Chutes and Ladder

by Marc Jedel

Once again, the attendant interrupted my response. “Flight time is listed as two hours, but it’s really an hour-fifty.”

  Apparently falling into the role of a comedy club audience member, Megan began to heckle the no-longer-funny attendant. “Hey! We’re trying to talk back here.”

  We were sitting far enough from the front that the attendant didn’t hear Megan—a good thing, as I’d hate for my seat to be shifted out to the wing.

  We took off without further incident. As my nerves settled into their normal high state of concern that heavy metal objects had no business staying up in the air, I released the grip on the armrest. That is, until war broke out across the aisle.

  Two high school-aged girls sitting by themselves had stuck green straws from their Starbucks cups into their mouths, taken out a deck of cards, and pulled down their seat trays. Within seconds, they’d immersed themselves in the most aggressive, fast-moving game of cards I’d ever seen. Elbows were flying, long hair flashing as their heads swung from side to side. I had to look away as their tension made my blood pressure rise. Flying already made me more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

  Megan craned her head to the side and watched with fascination, unconsciously twitching her hands and arms in sync with the girls. What would happen next? Would they use the straws to attack each other once they’d shredded their cards? I didn’t know if I needed to reach for my flotation device or mask.

  Mesmerized, Megan chewed up and down on a non-existent straw of her own. At one point, during a failed shuffling attempt, the cards went flying. Or perhaps they’d switched to 52-card pickup. Megan popped out of her seat to help gather the cards. Glad that I didn’t have to sit next to the girls, I pulled out my computer to go over my presentation.

  Megan wound up sitting in the aisle seat next to the two girls and joined in their next game. They must have chosen a slapping card game, like Egyptian Ratslap, as their playing got wilder. Squeals sounded as hands got slapped and arms slammed on the seat-back table. A cup of water spilled. The girls yelled, “The cards, the cards,” and scrambled to pick them up before they got wet.

  After more than a few passengers turned around to give them the stink eye, a flight attendant came over to quiet the girls. She told Megan to return to her seat.

  Megan plopped down next to me and grumbled, “I don’t like flight attendants. They’re bossy. And they talk too much.”

  About an hour before we landed, another announcement came over the intercom. It wasn’t the standard “return to your seat” or “look out your window at the smoke from the latest forest fire.” Using her professional, calm voice, the flight attendant asked, “There’s no cause for alarm, but is there a doctor or nurse on board?”

  Her announcement caused me to become alarmed. My heart rate shot up and my death grip resumed. I whipped my head around, trying to find the source of the disaster. Could a fast-moving killer virus attack the whole plane and bring it down when the pilots succumbed?

  As a man and woman in front of us stood up, I shook my head. I had to stop watching late-night movies. The man, buff and big, looked like a former athlete. The attractive woman with him had an infant sleeping in a baby holster on her chest and looked almost too fit to have given birth recently. They walked up a few rows to where the flight attendants were clustered.

  Leaning over Megan to watch, I guessed he’d been a high school jock before doing well in college, getting his medical degree, and marrying the pretty nurse. Some guys had all the luck.

  The couple kneeled down in the aisle to examine what appeared to be a teenager slumped in his seat. They spoke to him and his mother while checking his pulse and eyes.

  Seeing them consult in quiet voices helped me calm down. If a killer virus were on the loose, they would have been more concerned, horribly disfigured, or even dead already. More confident that things were under control, I loosened my clasp on the armrest. A little.

  “Hope the doctor can help that kid,” I whispered to Megan. I needed to get back home for Larry’s service, not waste the evening getting diverted to some tiny airport in southern Oregon.

  The baby in the woman’s holster woke with a cry. She said something to her husband, who hurried back to their seats, grabbed a pacifier from the diaper bag, and stuck the binky in the baby’s mouth. A moment later, she spoke to him again. He stood and rushed back to their seats, returning this time with a small medicine bag that he handed to the woman.

  I’d had it backwards. My dad had often quoted me that old line about “When you assume, you make an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me.’” Taking an EpiPen out of the small medicine kit, the female doctor stuck it into the boy’s thigh. She and her husband, the nurse, crouched by the boy’s seat, talking quietly to him.

  I froze. My grip tightened again as I realized I’d forgotten something else important about Larry. Because of his allergies, he always carried an EpiPen in a pouch on his waist or in his backpack. He used to call it his “Epi-Pack” since people confused it with a fanny pack. He wasn’t wearing one when I found him in the forest, and I hadn’t noticed anything near him.

  I’d never known Larry to go anywhere without his EpiPen. What happened to it? Had the squirrels started trading EpiPens for acorns? Larry wouldn’t have gone hiking by himself very early on a Saturday morning and forgotten his EpiPen. That wasn’t Larry, neither the hiking nor the forgetting. Since Larry’s car was still parked in his driveway, someone must have gone with him to the hiking trail. Had that someone taken his EpiPen? I wondered if EpiPens had GPS tracking devices like smartphones and cars.

  Another thought struck me. Had that someone killed Larry? Startled, I sucked in a deep breath.

  I sat there in shock, staring vacantly into space as scenes from the forest and campground flitted through my brain. After some time passed, somewhere between thirty seconds and thirty minutes, applause jolted me back to my senses. The doctor stood and stretched. With a curt nod and small wave, she acknowledged her appreciative audience before leaning over to talk to the boy and his mother again. As the show ended, Megan used her elbow to push me away from her seat so she could have her space back.

  I had to call Sergeant Jackson again—the police needed to understand that Larry would have had his EpiPen with him. I needed Mace’s help to get the deputies moving and figure out who had killed Larry.

  For the first time, I wondered whether Mace would even have access to the case details. TV show cops never seemed concerned that their jurisdiction didn’t apply. If the heroes wanted to get involved, they simply nosed their way into a case. I’d annoyed the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s deputies too much to ask them for anything. For Larry’s sake, Mace would have to intercede on my behalf. Partners did that for each other.

  The doctor and nurse walked back to their seats. As they neared their row, the doctor was in mid-rant: “… left it at TSA security? Security should have tracked them down to give it back to him. His mother shouldn’t be allowed to have kids if she can’t keep track of his life-saving drugs.”

  The man merely nodded and said, “Mm-hmm.”

  I realized I could help Mace out by securing an expert’s opinion before reporting my findings to him. The deputies might not have noticed the unusual sunburn on Larry’s hand and arms, and they didn’t know about his strong allergies. They’d kicked me out of the Girl Scout campground before I’d had a chance to show them the pictures from the tricorder app. This was a perfect opportunity for a doctor to give me and my partner her expert opinion on what killed Larry. Mace would impress his colleagues by having new information without even seeing the body and before the autopsy was completed.

  Before the couple started to maneuver back into their seats, I popped up. “Excuse me, that was awesome.”

  At my compliment, the couple paused and mumbled thanks.

  Before I’d fully formulated my thoughts, I launched into my request. “Would you mind looking at this picture of my dead friend?” I rotated my phone
so the doctor could see Larry’s body in the infrared photo. “I took it with this tricorder app and I’m trying to figure out—”

  The woman recoiled, her face contorting into a grimace as she interrupted me. “John, can you make this stop?” She swiveled her glance to her husband.

  John puffed out his chest and, with a threatening tone, said, “Hey. Stop bugging my wife.”

  I pulled back my outstretched arm. I’d succeeded in catching her attention, although perhaps I could have broached my request with a bit more diplomatic tact. Doctors probably didn’t enjoy seeing pictures of dead people any more than normal folks did.

  She nodded at his words with grim satisfaction and proclaimed, “I’m going to wash my hands and change her diaper.” Without glancing in my direction, she tilted her chin up and strode off to the back of the plane, ignoring the admiring comments along the way. Super-Doctor-Mom needed to get ready for her next challenge.

  When his wife had left earshot, John’s face softened as he gave me a sheepish shrug. “Sorry about that.” Then he leaned in closer. “You’ve got pictures of a dead guy using that new tricorder app? Man, I was going to get that app. Can I see ’em?”

  When he saw the images, he was dutifully impressed.

  Pointing to the sunburn on Larry’s arm, which looked even more blotchy with white dots in the ultraviolet image, I asked, “He worked in an office all day and he was dead by mid-morning on Saturday. How could he get a bad sunburn that fast?”

  John zoomed in for a closer look, swiping back and forth between the shots. “Was the body in the sun when you found him?”

  “No. I found him in the middle of a forest, in a shaded area.” I didn’t mention my vomiting. “How could he get sunburnt after dying? Everything stops when you’re dead, so …” My voice trailed off, as I didn’t know where I was heading. My knowledge of medicine was limited to knowing how to put on a Band-Aid, take a pill, and watch a doctor on television.

  John understood what I was asking anyway. “The cells in the skin produce melanin for a little while after death, so a dead body could still get tan. I read about this in nursing school.” He looked up and cleared his throat before adding, “I was kinda into post-mortem forensics for a while. Thought I might be a medical examiner.” He handed the phone back to me. “The autopsy should determine the cause of death, but …”

  I’d never spent much time watching medical shows—way too much blood and gross stuff. I liked the crime series better, or the PI ones where the hero caught the bad guys by outsmarting them. Of course, I’d also always loved good sci-fi—to be honest, I liked bad sci-fi too. I blinked as I realized that John was staring at me with a quizzical expression. How long had I disappeared this time? “Sorry.”

  John asked, “I asked if he was highly allergic?”

  Embarrassed, I only nodded in response.

  “Well, maybe it’s not a sunburn. I’d guess those could be hives or a skin rash and he died of anaphylaxis.”

  I got excited that I might have stumbled across something important. “He carried around an EpiPen all the time.” Then, I remembered that it wasn’t on the trail with him. “Well, almost all the time.”

  John quirked his lips. “It would have been good to have one with him when this happened.”

  I nodded sadly. John could really shut down a conversation.

  Before I could ask anything else, John blurted out, “Oh.” His tone changed as he looked over my shoulder. “She’s coming back. We gotta stop talking and you should sit down.”

  I sat down and opened my magazine before the doctor returned to her seat. I stared at the pages with unseeing eyes as my mind raced from John’s comments. Had Larry died from anaphylactic shock? Where was his EpiPen? Did anything else strange besides sunburns happen to dead bodies? I’d have to look that up later.

  As we were landing, Megan brought up her hand to shield her mouth from the row in front of us and whispered, “I don’t want to be a nurse anymore.”

  She’d succeeded in pulling my attention back from my morbid thoughts. “Why not, honey? It’s pretty cool how he helped out that sick kid. Just last month, you saw how the nurses helped your mother in the hospital and you decided that’s what you wanted to be.”

  “I know, but now I want to be a doctor. They get to be in charge. That’s more me.”

  7

  Monday Evening

  Shaking my head in disgust, I paused on the walkway leading to Carmela’s porch. On my ride from the airport, I had heard from Drew, the last member of my poker group, who called to tell me that he hadn’t been able to leave San Francisco in time for the service. Then, I’d babbled my way through a voicemail message to Mace.

  An adult man shouldn’t have such difficulty leaving a voicemail. I had no problems talking to people in person. Mostly. Since my challenges in leaving coherent voicemails for Mace last month, I’d focused on this. In the same way that I’ve tackled many of my failings, I looked online for tips on how to leave the perfect voicemail. Over the last month, practice had improved my skills to the point where messages I left for coworkers had me sounding like the head of a Toastmasters club. Yet, leaving one for Mace proved … so much harder.

  Per my training, I’d started off well by stating my name and number in a clear, firm voice. After that, things spiraled south in a hurry. I got a little excited explaining how I took pictures of Larry’s body in the forest, reminding him that Gloria might have taken him there, and explaining the emergency on the plane and what Nurse John had told me about Larry’s possible allergic reaction. My message didn’t truly get out of control until I’d started extolling the cool features of the tricorder app and recommended the San Jose Police Department buy it for officers.

  Carmela’s screen door banged open, again startling me out of my introspection. “Do you always stand around on the sidewalk staring at houses? That can be mighty suspicious, sonny. Better watch out or somebody’ll call the police.”

  “I’m sorry …”

  “Well, come on up here already. Everyone’s here.”

  After I climbed the few steps to her door, the woman gave a friendly laugh and patted my shoulder. “Oh, that’s all right. Come on in.”

  I followed her inside. When the screen door shut behind me, a dog in the back of the house started barking, and I flinched.

  Carmela said, “Just ignore him. It’s Larry’s dog. I locked him up in a back room so he wouldn’t go bothering nobody. I’ll introduce you to everyone.” With a slight limp, Carmela led me into her living room where a small group of people stood around, looking like they weren’t quite sure what to do while they waited. “Everyone, this is Marty. Marty, this is everyone.” She laughed again, the cackle of someone quite accustomed to amusing herself, and headed off to her kitchen, mumbling something about “more napkins.”

  A thin, bleached-blonde woman turned around from her conversation with a heavyset, bearded man and squealed, “Marty!” She rushed over and hugged me.

  “Hi …” I was at a loss.

  She pulled back to study me. “Oh silly, it’s Lauren. Don’t you recognize me?”

  No. “Oh, sure, sorry. I almost didn’t recognize you with the different hair.” And cosmetic surgeries.

  No one else seemed to be talking as they stood around watching us, each alone and yet pretending to be part of the group.

  “It has been such a long time. Too long. My keto diet and aerial yoga have done wonders for me. Don’t I look great?” She spun around with a smile and her arms extended to make sure everyone had a panoramic view.

  “Like a different person.” She certainly didn’t resemble the girl I used to know. “I’m so sorry again about Larry. I wish I had the right words to say.”

  Her smile turned down as she patted my arm. “That’s so sweet. I’m sure he’s in a better place right now.” Then her sad face disappeared as she snorted. “Well, at least a less messy place.” She giggled and then noticed the heavyset bearded man who was approaching us. “Oh,
I’m sorry, Rabbi. That wasn’t very appropriate. I guess I’m just nervous. Larry and I weren’t close, but still, it’s a shock that he’s gone.”

  “That’s quite all right. Everyone has a different reaction to grief.” The bearded man wore overalls with a faded flannel shirt, and spoke in a calm voice that matched his stride.

  Lauren nodded. “It just puts everything in perspective. I mean, I could die too at any time, so, like, YOLO, right? I mean, I’ve got to live like there’s no tomorrow.”

  The rabbi chose to ignore her comment and extended his hand to me. “Hi, Marty. I’m Rabbi Schneiderman. Thank you for coming.” He held my hand softly between his large, callused ones and smelled like sunshine and fresh-cut grass. Although the beard seemed consistent, the rest of him was not at all the image of a bookish rabbi that I remembered from my youth.

  “Sure …” I trailed off, not sure where to take the conversation from here. I didn’t talk to clergy often and had no idea whether to talk about Larry or the weather.

  The rabbi wasn’t fazed. “Well, I’m glad you came. We had to rush to hold it today.” He nodded toward Lauren. “Normally, I wouldn’t even be here, but the regular rabbi and cantor were already busy tonight with other obligations. Fortunately, I was down here in the Valley running some errands, so here I am. I wasn’t even sure if we’d have a minyan.”

  I glanced around the room, counting heads. Including me, we had nine in the house. A minyan for a Jewish service requires ten adults, although not all Jews were sticklers about this metric. I wondered which of these people were Larry’s colleagues from work. I wanted to ask them if they knew if he’d gone hiking on Friday.

  Unsure what else to say to a rabbi, I asked, “Uh, so you’re not the regular rabbi?”

  “Oh no. I left my position as rabbi a while back. I’ve become an organic farmer now. I’m into permaculture. Have you heard about it?” He perked up, taking a deep breath as if ready to launch into a detailed overview.

  Trying to avoid a boring lecture, I asked, “Where’s your farm?”