Murder With All the Trimmings (14 page)

“I just bet you are,” Josie said.

Nate rattled the storm door handle and howled. “Let me in. I have the right to see my daughter. I want to take her to Toronto, so she can see her grandfather. That’s where she belongs. She’s mine.”

“My daughter is not going anywhere with a drunk,” Josie said.

“I’m not drunk,” Nate said. “I only had two beers.”

The famous two beers, Josie thought. That’s all any drunk ever has. The other four or six or ten beers must have been invisible. She slammed the door in his face and locked it. Nate rattled the handle for a few minutes, then sat down on the steps and cried.

Josie couldn’t bear to watch this weeping wreck. She ran to her bedroom, shut her door, and called her mother. “Mom, I need help. Nate’s drunk and camped out on the front porch. I have to pick up Amelia, but I don’t want him following me to the Barrington School.”

“That’s the last thing Amelia needs—her father making a scene in front of those snobs.” Jane disapproved of the Barrington School.

“I’ll go pick her up,” Jane said. “Nate won’t recognize me after ten years.”

“You haven’t changed that much, Mom. Besides, Nate will see you coming outside. You’ll have to step around him. He knows you live right upstairs. Amelia probably told him. She told him everything else.”

“Then I’ll go down the back steps to the garage and drive out the alley way,” Jane said. “He’ll never see me.”

“How are you going to get Amelia inside without Nate seeing her?” Josie said.

“We’ll take the back stairs to my flat and bake Christmas cookies. I’ve promised her a lesson.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Josie said. “I’m glad she inherited your cooking gene.”

“You just keep Nate occupied, Josie, but don’t stir him up.”

Easier said than done, Josie thought. When she went back to the living room, Nate was pounding on the storm door. Josie was afraid he’d crack the glass.

“Where’s my li’l girl?” he yelled. “I want my girl.”

Josie could hear her mother clop-clopping down the stairs in her sensible shoes. “Nate,” Josie said through the door, “your daughter is at school, where’s she’s supposed to be. Go home.” Josie heard the garage door creak open.

“Will you give her the chocolate snowman?” Nate said.

“No,” Josie said. “You can give it to her when you’re sober.”

She heard a loud thump. Nate must have sat down on the porch. “Why won’t you give her my present, huh? Why do you hate me?” His voice was a crying whine.

“Nate, I don’t hate you,” Josie said. But I’m starting to, she thought.

“Why not?” he asked. “Why can’t she have it?”

“Nate,” Josie said. “Go sober up. Don’t embarrass yourself.”

“How am I embarrassing myself?” Nate said. “There’s only one old biddy out here pretending to shovel the sidewalk. Any idiot can see she’s faking it.”

Josie put her head against the cold glass and wished she could sink through the floor into another place, far, far away. Mrs. Mueller had to have heard Nate, and Jane would get an earful.

“You want me dead, don’t you?” Nate said. “Tha’s what will make you happy. Nate dead. Dead Nate.”

Josie heard her mother’s car start up. Tires crunched on the salty slush in the back alley and the garage door clunked shut. She breathed a sigh of relief. Jane had gotten away unnoticed.

“Good-bye, Nate,” Josie said.

“Okay, if I can’t give the snowman to my li’l girl, I’ll eat it myself,” Nate said, his voice thick with self-pity. “You’ll both be sorry.” Nate raised his voice still louder. “Did you hear me? I’ll make you sorry, Josie. I’ll make you wish you were dead. I’m gonna take my little girl where you’ll never find her. You owe me nine years.”

As Josie closed the door, Nate was flopped on the porch steps, eating the gooey concoction. She watched him pull off thick pieces of cake with his fingers and dip them in the extra chocolate sauce.

“You’re missing something good, Josie,” Nate said, licking his fingers. He’d nearly polished off the whole cake. All that sweet goo was going to make him sick. Josie hoped he wouldn’t throw up on her porch.

She was relieved to see that Mrs. Mueller had gone back inside. She wished Nate would go, too. Josie locked the door.

It was nearly an hour later when she heard Jane’s garage door go up, then the sound of her daughter talking. “Can we make Christmas tree cookies, Grandma?” Amelia asked. Their voices trailed off as they climbed the stairs to Jane’s second-floor flat.

Josie sat down on the couch for a minute, and she must have fallen asleep. She was startled awake when the phone rang. What time was it? She glanced in the kitchen. Seven o’clock, according to the wall clock.

“We’ve had dinner and baked Christmas cookies,” Jane said. “Amelia will be bringing you sugar cookies and snickerdoodles. Is that man gone yet?”

“Let me check,” Josie said. She put down the phone and looked out the door. Nate was still huddled on the cold, dark porch. He looked like a bundle of rags. I’d better wake him up before he freezes to death, she thought.

Josie opened the front door. “Nate,” she called. “Wake up.”

Nate didn’t respond.

“Nate, please wake up.”

He ignored her. Josie tiptoed out on the porch. The wood felt cold and gritty with rock salt on her bare feet.

Nate didn’t move. He was sprawled on the steps, leaning against the banister. Nate was breathing in a strange way, as if a heavy beast was in his chest.

He’s passed out from the alcohol, Josie thought, as she shook him again. “Nate,” she said. “Nate, please. You’re scaring me.”

Then she saw the vomit on his jacket. She shook him again, and Nate tumbled down the stairs and hit the sidewalk with his head.

Josie screamed. She heard her mother running down the stairs, saw all the lights pop on in Mrs. Mueller’s house, then the flashing lights of the ambulance.

The last thing Josie remembered, as the paramedics took Nate away, was the sound of her daughter weeping.

Chapter 15

The emergency room hit Josie with the sharp stink of hospital disinfectant, sweat, and something indefinably nasty. Was it fear, blood, or restrooms that needed cleaning?

Josie couldn’t tell. The misery in the waiting room left her dazed. A forlorn collection of people were huddled on the hard plastic chairs, like shipwreck survivors.

Josie tried to follow Nate’s stretcher through the ER doors, but she was stopped by a stern nurse and steered toward the business section. Josie took a pale pink chair in a cramped cubicle. An African American woman with an elegant chignon began asking Josie questions. Her name tag said DIEDRE.

“The patient’s name?” Diedre asked.

“Nathan—Nate—Weekler,” Josie said.

“Who is the next of kin?”

“His father, I think,” Josie said. “His name is Jack, or John Weekler. I believe Mr. Weekler Sr. lives in Toronto. I don’t have his address or phone number. It might be in Nate’s wallet or on his passport.”

“We’ll check,” Diedre said. “Is Nate Weekler married?”

“I don’t know,” Josie said.

“Do you know if he has health insurance?” Diedre had a high forehead and shiny dark brown skin. Her eyebrows were delicate arches. One went up with the question.

“Nate is Canadian,” Josie said. “He lives in Toronto. Don’t they have national health insurance?”

“Yes. But unless he has private supplemental insurance, the province will probably pay only a limited amount of his hospital bill,” Diedre said. “He may be responsible for the remainder.”

“Oh,” Josie said. “I think he has some cash.” I just don’t know where he stores his drug money, she thought. Maybe she should have hung on to that ten thousand dollars for a rainy day. It was pouring now.

“What’s your relationship to the patient?” Diedre asked.

Good question, Josie thought. “He’s the father of my nine-year-old daughter, but he left the United States before she was born.” She didn’t add “in handcuffs.” That would make Diedre’s eyebrow go up even higher.

“Nate came back to see his daughter this week,” Josie said. “He was drunk. I didn’t want to let him in my home in his condition. I locked the door. Later, I found him collapsed on my porch. He’d been drinking, but I don’t know if that caused his medical problem. He was eating a chocolate snowman cake. I brought the container with me.”

Josie held up a plastic bag with the sticky cake remains. She’d already told the paramedics. They told her to bring it along, just in case.

Diedre made a face. The delicate arched brow went up a millimeter higher. “The doctor on duty will take that information.”

“May I see Nate now?”

“No, the doctor will see you when the patient is stabilized.”

Josie was ushered into the waiting room, still clutching the cake bag. The only chair open was next to a tired woman with two small children. The little boy was bouncing on a side table as if it were a trampoline. The baby pulled the woman’s worn brown hair and cried. The mother tried to rock the child, but she didn’t seem to have the energy. The bouncing boy was unstoppable.

An old man clutched his cane with two hands and stared straight ahead. A young dark-skinned woman held an ice pack to her eye and moaned. The muscular man next to her rubbed her back and told her everything would be okay.

The television blared a news program no one watched.

“Josie Marcus,” called a doctor in green scrubs. He looked younger than Josie’s thirty-one years but weary. He had green-gold eyes, dark brown hair, and dark circles under his eyes. When was the last time he had any sleep?

He escorted Josie to a small room in the ER. She gasped when she saw Nate. He had an IV line in his right hand and an oxygen line in his nose. A horrible machine covered his mouth and made an evil sucking sound.

“Is that a ventilator?” Josie said. Her voice shook.

“Yes,” the doctor said. “The patient needs assistance breathing. We’re waiting for the results of some lab work.”

“Is he going to die?” Josie said.

Nate looked dead already. The red hue had fled his face, leaving his skin pale and lardlike. His thin hair clung like old rags to his scalp. His body was unnaturally still, except for the forced rise and fall of the ventilator.

“We don’t know the prognosis yet,” the doctor said. “We’re still waiting for the test results. What can you tell us about the patient?”

“I haven’t seen him in ten years,” Josie said. “When I knew him, he was a helicopter pilot. I don’t know what he does now. He seems to have a drinking problem. Today he turned up with a chocolate snowman cake from a little shop on Manchester. He wanted to give it to his daughter, but I refused. He was intoxicated again, and I was afraid to let him in my home. Nate ate the whole cake—or most of it—sitting on my porch in the cold. At first I thought he was asleep. Then I realized he was unconscious.”

“Was the cake from Elsie’s Elf House?” the doctor asked.

Josie’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Yes, how did you know?”

“We had a woman in here two hours earlier with similar symptoms. She’d eaten a big slice of chocolate snowman cake from that store. Her daughter said there was something wrong with it.”

“Do you suspect poisoning?”

“We’re still testing, but her daughter does. She insists her mother was healthy. She blames the cake. She called the shop a few minutes ago and Elsie pulled the remaining batch, just in case.”

“Is the woman still alive?”

“So far. But her kidneys are shutting down. She’s in a coma. We pumped her stomach and gave her activated charcoal to absorb a possible toxin. The tests will show if she’s been poisoned.”

“What kind of poison do you suspect?”

“We can’t tell until we get the results. It may not even be poison. In Mr. Weekler’s case, the alcohol could be causing his kidney and liver problems. And despite the daughter’s protests, the other victim was sixty-seven years old and she had health problems.”

The blood drained from Josie’s face. What if Nate had given that poisoned snowman cake to Amelia? Her daughter could be dead now. She grabbed a countertop to keep from falling.

“Are you okay?” the doctor asked, his brown eyes concerned. “You look pale.”

“I’m fine. It’s just that this is so horrible.”

“Do you know who would want to try to kill Mr. Weekler?” the doctor said.

“No,” Josie said. “He hasn’t been in St. Louis for a decade. He has friends here, but I don’t know if they knew Nate was in town.”

What if the killer was one of Nate’s drug buddies from the old days? she wondered. Didn’t drug dealers shoot people rather than poison them?

“What’s the name of the woman who might have been poisoned?” Josie asked.

“I’m not at liberty to say,” the doctor said. “But it should be on the news later.”

“May I stay with Nate in case he comes to?” Josie said.

“Sure,” the doctor said. “As soon as he’s settled in the ICU. But he needs complete rest. If he becomes agitated, the nurses will ask you to leave. They’ll let you know when he’s ready.”