D'Angelo and a very subdued Ted Peltz began dragging the lawn chairs and little tables to the veranda. Miguel was back, wringing his hands. I had never seen anyone actually do that, not even Denise. His beautiful dark eyes were wide with anxiety, and he seemed to have forgotten the English language. Jay said something to him in rapid Spanish, and he nodded and began helping with the chairs.
Jay knelt down again and took a pulse.
When he finished, I cleared my throat. "What do you think?"
"I think the chopper will come, and they'll transport him to the hospital." He looked over at me and touched my face briefly. "Take it easy. Do you know CPR?"
"Naturally." I had learned it in college and relearned it the previous November as part of my certification to coach at Monte J.C. They had wanted me to teach a hygiene class, too, but I had to draw the line somewhere.
Jay nodded. He didn't say anything else. Llewellyn's light quick breathing shook the mounded blankets. I wondered if our words had registered with him and hoped not.
Bill made his way back to us and gave the same report Janey had made. He sounded aggrieved. Lydia was helping Janey and Angharad cope with Denise, he said. "Is it a heart attack?"
"Probably." Jay spoke quietly.
Bill shuffled his feet in the grass. "Domingo wants to know should he make something."
"Not for Llewellyn. Tell him to brew up coffee for the rest of you."
"Okay." Bill wandered off.
Llewellyn's breathing had quickened, and Jay was frowning at his watch, trying to time the heartbeat. Suddenly the old man's body jerked. His back arched, and his face contorted horribly, eyes rolling back in his head.
"Back off!" Jay shouted.
I scrambled out of the way, but the convulsions didn't last long. All too quickly Llewellyn lay still on the crumpled blanket, and Jay was feeling his throat for a carotid pulse. "Cardiac arrest."
"Want me to do the chest?"
"Breathe for him." Jay straightened the still form, clearing the old man's tongue and wiping his face clean.
I knelt, removed the pillow, and slid my left hand under his neck to tilt his head back. I put the heel of my right hand on his forehead and reached down to pinch his nostrils shut. Then I took a lungful of air and puffed four sharp breaths into his mouth. His chest rose. I could taste bile.
Jay was kneeling opposite me and down a bit. He had found the breastbone and measured up from it with his thumb the requisite inch and a half. He pressed straight down with the heel of his hand--not too hard--and relaxed and pressed again, once every second. He was counting so I could hear the time--one thousand and one, one thousand and two... Every five seconds I breathed for Dai Llewellyn. Every second Jay pressed his chest. We found our rhythm almost at once.
I was vaguely aware of D'Angelo and Ted Peltz running up with questions. Miguel was sobbing. After fifteen minutes Jay tried for a pulse again. No dice. We kept rhythm. Eventually we changed over, still keeping time. It was like a bizarre, squatting dance--or a strange poetic meter. Boom, boom, boom, boom, puff. Llewellyn didn't like meter.
Bill Huff and Janey came down, and Jay told Bill to phone again, that we had an infarction. Bill ran off.
Sometime in the afterglow one of the others had the wit to turn on all the yard lights. They didn't quite reach the flat area by the boat dock, and D'Angelo and Janey eventually moved four of the cars down, shining their headlights so the landing spot was lit. Jay and I kept to our rhythm. It was all-absorbing, and it went on and on.
Finally we heard the wail of an ambulance siren in the distance. We kept our rhythm even as the emergency vehicle jounced down onto the lawn and the doors were thrown open.
Then the pros took over with their fibrillators and oxygen tanks and injections. Dai Llewellyn, still not breathing on his own, still without an independent heartbeat, was bundled onto the gurney and into the ambulance. The life-flight helicopter was dealing with a massive chain-reaction accident on I-5.
Jay had called for Miguel as soon as the paramedics relieved us. Now the kid came running with a paper sack. Jay took it from him, peered into it, and handed the sack to an attendant.
"He was drinking wine, Campari, when the attack started. Some of the symptoms--prolonged nausea, tingling, hands feeling peculiar--made me think he might have ingested a poison. I saved the glass. Better check it out. I'm Dodge, county C.I.D. It may be a police matter."
The two men spoke quietly, and I don't think anyone else heard them, though the others were standing on the veranda, watching. They had seen Miguel run up with the sack.
Poison. Surely not. Food poisoning, maybe, except nobody else had sickened. If it was poison, that meant attempted murder. My thoughts raced.
One of the paramedics was in the ambulance with Llewellyn. The other slammed the doors and got in the passenger side, paper bag in hand, and the ambulance jounced off. Its light revolved. There was a brief yelp of the siren as it pulled onto the county road.
Jay put his arm around my shoulders. "All right?"
I took a deep breath. "Yes, I'm fine. How about you?"
"I'd be happier if the damned chopper had showed up. That's a long drive."
"Do you really think he was..."
"Hush."
I bit my lip and tasted bile. At least I hoped it was bile. "I want to brush my teeth and rinse out my mouth."
"Me, too."
We walked over to the porch, tails dragging, and were instantly surrounded. Everybody gabbled questions at us at once, Bill in a journalistic roar.
Jay held up a hand. "Give us a break. We need to clean up. Have a cup of coffee or move the cars or something, and we'll be back down in ten minutes."
We trudged upstairs and took turns gargling. My turquoise dress had grass stains at knee level.
Chapter IV
Jay was standing by the open window staring through the screen at the lake. He had pulled on a pair of sweatpants, but he was barefoot and shirtless.
I blinked the sleep from my eyes. "Jay..."
He started and turned.
"S'matter?" I stretched.
"Nothing. Go back to sleep." He yanked a tee shirt over his head.
I thought about dozing off again, but our CPR marathon was coming back to me and with it all kinds of questions.
Jay sat on the foot of the bed and began to put on his sneakers. I poked his backside with my toe. "Can't sleep?"
He bent over, mumbling something as he laced his shoes.
I rose on one elbow. "You're going for a run? At four in the morning? It's pitch black out."
He sat up and turned. "I had a nightmare." He kept his voice low. We did have neighbors. "When that happens I go for a run. Don't let it bother you."
I reached out and touched his face. It was cold with drying sweat. "Okay. Hang on a minute and I'll come with you."
I slid out and rummaged for the shorts and top I'd changed into after the ambulance left. As I scuffed into my sneakers I could hear his low-voiced protests. I ignored them. I tied the sleeves of a sweatshirt around my waist. Maybe Jay wanted to be alone. I didn't. Also I was wide awake. A stroll by the lake might calm me down enough to sleep again. I didn't think he was serious about running in the dark.
I was wrong. When we had bumbled our way outside, Jay headed for the long stretch of county highway behind the lodge. It wasn't pitch black out. The stars were shining, and an outdoor light still burned by the graveled driveway, but it was dark enough. Jay was trotting by the time he reached the gravel, and running flat out and uphill when he stepped onto the asphalt road.
I followed at a discreet jog, mindful of the uneven surface, though I could see better than I'd expected to. Jay ran on the white midstripe, half out of my sight and lengthening his lead. I picked up my pace a little but slowed down again when I twisted my ankle on a piece of gravel. Jay had rounded a corner. Bemused and beginning to worry, I jogged after him.
I wondered how Llewellyn was doing. It had been Jay's single-minded intensity that had kep
t me to the exhausting and rather disgusting CPR process. If I had been alone I would have given up after the first half hour. Llewellyn had not responded.
The road twisted upward, and I was starting to puff a little. I couldn't see Jay. A nightmare? His skin had felt clammy, almost like a person in shock. I'd had that kind of nightmare myself. This wasn't the first time I'd encountered disaster. Often enough, Jay had been there for me, holding me and talking to me until I remembered who and where I was, and that I was going to be all right. My response to nightmare had been to cling to Jay. Obviously his response differed from mine. That was an oddly desolating thought.
I turned my ankle again, harder, slowed to a stop and stood on the graveled shoulder of the road, panting and flexing my knees. Dumb thing to do, running at night.
I walked on feeling the sweat dry on my body and shivering, though the air was still fairly warm. Was Jay running a marathon? I untied the sweatshirt and pulled it on. Well, I had wanted a stroll. I would take a stroll. The heck with running races.
There was no wind at all. On either side of the road enormous conifers towered in black silence. What if the old man died? I didn't want our efforts to go to waste. More than that, I had liked Llewellyn in spite of my prejudice against poets. He'd enjoyed playing the host, and after the picnic he'd even seemed relaxed. I knew too little of medical matters to say a heart attack was impossible, and I liked that thought better than poison in the Campari.
I skirted a dead opossum. More evidence of mortality. Ugh. I walked on.
After the ambulance had raced off, my mind had widened its focus to include the other guests once more. They had all seemed human in their shock. Now I wondered whether any of them besides Angharad stood to gain from Llewellyn's death. He was a very wealthy man.
Our holiday was over. I thought of the lake with regret, and of my need to have a peaceful time with Jay. We were going to have to talk, have it out, clear the air, put up or shut up--stale phrases slid in and out of my awareness. That had been one of my motives for coming to the lake--a little crisis counseling. But the crisis was over. I stopped dead in the dark road.
It was true. Maybe the fact that we had spent an hour and twelve minutes breathing together in perfect unison had told me something. The tangled resentments had vanished. Jay and I, for better or worse, were a team, and we would work things out.
Where was the man? I cocked my head. Silence. Maybe he was running a marathon. I walked slowly onward, taking in the spangled arch of the Milky Way and savoring the new insight.
If Jay and I had been out of synch the past six months, the fault was at least half mine. The sheriff had shoved a load of work at Jay about the time I began drilling my basketball team. If either of us had been less busy we could have adjusted our schedules. As it was we had seen each other perhaps twice a week. Not nearly often enough. But it hadn't been his fault any more than mine.
As I came to this safe conclusion Jay hove into sight, up the twisting stretch of asphalt a good quarter mile and still running steadily. Downhill now, toward me.
I began jogging in place as I watched him approach, and when he neared me I turned, lengthening my stride until it matched his. "You can pass the baton now."
He gave a short choke of laughter, breathing hard, and reached for my shoulders, pulling me toward him. We did not stumble and fall on our faces. We strode along, even-paced, until we were in sight of the lodge, then Jay broke step and slowed, panting. I was a little out of breath myself.
We crunched across the graveled drive, half jogging, half walking, but as we approached the veranda steps I touched his arm. "The dock?" I wasn't ready to go in.
He nodded and swerved aside, and we skirted the porch at a slow jog. Jay stumbled on something, a grass-clod probably, and fell to one knee. He got up again, but we both slowed to a walk. Jay's breathing was almost back to normal. I had no excuse to huff and puff, and I'm happy to say I didn't. It pays to stay in shape. I was wide awake and in the mood to talk.
When we reached the dock I went clear to the end. I sat down by Miguel's sad, unlit fireworks display, pulling off my sneakers. The water felt good on my bare feet. After a moment Jay hunkered down beside me and splashed his face. The dock bobbed.
"Hello."
He sat and took off his sneakers, dangling his feet in the lake, too. "What's up?"
"Us."
"Smartass."
"I love you a lot," I said seriously.
He put his arm around my shoulders, and I hugged his middle with my right hand. "I love you, too."
"Why?"
"Because I'm nuts about women who run in the middle of the night."
"I was just following your lead. Why, Jay?"
"Let me count the ways."
"Cut it out. I mean why the nightmare? Did something happen...he's dead, isn't he?"
He sighed and pulled away slightly. "Yes. I phoned the hospital from the kitchen extension while everybody was going upstairs to bed."
I shivered and withdrew my arm. "You should've told me. It's not fair. We did our best."
He didn't answer. Something plopped in the lake. We both stared out across the black water. On the other shore the roof of the Peltz cabin gleamed a dull gray against the black evergreens. My ankles were aching with cold so I drew my feet out and swiveled sideways, leaning against Jay and staring at my pale toes. "What a stinking rotten thing to happen on the Fourth of July."
"Yeah."
"I liked him. I didn't expect to, but he was funny and sharp as a tack and obviously in charge of his life."
Jay said nothing.
"We did our best," I repeated.
He swore under his breath.
"Didn't we?"
I felt him take a deep lungful of air. "You did your best. I did mine. Our best just wasn't good enough. It's an old story. I'm sorry, Lark."
I sat up and turned, trying to see him. His head was bent, and his feet still dangled in the icy water. I reached out and touched his cheek. "Me, too. Don't go too far from me, Jay. I need you."
"Jesus." He pulled me to him and hugged me almost desperately. He was trembling.
A light came on in the lodge.
Jay groaned.
"What is it?"
He gave me a last squeeze and scrambled up, feet dripping. "Shit. Telephone--can't you hear it?"
I was squishing my damp feet into my shoes. "Dimly. Is it for you?"
"Bound to be. Miguel will be wandering around looking for me..."
"And waking everybody up."
"You got it."
It wasn't that bad. We found Miguel as he made his way back downstairs looking sleepy and gorgeous in white pj bottoms and nothing else.
As usual his conversation with Jay was conducted in rapid Spanish. Jay went off to use the phone in the hall. Miguel and I looked at each other.
"You want me to make the coffee, señorita?"
"I'll make a pot. Show me where, Miguel, and go back to bed. We're sorry to wake you."
He shrugged philosophically and led me into the gleaming, state-of-the-art kitchen. A coffee maker stood on the tiled counter. He pulled out a jar of coffee and a box of filters for me and wandered off yawning. I found herb tea for Jay.
Janey stumbled downstairs about six-thirty. By that time we'd showered and dressed, and I'd drunk about a gallon of what tasted like fresh ground Colombian. With cream.
"Is there any news?" Janey rubbed her eyes and took the cup of coffee I poured her. We were standing in the kitchen.
I looked at Jay.
He said, reluctantly, "Mr. Llewellyn died last night."
"Oh, no!" Her face crumpled, and her nose turned pink. "That's so sad." She set the cup on the counter. "And worse for you two. You worked so hard."
She was a sweet kid. I felt my eyes fill.
Jay said, "Did you know him very well, Janey?"
She picked her cup up again and took a distracted sip. "I've known him for years, since I was in high school, actually. Mom and D
ad got divorced when I was a freshman. Lydia knew Dai, and when she married Dad they started coming out here in the summer. I spent my summers with them, so I came, too. He was a nice old guy, but we didn't talk much. I don't think he found me very interesting." She flushed and looked into her cup. "You know about his...about Hal Brauer?"
"Yes."
"Well, that was two years ago. I'd just started my job, so I didn't come that summer. Lydia said Dai was really down, and I can see why. Hal was fun, and they'd been together a long time. When Hal was alive the joint really jumped." Her large brown eyes lifted to Jay's, pleading. "It was like they were married, really."
Jay nodded. "Did Mr. Llewellyn come to the lodge last summer?"
"Yes, but he only stayed a week or so." She blushed again. "Then there was that business about Ted Peltz and the pot farm this spring. Lydia said Dai came up for a few days then."
"How long have the Peltzes lived in their cabin?"
"It's not their cabin. Dai let them stay there. To keep an eye on the lodge." She glanced at me and back to Jay. "Lydia says he did it to spite Angharad's mother. She didn't approve of the marriage." Janey frowned. "I don't see it, though."
"Why not?"
"Dai wasn't spiteful." She teared up. "Gosh, I can't I believe he's gone."
"It was sudden," Jay said gently, "but he was an elderly man, and he had a long productive life."
He wasn't ready to talk murder, I supposed. I felt uncomfortable, listening in on their conversation because Jay was interrogating Janey, and she didn't know it. I wished he'd warn her or something.
On the other hand, he didn't know for sure that the wine was poisoned. He was just doing a little fishing while he waited for the hospital toxicologist to phone.
The earlier call had been Kevin Carey, Jay's second in command, reporting that the medical examiner had already begun the autopsy. The fact that it was Saturday and the Fourth of July weekend made everything awkward. The state forensics lab in Sacramento was in a holding pattern during the holiday.
Maybe Jay decided he shouldn't push too hard, because he turned the conversation to wind surfing, and Janey cheered up. She was heading north again in another week and could hardly wait to get out on the river.
Larkspur Page 5
