HOLY SMOKE (An Andi Comstock Supernatural Mystery, Book 1)
Page 25
“You took that out of my side?” Andi squawked.
“Yes. Do you know how it got there?”
Andi thought back over the events of the afternoon. She met Jack’s gaze momentarily, then looked again at the doctor. That nosedive into the dirt hadn’t been a twisted muscle at all. “Yes, I think I do.”
She put her attention back on Jack. “When Dawna pulled into the parking lot, I was on the phone with Stacy. Dawna hadn’t seen me, so I thought I should get out of the vehicle before she came back out of the building. I took refuge on the other side of the curb next to my car and I felt something like a sharp sting when I belly-flopped on the ground.”
“You had no bleeding or discomfort?” the doctor asked.
“It stung, but it really didn’t hurt until I tried to get out of the way of Jack wrestling Dawna down. She managed to fire her gun and I thought she hit me.”
“Ah,” Dr. Bower said, “that explains it.”
“Please enlighten us,” Jack said, scowling at the physician.
“See how thick the glass is?” He held it up for inspection again. “It must have acted like a plug and when Andi was trying to move out of the way of an altercation, she probably twisted her body in such a way as to dislodge the tight fit.”
“You’re shitting me.” Jack said.
“I never shit a cop,” the doctor responded, straight-faced.
“How many stitches?” she asked.
“Twenty-three on the part of the laceration that’s deeper than a quarter-inch. Up toward the top, it’s more shallow, so we’re using butterfly bandages. Want to see it?”
Andi was no longer sure she did, but she nodded. The doc stuck his head outside the curtain and asked one of the nursing staff to find a mirror. He pulled on some surgical gloves and peeled back the adhesive tape holding her bandage in place.
Jack’s expression tautened and he sucked in a breath. “Any internal damage?” he asked.
“No, but it’ll take a while to heal. Andi may not be as…mobile, shall we say, as she’s used to being for several weeks.”
She immediately translated that to no sex for awhile. “When can I go back to work?”
“Depends. What do you do?”
“I write game app software.”
“Probably by Monday, then. Do you have to climb stairs anywhere?”
“Yes, at home and at work.”
“No climbing while carrying anything heavy, then, and by heavy I mean anything that weighs more than a gallon of milk, which is eight pounds.”
Andi stuck out her lower lip. “How long will I be restricted?”
The doctor grinned at her. “Relax, kid, only for a week. Can you be a good little girl for that long?”
“She will,” Jack promised, “or I’ll put her over my knee and paddle her.”
“Promises, promises,” Andi said, causing the doctor to chuckle.
. . .
Andi went back to Orion’s Belt on Monday.
Her door had been decorated with balloons and get-well wishes. At mid-morning, get-well donuts were served in the conference room. Everyone in the building, including Orion, showed up to welcome her back.
Andi was so swept away by their caring, she cried. That prompted a boatload of apologies, which she quelled with a raised hand and a watery smile. “I’m just overcome with emotion,” she said. “You’re all so kind and I’m so fond of everyone here. I’m deeply grateful to you, that’s all. These are happy tears.” By their obvious expressions of relief, she had set their minds at ease.
Exhausted when she got home, she spent the evening being coddled by Jack yet again. When it was time to go to bed, he crawled in beside her and invited her to let him show her how to make love with no calisthenics involved. The results were magical and Andi fell asleep with his arms around her, content as she had never been before in her life.
On Wednesday, they joined Father Riley for dinner at the Hemmers. Sally and Eddie Spence were also there.
Vaughn had vacillated about telling his children that their mom was carrying their sibling when she went to Heaven, but Etta took the indecision out of his hands. “Daddy, me ’n Ashley wanna know what happened to Mommy’s baby.”
Stricken, Vaughn sought guidance from anyone who had it as his gaze darted from one adult to another at the table. Sally and Eddie looked equally incapacitated. Father Riley frowned, probably thinking it wasn’t his place to say.
Jack, who had read all of Sherry’s communiqués, looked at Andi, giving her a slight nod. She, in turn, glanced at Vaughn, who flashed her a frantic, beseeching look.
“Daddy, we heard Gramma talking to Miss Dotty about Mommy’s baby, so we wanna know,” Ashley chimed in.
Vaughn dropped his head against his hands.
Andi pushed back her chair and motioned for the children to join her where she knelt gingerly on the floor. “Your daddy has a hard time talking about this right now,” she said, her arms encircling the boys on one side and the girls on the other. Unsure if whatever words flowed from her were right or wrong, she went on. “Mommy and your baby brother Jacob went to Heaven to live with God and the angels. Mommy says he’s a beautiful baby.”
She broke off for a moment, hearing Vaughn’s broken sob. “Mommy wants you all to know how much she and baby Jacob love you. All of you…Etta, Ashley, Trevor, Micah, Daddy, Gramma, and Grampa. She misses you, and I know you miss her, too, but remember, you will always carry her deep in your hearts.”
Ashley, tears streaming down her cheeks, asked, “How do you know, Andi?”
“Because,” Andi said, deciding on the truth, “she told me so. Your mom didn’t want to leave you, but sometimes life doesn’t work out the way we think it will and bad things happen to good people.”
“Like that mean lady hurting Mommy?” Etta asked.
“Yes, sweetie. Just like that.”
“But why couldn’t Jacob stay with us?” Ashley wanted to know.
“Babies have to stay in mommy’s tummies until they are big enough to be born. That usually takes about nine months. Baby Jacob had only been growing about three months, so he wasn’t big enough to come out yet.”
“So no baby brudda,” Micah demanded.
“No,” Andi said softly, stroking his chubby cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“You got me,” Trevor said, patting his brother’s back.
Micah nodded and put his arm across Trevor’s shoulder.
“Are you going to talk to Mommy again, Andi?” Etta asked.
“No, baby. Now that Mommy’s in Heaven, she and Jacob will only be talking to God and the angels.”
“That’s a bummer,” Ashley said.
Out of the mouths of babes…. “You can still talk to them in your prayers,” Andi said. “They’ll always hear you.”
“C’mere, kids,” Vaughn said, kneeling beside his own chair. “We’ll say a prayer and talk to Mommy and Jacob right now.”
Eddie and Sally joined them. Father Riley stepped out of the room with Jack and Andi.
“You are an amazing woman, Andi,” Jack said.
“That you are,” Father Riley agreed. “You handled that beautifully, Andi.”
“I just told the truth,” Andi said. “Even though sometimes it hurts to hear it or speak it, the truth is still always the best way.”
. . .
Jack brought take-out to Andi’s for dinner on Friday. He must have thought he was feeding an army, judging by the number of boxes he carried in.
“You’ll have leftovers,” he explained when Andi asked.
Over seven different menus items, he said, “I have news.”
She glanced up from her plate, affecting a startled expression. “Tell me one of your co-workers didn’t post a picture of you buck-ass naked on Facebook!”
“Ever the smart ass,” Jack remarked, his tone droll. “However, it does concern Dawna.”
She motioned with her chopsticks for him to continue.
“After ten days under psych eval
uation, she finally confessed to everything.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Nope. Apparently, all the screaming and howling in the psych ward got to be too much for her. The orderly said she started banging on her door at six-thirty this morning, promising to tell everything if they’d just get her out of there.”
“And did she?” Andi poked her sticks into her rice and lifted her water glass, gulping madly.
“Get a hot pepper out of the Kung Pao?” Jack asked.
She nodded. Unable to speak.
“Sorry, babe, I thought I got them all out.”
“S’okay. Go on.”
“They kept her locked up until the LT and I arrived and got set up with a voice recorder and the video camera. She was screaming to be let out the entire time.”
“Jack, give me the abbreviated version!”
“It was all exactly what we thought. She knew about the clause in old Doc Love’s will, absolving her debt upon his death if he had no heirs, so she went after Kimberly Peck first, then Doc.” He took a long swallow from his beer. “The thing is, it turns out there was another grandchild, though at the time, he was the black sheep of the family. After that—”
“Jack!”
“What?”
“Tell me about the other surviving heir!”
“I thought you wanted the abbreviated version.”
“How would you like me to come over there and pierce your ear with chopstick?”
He shot her a look. “I’d like to see you try.”
Andi pushed her chair back a bit.
He grinned again. “Turns out to be a good thing Jett followed in his granddad’s footsteps. A good lawyer will be able to help him recoup Family Concept Dentistry, then he can either work it or sell it. It’ll be his choice.”
“Dental school? You mean he’s a dentist?”
“That’s why people usually go to dental school.”
“Speaking of smart asses,” Andi grumbled.
Jack pointed a chopstick at her. “Pot.” Then he pointed it at himself. “Kettle.”
“Please continue your story,” she said with as much innocence as she could muster.
He grinned again. “Turns out to be a good thing Jett followed in his granddad’s footsteps. He can take over Family Concept Dentistry if he wants to. Or sell it. It’ll be his choice, since he’s the legal heir.”
“Amazing.”
“And poetic justice, in a way, though Dawna doesn’t know about that yet.”
“What about her ex, Paul?”
“She knew he was taking a trip down to see the Redwoods. She did some research on the Internet on how to mess with his braking system. When he hit the stretch of Highway one-ninety-nine, between the Oregon border and Jed Smith State Park, they finally gave out on a curve.”
“What a horrible way to go.”
“In her book, the more painful, the better.”
“Did she use mercury on Doc Love?”
“That’s what she says.”
“What about Amber and Merry?”
“The same. There was one other person we didn’t know about. Bob Allen’s wife. She was after Merry but before Sherry.”
“Was Mrs. Allen one of her patients?”
“Yep.”
“Are you going to tell me how she managed it?”
“She described how she did it with Sherry and said the others were the same.”
Andi tilted her head at him. “Funny, you didn’t look obtuse when you arrived a while ago.”
Jack laughed. “Ouch!”
In response, Andi raised her deadly chopstick and eyed his ear.
He smirked at her. “So, we know about the mercury in the candles and the personal care products and that’s been confirmed by the OSP lab.”
She nodded.
“In the dental chair, she used mercury in the amalgam, but she also managed to spray it down their throats.”
Andi gaped at him. “And the dental assistants didn’t notice?”
“She managed to get them out of the room every time, concocting a different pretext each time. In the case of the current assistant, who had a peanut allergy, she gave her a cookie with pulverized peanuts, which caused her to develop anaphylaxis. Dawna proceeded to mist azogue into Sherry’s throat. The receptionist used an Epi-Pen on the poor assistant while they waited for an ambulance to arrive.”
“She really knew no bounds, did she? I wish she’d injected herself with a healthy dose of mercury, see how she liked it.”
“My sweet girl has a vindictive streak, does she?”
“All those people dead? Kids with out a mom? Parents without daughters? Husbands without wives? What do you think? Is she going to get away with an insanity plea?”
“Actually, she’s agreed to plead guilty on all counts if the DA drops the Aggravated from the six counts of Murder and one attempted Murder.”
“But that means she won’t get the death penalty.”
“Yeah, but Washington says they can get her for capital murder in Kimberly Peck’s death.”
Andi considered that for a moment. “Smooth. What about her ex dying in California?”
“They’ll go after the death penalty, too, but it’s unlikely she would actually get the chair there.”
“She’ll infect the prison population with her Santería–Catholic–Voodoo mumbo-jumbo.”
“Or maybe someone will shove their religious rituals down her throat. She killed a baby. That won’t sit well with her fellow inmates. They have their standards, you know, and killing a kid crosses the line.”
“Is she suicidal?”
“I don’t think so. She was completely rational and methodical when she related the details of each murder. The LT had her transferred to the county jail. Starting on Monday, we’ll be doing more extensive interviews with her to get every last detail.”
“That should be fun,” Andi said dryly. “Did she try to jump in your lap today?”
“No, but she refuses to call me anything but Changó.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Even though she’s agreed to plead guilty at her arraignment, this is going to be a long, drawn-out case. We’ve got travel and financial records to chase down, suppliers to find, phone records to review—the list seems endless, but it’s got to be done.”
“You have my condolences for having to deal with her. I, for one, hope I never see her again.” Andi looked over at Jack when he made no reply.
He was staring at her intently.
“What?”
“I hope you never see her again, either.”
“She already pinned me to death with that voodoo doll. What else can she do?”
“Nothing, as long as she stays behind bars.”
Andi had a pretty good idea what kind of torture Dawna wanted to mete out to her.
“Are you through eating?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. For some reason, I lost my appetite.”
“Let’s clean up and turn in. I thought of some more ways we can do it without straining your wound.”
“I think I need a shower first,” Andi said, batting her eyelashes at him, “but I may need some help sudsing….”
. . .
Six weeks later
Andi opened the oven door, but Jack wouldn’t let her lift the roasting pan out. “I’m all healed up, Atlas. I can lift a roasting pan by myself, you know.”
“Did you not tell me this is a twenty-two pound bird?” he asked, placing it on the counter top.
“Yes.”
“And did you not tell me you are still feeling twinges in your side?”
Andi leaned closer to him and whispered, with a suggestive smile, “Only when we’re doing it. You know, like when—”
Jack put a finger to her mouth to silence her. “Your dad seems to like me. Let’s keep it that way, okay?”
Andi wiggled her eyebrows at him.
“My turn in the kitchen,” Cate Comstock said, crowding between them. “You two
skedaddle.”
“Mom,” Andi whined.
“Beat it,” said Mike Comstock. “You and Jack go sit with Father Riley, take advantage of this beautiful Indian summer day.
“Dad,” Andi whined.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” her sister Natalie said, elbowing her way into the kitchen. “Quit trying to get sympathy from everyone just because you got a little cut on your side.” She tweaked Andi’s cheek affectionately.
“Yeah, sis,” Dell agreed, somehow managing to squeeze into the kitchen-built-for-two that now held five Comstocks and one Harmon. “Quit yer bellyachin’, squirt.”
Jack took Andi’s hand and led her out to the balcony, where Father Riley sat serenely sipping a nice red wine. Nat and Dell’s significant others had become insignificant since her siblings had asked if they could invite them to Thanksgiving dinner, which was just as well. Her table seated seven more comfortably than nine. Besides, today was the day family would hear the story of The Secret Life of Andi Comstock, starring the Smokies.
Father Riley had volunteered to try and explain how it was possible.
Jack agreed to try and explain how she’d really come to be injured.
And Andi hoped to convince her parents there was nothing wrong with working in a building where only she could smell the holy smoke.
Somehow, Thanksgiving seemed like just the right day to accomplish all that.
Watch for Book 2 in the
Andi Comstock Supernatural Mystery
series, coming Spring 2016.
Author Note
Holy Smoke has been percolating in my brain for about ten years. It’s a story that began when I still had a day job, in a building where I smelled smoke and no one else did. I have always had a sensitive nose, but really, no one else could smell that smoke?
Naturally, the writer in me also smelled a book, but until I figured out the particulars, the idea went on the back burner (pardon my half a pun). A year ago, I finally figured it out and today, you have just finished reading the results of my epiphany. Thank you for doing so—I hope you enjoyed the book and that you’ll come back for more of Andi’s supernatural adventures!