Paper-Thin Alibi (19 page)
The nurse looked over “You can stay for a bit, but then I’ll have to ask you to wait outside.”
Jo nodded, and sank onto the edge of a molded plastic chair. She held on to Russ’s hand and watched his face, the rise and fall of his chest. At one point he began to cough and his eyelids fluttered. She swallowed and blinked the tears out of her eyes in case he reopened his own, but he didn’t.
After a while the nurse signaled that her time was up. Jo reluctantly left, glancing back at the motionless form of the man she knew as strong and vigorous. It was painful to see him so weakened, and frustrating to be unable to do anything about it. Jo dug in her purse for a tissue and was swiping at her face when Mark came up to her.
“Will you be hanging around?” he asked gently.
She nodded.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I left your cell number as a contact for Russ’s brother Scott. I could only get his voice mail, and I have to be in court in half an hour.”
“That’s fine. Go ahead. I’ll be glad to talk to him if he calls.”
“Thanks. And don’t worry.” Mark tilted his head in the direction of Russ’s room. “He’s pretty tough.”
Jo knew he intended to look worry free himself, but he wasn’t exactly pulling it off. She smiled. “I know. All you cops are. Goes with the job, right?”
“Right.” Mark hesitated a moment, then took off. Jo glanced around for a waiting area and, seeing one a few yards down the hall, headed for it. She took out her cell phone and stared at it. Her first impulse was to call Carrie, but she remembered that Carrie had plans to see Amanda in her middle-school choral group’s performance. Knowing Carrie, she would readily give up that pleasure to run over and be with Jo, and Jo didn’t want to ask that of her. She would call Carrie later, when hopefully the news would be better.
Jo scrolled through her address book until she found what she wanted. She pressed the Call button, waited for an answer, then said, “Ina Mae? Got a minute?”
“I’m glad you called me, Jo,” Ina Mae said when she arrived and gave Jo a brisk hug. “There’s nothing worse than waiting through something like this on your own.”
Jo nodded, trying hard to smile. “Sitting here by myself, my imagination has been going crazy. These old
People
magazines aren’t much distraction.”
People
magazines aren’t much distraction.”
“What have you heard lately?”
“His fever’s slowly coming down, and his blood pressure is stabilizing.”
“Wonderful.”
“They want to do more surgery as soon as they can—to clean the wound out.” Jo tried to keep her tone even but heard herself failing miserably.
Ina Mae looked at her for a moment. “Then we’ll just wait here,” she said, “until they tell us they’re taking him to surgery, at which time we’ll celebrate by treating ourselves to a late lunch in the cafeteria.”
“Celebrate?”
“Of course, since that will mean our lieutenant’s infection is under control and that all they need to do at that point is go in and tidy things up.”
Jo had to smile at the idea of the surgeon being compared to a broom-wielding housemaid, but as usual Ina Mae had looked at things with her common sense.
“You’re right, Ina Mae. I hated the thought of Russ going through another surgery, but it actually will be a good sign, won’t it?”
“Once it’s done, he’ll really be on the road to recovery. Now, can I get you some coffee or a soda?”
Jo agreed to a soda, hating to send Ina Mae off for it, but hating more to leave the area in case someone came by to update her. She sat, watching staff nurses, doctors, and lab personnel bustle through the hall, feeling more and more like part of the furniture as one and all ignored her in their particular pursuits.
Ina Mae brought cheese-cracker packets along with their drinks, then chatted just enough to distract Jo from her worries. Time dragged by until finally, a nurse came directly toward them.
“We’re taking the lieutenant to surgery now,” she said, and Jo sighed with relief.
“So his fever is down?”
The nurse smiled and gave a thumbs-up. “All systems are go.”
“Wonderful,” Ina Mae said and, as the nurse went off, turned to Jo. “Time to celebrate with something like a nice, big taco salad. Sound good?”
Jo smiled. “Sounds great.”
As they rode the elevator down to the cafeteria, Jo said, “I’m sorry I interrupted your tai chi class.” When Jo had called her earlier, Ina Mae had answered in an uncharacteristically soft voice, and Jo could hear Asian-style music in the background, which required an explanation.
“It’s no problem,” Ina Mae said as the elevator settled to a stop and the doors opened. “I’m not sure I’ll keep on with it after all. It’s a lovely program, but I think I prefer more vigorous exercise. Plus there’s all those moves to learn, which are giving me a bit of trouble. Much like the origami did.” She smiled. “Could be my Scottish genes just don’t mesh well with Asian traditions.”
“It might be a stretch for you. No pun intended,” Jo added as she pictured the class, “but I’d hang in there. I’ve heard so many good things about tai chi that I’ve thought of getting a DVD to practice it myself at home. Trouble is, by the time I get home, exercise is the last thing I feel like doing.”
“Well,” Ina Mae said, guiding Jo toward the food line, “it’s supposed to be a very good stress release. And Lord knows you could use that. There’s the taco salad, by the way,” she said, pointing to a colorful dish, “and it looks very good, doesn’t it?”
“Actually, I think I’ll go for the tuna salad sandwich. But why don’t you get the salad? My treat.”
Ina Mae hesitated, then chose a smaller version of the salad and an iced tea, passing by the dessert section. She urged dessert on Jo, though, who finally picked up a cup of rice pudding, mostly to pacify her friend who seemed eager to pack calories into her, having commented more than once in the past on Jo’s need to, as she put it, bulk up a bit more. They carried their trays to a quiet table and unloaded them, then settled down.
As Jo took her first sip of water, her thoughts immediately flew back to Russ and his fever. “I’m still shocked over that infection popping up so quickly. Russ looked so completely wiped out from it.”
Ina Mae opened up a sugar packet. “Postsurgical infections are not all that rare, from what I hear.” She shook a small amount of sugar into her iced tea. “Especially after a wound of the lieutenant’s type. Hospitals are quite capable of taking care of it.”
Jo shook her head. “Just last night he seemed to be recovering so well. He was talking of going home soon.”
“There’s going to be ups and downs. Count on it and you’ll be better able to handle it.”
“Good advice, Ina Mae, but not always easy to follow. I’m afraid some of my downs have made me hypersensitive.” She looked at her sandwich, fiddling with it, then said quietly, “I’m not sure I can handle roller coaster rides anymore.”
Ina Mae looked at her. “You can,” she declared. “The downs are just going to hurt a bit more because of that tenderness. Completely understandable, of course, after what happened to your husband. Emotional wounds may take longer to heal than physical ones, but they do heal, Jo. Believe that.”
Jo lifted her sandwich and took a bite from it. After a moment she said, “I’m sure you’re right, but just the memory of the pain can make a person pretty skittish. Ina Mae, I care about Russ very much. Obviously, or I wouldn’t be here, wringing my hands over his latest crisis. But I can’t help feeling he deserves someone without all the baggage I’m dragging around.”
“Why don’t you let him make that decision?” Ina Mae said with a slight smile.
“Because, because . . .” Jo shook her head. “I don’t know. Because I want to make it for him, I suppose. And that’s not fair, is it?”
“No, it isn’t.” Ina Mae scooped up a forkful of her salad. “And you’d be hard put, you know, to find anyone without some kind of baggage,” she said. “Most people tend to keep it tucked in their back rooms, but it’s still there.” She pointed at Jo’s plate. “Keep eating. You need the energy.”
Jo grinned. “Yes, ma’am.” She took a bite from her sandwich, gazing over it at Ina Mae and thinking that she couldn’t imagine this sensible and upfront woman having any hidden baggage to her life. But who knew? As this wise friend had just implied, people’s lives were complicated, and it generally took a long time to get to know everything about a person. It just happened that Jo’s major problems were the kind that were impossible to keep private. She was reminded of her anonymous letter and phone call. She told Ina Mae about them.
Her friend’s eyes flashed as she listened. “Such rubbish! The last thing you need is harassment of that type. It’s clearly the ignorant action of one cowardly person, and I wouldn’t give it a moment’s attention.”
“The trouble is, it probably reflects what many people in town are thinking.”
“It’s ridiculous! Why should anyone assume you’re guilty? You haven’t been charged with a thing!”
“I imagine my having known Linda in New York, and the real problems between us along with the ones she simply claimed, make me look suspicious. Then there’s those murders that happened not so long ago around here. It all adds up to a pretty negative picture.”
“Those past incidents were completely cleared up, thanks to you. They should have nothing whatsoever to do with whatever rumors are presently going around. I haven’t heard a thing said against you, by the way, but then I tend to associate with sensible people.” Ina Mae huffed and reached for her iced tea. “The best way, of course, to put an end to this kind of thinking is to uncover the actual murderer. What did you learn from that photographer this morning?”
Jo told Ina Mae about her encounter, finishing her tuna fish sandwich in the process and moving on to her rice pudding. Ina Mae’s reaction was much like Carrie’s, other than not urging her to immediately share this with Sheriff Franklin. She did suggest, however, investigating Bill Ewing more intensely.
“Harry and I were discussing that on the drive back,” Jo said. “He reminded me that you can find a lot of things on the Internet if you know where to look. I don’t have a computer yet—I was hoping to be able to afford one for the store before long, but now . . . Well, anyway, he offered his own for me to use, or there’s Dan’s too. I was just over at Carrie’s and could probably have used Dan’s computer then, but getting that anonymous letter pushed everything else from my mind.”
“Of course. And now there’s Russ to think about. I wish I could help, but I’m afraid I’m just starting to learn my way around computers. Another class at the senior center,” she said with a smile.
“You’re helping enough just by being here, Ina Mae,” Jo assured her. She took a last drink from her water glass and reached for her pocketbook. “If you’re done, I’d really like to get back to the fifth floor.”
“Certainly.” Ina Mae helped Jo tidy up their table, then followed her back to the elevator. They rode it silently up to the ICU, the elevator stopping along the way to pick up or discharge various hospital workers or visitors. Once there, Jo inquired after Russ at the nurses’ station.
“He’s still in surgery for the debridement,” a woman in green scrubs told her. “It shouldn’t be too much longer.”
Ina Mae told Jo, “Go ahead to the waiting area. I want to make a quick phone call.”
Jo headed down the hall and as she settled onto the tan vinyl settee, heard her own cell phone ring. She pulled it out of her purse and looked at the display. The number was unfamiliar, and she answered it questioningly.
“Jo McAllister?” a male voice asked.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“This is Scott Morgan. Russ’s brother.”
Chapter 20
“Scott! Hello.” The vinyl cushion beneath her crackled as she sat forward. “Mark Rosatti said he’d given you my number. I’m glad you called.”
“How is Russ?” His voice sounded eerily like his brother’s, and Jo pictured a younger version of Russ with the same dark hair and even features. How much younger Scott was, she couldn’t remember.
She explained about the fever and required surgery to clean out the infection. “Apparently, this kind of thing is not too unusual, especially with gunshot wounds. I spoke to Russ very briefly before they took him up, and I’m hoping to see him again once it’s over and he wakes up.”
“Thank you for being there for him. I feel rotten that I can’t be.”
“Russ told me about your situation. You couldn’t possibly leave your wife at a time like this.”
“Yeah, it’s been touch and go with her having false labor and all. If we weren’t so far away . . .”
“Russ understands that, Scott. And he’s in excellent hands, so there’s really nothing to worry about.” Jo found herself reassuring this man of what she’d had trouble reassuring herself.
“I appreciate that. It’s just that Russ was so great when we went through a rough time with our first one—Ryan. This was when we were all still living in Cincinnati, of course, so the logistics were easier. But Russ was still getting over his son’s death, so his being there for me meant all that much more.”
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