Peony Street

by Pamela Grandstaff

  “Why didn’t you wake me up?” he said, as he stretched and then reached for her again.

  “You only got about three hours of sleep,” Maggie said. “I thought you needed a little more.”

  “I need a little more of this,” he said, and pulled her even closer.

  “Stop that, I’m reading,” she said. “I never knew Frank and Joe were such badass detectives.”

  Scott laughed and kissed her neck.

  “Don’t start that,” Maggie said. “I’m leaving.”

  She put the book back in the shelf and got up.

  “Where are you going?” Scott said. “It’s still early. Come back to bed. I promise to behave myself.”

  “I’ve got businesses to run,” Maggie said, as she put on her shoes. “Plus I don’t want Sister M Squared to catch me here.”

  “It’s Delia who’s coming this morning,” Scott said. “She’ll be thrilled to see you here.”

  “Oh no,” Maggie said. “Then the smug smiles will start. I don’t think I can stand it.”

  Scott got out of bed and grabbed her by the hand before she could get away. He pulled her into an embrace.

  “You can tell them all to go to hell,” he said. “I don’t care if you’re nice to them or not, just don’t let it change your mind.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Maggie said. “Cause you know I don’t have a sweet bone in my body and I’m not likely to develop one this late in the game.”

  “Oh, I think there’s some good stuff in there,” he said. “You just save that for me.”

  Maggie kissed him and held him close for a moment. Then she smoothed his hair back from his forehead and looked into his eyes.

  “I’ll be back,” she said.

  Later that morning Scott sat at his mother’s kitchen table with the referral nurse from Hospice and answered all her questions as well as he could. There was the Hospice paperwork for his mother to sign, and several other documents spread out on the table, including her insurance papers, her Medicare card, the advance directive, the medical power of attorney, and the “do not resuscitate order” that Doc Machalvie had signed. This, he reflected, was his mother’s fate encompassed in paper and ink.

  Exhausted, Scott could hear his sister snoring in her bedroom and he resented it. He tried to listen to what the Hospice nurse was saying, but his attention was riveted to his mother’s labored breathing in the room down the hall.

  “Do you have any questions?” the nurse asked him.

  “The home health aide said she didn’t have much time left,” Scott said. “What do you think?”

  “It’s hard to say,” the nurse said. “Some people rally and seem much better right before they take a turn for the worse; some people steadily decline; and some people can go quite suddenly; everyone is different. You’ll know when she’s actively dying from the signs I described to you; I’m leaving this booklet so you can identify the stages as they happen. Anytime you have a question or a concern you can call our number and someone will answer. If it’s the answering service you’ll have a call back from the on-call nurse within fifteen minutes. We can come out any time day or night if you need us.”

  “Thank you,” Scott said. “I had no idea how much you all actually do.”

  Scott saw her out and returned to his mother’s room, where she was now reposing on a hospital bed with an IV pole next to it. She was attached by IV to a pain medication machine; if she felt any pain she could press a button kept near to her hand and a dose of pain medication would be released into her IV. The nurse had assured Scott that the doses of pain medication were carefully measured and monitored; if his mother pushed the button several times she wouldn’t get more medication than was allowed during a certain time period.

  The oxygen cannula was still draped around her head and clamped to her nostrils. Her arms were elevated on pillows and the head of her bed had been raised so that she was reclining at an angle rather than laying flat on her back. The cool air in the room was being humidified by one machine and cleaned by another.

  Scott had been concerned that his mother’s color was not good; her face was pale and her lips and fingertips were faintly violet. The nurse had explained that it was from the meager amount of oxygen that was reaching her lungs due to the fluid building up, and subsequently starving her heart.

  “We aren’t going to suction her lungs,” the nurse had explained. “It’s a traumatic, painful procedure, and our first priority is for her to be comfortable and pain-free.”

  “What can I do for her?” Scott asked.

  “Give her anything she wants to eat or drink,” the nurse had said. “But if she refuses don’t force her. She’s stated that she doesn’t want a feeding tube or a respirator. Your job is just to be her son and spend quality time with her. We’ll make sure she stays comfortable as we let nature take its course.”

  Scott sat down in a chair beside her bed and leaned back. He decided he would close his eyes for just a minute, and immediately fell asleep.

  Delia woke him up when she came to take her turn at the bedside. His mom was sleeping soundly so Scott motioned for her to come back in the kitchen with him. He made some coffee and sat at the table with her, drinking it

  “How are you feeling?” Scott asked her.

  “It was just a 24-hour thing,” Delia said. “Doc looked me over this morning and pronounced me fit enough to sit with your mom.”

  “I appreciate all the help I’m getting,” Scott said. “I couldn’t do this without it.”

  “It’s what we do,” Delia said. “We take care of each other.”

  “How’s Claire doing?” Scott asked. “I feel like I’ve been neglecting her.”

  “She’s still trying to figure out where she belongs,” Delia said. “I tried not to pressure her to stay but it seems like she’s going to.”

  “I thought maybe she’d stop by,” Scott said. “I know she’s busy at The Bee Hive …”

  “Claire never really got over Liam’s death,” Delia said. “I think it might be too tough for her to see your mom this way.”

  “I don’t know how any of you could get over that,” Scott said.

  “You don’t,” Delia said. “It’s like a permanent dark cloud you just get used to seeing out of the corner of your eye. Sometimes it’s bigger than the blue sky, and sometimes the blue sky is bigger, but it never completely goes away.”

  The Hospice aide arrived and Scott showed him where to go.

  “I’m keeping in touch with Sarah over this hit and run investigation,” Scott said when he returned. “I really think Claire’s in the clear.”

  “I understand Ava had to vouch for Patrick,” Delia said.

  “That news sure traveled fast.”

  “Gossip always does.”

  “I thought maybe that was why you didn’t work for her anymore,” he said.

  “She’s like a siren,” Delia said, “luring sailors to their deaths.”

  “You warned me,” Scott said, “but I didn’t listen.”

  “You escaped,” Delia said. “Patrick won’t be so lucky.”

  “Do you think she and Patrick will marry?”

  “Only if he wins the lottery,” Delia said.

  “She’s not that mercenary,” Scott said.

  Delia smiled as she shook her head.

  “See,” she said. “You’re not out of the woods yet.”

  Scott smiled sheepishly.

  “How’s my buddy?” Scott said, in an attempt to change the subject. “I miss our breakfasts.”

  “He’s the same,” Delia said, “Which is a blessing, because he’s not going to get any better.”

  “What’s the latest prognosis?”

  “They just don’t know,” Delia said. “We’ll keep him at home as long as we can.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know and I can’t worry about that now,” Delia said. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  Sarah Albright came in th
e salon and Claire immediately felt sick at her stomach. She had two ladies under dryers, one in a hydraulic chair, and one in the waiting area.

  “Hello Detective Albright,” Claire said. “What can I do for you?”

  “You can confess to killing your boyfriend,” Sarah said, with an evil gleam in her eye and a smirk on her face.

  The two ladies under the dryers leaned forward, the woman in the hydraulic chair turned around to look at Sarah, and the woman in the waiting area put down her magazine.

  Claire was so stunned she didn’t know what to say for a moment, and in that interval something happened she didn’t expect.

  “Shame on you,” the woman in the hydraulic chair said to Sarah. “Don’t you have better things to do with your time than harass innocent people?”

  “What did she say?” one of the dryer ladies said.

  “She said Claire killed somebody,” the other one said.

  “I don’t think it’s legal for you to come in here and say things like that,” the woman in the waiting area said. “That’s harassment.”

  “It’s slander,” the first dryer lady said.

  “I’d call Scott,” the second dryer lady said.

  “I’d call her boss,” the woman in the hydraulic chair said.

  The smirk faded off Sarah’s face and was replaced with a hard, angry look. Claire could tell she wanted to say something more, but must have realized she would only dig herself in deeper. She turned and walked out, but before the door shut she got to hear some last words.

  “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!” the lady in the waiting area said.

  “You women are fierce,” Claire said, with tears glistening in her eyes. “Thank you.”

  “She picked the wrong town to pull that crap in,” the lady in the hydraulic chair said.

  “Just let us know if you decide to file a complaint,” the waiting room lady said. “We were all witnesses.”

  “I think her hand was on her gun when she said it,” the first dryer lady said.

  “I’d swear to it,” the second one said, and then they all laughed.

  Later in the morning Gail Godwin left The Bee Hive with a free haircut and blow dry after telling all the gossip she’d heard about the night Tuppy died. This left Claire wound up and anxious to follow up on what she now knew.

  “Hannah,” Claire said as soon as her cousin answered the phone. “We have a new lead on Tuppy’s murder.”

  “I’ll be there in a flash,” Hannah said. “I just have to find my cape.”

  Maggie came in looking grumpy, with circles under her eyes.

  “You need coffee and an icepack,” Claire said, and quickly delivered both.

  “We got no sleep,” Maggie said moments later, from under the icepack she held over her eyes as she reclined in the shampoo bowl chair. “His sister Penny sawed logs down the hall while we sat next to his mother’s bed and listened to every breath she took. No kidding, I thought each one would be the last.”

  “I bet he was so glad you came.”

  “Hmph,” Maggie said. “I worked for my mother this morning and I swear that woman has second sight. She kept giving me these knowing looks. You didn’t tell your mom, did you?”

  “No, I swear.”

  “It was probably that worthless Penny,” Maggie said. “She probably told the first person who came to sit with her mother and that person put out an all points bulletin.”

  “I don’t remember Penny,” Claire said.

  “She’s insufferable,” Maggie said. “She’s making it all about her, like, ‘poor me, how could this happen to me?’ Never mind it’s her mother who’s dying.”

  “Drama queen,” Claire said.

  “She could give that actress of yours a run for her money.”

  Claire told Maggie what Sloan had done to her credit cards.

  “What can you do?”

  “It took me half an hour just to prove I am who I said I was. They’re sending new cards; I just have to wait until they arrive.”

  “How can I help?”

  “I need to take the rental car to Pendleton and turn it in,” Claire said, “but I don’t have the cash I need to pay for it. I don’t have an account at Knox’s bank; do you think they’ll let me have some money?”

  “I think Knox will give you anything you ask for right now,” Maggie said. “He wouldn’t dare decline you; but I have cash at the store if they say no.”

  Hannah came running in, saying, “Knox is on TV right now, having a press conference.”

  Claire turned on Denise’s TV and channel surfed until she found it.

  “He’s doing it from his hospital bed,” Hannah said.

  “Oh, my gosh,” Maggie said. “He looks awful.”

  “The better to elicit sympathy,” Claire said.

  They’d missed most of it but the news channel replayed it with commentary. Knox was wearing makeup to cover his bruises, and although one eye was swollen shut he was still lit in a flattering way. With every carefully crafted sentence he spoke, every subtle wince of pain, it seemed obvious to Claire that his performance had been as skillfully orchestrated as an award winning scene in any classic film.

  He claimed that his wife had taken a new allergy medicine and had mistaken him for a bank robber.

  “He’s good,” Claire said when it was over and they went to commercial.

  “He even made me feel sorry for him,” Hannah said, “and I know what a rotten egg he is.”

  “Poor old Knox,” Maggie said. “He has the worst luck with wives.”

  “It sometimes doesn’t pay to be an ambitious sociopath,” Claire said. “I’m relieved to know it.”

  Claire reported Gail Godwin’s gossip to her cousins, about the students who were drag racing after Phyllis’s party.

  “It’s just like Phyllis to be in the middle of this,” Maggie said. “You know her son killed Theo Eldridge.”

  “Now I remember,” Claire asked. “I just didn’t relate the name to our Phyllis from high school.”

  “Billy thought Theo was his father and he’d inherit a fortune,” Hannah said. “That turned out to be wishful thinking on Phyllis’s part. He died in a car wreck up near the state park with the cops right on his tail.”

  “Do you think Phyllis will tell us anything?” Claire asked.

  “She hates me,” Maggie said, “and the feeling is mutual.”

  “She’s not crazy about me, either,” Hannah said.

  “I guess it’s up to me, then,” Claire said. “I think the students in the depot this morning might have been the culprits; they were acting really weird with Phyllis.”

  Claire had a short break and ran down to the Mountain Laurel. The parking lot was empty and Phyllis was sitting on the side porch smoking a cigarette.

  “You wanna order something?” Phyllis asked her. “There might be some gravy left.”

  “No, thanks,” Claire said, and sat down upwind of Phyllis’s cigarette. “I wanted to ask you about what happened last Friday night.”

  Phyllis pointed her cigarette at Claire and narrowed her eyes.

  “I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout that,” she said. “I was home in bed when that happened. I got seven witnesses that’ll tell anyone that’s true.”

  Claire wondered why so many people were on hand to witness Phyllis at home in her bed, but decided not to follow up on that line of questioning.

  “The man that was killed was a friend of mine,” Claire said. “I’m just trying to find out what happened.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” Phyllis said, “but like I said, it don’t involve me.”

  “Were there some college kids at your house that night?”

  “No, I was alone,” Phyllis said.

  Claire was no lawyer, but even she could see it would be hard to uphold Phyllis’s claim of simultaneously being home alone in bed while also having seven witnesses on hand to swear to it.

  “It doesn’t have to involve you,�
�� Claire said. “Maybe you just heard something that would be helpful.”

  “I gotta get back to work.”

  She stood up and flicked her cigarette toward the river.

  “I don’t want to get you in any trouble,” Claire said. “I just want to know who the boys were that were drag racing that night.”

  “Sorry,” Phyllis said. “I got no idea.”

  She went inside the depot, leaving Claire frustrated and depressed. She had nothing with which to blackmail Phyllis and no junkyard dog like Stanley to do her dirty work. She went back up the hill and met Ed coming out of the newspaper office.

  “Hey,” he said. “You look like you could use a hug.”

  “Thanks,” she said as she accepted one.

  Claire was surprised to feel a little spark when they hugged. It temporarily flustered her, and she felt herself blush.

  “What’s going on?” Ed asked, seemingly oblivious to her discomfort. “What did you do to your hand?”

  “Off the record, I took a swing at Knox,” Claire said. “I think it hurt me more than him.”

  “Congratulations,” Ed said. “I’ve wanted to do that many times.”

  “If you’ve got time now I can get you caught up on Tuppy’s murder investigation,” Claire said. “Scott says I’m not a suspect anymore.”

  They went back inside the newspaper office and sat down at the elevated work table in the middle of the room. A mock up of the latest issue of the sentinel was on the table and she could see he had saved space for a piece about Tuppy’s death. Ed took notes while she talked.

  After she finished recounting everything she was comfortable sharing Ed looked thoughtful.

  “I may be able to help,” he said. “I can probably find out who the college kids were in the depot this morning.”

  “That would be great,” Claire said. “It’s a long shot but I’m running out of suspects.”

  Claire went back to The Bee Hive, where her next two customers were waiting. To her delight, she managed to talk one of Denise’s life-long shampoo set customers into a short, flattering haircut. The second appointment wasn’t so brave, but she did let Claire schedule her for some highlights to perk up the dark brown helmet she’d been sporting for several decades.