by Ron Goulart
I didn’t particularly want her sympathy—what’s done is done; no use crying over it or hoping for miracles that would never come—but she said it in such a heartfelt way that I couldn’t help but feel touched.
“Thank you,” I said.
* * * *
After dinner, she invited me to watch game shows with her, and to my surprise I accepted. I used to find game shows annoying and contrived. But now, tonight, it was almost…comforting…to have someone with whom I could sit in silence…someone who made no demands on my intellect or time or will to live.
Jeopardy had three really bad contestants; even the returning champion flubbed answer after answer. The host, struggling to put a positive spin on things, quipped that tonight’s questions must be harder than usual.
“That’s not the problem, Alex,” I couldn’t help but blurt out. “You picked idiots to play.”
“Can you do better?” Aunt Peck asked with a yawn. I think she had been watching me more than the television.
“It’s always easier when you’re at home.” I forced a laugh. But then I proceeded to come up with questions for every single answer on Jeopardy—and for the final answer, I came up with not just two, but all seven members of the United Arab Emirates. None of the players got it right. The least unskillful of the three—or perhaps the most cunning—had only risked a dollar and won the day, complete with a laughably small $1,200 jackpot.
“That was amazing, Pit!” Aunt Peck said, staring at me in awe. “You should go on TV. You’d win a fortune!”
“I don’t think I can stand long enough to play. And besides, I don’t like to travel. It took a lot of arm-twisting to get me out here!”
“I imagine Cal can be quite persuasive.” She smiled wistfully, eyes distant, remembering. “The Tortellis were always that way.”
“Cal is…quite something.” How much did she know about him? Somehow, I suspected she had no idea he ran an illegal casino.
“Oh, Cal’s a kitten. Best of the lot. Be glad you never met his father. There was a man who…well, I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.” She paused. “But when Bruno wanted something, he got it—no matter what.”
“Was he in organized crime?”
“What makes you ask that?” she said sharply.
“Something Cal once said.”
“I don’t know for sure—he kept his business to himself, at least around me—but Joshua always said he was some sort of gangster. When the police found him dead in the trunk of a car, that clinched it for us.”
“How long ago did that happen?”
“Well, let’s see…it must have been 1963—early August, I think. He had been shot with a single bullet to the head.”
“It must have been hard on his family,” I said. To my surprise, I found I had a lump in my throat. I remembered my own father’s death from pancreatic cancer. It had been devastating to Mom and me; she had never recovered from it.
“Yes. Yes, it was. But the Lord gives and the Lord takes—maybe it was for the best. At least Cal and the other boys didn’t follow their father into a life of crime, so something good came of it.”
She yawned, covering her mouth with a plump-fingered hand. “Oh, excuse me!”
“Quite all right. I’m tired, too.” Farm people went to bed early, I reminded myself. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll turn in.”
“Me too.” She yawned again, then stood unsteadily. I reached up and steadied her arm. “I can barely keep my eyes open!”
* * * *
Once Aunt Peck disappeared up the stairs, I prowled through the house, doing a quick security check. She had left all three outside doors unlocked, so I locked them. None had deadbolts or chains, unfortunately; they all should have been replaced with steel-core security doors years ago. The basement door had a simple hook and eye; nothing I could do about it now, so I left it alone.
Next, I examined all the windows. Not one single lock had been turned, so I did it myself. Perhaps they didn’t believe in burglars out here. Or perhaps they didn’t have much worth stealing.
Returning to my bedroom, I opened my window about three inches. A cool wind began to billow the curtains. If angels or ghosts wanted in tonight, they would have to get past me.
I did not undress. Instead, I lay on top of the quilt, listening to the unfamiliar noises around me. Houses have their own rhythms: the creaks, the squeaks, the little settling sounds. When the furnace suddenly kicked on with a whump, I jumped so much, I almost fell out of bed.
A little later, raccoons or possums or some other beasts I had never heard before began to yowl and hiss in the yard. Mating? Fighting? Slaughtering the chickens? I had no way of knowing. Since Aunt Peck didn’t come running down from her bedroom in a panic, I assumed the racket fell into the “typical farm sound” category.
Then I heard a low but steady crunch-crunch-crunch: tires on gravel. The vehicle was moving very, very slowly toward the house.
Rising as fast as I could, I grabbed my phone and flashlight and went down the creaking hallway, through the family room, and into the parlor, just to the right of the front door. Peering around the drapes, I gazed into the front yard. A large, dark vehicle rolled up to the house and glided to a stop: no headlights showed, and when the driver opened the door, no cab light came on. Could this be Aunt Peck’s angel?
The driver went around back and got something out of the bed of his truck, then carried it toward the house. The breath caught in my throat as heavy footsteps sounded on the steps, then the porch.
I hobbled around to the front door and flipped all the switches on the wall. The porch and the hallway flooded with light. Through the little window set in the front door, I saw Joe Carver’s startled face, then heard a metallic crash as he dropped something heavy.
“Bessie?” he called. He tried the door handle, but it was locked. He jiggled it.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“Who are you?” he called. Rather than run away, as I’d half expected, he began to pound on the door. “Bessie? Are you okay in there? Open up!”
“Stop that!” I said.
“Open up!” he shouted. “Bessie? Bessie?”
Those weren’t the actions of a prowler. I fumbled with the lock and opened the door.
“Who the hell are you?” Joe demanded, staring at me. The loud crashing noise had been his toolkit—he had dropped it when I turned on the lights.
“I’m Peter Geller,” I said, leaning heavily on my walking stick. “I’m visiting Aunt Peck for the week. Now who the hell are you?”
Joe looked me up and down. I guess I didn’t strike him as dangerous or threatening—me, thin as a rail, eyes limned with dark circles, looking closer to sixty than my true age of thirty—because he didn’t try to tear me to pieces. Which he probably could have done with very little effort.
“You one of her nephews?” he demanded. He took a step forward, face cycling through anger and puzzlement. “She didn’t say nothing about you comin’.”
“It must have slipped her mind,” I said. “She didn’t say anything about expecting burglars, either!”
“I’m not a burglar!”
“You could have fooled me, sneaking around like that!”
His fists balled up; he seemed about to take my head off. I shifted uneasily. Maybe I had chosen the wrong approach. He wasn’t responding well to confrontation.
“Say,” I said, pretending to study his features. Time to change tactics—and fast. “Don’t I know you? You’re Joe Carver, right?”
“Huh.” He squinted hard at my face, but seemed to draw a blank. “How do you know me?”
“We met years ago,” I lied. “I was just a kid, and I didn’t have this.” I raised my walking stick.
“Huh,” he said again.
I peered around him at his truck. “I heard you come up the drive, but your headlights were off. That’s why I thought you were a burglar.”
“I was trying not to wake Bessie,” he said. He
frowned. “Termites been eatin’ into the dinin’ room floor. I need to replace it or she’s gonna fall through and break a leg. Maybe worse. She wouldn’t let me do it, so I thought I’d come by tonight and get started. Once the floor’s up, she’ll have to let me finish.”
He had the lines down so well, he must have practiced them. Smiling, I swung the front door fully open.
“Come in, Mr. Carver. I’m sorry if I was rude—but you scared the bejesus out of me. I wasn’t expecting anyone. And you have to admit a cripple like me can’t exactly defend the house. You understand.”
“Uh-huh.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the stairs, brow furrowing. “And I’m surprised Aunt Peck’s not up, considering all the racket we’ve made.”
“Bessie sleeps like a log.” He said it a little too fast. “Don’t fret yourself about her. Early to bed, early to rise.”
Mental alarms went off. Hard work and country air might make someone tired. But nobody could have slept through the crash of his dropped toolbox or the shouting we’d done at each other. No, Aunt Peck should have been down here in a flash to investigate.
Then I remembered the white sludge in the bottom of her coffee mug. I had taken it for sugar. But it could have been something else—some drug to make her sleep, so Joe could get in here and do…what? Haunt the place?
“Well, at least someone’s tired,” I said with a chuckle. I had to put him at ease and get away long enough to check on Aunt Peck. “I’m going to have to take my pain pills to get to sleep tonight.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You should do that.”
I nodded and smiled. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to turn in. Good night, Mr. Carver.”
“Good night.” He picked up his toolbox, then pushed past me into the dining room.
I limped with deliberate noisiness down the hallway—a shuffling step, then a tap of my walking stick, then another shuffling step, the another tap, floorboards creaking underfoot all the time. Halfway to my room, I heard a slight noise behind me, and I could feel his eyes following my every move. Hopefully he found my performance convincing.
Without a backward glance, I entered my room and shut the door. Then, so slowly it hurt, I counted to a hundred. When I peeked out, he had gone back to doing whatever mischief he had come to do.
I pulled out my cell phone and flipped it open. Number 002 on the speed dial list still said, “Fast help.” But what did that mean—police? FBI? Mob hit-men? I needed muscle, and I needed it fast. Despite his affection for Aunt Peck, I didn’t exactly feel safe with Joe in the house.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed button 2. On the first ring, a man picked up and said in a gravely voice, “Smith’s office.”
“This is Peter Geller. I need someone here. Fast.”
“Five minutes,” he said and hung up.
Five minutes. I could last that long.
Slowly I eased myself out into the hallway, closed the door silently behind me, and crept up hallway toward the narrow stairs. I placed my feet as close to the wall as I could, hoping the floorboards wouldn’t squeak. Tiptoeing along that way, without using my walking stick really hurt; I put too much weight on the balls of my feet, and the shooting pains it caused brought tears to my eyes.
But it worked. The floorboards remained silent.
When I passed the door to the dining room, Joe had his back to me. He had rolled up half the rug and was examining the floorboards. Looking for termite damage? Somehow, I doubted it.
I reached the staircase. Cautiously, I placed my foot on the first step. The stairs had barely squeaked when Aunt Peck went up them at bedtime. I estimated my own weight at seventy to eighty pounds less than hers, so I anticipated little trouble. Grasping the railing, I hauled myself up an inch at a time. Three steps, and not a sound; six steps, halfway there; eight steps, and I knew I’d make it.
I paused at the top landing. The door to Aunt Peck’s room stood open. Dim light spilled in from the hallway, and I could just make out her queen-sized bed and several bulky pieces of furniture. I flipped on the overhead lights and went in.
She lay on top of her quilt, still wearing that red-and-white checked dress; she hadn’t had a chance to put on her nightgown—she had just collapsed, unconscious or dead.
“Aunt Peck?” I called softly.
From below, ancient nails groaned as they pulled free from a board. By the sounds, Joe hadn’t been lying: he really was pulling up the floor.
“Aunt Peck?” I called again, louder.
When she still didn’t respond, I limped over and shook her shoulder. Nothing. Her forehead glistened faintly with perspiration; when I touched her carotid artery, she had a fast, fluttery heartbeat. Drugged?
No more than two or three minutes had passed since I’d called Smith’s office for help. How fast would Hellerville’s EMS respond to a 911 call? Who would get here first?
Taking a deep breath, I dialed 911. I couldn’t risk an old woman’s life.
“Emergency services,” said a tinny voice.
“I need an ambulance,” I said.
“What is the nature of your emergency?”
“I have an old woman here who’s unconscious. Possible drug overdose. I don’t know what she took.”
“What is your location?”
I gave the address. “How long will it take to get someone here?”
“I have already alerted the police, sir. They should arrive shortly. Can you remain on the line?”
Behind me, I heard a voice say, “What are you doing?”
A chill swept through me. I whirled—and found Joe Carver silhouetted in the doorway. With two quick strides, he reached me and ripped the cell phone from my hand.
“Aunt Peck—” I began.
“You leave her be!” He raised his fist to strike me, face drawing back in rage.
Then the doorbell rang. A second later someone began to pound on the door. The cavalry had arrived. Far off, I heard the wail of an ambulance’s siren.
Joe hesitated, then lowered his fist. He looked over his shoulder, clearly uneasy.
“The police are here,” I said in a soothing voice. “You better run down and let them in. I think Aunt Peck had a stroke.”
“A—a stroke?” He gaped at me.
“Please—let them in!” I let a note of urgency creep into my voice. “We have to get her to a hospital!”
The cell phone in his hand began to ring. I reached out and plucked it from his fingers.
“Go!” I said, pointing at the stairs. “Let them in!”
He turned and thundered down the steps. I heard him babbling to the police about how poor old Bessie must have had a stroke, how they needed to get her to a hospital.
Then I answered the cell phone: “Peter Geller.”
“You’ve got cops there,” said the man with the gravelly voice. “We drove past. What do you want me to do?”
“Circle around. Come in quietly as soon as they’re gone.”
“Anything else?”
“Call Smith and tell him to get out here fast. It’s important.”
“Got it.” He hung up.
I stuck the phone in my pocket as two uniformed police officers came bounding up the stairs carrying medical cases. Both cops looked young—maybe twenty-three or twenty-four, with close-shaved heads and plenty of muscles bulging beneath their uniforms. One started taking Aunt Peck’s blood pressure while the other did a circuit of the room, scooping vials of pills from her dresser into a plastic bag.
“You phoned it in?” the cop asked me. Pulling out a stethoscope and a blood pressure cuff, he started to take Aunt Peck’s blood pressure. “Do you know what’s wrong with her?”
Over his shoulder, I read Aunt Peck’s blood pressure: 160 over 90. Much too high.
“Yes, I know what’s wrong.” My gaze flickered over to Joe Carver, standing in the doorway wringing his hands. “It’s a drug overdose.”
“Why do you think so?”
“I noticed a whi
te residue in her coffee mug. I think there were pills in it.”
“A—a stroke!” Joe said. His face had gone bone white. “You said it was a stroke!”
“No, it wasn’t a stroke.”
“Where is the coffee mug?” the first cop asked.
“She washed it.”
The second cop said, “Besides the ones here, do you know of any other pills she might have taken?”
“No.” Again I looked at Joe, but he volunteered nothing.
The ambulance’s siren cut off as it pulled into the farm’s driveway; I could see its flashing lights through the drawn shades. The police officer who had collected the pills pushed past Joe and jogged down the stairs to show them in.
Two minutes later, they had Aunt Peck on a stretcher and carried her down. All the fuss and attention seemed to have finally penetrated her stupor. She half opened her eyes and looked at me.
“Angels…,” she whispered.
Maybe that’s where all her visitations had come from—drug-induced dreams. Which meant Joe had dosed her before. All the pieces of the puzzle were falling neatly into place. Everything except why.
When I patted her arm gently, she closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
“Where will they take her?” I asked the police.
“County hospital,” the first officer said. “It’s the closest. Don’t worry, they’ll take good care of her.”
“I should go, too,” muttered Joe. “Bessie….”
“No,” I said firmly. “You aren’t family. The hospital won’t let you in.” Pointedly, I added, “Besides, you’ve done quite enough for Aunt Peck already.”
Joe stared at me, eyes glittering with hatred. “Then you should go.”
“I’d love to, but I’m not family, either.”
“But you said—”
I smiled sweetly. “I lied.”
Just then the first police officer returned and asked for my name. I told him the truth, and he wrote it down. Then he did the same to Joe. A little sullenly, Joe told him.
Joe and I stood side by side on the front porch, watching in silence as first the ambulance and then the police car peeled away—the ambulance with its lights flashing, the police car dark but close behind.
