If She Should Die

by Carlene Thompson

  “I wouldn’t have any idea.”

  “It came around one-fifteen A.M.”

  The nurse had been violently wrestling clean sheets onto the rock of a mattress, but she looked up. “That’s impossible.”

  “Obviously not. I received the call.”

  “You must have been dreaming. No calls are put through the switchboard to patients’ rooms after eleven o’clock.”

  Christine nearly choked on her awful coffee. “But I wasn’t asleep.”

  “You just thought you weren’t.”

  “I think I know when I’m asleep or awake,” Christine bristled. The nurse threw her a glance that said she found this doubtful. “I got a call at one-fifteen.”

  “Whatever you say, dear. Don’t get yourself all worked up about it.”

  But she was all worked up about it. She was also determined to find out who’d managed to circumvent the switchboard in order to place a call intended to terrify her in the middle of the night.

  2

  “Thank God you’re here,” Christine said to Tess when she walked into the hospital room at eight-twenty. “I thought I’d go nuts waiting for you.”

  “For Pete’s sake, Chris, do you know how early it is?” Tess wore jeans washed almost white at the seams and knees and a shapeless gray sweater. She’d had blond streaks put in her brown hair and they’d turned brassy. She’d gained nearly twenty pounds in the last year and had dark, puffy pads under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept all night. Tess had never been a beauty, but she was usually dressed stylishly and well groomed. Now she looked sloppy and haggard. Christine wondered how Rey was reacting to the discovery of the body that might be Dara’s. If the man Tess adored was devastated by the death of an old love, jealousy and grief might account for her careworn appearance.

  “I stopped by your place and got fresh underwear, jeans and a top, and a pair of shoes,” Tess said. “Lucky thing I have a key.”

  “I lock myself out at least twice a year. Someone else needs a spare and it isn’t going to be Patricia, who’d no doubt go snooping. You and Bethany are the trusted ones.”

  “Bethany has one, too?”

  “I need backup in case you’re not home.”

  “Good thinking. Now, what’s the big rush to get out of here? Was your night that bad?”

  “Yes, but not for the reasons you probably think. I’ll tell you when we get home.”

  “Goodness, aren’t you the lady of mystery? And not too popular around here. Your nurse stopped me outside and told me in injured tones that you refused to wait for Doctor to release you. She said you are a very stubborn young lady.”

  “I’m sure stubborn isn’t the adjective she really had in mind. We’re not exactly sympatico.”

  Christine had stepped into the bathroom to put on her clothes. Tess had forgotten a bra, but Christine was not voluptuous. She could easily go without one, since the one she’d worn into the hospital yesterday bore dried blood that had soaked through her sweatshirt. Tess had also forgotten socks to go with Christine’s oldest pair of running shoes. They were a disgrace, she thought ruefully. She looked like a beaten-up slob with her bruises and crummy clothes. She decided to make her trip through the lobby as fast as possible.

  “I’m not waiting on Doctor, because I can’t stand this place and also because I know you have to open Calliope.”

  “Not today. All downtown businesses are closed by order of the Army Corps of Engineers. Most able-bodied men are on the riverbank slinging around sandbags.”

  “Is Rey?”

  “Since before dawn.”

  “I’ll bet Jeremy is, too.”

  “If he is, Rey will look after him. You have to stop worrying about him twenty-four hours a day seven days a week, Chris. It’s wearing you out.”

  And worrying about Rey twenty-four/seven is wearing you out, too, Christine thought, but said nothing. She had too many worries of her own. Like someone attacking her in the gym. Like hearing Dara sing during a phone call in the middle of the night.

  “Are you mumbling about Dara singing?” Tess asked, her forehead creased.

  “Maybe I was. It’s what I’ll tell you about later.”

  “God, I can’t wait until later. This secret of yours is killing me.”

  “Well, don’t die until you get me home. Ten more minutes in this place and I’ll start howling.”

  Tess grinned. “Nurse will certainly have something to tell Doctor then! It would make her whole day. Hell, her whole year!”

  “And I won’t give her the satisfaction. Let’s go.”

  Half an hour later, after more protesting from the nurse about her hasty flight without release papers, Christine and Tess were headed for home. The day was dry, but the sky was the color of pewter and the streets were littered with debris that collected faster than the street cleaners could collect it.

  When they pulled into Christine’s driveway, they saw Bethany on the covered porch set a grocery bag and a pot of violets on a heavy redwood bench before rummaging through her purse. She waved and walked toward them as they emerged from the car. “I didn’t expect you so early, Chris!”

  “She wasn’t enjoying her stay at the hospital,” Tess muttered. “She has deep, dark reasons, but we’re not to be let in on them until she’s had a decent cup of coffee.”

  Bethany looked especially pretty, Christine thought. Her thick chestnut hair fell in soft waves over her shoulders and was held back on the left with a pearl clasp. She wore jeans, but hers were new and crisp and accented by navy trouser socks and expensive navy loafers. Her coral-colored cashmere sweater set made her complexion glow. Christine felt like a bag lady beside her. She could tell Tess felt the same way.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I was letting myself into your house,” Bethany said as she insisted on carrying Christine’s purse up the walk. “I stopped by the grocery store early to pick up a few things for you so you could just rest today. I know you never keep much food unless you’re expecting Jeremy.”

  “That was really thoughtful of you, Beth,” Christine said as Bethany withdrew a dainty handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her nose. She was the only person Christine knew who carried a handkerchief instead of paper tissues. “Do you have a cold?”

  “A slight one. I caught it from Jan. It’s going around preschool.”

  Christine nodded. “I thought your voice sounded deeper at the hospital yesterday. Now you don’t feel well and on top of everything else, I’ve probably thrown off your whole morning schedule.”

  “I feel fine. I just sound funny. And you haven’t thrown off my schedule. Jan’s school has been delayed an hour because of the sandbagging operation.”

  “Are they putting four-year-olds to work sandbagging?” Tess asked seriously.

  “You are hilarious and I’m sure some of the four-year-olds would love to be out in that mess,” Bethany giggled. “But actually the sandbagging has blocked some of the roads and slowed down traffic. I don’t know why they didn’t just close the school down for the day. And although Travis’s car is on the fritz and I have to take him to the university, his first class isn’t until eleven. So you’re not inconveniencing me one bit, Chris. Oh, here’s my key to your house! No wonder I couldn’t find it. I’d put it in the special zipper compartment of my purse where I’d be sure not to lose it. Travis says if I’d just toss around things like everyone else does, I wouldn’t spend half my time looking for stuff.”

  “Men have all the answers,” Tess said. “Rey, on the other hand, is always annoyed because I do just toss things around. He’s the most organized person I’ve ever met. It drives me nuts.”

  Bethany unlocked and swung open the front door while Christine picked up the pot of violets. “These are gorgeous! I’ve never seen any so lush!”

  “They’re a special kind called Optimara. In the eighties, twenty-five thousand seeds were launched into space and left for six years to orbit on a Long Duration Facility. When the seeds were brought back to earth,
they’d undergone a lot of mutations, including multiflorescence, which makes the flowers more abundant. You have perhaps twenty blooming at a time instead of the regular four or five. And unlike regular African violets, they never stop blooming.” Tess and Christine stared at her. She blushed. “I’m lecturing. It’s just because last week I gave a report on these to the Garden Club.”

  “Thank goodness,” Tess said. “I was afraid you were turning into some kind of intellectual.”

  “I leave that to my husband,” Bethany answered. “He’s the professor in the family.”

  “So these are ‘Space Violets,’ ” Christine said, smiling as she admired the blooms that looked like purple velvet. “Jeremy will be delighted when he sees them. He loves anything having to do with space. I think we’ve watched every episode of the original Star Trek at least twenty times. When Jeremy was young, he worked out a secret password for us. If either of us was in trouble, we were to call the other and say, ‘Klingon.’ ”

  “What on earth does Klingon mean?” Tess asked.

  Bethany and Christine exchanged glances. Bethany said, “The Klingons were the dreaded enemy of the brave and valiant Earthlings. How come you don’t know that?”

  “How come you do?”

  “I’m married to a scientist. Of course I know it,” Bethany said. “Star Trek was the first thing Travis and I ever talked about. I was too shy around him to think of anything else.”

  “Not even snakes?” Tess asked as she set the bag of groceries on a kitchen counter.

  Bethany shuddered. “If I never see another snake in my life, it will be too soon. I thought Travis would outgrow his horrible fascination with them, or at least give up his collection out of respect for my repugnance of them, but no.” She carefully placed the violets in the center of the kitchen table, where they would receive indirect sunlight. “I think he’d divorce me rather than give up even one of his ghastly creatures.”

  When they’d entered the house, Rhiannon had not come to greet them. She was shy around strangers, but she knew Tess and Bethany. Christine looked at Tess. “Speaking of creatures, did you see Rhiannon when you stopped by earlier for my clothes?”

  “Briefly. She was sitting at the top of the stairs. Then she ran and hid under your bed.” Tess frowned. “She acted a little bit scared. She’s never run from me before.”

  “Maybe my being gone last night unnerved her,” Christine said. “I never leave her.”

  “One of these days you’ll have to take a vacation,” Bethany commented. “This summer Travis and I are taking Jan to San Francisco and Carmel. Actually, he wanted it to be a second honeymoon, but I wouldn’t go without Jan.”

  “I sure wouldn’t turn down a second honeymoon with my husband,” Tess said. “Chris, quit fluttering around the kitchen checking on everything. I assure you I didn’t steal the silver when I was here earlier.”

  “Something just doesn’t feel right to me,” Christine said vaguely, nervously lifting and setting down a coffee canister. “Nothing is out of place, but something is just off.”

  “Your bad night in the hospital has you acting weird,” Tess said. “Why don’t you go in the living room, lie down on the couch, and I’ll make you some tea?”

  “I hate tea.”

  “Coffee?”

  “I already had some and it was so vile, it’s ruined my taste for coffee for at least three hours.”

  “Well, Miss Congeniality, is there anything that would please you?”

  “Hot chocolate with lots of miniature marshmallows. The chocolate mix and marshmallows are in the cabinet above the microwave.”

  “Fine. I’ll have hot chocolate, too. Very festive on such a drab morning. Bethany, do you have time for a cup?”

  “A quick one. Chris, please lie down. You look ready to drop. I brought fresh milk. And wheat bread and cheddar cheese for those grilled cheese sandwiches you like. I also brought a head of lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, and cucumbers for a salad. You rest now. I’ll put everything in the refrigerator while Tess makes the hot chocolate. Oh, I also got some doughnuts fresh from the bakery. I know how you love them.”

  “Bethany, you are too good to be true,” Christine said.

  By now her head pounded like a bass drum. Her arm muscles ached from the strain of holding the weights yesterday. She also felt grungy, and her eyes were gritty from lack of sleep. To top it off, her supposedly adoring cat had not shown her face in rapturous greeting. Feeling tired, grumpy, nervous, and defeated, Christine grabbed up the remote control and flipped on a morning news show. Apparently the world was a mess and the stock market was falling after she’d just invested a couple of thousand dollars in a sure thing. She flopped down on the couch with a groan.

  That was when Bethany in the kitchen shrieked at the top of her voice.

  Christine bolted off the couch and tore into the kitchen. Tess stood frozen in the center of the room, holding a carton of milk. Right hand hovering near her mouth, Bethany was backing away from the refrigerator.

  “What is it?” Christine demanded over Bethany’s continued screams. “What’s wrong?”

  Bethany raised her left hand and pointed to the open refrigerator. Christine walked to it, feeling the cool air pouring out. She saw nothing unusual on the nearly empty shelves. Then she looked down at the open hydrator drawer.

  On the cold white metal lay a filthy, dead, long-haired brown river rat nearly a foot long.

  3

  “Eat your oatmeal.”

  “You didn’t put raisins in it,” Jan Burke said accusingly. “Or cimmaning. I only like it with raisins and cimmaning.”

  “It’s cinnamon, not cinnaming.” Travis rummaged through the kitchen cabinets until he found raisins and cinnamon, then sprinkled both in his four-year-old daughter’s bowl of steaming oatmeal. “How’s that?”

  “Not right. You have to cook the raisins with the oatmeal or they don’t get all nice and smooshy.”

  “Stir them into the hot oatmeal. They’ll soften.”

  “They aren’t right.”

  Travis closed his eyes and counted to ten, then said in an even voice, “Mademoiselle, please eat the oatmeal Daddy made for you. I went to a lot of trouble. It’ll hurt my feelings if you don’t eat it. All right?”

  Jan softened slightly at being called mademoiselle, which she knew was a nice name in a beautiful language she would learn someday. She also didn’t want to hurt Daddy’s feelings. “Oh, okay, I’ll eat it,” she said magnanimously, then muttered into her bowl, “but it’s not right.”

  Travis Burke loved his daughter more than he’d believed he could ever love another human being, but he didn’t know how Bethany managed to treat the little girl with unfailing patience. Jan was a very good girl for her age. Everyone told him so. But even the best four-year-olds were difficult, they added. Unfortunately, Travis had never been even-tempered with humans. Reptiles were another matter.

  “I’m going out to check on the snakes before Mommy gets back,” he told Jan.

  “Ugh. Maybe they’d eat my oatmeal.”

  “They like a little livelier fare.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “You mean they eat mice. Alive.” Jan scrunched up her beautiful little face. “Double ugh! And you’d better hurry. Mommy won’t like it if she has to wait for you.”

  “Mommy shouldn’t be so rigid.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind again. I’ll be back in ten minutes. And you’d better eat every bite of that oatmeal.”

  When Travis had first married Bethany, her father, Hugh Zane, had wanted to buy them a large Mediterranean-style house in Winston’s most affluent neighborhood, a house not far from his own. Travis had turned down the lavish gift in favor of a ranch-style home less than half the size of the Mediterranean. He’d had two reasons besides not wanting to live under Hugh’s watchful eye. The first was that he didn’t care to be beholden to Hugh Zane for over $400,000. Hugh would remind him in a h
undred little ways how much the house had cost, expecting obedience in return. Second, Travis was determined to live on the outskirts of town, away from close neighbors, where no one would object to his keeping the snakes that had been his passion since he was fourteen.

  Now their nearest neighbor lived nearly half a mile away, a retired widower who shared a mild interest in herpetology and dropped by every couple of weeks for a look at “the little guys.” Over a mile separated them from other neighbors, who so far had registered no complaints about the snakes, no doubt thinking the odd college professor only kept black, garter, and maybe a couple of small rat snakes.

  To Travis’s surprise, neither Bethany nor Hugh had ever let up on him about getting rid of the snakes, although before the nuptials he’d been adamant on the subject. Perhaps they’d thought that with enough nagging they could eventually wear away his resolve like water wearing away rock. They’d been wrong, and Travis had been both amazed and unhappy by his seemingly malleable wife’s tenacity. Perhaps, he thought later, she was more like her father than she seemed.

  The snake house measured thirty by thirty-six feet and was constructed of white-painted concrete blocks with windows made of Lexan, a polycarbonate as clear as glass but nearly unbreakable. Travis removed a ring of keys from his jacket pocket. With the first he unlatched a padlock, with the second a dead bolt, and with the third a regular doorknob lock. He walked inside, swung the metal door shut behind him, and flipped the knob lock shut. He turned on full-spectrum/ultraviolet lights. Water snakes like full-spectrum, while insectivorous species seemed to benefit from ultraviolet. He looked around the well-insulated domain where the heat was carefully maintained at optimum temperatures for the health of the snakes. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen!”

  A series of hisses and rattles greeted his cheerful words. Most people shuddered at the sound. Travis loved it.

  After his marriage to a prosperous woman, he no longer had to watch every penny and was able to sink a large portion of his savings into the snake house, whose cages boasted the European-style terraria interiors more natural than most simple American styles. Leaves or sand, sometimes a combination, covered the floors of the cages. Many contained small branches he’d gathered from the woods, some branches placed diagonally in the cages for arboreal snakes. This style of cage made tending the snakes more trouble, but Travis thought the snakes deserved the best.