Murder With All the Trimmings (17 page)

Then she ran for the hospital bed. “Daddy!” she said. “I’m sorry you’re sick.”

“Me, too, sweetheart,” Nate said.

“When are you going to get out of here?” Amelia asked.

“In a few days,” he said.

“Are you going to marry Mom?” Amelia asked.

“Amelia!” Josie said, her cheeks red with embarrassment.

“No, honey,” Nate said. “If I did that, she’d inherit all my debts and all my troubles. The law would be watching her every move, and so would some of my bad friends. I love your mother, and she loved me—at least the man she thought I was. I should have married her before you were born, but I did something selfish and wrong.”

“Did you really sell drugs?” Amelia asked.

“Yes. I’m ashamed to say I did.”

“But why, Daddy?” Their daughter was an innocent accusing angel. Josie wanted to weep.

Nate looked like he was in terrible pain. Josie was about to ask Amelia to stop, but Nate said, “Because I wanted easy money. It was wrong. It was stupid. I learned a hard lesson, Amelia: There’s no such thing as easy money. It cost me too much. It cost me my life. It cost me time with you.”

Bright tears slid from Amelia’s eyes. “You’re going to leave me, now that you’ve come back.”

“No, Amelia, I’ll always be with you. You have my hair. You have my eyebrows.” He traced their arch with a shaky finger.

“You have my nose.” His index finger slid lightly down her freckled nose.

“Look in the mirror and you’ll always see me. I’ll be there with you. You won’t be alone. I suspect you also have your mother’s grit and stubbornness. And her temper. I bet you’re pretty pissed at her right now.”

Amelia nodded.

“But you must promise me. No matter what, you mustn’t be mad at your mother. She did the right thing.”

“But—” Amelia said.

“No daughter of mine should associate with a drug dealer, even if he is her father. You will stay away from drugs, and you will try to understand that your mother did the right thing.”

Nate held out his little finger and crooked it. “Pinkie swear,” he said. “That’s the most sacred oath of all.”

Josie felt her eyes tear up. Nate used to say that to her.

Amelia locked little fingers with him. “Pinkie swear,” she said.

“And you are going to college,” he said.

“Absolutely,” Amelia said, as if she’d never considered any alternative. That’s why Josie wanted her daughter to go to the Barrington School. Almost all the students went to college. “My grades are good enough for a scholarship.”

“Promise me you’ll keep them that way?” Nate said.

They locked fingers again.

A nurse came in with a strong-looking man in purple scrubs. “It’s time for dialysis, Mr. Weekler,” she said. “Chet will take you on down.”

Amelia looked like she was going to cry again, but her father held her.

“Don’t cry, sweetheart,” he said. “We didn’t have much time together. But it was quality time.”

Chapter 18

Nate’s room looked like a medical battlefield. The floor was littered with torn-open alcohol-wipe packets and plastic needle covers. The sheets on his empty bed were twisted, and his thin pillow was flattened. The bed looked hard and uncomfortable, a rack for pain.

As Nate’s stretcher disappeared down the hall, Jane wiped her eyes. Amelia sobbed in her mother’s arms, all accusations against Josie forgotten. Now Amelia looked much younger than nine. She was a hurting little girl. Josie clung to her, and wished she could take away her daughter’s pain. Her own eyes were wet with tears.

“Come, dear,” Jane said, putting her arm around Amelia. “Let’s go home. We can’t do anything here. Mr. Weekler, do you want to join us? You can rest up in my guest room.”

“I think I’ll stay here for now,” Jack said. “I’m worried about my boy. Josie, do you want to go home for a bit? Jane says you’ve been here since the wee hours.”

“No, thanks,” Josie said. She was worried, too.

Josie went back to the family waiting room. It was empty. The perpetually blaring TV was still blank-screened. No one had plugged it back in. She poured herself a cup of free coffee, grown thick as old roofing tar on the burner, and steeled herself to call her awful boss. Harry the Horrible always had some insult.

“Sorry, Josie, no work for you.” Harry seemed to delight in delivering bad news. “Things are slow for mystery shoppers. Everyone assumes retail service is crap until January. I’m sure work will pick up after the holidays.”

Josie snapped her phone shut. She wasn’t sure at all. She couldn’t work now, not with Nate dying. But what if Harry was deliberately cutting her out of jobs? She didn’t trust him.

Won’t happen, she told herself. The stores ask for you personally. They like you.

A more insidious voice told her, “There’s always the money in the storage locker.”

You can’t use it, Josie thought, and automatically straightened her spine. You haven’t needed a man’s money yet, and you aren’t starting now. You can make it on your own.

Her cell phone rang. Josie checked the caller ID display. “Mike,” she said, hoping her smile carried on her voice. “How are you?”

“Not so good,” he said. “It looks like Doreen’s store will close. The cops are all over her parking lot. Homicide detectives are searching the Elf House after that woman was poisoned. The police and crime-scene vehicles are keeping any customers away from the stores. You can’t have a holly, jolly Christmas when customers are dying.”

“I’m sorry,” Josie said.

“I’m glad Heather’s going to be out of that store,” Mike said. “But I wish I hadn’t sunk twenty thousand dollars in it.”

“Maybe Doreen can recoup some of your money when she sells the building,” Josie said. “It’s in a prime location.”

“I don’t think the location is so prime anymore,” Mike said. “You haven’t seen today’s
City Gazette.
”

“There’s a paper here in the waiting room.” Josie picked a wrinkled newspaper out of the wastebasket and checked out the front-page headline. DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY ON THE BAD-NEWS BLOCK, it screamed above two photos. One showed the church picketers circling Naughty or Nice. The other pictured police clustered at the entrance of Elsie’s Elf House. A boxed quote in the center of the story said, “Her death is a judgment from God.”

“Oh, boy,” Josie said. “‘Death Takes a Holiday’ is a poor headline choice after an innocent woman died. ‘A Judgment from God’ won’t sell real estate, either.”

“Who wants a property where God kills the customers?” Mike asked.

“Do they have any suspects besides God?” Josie said.

“Nothing. I unclogged a drain for a friend in the department. He says the police have supposedly gone through the credit-card sales at Elsie’s yesterday and cleared the people who paid that way. All innocent pillars of the community. No history of mental illness. No ties to organized crime or connections to the victim. I didn’t realize Sheila Whuttner was in that Big Loser radio station contest.”

“Did you know her?” Josie asked.

“I dated her daughter a few years ago,” Mike said. “I didn’t get along with her—or her mother.”

“Maybe the station killed Sheila to save the money,” Josie said.

“Nope, her death brought them a boatload of bad publicity. Take a look at page 3A.”

Josie opened her newspaper and found, DYING FOR CHOCOLATE. She winced at the headline. An interview with the victim’s daughter said, “My mother deserved that money. She’d lost another five pounds since her weigh-in and celebrated with a piece of chocolate cake, and it killed her. The station should pay her the fifty thousand dollars.”

“Guess who inherits all her widowed mother’s money?” Josie said. “I bet it’s the daughter. What about Nate? He ate the poisoned chocolate, too. He’s in Holy Redeemer hospital. He may die.”

“That’s awful. Are you with him? Why didn’t you call me?” Mike said

“You’ve been so busy,” Josie said.

“Nate wasn’t suicidal, was he?” Mike said.

“No,” Josie said. “But he was a drug dealer.”

“Do you really think drug dealers poison people with chocolate sauce?” Mike said.

“No, no, it was a crazy idea. Any word on who pushed the snow off the roof and nearly killed that poor church lady?”

“The neighbor, Edna, still insists Santa did it, but she looks a little gaga. Doreen blames Elsie, but her theory is just as crazy.

“Please let me come over and sit with you,” Mike said. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I appreciate the offer, but Nate’s father is here from Canada. It could be awkward.”

“When will Nate be out of the hospital?”

“I don’t think he’s going to make it,” Josie said.

“I’m sorry.” Mike sounded like he meant it.

“Me, too. It’s rough on Amelia.”

“And you,” Mike said.

There was an awkward pause. “Mike, I haven’t loved Nate for a long time. Our romance has been over for years. That obnoxious drunk you saw at my home was not the Nate I loved.”

“I know that, Josie. People change, and not always for the better. Especially Doreen. She gets meaner.”

Josie heard a loud beep in the background. “Oops. I have to go back to work. If you need me, I’m here for you.”

What about the blonde at the bookstore? Josie wondered. Where are you with her?

“Thanks,” was all she said.

Josie returned to the empty ICU room. Nate’s father was pacing up and down in the small space. Josie could feel the tension radiating from the man. The room wasn’t big enough to contain it.

“There’s bad coffee in the waiting room, if you want some,” Josie said.

“Thanks,” Jack said. “Coffee will only make me more jittery. This is all my fault. My actions created a reckless, drunken son. I was everything Nate didn’t want to be.”

Sober? Josie wondered. But she let him talk, hoping he’d stop that infernal pacing.

He stopped and leaned against the wall, much to Josie’s relief.

“I wanted to be a commercial pilot,” he said. “It was my dream. But instead of waiting for the job I loved, I took a job that was safe and available—an administrative assistant to a director in the Ministry of Finance. That’s a fancy name for a secretary. I had a boring job with a pension. I piloted a desk.”

Josie couldn’t imagine a man who looked like her dashing Nate settling for a safe job.

“The job paid very little. I pinched every penny until my wife ran off with a free-spending lawyer she met at an office party. Then I had another excuse to stay at my desk. I had a son to support. I wasn’t going to risk my pension. The truth is, I was comfortable in my rut. Now it’s too late to change.

“My son swore he’d never turn out like me. He loved flying as much as I did. Nate got his pilot’s license, and made a little money. Then he started selling drugs and made a lot more. He was throwing money around like mad. He bought a plane and a helicopter, expensive clothes, a Porsche and a Harley. I was afraid he was attracting the wrong kind of attention. Anyone with half a brain would know a pilot didn’t make that much money. I warned Nate, but he didn’t believe anything bad could happen to him. When he was arrested and sent to jail, it broke him.

“I mortgaged everything to find him the best lawyer. Eventually, he got my son out of prison. But Nate wasn’t the same man anymore. He couldn’t stop drinking. I saved everything and lost it all. Nate squandered his gifts.”

“Nate’s a grown man,” Josie said. “He’s responsible for his actions.”

“So am I,” Jack said.

“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” she said. “Children need stability. I’m sorry Nate and I didn’t work out. I wish Nate didn’t sell drugs. I wish he’d stayed sober.”

“You aren’t the only one,” Jack said.

“Nate would have made a wonderful father. I could tell by the way he talked to Amelia. I wish I’d stayed in touch with him.”

“Why? So Nate could drag you and Amelia down, too? You don’t want to mix with the crowd he hung around with, Josie. Nate was a lot of fun, but he wasn’t good for the long haul. He—”

Before Jack could continue, they heard the rattle of the stretcher outside the room. Nate was back. He looked worn. Two orderlies lifted him back into bed. A nurse fussed with the sheets.

“How are you feeling, Nate?” Josie asked softly.

He didn’t respond. Nate’s features looked sunken and his skin was waxy yellow.

He’s dying, she thought. I’m watching Nate die. She shivered in the hospital room and wished there was a way to turn up the heat.

Jack put his arm around Josie and whispered, “He doesn’t look good, does he?”

“No,” Josie said, her voice heavy with tears.

“Let’s stay here with him, in case he wakes up and wants us.”

Josie and Jack sat in companionable silence, watching Nate sleep. For some reason, Jack’s remark made Josie feel like she was doing something useful. The room grew darker as night fell, but no one turned on the light.