But she wasn’t so sure.
She had made a handwritten will and left it inside her desk at home. She had made it right before losing consciousness; it was only three lines at the end of her goodbye letter. But it left all of her money to a nursing scholarship she had created in the name of her beloved husband, Henri. All of it. The children had found the will when they created the inventory for her estate and they didn’t want anyone to see it because they would get nothing if she died.
That’s why they wanted her alive. There were huge conservator fees while she was alive. Her estate could even invest in their business schemes. There was no one who would object.
They wouldn’t set her free.
Dr. Sewell would later tell the police it was at that moment he had promised to help her.
Sure, they said. Sure you did.
19
Dr. Sylvan Glissandos found both children with Nadia when she made her rounds Friday evening.
“What does all this mean, Doc?” said Albert, indicating the tubes and machines connected to his mother. “Are you going to be able to bring her back?”
The doctor shook her head.
“There is no one treatment that can bring your mother out of her coma. Treatments can prevent further physical and neurological damage, however.”
“Like what are you doing?”
“Well, first I’m making sure she isn’t in immediate danger of dying. The tube you see going into her throat is a ventilator. It does her breathing for her.”
“She can’t breathe on her own?”
“We don’t know, so we ensure it. That’s why we have her hooked up, to be sure she gets the oxygen she needs to stay with us.”
“What else can be done?” Albert asked. “Is her insurance paying for everything she needs?”
“Insurance isn’t my concern. So far I’ve gotten everything I’ve ordered. That much I can tell you.”
“Such as?”
“CT scans and EEG. EEG is a test we do to test the brain’s electrical activity.”
“What does that show so far?”
“Well, there is no activity.”
Anastasia took her mother’s hand. “Meaning she is brain dead.”
“Meaning that, perhaps,” said the doctor. “Your mother is alive but there is little chance of regaining consciousness, Albert.”
“But there’s still some slight chance? Enough to keep her alive?”
“We can always have hope,” said the doctor.
“What else?”
“Well, I’ve tested for meningitis by tapping her spinal fluid. No problems there.”
“Who was that in here moving her arms and legs when we arrived?”
“Your mother gets physical therapy. This prevents long-term muscle damage. Again, the insurance company has made no objection and these are pretty standard precautions so far. She also receives electrolytes to help regulate body processes.”
“What’s the yellow tube down there?”
“A tube in her urethra to carry away urine. That’s non-stop.”
“Oh my God,” Albert said, and his eyes clouded over. He began wiping tears with his shirt sleeve.
Doctor Glissandos laid a hand on Albert’s shoulder.
“There, there, Albert. You just let it out. Mama might even hear you. That could only help let her know how much she’s loved.”
At that moment, Anastasia swore she saw her mother’s eyelids flutter. But she didn’t say anything. She knew that such movements could be involuntary. Still, it made her think her mother might actually be hearing them. So she began speaking softly into her mother’s ear. No eyelid movements resulted.
The doctor left to resume her other rounds and just minutes later Jack returned with two coffees. He handed one to Anastasia and kept one for himself.
“So, our lawyers are talking?” said Jack.
Albert shrugged. “Guess so. I haven’t heard from Ms. Roddgers.”
“Wang called me. They’ve about got it all worked out.”
“Am I going to be a conservator too?”
Jack looked away, thoughtfully considering how he might answer.
“Not exactly.”
“What’s that mean? I either am a conservator or I’m not.”
“You’re going to be conservator of her person while Roy and I are conservator of her estate.”
Albert’s eyes narrowed. He looked at his brother-in-law with great suspicion.
“Meaning, you get her money and I get her?”
“Well, we don’t get the money. We just take care of it.”
Albert nodded. “Uh-huh. Sure.”
“Hey, you can only have so many conservators, Al. Mr. Wang figures two is enough.”
“And who appointed him Mother Superior?”
“Well…no one did. He’s just trying to help all of us.”
“This the same Wang who told me I didn’t need a lawyer? That one?”
Anastasia turned from her mother and placed her hands on her hips.
“Look, you two,” she said. “How about if I act as conservator of the person and the estate. Albert, you trust me and you obviously don’t trust my husband.”
“What about Mom’s brothers and sisters? They tell me they want Uncle Roy for their part.”
“They don’t have a part. Nothing of mother’s belongs to them.”
“What if she dies?”
Anastasia shuddered and strode right up to Albert and locked her face inches away.
“That’s our mother there, stupid. Don’t say stuff like that. What if she’s listening?”
“Sorry, Mom,” Albert said foolishly. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Good God,” said his sister. She stepped back. “So how about I do it?”
“Don’t forget the goddamn will. The scholarship gets it all if—you know.”
“Well,” said Jack, “there are already expenses of administrative, legal fees and conservator fees. My time is valuable. I expect I have a hundred hours on the case so far.”
“What! A hundred hours? For what, jacking off to pictures of hundred dollar bills?”
“Fuck off, Albert,” cried Jack. “That’s totally uncalled for!”
At which point Anastasia seized the arms of both men and steered them out into the hallway. She closed the door to her mother’s room.
“Honest to God!” she cried. “How in the hell can you? Albert, if she dies, we get nothing. What about that don’t you understand?”
Albert shuffled his feet and tried to avoid his sister’s stare-down.
“I understand that if I were conservator I would get paid too. Isn’t that better for everyone?”
Anastasia looked at Jack. “What about if her estate invested in your business? Would that satisfy you?”
“Maybe it would. I don’t know. Maybe it wouldn’t, either.”
“All right, then you be conservator! Misappropriate her money if that’s what it’s going to take to shut you the hell up! Or buy yourself a new car! Only please shut up about it!”
Albert sniffed. “I’ll call Ellen tomorrow and tell her we’ve decided that I should be the conservator.”
“Hold on,” Jack said to his wife.
“Jack—”
“What the hell, Jack, this isn’t between you and anyone. This is between my sister and me!”
“But I’m the CPA!”
“Creepy. Pissant. Asshole. CPA to you!”
Jack doubled up his fist and took a swing at Albert. It caught him in the side of the throat. Albert staggered and came back with an uppercut. Miraculously, it connected with Jack’s glass jaw. Jack crumpled to the floor and his eyes closed.
“Concussion!” shouted Anastasia. “You gave him a concussion!”
“Nurse!” Albert called to the nursing station just down the hall. “This man fainted.”
“Like hell! This man hit this man!”
“But he swung at me first,” Albert told the young nurse who was running to them. “He sw
ung first!”
“What happened here?” the nurse asked. She turned and shouted back to the nurses at the station. “Someone call security!”
“All right, I’m leaving,” Albert said, and he ran for the elevators.
“You better run, you bastard!” cried his sister. “We’ll see you in court!”
Jack came around when the nurse broke a smelling salt under his nose. He clambered to his feet and leaned against the wall.
“Head hurts.”
“There, there,” said Anastasia. “I told you he might lose it. That’s Albert. I warned you on the way here. But oh, no, you have to be Mr. High and Mighty CPA. What is it about those three letters that sharpen your lead anyway? What is it that makes your dick so hard you’d swing at my brother?”
“Head hurts. I need an X-ray, Nurse.”
The second nurse to arrive, an older woman wearing her hair inside a net of some kind, placed the back of her hand against Jack’s forehead.
“He’s hot. We need a CT scan. Come with me, Mister. We need to go downstairs and get you admitted to the ER.”
“Oh, shit,” Anastasia said under her breath. “Oh, shit.”
“Now there’s no way I’m stepping down,” Jack said. “I’m the conservator and Roy and Albert are going to have to sit on it. I’m not giving another inch!”
“We’ll see about that. First let’s get the CT scan and then we’ll go somewhere quiet and talk it through. Come on, Jack.”
“That’s better. Talk nice to me, Ana. My head is throbbing.”
“Please stop saying that. They’ll admit you if you keep saying that.”
“Well, it is throbbing.”
“CT scan,” said the woman with the netted hair. “Stat.”
“Stat,” said Jack, looking back over his shoulder as he went off with the nurse.
Anastasia stayed behind. She wanted to check on her mother and make sure none of what happened had reached through to her.
“Stat,” she said. “Stat.”
20
It was an early day in summer when Katy saddled up Charley, her paint horse, and left the ranch. She was wearing Wrangler jeans, a light sweatshirt, and a Patagonia shell which, in the righthand pocket, carried a copy of Dr. Sewell’s book, The Doctor Is In…Heaven. It was time for some serious reading and Katy didn’t wish to be interrupted. She had loaded up on as much Demerol as she thought she could ingest and safely navigate the forest on her horse. And in her lefthand pocket were two more doses, just in case. Her cell phone was next to her book. It was turned off. This was a ride that Katy had made many times before, though never alone.
She was riding against her nurse’s wishes. The older woman had raised holy hell when Katy told her she was going horseback riding. “Your spine is full of cancer,” she clucked. “You’ll break your fool back if you fall off and then where are we? We’ll have to put you down!”
Katy shook her head and swung a leg up over Charley. The mount was more difficult than she remembered from her last time several months ago. Things popped and clicked up and down her spine and in her hip where tumors were eating away bone and growing every minute of every day. She tried not to think about the tumors in her spine as well; there were several. Enough! Her mind shouted. Just get off where you can read your damn book!
She and Charley began the climb up the mountainside at the foot of the San Francisco Peaks at about 7200 feet ASL. Her journey would take her up to about 11,200 feet. She knew that at 10,000 feet pilots were required to use oxygen inside their cockpit and, with a slight chuckle, she wondered whether the FAA would ever get around to regulating horseback riders and hikers who chose to ascend above the same altitude. Katy was not a big fan of governmental regulation as she had practiced medicine long enough to feel the crush of regulatory paperwork and HIPPA rules that, in the end, simply bled time away from patient care.
Charley wanted to stop and browse grass along the way. Katy kept her knees sharp in his shoulders to let him know she disapproved, nudging him onward.
Two hours later she was sweating and felt weak in her legs and hips, which she ascribed to the cancer. But still she urged Charley ever higher up the mountainside. It had been an incredible ride so far, and she realized that she had come here to say goodbye to the forest and mountains. She knew that she would never feel capable of making the ride again. In fact, even now, it was a tremendous challenge as the Demerol was definitely wearing off and she was definitely feeling more pain as she rode along. She considered another dose of the pain medicine but decided to wait until she reached her meadow.
Charley was a trail horse that Thaddeus had picked up from a riding club. He had wanted very tame mounts for the family, and Charley and Coco and the kids’ horses were exactly that: long-term veterans of trail rides. They very easily picked their way through the ponderosa forests of Coconino County. It would be rare for Charley to be thrown off his normal gait and familiarity with the route he was to take.
Halfway up, cumulus clouds gathered overhead and it began raining. Thunderclouds rolled and rumbled and lightning flashes struck the peaks of the mountains. Katy moved underneath a 200-foot ponderosa and pulled up the collar on her shell. She reached inside her jacket and retrieved her bush hat from the inside pocket and snapped the cap open. It was large for her head and settled on her ears, which was fine, as it was now drizzling hard enough the cap was keeping the rain off her face. A steady stream began rolling off the brim of the cap and pattering harmlessly off her shoulders. She thought this would be as good a time as any for a snack, so she retrieved a Dr. Pepper and a tin of smoked oysters from her saddlebag. A handful of crackers, decorated with smoked oysters, was munched and chased down with Dr. Pepper.
She felt a chill run along her spine and thought it was the cooling air that had come with the overcast. Maybe it was, but she also felt the pain from her cancer hammering at her bones and wracking her head with excruciating pain. It felt as if alien fingers were probing her body and poking hard at the sore spots. She realized she had gone too long without her pain meds, but, damn it, she had been enjoying her ride and was even imagining she had been cured and was riding out to celebrate her freedom from pain and medication. It hadn’t paid off; the pain had definitely run ahead of the meds and was now making her pay. She opened a dose pack and swallowed down the meds. Dr. Pepper pushed them down her throat and she leaned in the saddle and put her head against the tree. She shut her eyes and waited. The pain was unrelenting, so she decided to ride on, figuring the activity would help get her mind off the pain until the pills overtook it. She nudged Charley onward and he resumed his climb. The rain was still coming down.
Twenty minutes later they made the meadow, and the clouds retreated. It was suddenly bright and sunny and the light beams were dazzling and the air warmed fifteen degrees. Katy unzipped her shell. She removed the bush hat. She shrugged out of the shell and laid it over her saddle horn and waited for it to dry. She turned and tucked the bush hat into her saddlebag.
Five feet ahead, a Black Rattlesnake slithered up out of its hole, seeking the warmth of the sunlight. It had been caught out in the rain and was returning to where it usually sunbathed. The Black Rattlesnake was a common rattler in the Coconino National Forest. Usually, they were heard before seen and could be avoided. But not this time.
She moved Charley ahead and his right foreleg came down within inches of the Black Rattler’s head, causing the snake to coil and rattle aggressively. Charley immediately rose up on his hind legs, pulling his front legs away from the threat, and in the ensuing tilt Katy was thrown off the back of her horse. She hit the ground hard. The impact knocked the wind out of her lungs and she lay in the grass and dirt gasping for air. Charley stepped ten paces to the right and dropped his head, the snake forgotten. He began browsing the grass.
Katy’s breath returned and she moved to sit up. But she could only come up off the ground an inch until an excruciating pain slammed her back against the dirt. In an instant she knew: th
e spine had shattered when Charley bucked her off. There was no doubt in her mind, and she closed her eyes against the pain.
She tried rolling onto her side. She figured she would push up from there if she were going to manage any movement at all. But as she rolled, her legs stayed behind. They refused to move. She blinked hard, fighting back waves of pain and fear and she willed her legs to move. Nothing happened. The messages sent from brain to leg had been severed when the bones in her spine shattered. She was paralyzed.
On her back, unable to move, her phone in her jacket twenty feet away with Charley, she looked up at the sky and cried out for help. Yelling was all she had left, though to whom she was yelling she had absolutely no idea.
She tried calling Charley. He had never trained to the whistle or spoken name, so he ignored her, chomping the deep grass around his legs.
“Please, Charley,” she pleaded. “Good boy. Come to me, Charley!”
Charley didn’t waver in his quest for the delicious wild grass of the sunny meadow. He wandered even further off.
But one thing she knew beyond all doubt: Thaddeus would come for her. He would know.
Over the next hour, she watched as the clouds again gathered, and a cold, bone-chilling rain began pattering then pouring. She was instantly soaked. The shakes took her body and drove the pain to ten. Her thin sweatshirt was all but useless. She wrapped her arms across her chest and shut her eyes against the downpour. Within minutes, the rain was roaring down the mountainside in dancing rivulets of icy water. It ran up to the side of her face and entered her ear. She lifted her head off the ground and shook it from side to side like a dog. The water flowed back out of her uphill ear and she could hear again.
For what good hearing did. All around her, there was only chaotic noise between the lightning, thunder, rushing rivulets of icy mud and winds that never stopped at this altitude.
Her core heat was dissipating rapidly. She knew that when it was gone, she would go into shock and die. It was only a matter of time now.
She loosened her arms and lay them down beside her in the mud. Arms were useless to try and hold heat in.
The Near Death Experience (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 10) Page 10
