Murder With All the Trimmings (15 page)

Josie stepped outside to call her mother on her cell phone. Jane had stayed home to watch Amelia while Josie followed the ambulance to the hospital.

“It doesn’t look good, Mom,” Josie said. “Nate’s on a ventilator in the ICU.”

“Poor Amelia. She’s going to take this badly,” Jane said. “She’s still crying.”

“I don’t think Nate will be too happy, either,” Josie said. “I have to find his father and let him know.”

“I’ll try to track him down,” Jane said.

“Thanks, Mom. I’m going to stay with Nate a while, in case he regains consciousness. I don’t want him to wake up alone at a hospital in a strange country.”

“You do that, dear. I’ll make sure Amelia has dinner and goes to bed on time.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Josie hung up the phone, relieved. Jane could be irritating, but she came through when Josie needed her. How many single moms had a free sitter on call 24/7?

Josie stared at the TV in the lounge, but she had a hard time watching the program. Even a mindless game show was too much for her.

Finally a nurse told her she could go into the third-floor ICU. Nate’s room was dark, except for a harsh light over the bed. The tubes, wires, and computer monitors made Nate look like a lab experiment. He remained perfectly still except for the mechanical rise and fall of his chest.

The nurse checked his IV line, then left.

Josie held Nate’s left hand, the one that wasn’t stuck with an IV needle, and said, “Nate, please get well. Your daughter needs you.”

Nate didn’t move. The room was strangely still, as if he were waiting for Josie to beg him to live for her. She couldn’t do it. There were only the beep of the monitors and the inhuman hiss of the ventilator, which sounded as if it were sucking the life out of Nate.

Josie wondered if he would survive. He’s only thirty-five, she thought. He looks like an exhausted old man.

She searched his face for signs of the young man she’d loved so wildly. She tried to remember their time together. She saw him as he’d looked the first time, at the Irish bar in St. Louis. She realized now that he’d been drinking all afternoon, but Nate had an amazing capacity for alcohol. He never looked drunk. She could tell, though, when he started slurring his words. Then he would propose some reckless plan, and they would run off to New York or Martinique.

So many of their dates had involved alcohol. I thought I was intoxicated by love. Maybe I was just drunk, Josie thought.

Their days together had passed in a whirl of champagne, margaritas, and beer, with Bloody Marys and mimosas for breakfast. She’d been in college then, and no one gave a second thought to drinking. It was what they did at that age. Sometimes Josie had been too hungover to go to classes. Jane had warned her that she was drinking too much, but Josie had ignored her mother. What did a dried-up old woman like Jane know? Her own husband had walked out on her, Josie had thought, with the casual cruelty of the young.

Josie had discovered she was pregnant about the same time she’d learned that Nate had been arrested. He’d been on his way back to the States. His friend Mitch had called Josie with the news. “I’m sorry, Josie,” he’d said. “He was arrested as he was leaving Canada. He can’t enter this country. They found some contraband in his plane.”

“Contraband,” Josie repeated dully.

“You know. Coke.”

“What kind of coke?” Josie said.

“Drugs, sweetie. You knew how Nate made his money, didn’t you? He was a dealer, and I’m not talking about Tupperware. Hello? Josie, are you there?”

She’d dropped the phone. Josie hadn’t spoken to Mitch since.

For a while Josie thought that she might lose the baby, but the child survived. So did Josie. She’d learned a terrible truth: few women died of love, though some wished they could.

What had happened to Mitch? Josie hadn’t seen him in years.

Jane had been angry when she discovered her daughter was pregnant and leaving college to be a mystery shopper. But once Jane saw Amelia, she forgave Josie, though she was not above reminding her daughter of her mistake.

Josie’s cell phone went off and she hurried out of the room to the stairway to talk to her mother. “I found Nate’s father,” Jane said. “Jack can get a seat on a flight out of Toronto first thing in the morning and be in St. Louis before noon tomorrow. I’ll pick him up at the airport.”

Josie looked at the time on her phone—11:16.

When she returned to the room, there was a buzz of activity. Nate was thrashing around in the bed while two nurses held him down. A doctor brushed past Josie. Alarms and buzzers sounded.

“What’s wrong?” Josie said.

“We think he may be waking up,” the nurse said. “You’d better go.”

“But—” Josie said.

“We have your number in the files. If he needs you, we’ll let you know. You can’t help him now.”

The nurse practically pushed the bewildered Josie out the door. She drove home alone in the dark.

Chapter 16

Josie’s phone rang. She woke up and fumbled for the phone by her bed. Glowing green numbers on her bedside clock gave the time as 3:08.

A call at this hour can’t be good news, Josie thought.

The voice on the phone was crisp. “Ms. Marcus, this is Maddie in the ICU at Holy Redeemer Hospital.”

“Nate!” Josie said. “Is he okay?”

“He’s asking for you,” the nurse said. “He’s very agitated. He says he has to tell you something, for your ears only. I’m sorry to call you at this hour, but he insists.”

“Will he make it until morning?” Josie asked.

“There’s always hope,” the nurse said, which told Josie there might not be.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Josie said.

Josie shivered in the early-morning cold. She pulled her robe tighter around her and called Jane. “I’m sorry to wake you, Mom. I know this is an awful time, but the hospital said Nate is asking for me.”

“Oh, no,” Jane said. “I hope he makes it until his poor father shows up.”

“Me, too, but I have to see him now. Will you keep an eye on Amelia? She’s asleep, but I don’t want her to wake up alone in the morning.”

“I’ll be right downstairs.”

Josie threw on a sweater and jeans and dragged a comb through her brown hair. She heard the patter of her mother’s slippered feet on the back steps and opened the door. Jane was shivering in a thick royal blue robe. Fat round rollers stuck out of her silver hair like a pink plastic crown.

“Go,” Queen Jane commanded. “Quit staring at me.”

Josie went. The night was clear and cold. A single yellow light burned upstairs in Mrs. Mueller’s house. Josie wondered if the old woman was watching. Living next door to the Marcus family must be like having her own private soap opera.

Maplewood had a small-town peacefulness in the early morning. The big old last-century houses had wide porches meant for hot summer days, not dreary winter nights. The bare tree branches rattled like old bones. Footsteps marred the perfect white blanket of snow on the wide lawns.

Josie couldn’t stand the empty quiet. She turned on the “all news, all day” radio station and caught the end of a newscast. The announcer said, “And a sixty-seven-year-old woman died of kidney failure just before midnight at Holy Redeemer Hospital in Maplewood. The victim was Mrs. Sheila Whuttner, the Big Loser contestant on radio station KPVC.”

The announcer had trouble hiding his glee at this bad luck for a rival station.

“Mrs. Whuttner publicly pledged that she would lose fifty pounds by Christmas to win fifty thousand dollars. At her last weigh-in Friday morning, Mrs. Whuttner had lost forty-eight pounds. Mrs. Whuttner’s daughter, Lorraine, said her mother died after eating a chocolate snowman cake from Elsie’s Elf House. Hospital sources say an autopsy has yet to confirm a connection between the cake and Mrs. Whuttner’s death. The owner of Elsie’s Elf House could not be reached for comment. KPVC’s manager said the station regrets the death of Mrs. Whuttner and the Big Loser contest is canceled. Even though Mrs. Whuttner was within two pounds of her goal at her last weigh-in, the prize money will not be awarded.”

That was cold, Josie thought. The poor woman was canceled, along with the contest. Big Loser indeed.

Josie swung into the hospital drive at three thirty, parked her car under a bright light in the nearly empty lot, and hurried in the night entrance. There was no one in the lobby but a uniformed guard, who took her name, made a call, and issued her a badge for the ICU.

Maddie was at the ICU nurses’ station. She was a fireplug with blunt-cut gray hair and a no-nonsense air.

“How is Nate?” Josie said.

“He’s had a restless night,” Maddie said. “He wants to talk to you. He’s awake and off the ventilator. You can go in now.”

Josie was shocked by Nate’s appearance. His face was sunken and covered with a fine sheen of sweat.

“Nate,” Josie said. “Are you okay?”

“Hell, no.” His voice was a hoarse whisper. He managed a ghost of a smile. “Whoever thought I’d be done in by a chocolate cake?”

“The nurse said you wanted to talk to me,” Josie said.

“Throat hurts from that ventilator thing.” He swallowed. Josie offered him ice chips from a foam cup. Nate waved them away. “There’s a key in my leather jacket. It’s for my storage unit by the airport. Company name’s on the key ring. What’s in there is for you. And don’t give me any shit about drugs, Josie. You need that cash and so does my daughter. For once in your life, do it the easy way.”

Josie opened his closet door and felt in the zippered pockets until she found a brass key. It had a yellow plastic UR-Storage tag with an address on Airport Road.

“Got it?” Nate asked. Josie nodded and dropped the key in her purse.

“Good.” Nate seemed to relax. “I also have a life insurance policy. I left it with my father. Should come to about a hundred thousand U.S. You’re the beneficiary, but the money is for Amelia. Put it in trust. Make sure she goes to college. Don’t let her get knocked up like her mother.”

“Amelia has more sense than her mother,” Josie said.

“And her father,” Nate said. His eyelids were at half mast and his voice was a mumble. He was drifting off. “Tell her I love her.”

“She already knows that,” Josie said.

“I’m sorry, Josie,” Nate said, and squeezed her hand.

But before Josie could learn what he was sorry about, Nate drifted away on soft waves of sleep. Josie held his hand until she followed him into soothing blackness.

About five thirty in the morning, they were awakened by a too-cheerful phlebotomist. The thin dark-skinned woman had a big smile and a rattling cart. “I’m Angela. I’m here to take your blood,” she said.

“Is there any left?” Nate asked. “You got it all yesterday.”

Angela laughed at the feeble joke.

Josie turned her head while the nurse filled two tubes with rich red blood. By the time Angela packed up her gear and rattled her cart to the next room, Nate had drifted off again.

Josie was awakened half an hour later by a cleaning woman, who noisily emptied the wastebasket and moved a mop around on the tile floor, pushing the needle caps and bandage wrappers under Nate’s bed. He slept through the racket.

Breakfast arrived at seven thirty. Nate woke up and managed a smile for the young woman carrying the tray. “Why don’t you get yourself something, Josie?” His words were slurred.

“Maybe some coffee,” she said.

Josie took the elevator to the hospital cafeteria on the first floor. Her face felt oily and her clothes were rumpled from sleeping upright in the chair by Nate’s bed. She bought a cup of watery coffee, then called her mother in the cell phone area.

“How’s Nate?” Jane asked.

“He’s eating breakfast now. How’s Amelia?”

“She’s fine,” Jane said. “She’s right here, eating breakfast, too.” Jane’s voice was too cheerful.

“She’s not fine, but you can’t talk,” Josie said.

“That’s right,” Jane said.

“Is she still crying?”

“Right again,” Jane said. “We’re leaving for school shortly. I’ll pick up Jack Weekler at the airport about noon and he can stay in my guest room. Amelia wants to make a Charlie Brown Christmas tree out of that tree by the back stairs, and decorate it with suet and seed for the birds.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Josie said. “Is Amelia studying birds in school?”

“She’s supposed to look for a Eurasian tree sparrow,” Jane said. “The Audubon Society says there’s a flock of them nearby in Dogtown. Little brown birds. Amelia’s showed me a picture. Look like plain old chippies to me.”

Josie hung up and went back to Nate’s room. His untouched tray was filled with unopened containers of juice, apple sauce, gelatin, and a dry muffin.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Josie asked.

“Not hungry,” Nate mumbled and closed his eyes. “Can you get me a drink?”

“Do you want juice or water?”