a blunt object, little sister,” he explained. “An object very much like the one which also did damage to your friend Miss Davis—who stayed in this very room, by the way.”

  I gulped down a mouthful of eggs, trying not to taste them. “Yeah? No kidding?” I looked around with sudden interest as it occurred to me that Beth had probably left her things behind when she vanished from the hospital. “Where’s the lost and found department, Saijad?”

  He turned and gave me a stern, impatient look—well, a look that was intended to be stern and impatient. Saijad merely looked like an excited puppy who wasn’t getting enough attention. He pointed to the series of x-rays he was holding up to the light.

  “Do you not want to know about your injuries, little sister?” he asked in his most professional voice.

  “Injuries? I thought…you didn’t say I had any injuries!” I accused with alarm.

  Instantly contrite, Saijad dropped the x-ray films on the chair and hastened to my bedside.

  “No, Paisley, you have no injuries,” he assured me. “A bruise, nothing more. Your hair…well, it is true that your hair is very….”

  “Go on,” I laughed with relief—amused by his gallant attempt at diplomacy.

  “Your hair protected you from further harm, little sister, because it is so, er….”

  “So…what?” I urged wickedly.

  A faint blush darkened his handsome features as he searched for words to describe my wild and tousled hair as tactfully as possible.

  “So carefree and natural, of course! And thick! That’s what saved you—your hair is quite luxuriant—otherwise, you might have had a true concussion, like Miss Davis.”

  I smiled knowingly at my friend.

  “I congratulate you, Saijad. Your knowledge of the English language is impeccable, and besides that, you are absolutely the most charming man I know.”

  “Mercy!” he exclaimed with a pleased smile on his face. “Even more charming than the debonair Horatio Raleigh?”

  I threw back the covers on my bed and swung my knees over the side.

  “Let’s just say you and Horatio would finish neck and neck on Derby Day.” I looked around the bare hospital room. “Where are my clothes?”

  He watched me solemnly for a moment, his smile turning upside down—then burst my bubble.

  “I cannot allow you to leave, Paisley,” he said sadly.

  I was truly astonished. “Why ever not?”

  “It is hospital protocol,” he explained. “The patient must remain at least twenty-three hours after a head injury—for observation.”

  I smiled as brightly as I could, even though I could feel the beginnings of a pounding ache behind my left ear.

  “How ’bout I observe myself all afternoon in my own little bed. Cassie can even sit and observe with me.”

  “Sorry, Paisley. Please to get back in bed and relax. I am ordering something for that headache.”

  “How did you….?”

  “And they are bringing lunch very soon. You are most lucky. It is the day they serve meat loaf and blue Jell-O.” Saijad hastily waved goodbye as he slipped out into the hospital corridor, closing the door firmly behind him.

  I eased back into bed, resting my aching head carefully on the hard pillow. I hated being ill and dependent. My head hurt and I felt pitifully sorry for myself. I didn’t even try to stop the warm tears as they oozed out from underneath my eyelids. I was about to work myself up into a good hard cry when the door opened abruptly and an aggressively cheerful, overly plump nurse bounced in like a pink and white beach ball. I was beginning to see why Beth had blown this joint at the earliest opportunity.

  “Hello, hello, hello!” chortled the woman. “Are we feeling better this afternoon? Hummn?”

  She put a plastic food tray on the bedside table, then dug a syringe out of her pocket and held it up to the light.

  “Saijad didn’t say anything about an injection!” I protested.

  ”Perhaps not to you,” she said condescendingly. “But Dr. Dhanvhantari,” she emphasized the formal address, “ordered something to relax us.”

  “Well,” I quipped. “I don’t need relaxing, so it must be for you.”

  She flashed me a practiced nursing school smile that never quite reached her hard, unfriendly eyes.

  “Look, Missy, I have four other patients on this floor and no time for mollycoddling, so roll over and show us your bottom.”

  With the small, economic gestures used by many heavy people, she demonstrated the moves I should make. I couldn’t help myself—despite my overwhelming desire not to be used like a pincushion by this erstwhile Florence Nightingale, I started laughing.

  “Ow!”

  “I’ve taken care of bigger trouble than you, Missy,” she said with a steely smile as she withdrew the needle from my bare hip. “Now! Let’s eat our lunch before it gets cold like our breakfast did.”

  She pulled the tray trolley up over to my bed and removed the metal dome from the luncheon plate.

  “Ummm, yum! You’re in luck! Meatloaf and smashy potatoes.”

  I stared at the gray square of congealing fat, and what appeared to be a small mound of library paste.

  “Yum.”

  “And blue Jello! This is my favorite day of the week,” grinned my greedy ‘Florence.’ “I just hope you haven’t delayed me too long. Last Thursday one old hag wouldn’t let me give her a bed bath and I missed my lunch.”

  She gave me a look intended to forestall any further problems. It did. I had dealt with kidnappers, drug dealers, and murderers; but this woman really scared me—besides, there was that needle.

  She grabbed my wrist and mashed my pulse point for a minute while she gave a perfunctory glance at her watch, then forced a fork in my hand.

  “Eat up!” she ordered. “I’ll be back for that empty plate in half and hour.”

  I rubbed my wrist and stuck my tongue out at the door as it swung shut—half afraid that she would somehow know and come back inside to punish me. When I was sure she had gone, I pushed the tray back and got out of bed. Nothing in the world—not even Nurse Ratchet—could make me eat that plateful of lard—it was going in the toilet.

  I turned to grab the tray and had to grab hold of the headboard instead. My legs had turned into rubber. The first thought I had was that Saijad had missed something—perhaps I had some brain damage, after all—then I remembered the injection and realized it had to be the medication.

  I lay back down and closed my eyes while I waited for the room to quit spinning. I don’t know how much time passed, but when I heard someone outside in the corridor, I panicked. The nurse and her needle had assumed monumental proportions in my drug influenced imagination and I felt I had to avoid her wrath at all costs. I reached out and grabbed the lunch plate and dumped its contents in the drawer of the bedside table on top of the Gideon bible and a box of handy-wipes.

  Cassie peeked in th
e door and scooted quickly inside.

  “Mom?” she laughed when she saw the guilty look on my face. “What’s going on?”

  Cassie stayed with me all afternoon while I drooled and giggled and tried desperately to remember what it was that I wanted her to do. We played twenty questions with hilarious results, but nothing came to mind.

  Andy Joiner sauntered in around three, bringing me a milkshake and wearing a sheepish grin. I sipped my malted milk and tried to concentrate on the conversation since it concerned what had happened last night, but for the life of me I couldn’t seem to assimilate the fact that Andy thought it was nothing more than an accident. Apparently, neither could Cassie.

  “But Saijad said the blow was from a blunt instrument,” protested my daughter.

  “And you said yourself, Cassie, that she had a bad dream and appeared disoriented.”

  Cassie nodded reluctantly while I grinned idiotically at the two of them.

  “It’s a bit odd, don’t you think, that Paisley’s story about an intruder is exactly like the dream she had?”

  “Well…yes, I guess so. But, Mom is usually not….”

  “Cassie, we all have our weaker moments—especially as we get older,” he observed with a wicked smile in my direction. “I checked that house from top to bottom,” Andy continued. “There was no sign of forced entry, nor was there any ‘blunt instrument’ except for the corner of the door frame which, by the way, had strands of Paisley’s hair caught in screen. It’s obvious to me that she got up too quickly, lost her balance, and fell into the door. I can’t justify any more time investigating what I consider to be an accident pure and simple.”

  Cassie spent the rest of the afternoon trying to convince me that Andy didn’t really mean I was decrepit and senile, but I wouldn’t stop crying until she pointed out that he and his wife, Connie, were five years older than I, and would no doubt be in a home for the elderly and infirmed while I was still cavorting nimbly around town. Exhausted and frazzled, she finally kissed me good night and went home to see about Aggie.

  I came down from my prescription narcotic high just in time to take my sleeping pill from a nicer, but even more insistent nurse. I spat it back out and tucked it in the drawer on top of the “smashy potatoes” as soon as she was gone; but this nurse was clever—she peeked in on me every few minutes causing me to keep my eyes closer longer than I would have wished. The result of this, of course, was that I fell asleep just as if I had taken the pill in the first place.

  I woke up a few hours before dawn, clear-headed and drug free, and remembered immediately what I had wanted Cassie to do; but since she probably wouldn’t have time to look for Beth’s abandoned clothes in the hospital’s lost and found when she came to pick me up, I would have to find them before she got here.

  My headache had faded away, leaving me with nothing more than a tenderness above my hairline and a slight ringing in my ears. I vaguely remembered Saijad reassuring me at some point that both were temporary conditions. A slight dizziness was the only other symptom I experienced as I tiptoed into the adjoining bath and quietly splashed cold water on my face.

  A brief glance in the mirror told me more than I wanted to know about my physical condition. My hair stood up in undisciplined auburn corkscrews and the pale lavender shadows that encircled my green eyes gave me the surprised look of a pastel Panda. I told myself that I felt better than the mirror said, and resolutely ignored the chorus of midget insects humming loudly in my ears.

  The closet door slid open without a squeak, but there was nothing inside for me to wear, not even a regulation hospital robe. “Damnation,” I whispered as I raised up too quickly, setting off a raucous chain reaction of rattling metal coat hangers. “Saijad’s responsible for this! I can’t believe that sneaky rascal didn’t trust me!”

  I slumped down on the edge of the bed, annoyed by the knowledge that even I wouldn’t dare skulk around the main lobby of the hospital with my bare butt hanging out. Somehow I would have to delay my discharge so Cassie would have time to check out the lost and found. We might make it work if Mother didn’t come along to see me safely home. She was just way too organized and efficient. I would be halfway to Meadowdale Farm before I could say “goodbye and thank you kindly” to my gentle nurses.

  The ringing in my ears had ceased at some point, and now I could clearly hear the grumbling of my empty stomach. I crawled under the scratchy sheet, suddenly needing the meager warmth it provided. The plastic cover on the thin mattress protested loudly with my every movement, but on the other side of the door, the hospital was still and quiet.

  I looked at the digital clock on the bedside table and was surprised to see how late it was. In just two hours the seven to three shift would come on duty—Nurse Ratchet would be back. I considered cleaning the potatoes out of the drawer and decided against it. Let her explain it away.

  I was hungry, but not hungry enough to eat any of that cafeteria slop. The doctors always got plenty of sugary, greasy doughnuts to see them through the night—Saijad had once told me that was the reason he didn’t mind working the graveyard shift. If the doctor’s lounge was close to my room I might be able to sneak a quick Krispy-Kreme and a cup of coffee.

  Doughnuts and hot java suddenly became the most important things in my life. I had to have them no matter what. I slithered out of bed and over to the door, opening it a crack and listening intently for any signs of activity. The muffled sound of snores came from the room next to mine, but other than that, the corridor was silent and empty. I slipped though my door and down the hallway as quiet as Sandberg’s fog—“on little cat feet.” I passed three empty rooms on each side of the hall before I reached the closed door of the doctor’s lounge. I took a deep breath and crossed my fingers as I boldly entered the room.

  The unforgiving glare of the bright florescent ceiling light blinded me for a second while I stood there praying that I was alone. Reassured with the absence of laughter or rude remarks, I peeked out from under my eyelashes and fumbled around for the light switch. The harsh light immediately gave way to the soft glow of two squat little brass table lamps on either side of a comfortable overstuffed sofa, and the muted light over a bank of kitchen cabinets on one wall.

  An expensive, state-of the-art coffee machine on the counter beckoned. I grabbed a large paper cup and filled it with three spoons of sugar before I poured the hot coffee. I looked around and found the handle of a small under counter fridge and opened it up to a wealth of riches. Inside was a pint of coffee cream and a plate piled high with sandwiches. I grabbed a pimento cheese and a tuna salad and gobbled down the first while I stirred the cream into my coffee and looked around for more goodies. Sure enough, a large carton of Krispy-Kremes sat in the middle of a round table in the corner. I sighed with contentment as I swallowed the last of the tuna and reached for a jelly doughnut.

  The coffee warmed me up and a mere two bites of the doughnut assuaged the last of my hunger. I curled up on the sofa and tucked my feet beneath me as I sipped a second cup and compared this cozy little space to my sterile hospital room.

  I approved of the soft peach-colored walls and the dark green plush carpet. The damask sofa was nice and the lamps so-so, but the garish watercolor of a fleshy, over-grown camellia hanging on the wall gave me the creeps. A lovely cherry armoire stood majestically in one corner. Tall and narrow, with four ornately carved doors, the armoire’s stately appearance tickled my curiosity.

  I finished my coffee, tossed my cup and the uneaten doughnut in the garbage, and went straight to the armoire. My mother’s voice whispered admonitions in my ear about respecting the privacy of others the entire time it took to turn the big brass key in the lock and open the upper doors.

  “Rats!” I don’t know what I expected to find, but a twenty-seven inch television set didn’t fit the bill. I closed the doors carefully and turned the lock—although what purpose the key served I couldn’t imagine. I pulled half-heartedly at the doors down below.

 
Unexpectedly, I had to use the key once more, and found a VCR plus stacks of teaching tapes—herniorrhaphies, oophorectomies, and a myriad of other surgical procedures whose names I couldn’t pronounce.

  I was closing the doors when I noticed a brown paper bag tucked in the back. “Oh, what have we here?” I whispered with a wicked grin. “Tapes in a plain brown wrapper, I suppose. Naughty little doctors!”

  I reached inside and tugged the bag out of its hiding place. Surprised to find that it was too light and squishy to hold cassettes, I carried my treasure back to the sofa and dumped it’s contents out on the cushion. Satin, feathers, and brightly colored sequins twinkled in the soft light—I had found Bethlehem Davis’s belongings.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cassie and Mother came to fetch me at eight-thirty sharp. Cassie handed me a plastic bag with fresh underwear and jeans, and Mother presented me with a lovely new silk blouse in a shade of lavender that perfectly matched the circles under my eyes. While they were talking to someone at the nurse’s station, I pulled Beth’s naughty nighties out from under my mattress and tucked them away in the bag Cassie had brought and then dressed quickly in my own blessed duds. We left by the side entrance without a word to anyone—even Saijad—since he was busy delivering triplets.

  “Wow! Thank, God!” I exclaimed as we pulled out of the parking lot. “It’s great to be out of that hell hole!”

  “It cannot have been that bad, Paisley,” argued Mother. “I’m told our little town hospital measures up quite well.”

  “Only if you like plastic mattresses and monster nurses! And don’t even get me started on the food!”

  “I saw you stuffing something in the bag, Mom. What did you steal? Some of those marvelous hospital towels, or maybe a sandpaper sheet?”

  “Surely not!” exclaimed Mother.

  “Don’t worry, Mother,” I grinned. “I found Beth’s clothes, Cassie! They were hidden in the doctor’s lounge. Somebody was probably getting their jollies out of playing with them between patients.”