by Laura Childs
“Yes, I really can,” Suzanne said.
* * *
SAM was back with them ten minutes later, looking upbeat but guarded. “The shoulder is no problem,” he said. “It was a subluxation—only partially dislocated—and the resident on duty already popped it back in place. But Junior’s X-rays show that he definitely has a transverse fracture of the tibia.”
“Is that real bad?” Toni quavered.
“It’s actually fairly routine. I’ve got an orthopedics guy on the way—Dr. Bremmer, who was on call over at Fairdale Hospital—and he says he’ll come by tonight.” When Toni started to say something, Sam held up a hand and continued. “Not to worry, Junior’s going to be fine. They’ll do another X-ray to make sure the proximal tibia isn’t involved and then put a cast on his leg.”
But Toni was worried. “What happens then? How will Junior take care of himself?”
“Perhaps his insurance . . . ?” Suzanne said.
Toni shook her head. Suzanne wasn’t sure what that meant, but she didn’t want to delve into it right now. There’d been enough craziness already.
“Maybe you should come home with me,” Suzanne offered.
“I think I better stay here,” Toni said. “I could probably sack out on this grungy couch.”
“There’s nothing you can do here,” Sam said in a gentle tone. “Best thing would be to go home with Suzanne and try to get some rest.” He paused. “Do you have any idea what happened?”
Toni shook her head. “No. But knowing Junior, he probably did something really stupid.”
“You’re tired and overwrought,” Suzanne said. “Come home with me. Everything will look a lot better in the morning.”
“Promise?” Toni said.
“Of course,” Suzanne said. “It always does.”
CHAPTER 24
SOMEBODY was standing over Suzanne’s bed and staring straight down at her. It was still dark, maybe six or six-fifteen in the morning and her first thought was that Baxter had crawled out of his dog bed and was begging for an early bowl of kibbles. Then the shadow hissed at her.
“Ssst . . . Suzanne. Are you awake?” It was Toni.
Suzanne’s eyes opened slowly. “I am now.”
“We gotta get to the hospital. Like, right away.”
Suzanne sat up in bed so rapidly she practically saw double. She swung herself around until her legs dropped and her feet hit the cold floor. That woke her up a little more. “What’s wrong? Did the hospital call? Did Junior take a turn for the worse?” She stared at Toni, who was clutching a borrowed pink robe to her chest.
“No,” Toni said. “It’s nothing like that. I just had a . . . a bad premonition, I guess you’d call it. That something might have happened.”
“A vibe,” Suzanne repeated.
Toni looked a little embarrassed. “It’s probably nothing. I guess I just hit the old panic button.” She waved a hand. “You should go back to sleep.”
Suzanne blinked. Toni was still staring at her and now so were Baxter and Scruff. They’d heard the commotion and padded in to her bedroom to find out what was going on. So three pairs of beady eyes were locked on her in the shifting dull light of dawn. She hoisted herself out of bed. “Tell you what, I’ll put on a pot of coffee. Then, as soon as we can, we’ll head over to the hospital and make sure Junior’s okay.”
Toni brightened. “Suzanne, that would be fabulous.”
But it took a while to get the gang rolling. Turns out Toni needed two cups of coffee to help kick her morning grogginess. Then the dogs had to be fed and let out into the backyard. And even as they sniffed about, Toni still hadn’t gotten it in gear enough to run back upstairs and get dressed. Instead, she peered out the back window as she slowly sipped her coffee.
“What’s wrong with your backyard? It looks like there’s gopher holes all over the place.”
“Not gophers,” Suzanne told her. She was feeling comatose and sluggish, too. “Baxter and Scruff dug those holes.”
“Those weren’t just dug, honey, those were excavated. Like, the dogs did an archaeological survey and plotted them out. Maybe they saw that TV show about the lost treasure of Oak Island and wanted to see what they could dig up.”
Suzanne yawned and looked at her watch. “Toni. Ten minutes, okay?”
Toni continued to stare out the back window at the dogs. “Yeah. Okay.”
* * *
BY the time they arrived at the hospital, the morning routine was in full swing. Nurses bustled down the hallway with charts, big metal carts carrying food trays rumbled along, medications were being delivered, a few patients were taking creaky steps, helped along by nursing assistants.
“This is it,” Toni said, stopping in front of room 316. “It’s the room number they told us at the front desk, anyway.”
“You think Junior’s awake yet?” Suzanne asked. She hated to go crashing in on Junior if he was still woozy or resting. After all, the man had probably been given pain pills. Depending on the dosage, he might end up sleeping the entire day.
Toni put an ear to the door. “I can hear voices inside.”
“That’s always a good sign.” Suzanne pushed open the door a crack and they both peered in.
Junior was sitting up in bed, two jumbo pillows propped behind him. He had an enormous white cast on one leg and a steaming breakfast tray had been placed in front of him. A young woman stood over him, smiling and seemingly enraptured.
“So you really own a car wash?” she asked. She was young, blond, and curvaceous-looking, even in her floppy blue uniform.
“I’m what you’d call your basic entrepreneur,” Junior bragged. “A self-made man.”
The nursing assistant poured orange juice into Junior’s cup. “That’s so impressive. Most of the guys I know just want to drink beer and race cars.”
“After I did a hitch in the service, I hightailed it back here to Kindred and put my nose to the grindstone. Heck, I’ve even invented a few gadgets. Got patents pending and everything.”
With a screech that would have put a vulture to shame, Toni rushed into Junior’s room. Flailing her arms crazily, she descended on him like an avenging angel.
“What’s wrong with you?” Toni screamed. “We’re not even divorced yet and you’re flirting with nurses?”
“Oh no,” the girl said, flashing a smile and showing off her Chiclet-white teeth. “I’m technically only an assistant.”
“Which means you’re probably underage!” Toni screeched. She turned, her right hand already bunched in a fist. “Junior, you . . .”
Junior gaped in horror at Toni’s outburst. Then, as if he’d just received a cue from an acting coach, he uttered a loud gasp, let his eyes roll back in his head, and flopped against his pillows in an exaggerated swoon.
“Junior, don’t you dare play faker with me,” Toni cried. Then she turned to face the young assistant. Gritting her teeth, she said, “And you, little girl, had better leave!”
Her harsh words sent the girl scurrying from the room.
Junior hesitantly opened one eye, then squeezed it shut again.
“Junior?” Toni said. She moved closer to his bed. “Junior?”
Junior’s body twitched as if touched by an electric shock, and then he lay completely still. After a few moments, his lips twitched, one eye fluttered. “Who . . . wha . . .” he mumbled incoherently, and then pretended to lapse back into a coma.
Toni wasn’t one bit fooled. “Doggone it, Junior, I know you’re pretending. Open your eyes and face me like a man!”
Suzanne smiled. “He is kind of cute when he’s playing possum. When his mouth isn’t flapping a mile a minute.” She knew that if Junior felt well enough to make time with a cute nursing assistant, he was probably out of the woods as far as any serious health concerns.
Toni grabbed a tube that snaked from un
der Junior’s blanket and started to twist it. “If this is your oxygen supply,” she said, “I’m going to rip it right out of the wall.”
Junior continued to lie there, feigning unconsciousness. A fake rumbling snore filled the room.
“Junior,” Toni threatened again. “I’ve been worried sick about you all night. I barely got ten minutes of decent shut-eye. So if you know what’s good for you, you’ll open your eyes and face me like a man.”
One of Junior’s eyes popped open. “You ain’t mad at me?” he asked.
“I’m plenty mad at you,” Toni said. “But I’m sick with worry, too.”
Both of Junior’s eyes winked open now. They weren’t quite focused and were wavering slightly. “I ain’t doing so bad,” he whispered. “The doctors and nurses got me doped up pretty good. They’ve been giving me pain pills.” A stupid grin washed across his face. “I feel all right.”
“Just all right?” Suzanne asked.
Junior’s eyes goggled in his head like a human pinball machine. “If you want to know the truth, the pills make me sort of giddy. Like I just knocked back three or four stiff drinks at Hoobly’s.”
“But without the go-go dancers,” Toni said.
She’d calmed down enough to grab a spoon and start feeding Junior his scrambled eggs. But when a radiologist came in carrying Junior’s X-rays, Toni burst into tears.
“I’m Dr. Helm,” the doctor said, introducing himself. “I thought you might like to take a look at your X-rays.”
“Why not,” Junior said as the doctor slapped them up on a wall-mounted light box.
Suzanne studied the X-rays. “That looks like a fairly bad break,” she said. “Is he going to need some rehab?”
A look of supreme horror crossed Junior’s face as he spit out his eggs. “Rehab?” he blurted, yellow globs dripping from his lips. “You mean I gotta quit drinking? I gotta quit hanging out at Schmitt’s and give up my blood clots?”
The doctor’s face blanched white and he took a step back. “Sir, you have a history of blood clots?”
“No, no,” Toni hastened to explain. “That’s the name of Junior’s favorite cocktail. A blood clot. It’s your basic concoction of Southern Comfort and 7UP with a big shot of grenadine.”
But Junior was bobbling his head, looking upset and still whining about going through rehab. “I don’t wanna do no rehab,” he whimpered.
“The doctor means physical rehabilitation, you dunderhead.” Toni lifted her fist as if to slug Junior on his broken leg, then pulled back at the last minute. “He means you gotta learn to walk all over again.”
“I can hobble pretty good now,” Junior said. “All I need is a pair of crutches and I could probably bop-she-bop down the hallway. I could even drive my truck if I had a hunk of wood to jam in the clutch.”
“Nooo!” Toni cried.
The young doctor frowned. “This broken leg seems to have upset all of you folks rather badly. I think it’s best to give you some privacy.” He was already backing out the door.
“Jeez,” Toni said as the door swung shut. “That doctor couldn’t get out of here fast enough. Are we really acting that crazy?”
“I think we’re all under stress,” Suzanne said.
Toni scooted a chair next to Junior’s bed and sat down. “Junior, I know we don’t always see eye to eye . . .” She stared at him for a few moments and then started to giggle. “Particularly right now, when you’ve got those wobbly eyes . . .”
“Go ahead, make fun of me,” Junior mumbled. “A guy in a hospital bed. Forced to wear a dumb hospital johnny that’s open in back.”
“The thing is,” Toni continued, “I’m still your legal wife.”
Junior looked worried. “Don’t be pulling any plugs on me. I know I can make a full recovery.”
Toni patted his arm. “I’m sure you can. But right now I need a straight-ahead, unvarnished explanation of what happened. And I mean down to the letter.”
Suzanne leaned forward. She wanted to hear this, too. She hadn’t been pulled out of bed on Sunday morning for nothing.
Junior rolled his eyes at Toni and grinned stupidly. “Heck, Toni, that girl didn’t mean nothing to me. She was just plumpin’ my . . .”
“I don’t care about the girl,” Toni hissed. “I want to know what happened to you last night. I want to know exactly how you broke your leg.” She set her mouth in a deliberate scowl and said, “For some reason, nobody around here wants to give me a straight answer.”
“It was an accident,” Junior said. “Plain and simple.”
Toni waggled her fingers. “Details, please.”
Junior seemed to cower beneath his covers. “I was doing the two-step and my feet got tangled?”
“Very funny,” Toni said. “The truth, please.”
“I kind of hate to say,” Junior said.
Suzanne stepped closer to the bed. “Junior, call me crazy, but I don’t believe this was any kind of accident at all. I get the feeling that somebody did this to you.” She hesitated. “Did a couple of guys beat you up?”
Toni clapped a hand across her mouth. “Oh no!” she moaned. She grabbed Junior by the neck of his hospital johnny and pulled him toward her. “Did somebody whack on you, Junior?”
“Yeah,” Junior said. “But it’s embarrassing.”
Suzanne pressed on. “If somebody did this to you, Junior, we need to notify Sheriff Doogie.”
“Here’s the thing,” Junior said. His shoulders hunched up and he looked nervous. “I was kind of investigating.”
“What?” Toni cried. “You were playing James Bond when you were specifically told not to?”
“Go on,” Suzanne urged. She figured the truth had to come out sooner or later.
Junior drew a deep breath. “I got to thinking about that guy Byron Wolf. The one I saw at the County Registrar’s office. And I thought about how he was kind of a suspect in Mike Mullen’s murder.”
Suzanne nodded. “Because Wolf was dickering to buy the farm.”
Junior aimed a finger at her. “And, like I mentioned to you guys, maybe he did buy it. So what I did was drive out to where that new shopping center was being built. Where the old Hy-Vee store used to be.”
“Why did you go there?” Suzanne asked.
“Ah,” Junior said. “I was poking around the Wolf Construction trailer.”
“You went inside?” Toni asked.
“I might have,” Junior said. “I was kind of looking for confirmation on the sale of Claudia’s farm. But then a couple of goons saw me sneaking out of there and started wailing on me.”
“Could you identify these men?” Suzanne asked.
Junior thought for a moment. “Well, they both wore hard hats and I think one of them was wearing Stetson cologne.”
“That’s it?” Toni asked. “That’s all you got?”
Junior looked morose. “It all happened so fast.”
“Knock knock,” a voice sang out as a fifty-something woman peeked around the door. “May I come in?”
“The more the merrier,” Junior said.
“Now what’s wrong?” Toni asked. With every passing moment she was getting more stressed.
“A small matter of some paperwork,” the woman said. She was a hospital administrator, plump and cheerful-looking, who looked like she enjoyed her job. Her hospital ID badge said her name was Mrs. Mickelson.
“Sir, I’m sorry to bother you,” Mrs. Mickelson said, advancing toward Junior. “But do you have another form of ID?”
Junior’s head lolled toward her. “Didn’t I give you my ID last night?” he croaked. “When the EMTs hauled me in here all battered and bloody on a stretcher?”
The smile on Mrs. Mickelson’s face slipped a little. “Sir, yes, that’s true. But what you gave me was an expired fishing license. I’m afraid this hosp
ital cannot accept a fishing license, even a current one, as a legitimate form of ID.”
“Oh,” Junior mumbled. “Sorry. I guess I was pretty out of it.” One of his hands flopped toward the night table, where he started to paw through a rat’s nest of car keys, Kleenex, gum wrappers, rubber washers, and old lottery tickets, looking for his wallet. “Just a second, ma’am.”
Mrs. Mickelson relaxed. “Of course.”
As Junior fumbled for his wallet, his hand bumped hard against the plastic water pitcher and sent it crashing to the floor. Everyone (except Junior, of course) jumped back to avoid the catastrophic spill.
“Oops,” Junior mumbled. His hand settled on a black plastic wallet with brown lanyard laced around the edges. It looked like something he might have made at Boy Scout camp. His uncoordinated fingers plucked at a number of cards. Three came loose, two fluttered to the floor. “Okay, okay, just a minute.” Junior flashed a woozy smile as he held up a card. “Here you go.”
Mrs. Mickelson gingerly accepted the card. As she studied it, her face fell. “Sir, this is a membership card for Shooter’s Pool Hall.”
Toni dropped her head into her hands and mumbled, “Dear Lord.”
* * *
THERE was only one thing to do. Let the chips fall where they may and exit the hospital fast.
“I’m gonna kill Junior,” Toni fumed as she stormed down the hallway. “I’m gonna wait until he’s all well again and then I’m gonna assassinate him. I might have to do ten to twenty years in a women’s prison, but it’ll be worth it.” She dodged a food cart, punched a fist at a laundry bin. “If Junior was on life support right now, I’d get down on my hands and knees and yank the plug out of the wall with my teeth.”
“Take it easy,” Suzanne said. “You’ve probably got low blood sugar or something and are having an adverse reaction. You just need something to eat.”
“What I need is a baseball bat to beat some sense into my own head.”
