Little Fox Cottage

by Barbara Cool Lee

  "And about forty years ago, in his first month home from the war, he got up one morning, went outside into the gorgeous spring sunshine, and blew his brains out." She looked at him with those wise eyes. "And I died a little that day, too. Because that big, tough man didn't do what you had the guts to do: admit he needed help, and choose to walk away from a situation that was killing him inside."

  She sighed. "You think you're hiding in this little town, doing something to pass the time until you're tough enough to go back to the important work of being an emergency physician."

  "No offense."

  "None taken. Really. Another gift of being old. I don't care whether or not you think my life's work is important."

  Nico started to stammer out an apology, but she raised a hand. "No, really. I'm serious. I don't need your approval. But you need your approval. That's what this is about. You think you have to do something important."

  "Everyone wants to do something important," Nico said.

  "No. Everyone wants to matter. To live a life worth living. But that's not what your problem is."

  "You don't think so?"

  "I died a little the day my Danny died. Because it wasn't right. It wasn't fair. We didn't have a name for it back then. PTSD. It hit him and it didn't hit me. I lived and he died. And that's wrong. That's unfair. And him being dead and me being alive is something I'll think about every day of my life."

  Nico cleared his throat. "So many of those kids died."

  "And they all have your brother's face in your dreams," Dr. Lil said. "You told me. But that's not what bothers you, is it? What bothers you, what is eating you up inside about those soldiers' deaths and your brother's, is that the bodies in your nightmares don't have your face."

  Nico closed his eyes. "I lived and they died."

  Dr. Lil stood up. "Yup. And that's what happens. Some of us live, and some of us die. I'm alive because I'm lucky. Others are dead because they were unlucky. That doesn't mean I owe the world a hundred lives' worth of work to make up for it. I just owe the world one life. My own. I owe the world the best I can give it, every day. For every person who walks through that door."

  She came over and slapped him on the back. "And you need to figure out what your best is, young man. When you do that, you'll be able to decide exactly where you need to be."

  BREE DECIDED to take a walk to the tileworks before going in for her lunch shift at Mel's Fish Shack. She took Maisy, who was starting to show more signs of interest in life.

  After checking that Helena was dozing in her easy chair in the living room, she went down the little rutted driveway with Maisy on her leash, and opened the driveway gate a crack to allow them through.

  The tileworks was all fenced in, but she saw the fence was sagging in places. She wondered if there was a way to squeeze through and look around.

  "What you doing?" she heard behind her.

  "Oh. Hi," Bree said, turning and seeing Sophie Robles, in a red sweater over a torn t-shirt and jeans. "How are you feeling today, Sophie?"

  "What you doing?" she repeated.

  "I thought I'd go take a look at the tileworks. I've never seen one." And I thought I'd find out if it's the reason you and Helena act like you're completely insane, she didn't add aloud.

  "Can't get in that way," Sophie said.

  "Yeah, I noticed that. Is there another way in?"

  "Come on," she said, and walked back toward her house.

  Bree and Maisy followed. Maisy pulled ahead to walk with Sophie. Bree let go of the leash to let her do that, and noticed that Maisy stuck close to Sophie's side, as if sensing she needed her.

  Sophie's hand went down to pet Maisy. "Good dog. Good doggie."

  "She likes you," Bree said from behind her.

  "I like dogs. Like cats, too."

  "I remember." She wondered if Sophie remembered wandering into the yard before, calling for her cat.

  "This way," Sophie said. Like before, when she'd plunged through some shrubs between Helena's cottage and her own, she just walked straight into the bushes and disappeared.

  Bree followed.

  They came out in an overgrown clearing, open and flat, with weeds everywhere.

  "Was this a parking area for the tileworks?" she asked.

  "No," Sophie said as if she were stupid. "This is the tileworks."

  "This?" She looked across the large open area to where a crumbling chimney towered over the back part of the lot. Next to it stood an open-sided, tin-roofed shed with a dirt floor. "Isn't that the tileworks?"

  "They made them in there, and dried them out here," she said, again as if Bree were a fool.

  Maisy sniffed at the dusty ground at their feet.

  "How did they make the tiles?" she asked, vaguely remembering the process they'd learned about in school. She wondered how much Sophie remembered.

  Sophie picked at her red sweater and looked around. "Rolled them with rolling pins. Curved them on a pipe to make round. Dried them out here."

  "So what was that big oven for?" It looked like a giant rounded pizza oven made of tan bricks, with a chimney rising out of it at least thirty feet high. At the base, a blackened opening big enough to walk through gaped at them like an ogre's mouth.

  Sophie glared at it. "They fired the tiles in there. Big roof tiles. Little pretty tiles. Glazed tiles. Art tiles. All the tiles."

  "It looks like it would fall over if you touched it."

  "Nope. Tough old place."

  Bree looked around. The whole site was overgrown, but the surrounding woods were lush, and there was an eerie quiet. Even the sea couldn't be heard from this spot. "It's beautiful, isn't it? In a strange way. Kind of a romantic place. Full of history."

  Sophie turned on her like she'd said the sky was yellow. "Romantic? Ugly. Ugly place. Bad place." She was getting agitated.

  "I'm sorry. Of course it is." Bree reached a hand out toward her, but Sophie whirled away.

  Bree watched her stalk over to stare at the big chimney as if it were the source of her problems. But Bree couldn't see how it could be. There was nothing here. It was all dry as a bone, dusty with a tan dirt that she supposed might be remnants of the adobe that had been used to make the roof tiles. There were weeds everywhere, and lots of trees around the edges, but all of this had stood here for hundreds of years. If it was toxic, why were people just having problems now? Nothing stood out that screamed poison. There was nothing at all that a non-expert like her could find to explain what was happening to the people on Tejas Street. It was a dead end.

  Sophie stood with bent shoulders, just staring at the chimney.

  "You know," Bree said, "I think you're very smart to remember all about the tiles. About the rolling pins and the pipes and all that." She felt foolish, talking to this grown woman like she was a child, but didn't know what else to say.

  "It's the Robles works," she said bitterly. "Our works. Was around hundred years. Not anymore. Went bankrupt."

  "I see. So was it still in business in your father's time? Did he run it?"

  "Papa ran it." Even saying his name seemed to cause her pain. She grimaced. "He ran it to the ground. Ran it drunk. Ran it down."

  Her father was a mean old man, Mel had said. Even before his stroke. She understood what that felt like. Not the drinking, but the anger. Being the daughter of an angry man. Being the closest target within reach to take out his frustration at a world he didn't understand. "I'm sorry, Sophie. I had a mean father, too."

  "Did you?" She turned, and the pain in her eyes was heartbreaking. "A mean one?"

  Bree nodded. "And I had to take care of him for a long time. He was sick. Sick in the head. Full of fear." She watched Maisy scamper off into the weeds, sniffing out old trails of rabbits, squirrels, who knew what. She could see the dog's tail like a flag bobbing above the brush as she headed toward the big chimney. "When my father died, I was relieved," she confessed.

  "Relieved?" Her eyes grew wide. Then she crossed herself. "That's not something to
say."

  "I know," she said, looking at her directly, wanting her to understand that someone else had those same mixed feelings of guilt and relief to be free of the burden of her father's anger. "But when you take care of someone who's mean to you, it hurts so bad. Being relieved doesn't make you a bad person. You didn't make them die. It's not your fault."

  "Stop saying that!" she said. "If they died you should be sorry. You should light candles and say prayers for them."

  This wasn't helping her. Bree thought she could get through to her, help her understand she wasn't alone.

  "I loved him. I didn't want him to die," Sophie said desperately. "I'm not a bad person who is happy for Papa to be dead."

  "Of course you aren't. Of course you aren't." Bree rushed over to her and hugged her. "I'm sorry I said it. I didn't mean to make you feel bad." She felt the older woman shaking in her arms.

  "I'm not a bad girl," Sophie said. "I can't be happy he's gone. I can't be happy for it to be over. I can't be happy for it. He was there and then he wasn't. And I'm not happy."

  "I'm sorry, Sophie." She brushed the older woman's stray hairs back from her face. "It's okay. You are a good person. Forget what I said."

  Bree looked around. "Let's find Maisy and then get you home." She called out to the dog, wondering where she'd gone.

  She spotted her sitting inside the huge shed. "Maisy? Come, girl!"

  The dog got up obediently, but when she took a step, she whined.

  Bree ran to her. "Oh, no. Her foot is bloody." She looked around and saw a couple of rusty nails sticking up from a rotted board. "Oh, Maisy!"

  Sophie came running. She knelt down. "Poor dog." She tore at her cotton t-shirt, ripping off a strip of fabric. She carefully wound it around Maisy's foot.

  Even after putting on the cloth, the blood seeped through.

  "I have to get her to a vet. Is there one in town?"

  Sophie nodded. "Poor dog is innocent. Doesn't deserve to be hurt."

  "Yes. Do you know where the vet is?"

  Sophie looked away, as if considering. Then she said, "Across from Hector's!"

  Bree lifted Maisy. The dog weighed a ton, but she had to get her to the vet.

  Holding the heavy dog in her arms, she looked at Sophie. "Are you okay? Can you get home?"

  "Home?" Sophie said, a bit confused, like the thought hadn't occurred to her.

  "Come on," Bree said. "Follow me."

  They went, making careful progress through the old tileworks and then along the nettle-clogged path. Finally they pushed through the bushes and were in Sophie's yard.

  "That's your house," Bree said, nodding toward the adobe cottage.

  Then she carried the dog up the street to her car.

  THE MEDICAL CLINIC was quiet again, after a full day of seeing patients. Nico bent over his desk, carefully hand-printing charts in what he hoped was an at least marginally legible handwriting. If he messed up, he knew Fiona O'Keeffe, the medical secretary, would be all over him.

  Dr. Lil passed his desk. "Time to finish up. You still writing?"

  "Yeah. I'm still not used to this."

  "I know." She laughed. "No computers to speed it up."

  She started to go, but he called after her.

  "Yeah?" she asked, sticking her head back around the edge of the doorway.

  "Got a minute?"

  "Sure."

  He stood up. "I have a question."

  "Shoot."

  "I'd like to go through some of the files. Do a bit of research on something."

  "Okay. On what?"

  He hesitated. "You're going to give me a hard time."

  "Probably. But try me anyway."

  "How many people have died of heart attacks in the village in the last, oh, year or so? Do you mind if I check the records?"

  "The records are here, too." She pointed to her head. "Bill Madrigal, Nathan Falcon. Oh, and old Elias Robles."

  "And Henry Lassiter," Nico said.

  "He didn't die here."

  "But you have some of his medical records, right? So for now, let's include him."

  "Okay. I'm game. Why?"

  "Bree Taylor."

  "The woman you wish you could date."

  "That's a good way of putting it. Yeah. Bree wanted me to check if anyone else died of a heart attack, because she's having a hard time believing Henry's death was…," he hesitated, knowing how she'd react, "um, natural."

  "You know better, Nico." She crossed her arms. "I would expect more professionalism of you, no matter how cute the woman is."

  "I know. Family members do this all the time."

  "Of course they do. It's a part of the grieving process. Denial. Stage one."

  "I know. But I told her I'd check."

  Dr. Lil shrugged. "All right. I'm game. I don't have a dinner date or anything."

  She went into the main room. "Fiona, would you get me the files for Bill Madrigal, Nathan Falcon, and—"

  "Elias Robles," Nico finished.

  A few minutes later they had the charts spread out on an exam table.

  "Okay," Dr. Lil said. "So what are we looking for? A gunshot wound no one noticed, or has all their blood been drained by vampires?"

  "I just want to read them. That's all." He opened the first one, for the old man. "Bree mentioned that Bill and Henry both lived on Tejas Street at one time."

  "Bill lived there for two years before he died, and Henry only lived there as a child, about forty years ago," she pointed out. "Hardly a pattern."

  "But this says Elias Robles lived on Tejas, too."

  "But Nathan Falcon didn't."

  "Where did he live?" He reached for his chart.

  "Down in Wharf Flats. Not even the same neighborhood. Houses down there were built in a different era as well, in case you're thinking it's lead poisoning or something like that."

  "What about age? Bill Madrigal and Henry Lassiter were about the same age."

  "Bill was 61, and Henry was 58."

  "The others?" Nico asked.

  "Nathan was 59, and Elias was 83."

  "There's no real pattern there, either."

  "What about their health?" he asked, trying to find something.

  "Well," Dr. Lil mused, "Old Man Robles had been sick for years. He had a stroke when he was in his seventies, and hadn't been that well since then."

  "And the others?"

  "Bill Madrigal had cancer. It was in remission, but the long-term prognosis wasn't good. That's why he retired early, and he and Helena moved back here. To spend the time they had in their hometown."

  She picked up Falcon's file. "Nathan didn't have any preexisting conditions, but he did have a history of high blood pressure."

  "That's not unusual for a man his age," Nico conceded.

  "Nope. And Henry was obese. All that good food he cooked, probably. He had a doctor in Sacramento, so I don't have much recent info in his file."

  "But you could ask his Sacramento doctor for a copy of his records."

  "I could. If I thought this wasn't a wild goose chase."

  "What if there is a pattern?" he said. "What if there's a toxin in the air or water that is causing a long-term problem?" He looked sideways at her. "Would you want to be the one who missed it because you didn't check?"

  "You are a manipulative cuss!" she said with a snort. "Fine. I'll request his records from his other doctor." She looked through Henry's file. "In the meantime, I can tell you he got the measles when he was five. I gave him a flu shot two years ago during a vaccination drive the clinic held one weekend. No signs of vampire bites or gunshots."

  "What about autopsies?" Nico asked.

  She looked skeptically at him, and he said, "if we're going to do this, let's check everything."

  "Fine. I have no autopsy record for Henry or Elias Robles. I doubt Elias had an autopsy." She flipped through the chart again. "Yes. I signed his death certificate. He'd just been in and had complained of chest pain with no conclusive results on an EKG. We h
ad been planning to do follow-ups. Like I said, he was 83 and had pre-existing heart disease, prior strokes, long-term alcoholism, and was just generally a mess, to put it in technical terms."

  "Let's see the others," Nico said. He flipped through them. "Bill Madrigal had an autopsy. Inconclusive on the cause of the heart attack, but confirmed that his cancer had recurred. Nathan Falcon—you have that one."

  She looked. "Yup. Sudden cardiac death. Minimal signs of coronary atherosclerosis."

  "In other words, his heart stopped beating, he showed a minor amount of hardening of the arteries, and they have no idea if that's the cause."

  "You know that's a completely normal finding. If it wasn't normal, the coroner would have flagged it. So what do we have?" She waved her hand over the scattered charts in front of them. "Some were older, some younger, but all were in the prime age range for heart disease."

  "Some had preexisting conditions, some didn't," Nico said. "Yeah. Not much of a pattern."

  "No pattern at all," she said.

  Nico looked at all the files. "Still, four men from Pajaro Bay had heart attacks in one year."

  "But they were all at a prime age to have a heart attack. And all of them had logical reasons why it could happen to them—stroke, cancer, heart disease, obesity."

  "Yeah. I shouldn't be disappointed to hear this is normal."

  "No," she said. "You shouldn't be. I'm afraid you're going to have to tell the adorable Bree Taylor that there's nothing suspicious here."

  Nico grinned. "Well, I guess I'm going to have to force myself to see her again to give her the news."

  Dr. Lil rolled her eyes. "You're playing a dangerous game, young man."

  Nico tried to dampen down his enthusiasm. "Yes, I am. But a guy's gotta have something to look forward to, doesn't he?"

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WHEN BREE WALKED into the cottage after she got off work, Helena was sitting at the dining table with her medicine in all the bottles spread out before her. Bree called out a hello, but Helena just kept sorting her medicine into the pill-a-day reminder case in front of her.