The four tires would have cost $796, and Franny, true to her word, gave her a preacher’s price and knocked off $150. At the farm, this raucous evening, Franny gave Harry all the information she needed if she wished to join her support group. She offered to pick her up and drive her, too, if it was a punk day.
Harry’s consolation dinner turned into a lively party. Aunt Tally belted out some tunes from old musicals. Tucker sang along, too. Harry forgot for a while that her operation would be early Monday morning.
Now, after her walk, she’d had her fill of the starry sky. Even with her sweater, Harry felt the night air’s chill. “Going in.”
Tomahawk showed his teeth, smacking his gums. “Good luck. We love you.”
The animals echoed this, all of them: “We love you.”
Hearing their murmurs, although not understanding, breathing in the beauty of the night, tears filled her eyes. She wiped them away, but they kept coming. “I do so love this life, and I love you all.”
That same Friday evening, Al Vitebsk sat at his cleared dining room table. Nita perched across from him, computer up and running. Al used a yellow legal pad. White bankers’ boxes were stacked in two large groups. The group to his left had been reviewed. Those remaining on his right would take days.
Big Al kept his own advice. He put his own backup records for Pinnacle Storage into a self-storage unit in Waynesboro. His records, along with so much else at Pinnacle, had been destroyed.
He spent hours at the building with JoJo and his employees, ascertaining what had survived. Surprisingly, even with the intense heat, much of the material in the vaults remained intact, including old handwritten records. Stored outside the vaults in heavy metal trays lined with fire retardant, the floppy disks had melted. All those trays looked like rectangular candleholders filled with an odd wax. Any disks not in the vault suffered a similar fate. The thumb drives, in smaller, thick trays, also had incinerated.
Rental prices depended on the amount of space the records took up as well as the actual physical type of storage. The thick vaults carried the highest price tag. The price decreased according to the reduction of space and the manner of storage. A simple file cabinet was cheap but offered no protection against fire or flood.
Each type of storage carried its own waiver. The file-cabinet policy stated in bold print that those cabinets offered very little protection. Each renter signed a contract.
Big Al painstakingly combed through each signed waiver, which also included the type of stored materials: paper, floppy disks, disks, thumb drives.
Nita entered this on the computer as Big Al read off the information in the waivers. JoJo slept, his head on a fuzzy bear toy. The dog tried to stay awake to help, but hour after hour of two humans sitting opposite each other, with little to no movement, sent JoJo into dreamland.
Nita looked up from the screen. “Two four- by two-foot vault trays, locked. Cantor and Fowler.” She named a small, good law firm.
“Right. All records survived.”
Reaching into the banker’s box, his big hands grabbed a thin folder on top of three fat ones. He flipped it open. “Paula Benton. One four-drawer file cabinet, locks on each drawer.” He sighed. “All gone.”
“Do we notify her next of kin?” Nita, glasses pinching the bridge of her nose, removed them.
“Yes.”
Nita checked Paula’s name with a red pen. “We’re going to have to draw up form letters for each type of storage unit.”
“I know. I know.” Al shook his head. “That was a loss. Paula.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Let’s hope some of her stored materials might be on her home computer, but,” he read, “yearbooks. Paper files. Some floppy disks.”
“Ah.” Nita put another red check by Paula’s name. “Naturally, honey, I will personalize the form letters. The last paragraph will list what you have on the waivers.”
“The crew can help.”
By “crew,” Big Al meant the four people who worked in the building, their hours meticulously arranged so Pinnacle always had two people in it during business hours. No one worked at night, although there was a cleaning service that vacuumed, mopped up each evening from seven to nine. There wasn’t much to do, as Pinnacle Records didn’t generate much foot traffic. Still, Big Al wanted the place to be clean. For one thing, he believed dust destroyed records. Even the big vaults collected small amounts of dust. Each time those heavy doors were opened, dust entered. He’d unlock the vaults once a week and stayed while they were cleaned. They received the least traffic. Not many people visited their records or checked them out. If they did, they retired to a twelve-by-ten room with a long table, where they could place their boxes or papers to examine.
A few regulars would cross the threshold about once every two weeks. Big Al and Nita knew Pinnacle Records was not secured to store jewelry, money, or drugs. However, the closely knit couple also knew there had to be drugs or money kept in some of the storage units. There was no way for the couple to inspect what was stored. The contract stated that if a bill had not been paid in three months, they could remove and destroy records. A few times they had to do just that. However, renters with a pile of money or a cache of OxyContin tended to pay on time.
Neither husband nor wife ever went through the stored records. Each felt that would constitute a violation of trust.
There was no way to screen out anyone storing contraband. In Charlottesville, Jamaican drug gangs had moved in. But no Jamaican came to Pinnacle Records. And these days a drug dealer did not faintly resemble the stereotype beloved of cop shows. In fact, one of the biggest drug dealers was an eighty-two-year-old, well-dressed, well-connected matron. She was shrewd, at the center of a good network, and could not be touched. Her social position was unassailable. She had become tremendously rich. No surprise.
Thankfully, since the fire there had been no lawsuits filed against Big Al. Both husband and wife knew if someone had stored money or drugs, they would never file a suit. Accidents happen, and the contracts were clear as to the Vitebsks’ liability, but that wouldn’t stop an ambulance chaser from convincing someone the Vitebsks had been negligent.
JoJo let out a loud snore.
Nita wistfully said, “I wonder when either of us will sleep that soundly again.”
Big Al rested his chin on his fist for a moment. “Whiskey helps.”
“You.” She smiled at her husband of thirty-two years. “Babydoll, we’ll get through it. It’s a great big mess. It will eat up hours and hours of our time. We’re still keeping our people on payroll, so it will eat up money, too. Can we rebuild the building? No. Can we rebuild the business, yes, and I will oversee construction of a new building. I think I can build a near-impregnable building unless it gets a direct hit from the Taliban.”
“I know you can.” She thought for a moment. “But right now I’m tired. I don’t want to give up, but I’m lacking in enthusiasm.”
After a long pause he said, “Yep.”
An hour later, their eyes aching, they finally stopped for the evening.
Before turning off her computer, Nita said, “How many boxes do you have left to go through?”
He counted. “Eleven.”
“You finished up the L’s.”
“Tomorrow we start with the M’s, and so many last names start with M or S. Or maybe I just think so, but those are fat folders.”
“Well, everyone who paid for the vaults has come out okay. And the others, depends.”
It was ten P.M. already. Big Al fixed himself a double whiskey and soda. Nita sipped a little sherry as they slumped in their living room club chairs, so comfortable.
“I’m almost too tired to take a shower.” Big Al petted JoJo, who was now on his lap.
“You’ve taken a shower every night since I married you.”
He grinned. “I figure if I smell like a rose, you might be interested.”
She laughed at him. “Al, if either one of us loses our sense of hu
mor, then we should worry.”
Halfway through his whiskey, relaxing at last, Big Al mused, “Odd, isn’t it? Records. A way to hang on to information, but maybe a way to hang on to the past.”
“What made you think of that?”
“Paula Benton’s contract. She’d written ‘Yearbooks, high school! The past.’ And she’d come in the week before she died. Signed in. Signed out.” He shook his head. “Her past burned up. Once her class is gone many years hence, those old yearbooks would be interesting only to a historian who might want to know something about that particular high school. Life really is fleeting.”
“In her case, far too short.”
Harry, supper’s ready.”
Harry, grooming her gray pony, Popsicle, yelled from the barn, “Okay.” She kissed Popsicle’s nose. “I’ll see you tomorrow, and we can go down to the creek, where all the beavers are.”
“Good enough.”
As she led Popsicle into his stall, Champ, the family’s big tricolor collie, rose and stretched, following behind.
“Harry!”
“Mom, I’m coming.”
The nurses in the recovery room noticed Harry’s eyes moving. She was murmuring something.
Bill Menegatto walked over. Thirty-four, and usefully strong, he said, “She’s coming round.”
Violet Smith, older and pretty strong herself, bent over. “It’s a struggle to fight your way out of anesthesia. Maria Kimball said she thought the operation was a success. She’s seen enough of them.”
Maria Kimball was Dr. Jennifer Potter’s nurse in the operating room. The two made a good team. Maria sensed what Dr. Potter wanted even before she asked. She’d seen the young oncologist open up a patient only to confront a raging cancer, far worse than the tests had indicated. Imperturbable under pressure, Dr. Potter could make split-second decisions. Any specialist in oncology knows one can’t always save a patient, but you can generally give that patient more time with their loved ones. With the vicious cancers, such as ovarian, sometimes a doctor could extend a patient’s life using a drug like Avastin. A small percentage of people did survive gruesomely aggressive cancers, but most didn’t. Dr. Potter took those cancers as a personal affront, as did Maria Kimball. Both women hoped for and worked toward the day when these diseases would be eradicated. If not eradicated, then made less lethal.
Jennifer Potter often discussed cancer with Cory Schaeffer. They pored over cases and new research, as well as not only current litigation involving physicians but legal action aimed at the giant pharmaceutical companies.
Cory believed the nomenclature of cancer was misleading: lung, breast, colon, etc. He felt the disease was maddeningly complex. It might present itself as breast cancer, but did it truly start with those cells? Or was there a trigger elsewhere in the body?
Jennifer Potter believed that cancer created pathways through the body or followed established routes. How and why had yet to be determined, but she believed the answer would be found in gene study.
The two oncologists would agree, disagree, toss about ideas. Both were passionate about their work.
While Cory haunted Annalise’s autopsies, Jennifer honed in on studies of the genetic sequence of tumors, a relatively new field.
Harry and others like her were well served by doctors whose life’s work was battling cancer.
Feeling as though she were being pulled back by an undertow, Harry knew nothing of this. She heard her mother’s voice and smelled Popsicle’s wonderful odor, Eau de Cheval, loved by horsemen, less admired by others.
“Champ, Champ, come on, Mom’s worried the food will get cold.”
The magnificent collie put his cold nose in her hand, and they ran from the barn to the house, snowflakes falling on both their noses.
“Mom.” Harry threw open the door, at which time another door opened.
She saw lights overhead, which fuzzed up. She heard voices. They weren’t her mother’s voice or Champ’s. Which way to go?
Meanwhile, sitting outside the recovery room, tired even though they hadn’t undergone an operation, Fair and Susan waited.
Susan had already texted Harry’s battalion of good friends who had sense enough to leave her husband and best friend in peace. They’d show up one by one or in pairs once they knew the length of her hospital stay or when she was coming home.
The Reverend Herbert Jones, pastor of St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, would be one of the first. He’d offered a small prayer service in the chapel off the main nave at St. Luke’s for her friends. He didn’t know if it was his memory, but he felt there were so many more cancer cases these days. He had inaugurated special prayer sessions and short readings of the Gospels to offer comfort last year. This service expanded to other crises, drawing back people who had drifted away from the church.
Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, and Pewter lay around at home, wondering, worrying. Not until Fair walked through the door would they really know. He wouldn’t have to open his mouth. Everything about him would tell the truth, especially his smell. Human sorrow, stress, loss, anger, fear, and happiness gave off signature smells.
With Herculean effort, Harry pulled herself into the present. A moment of feeling lost was overtaken by a wave of nausea. As she hadn’t eaten or drunk anything, there was nothing to come up. She felt awful, though. Her mind slowly focused like a camera’s lens, spiraling inward very slowly.
At last, she knew where she was and why she was there. She did not, however, know the outcome of her operation.
Tears rolled down Harry’s cheeks, not because of the operation but because she’d seen and heard her mother, touched Popsicle, felt Champ by her side. She’d loved them so, and they had loved her. Her mind played tricks on her as she came out of the anesthesia, but her heart had not. If only the creatures, the people you love, could go through all of life with you. But one by one, the Angel of Death leaves his calling card, and those called cross the bridge.
She felt cold but couldn’t quite get her fingers to work to pull the sheet tighter.
In the recovery room, Bill leaned over her, did it for her. The nurse looked into her eyes.
She looked right up at him and blinked.
“You’re doing just fine.” He smiled.
She smiled back and closed her eyes, although not asleep. She felt an exhaustion she’d never felt before. She wondered if her mother, Popsicle, and Champ had visited her to give her hope and direction. Irrational as that thought was, it gave her deep comfort.
“Love never dies,” she whispered.
Violet, who knew Harry in passing, was nearby with another patient who was still out cold. She turned. “What?”
Harry opened her eyes. “Violet, love never dies.”
Violet put her hand on Harry’s shoulder, the warmth flowing through the sheet. “I know.”
• • •
As Fair finally came through the door back home, he was grateful to the doctor. In fact, to everyone at Central Virginia Hospital who had helped Harry and who had been so kind to Susan and him.
“He’s exhausted, but he isn’t scared,” Tucker observed.
He pulled a cold Sol out of the fridge, popped the cap, sat in the kitchen, and just drained it. He hadn’t eaten. The taste of the crisp beer picked him up a bit.
The two cats sat on the table.
“Girls, I forgot.” He rose, opening two cans of Fancy Feast.
“Thank you.” Mrs. Murphy minded her manners.
Face in the bowl, Pewter forgot hers.
Then he fed Tucker, who licked his hand.
He thought about drinking another beer, but he needed to get up early in the morning to take Harry home. He took a shower and crawled into bed. Mrs. Murphy snuggled on one side, Pewter on the other.
Tucker curled up on the sheepskin rug on his side of the bed. Fair liked to sink his feet into the thick rug when he first got up.
His head hit the pillow. He was out.
Tucker called up to the cats, “We’ve got a lot of w
ork ahead of us.”
Pewter, sleepy herself, replied, “While she’s recuperating, at least she’ll stay out of trouble. Easier for us.”
Mrs. Murphy whispered, “Don’t bet on it.”
Annalise Veronese was at the Lampo dealership on her day off. A soft spring breeze sent tiny blossom petals across the lot, many falling to outline windshield wiper blades.
Tired of hearing Cory Schaeffer trumpet his electric car, Annalise came to see for herself. She knew a bit about motors, since her father ran a gas station.
The salesman—Sean Hedyt, young, twenty-four, with the latest haircut and sporting the stubble fashionable among young men—was personable and smart enough not to try the hard sell.
No one was going to sell Annalise anything. Show her. She’d make up her mind.
“So, tell me, Sean, how many volts does the battery have?”
“Four hundred forty volts at forty amps. You can cruise for three hundred miles and then the four-cylinder engine will take over.”
Annalise knew that at four hundred forty volts, less than one amp would fry a person. “What are the safety measures?”
“Well, the Lampo is in the top third for crash tests. The front end absorbs most of the impact.”
“No, I don’t mean that. Sorry not to be precise.” She smiled at him. “What are the safety measures concerning the power from the battery?”
“There’s a bypass safety relay, a series of relays, to shut down power from the battery in the event of a crash.”
“And what if corrosion occurs in the relay? Perhaps the battery wouldn’t shut down.”
Surprised that he was talking to a woman who knew her beans, he swallowed. “Ma’am, that’s why you have to follow the service schedule. But you should do that regardless of what kind of car. It’s a lot easier to keep things running smoothly than to fix a problem.”
Hiss of Death: A Mrs. Murphy Mystery Page 9
