1 Aunt Bessie Assumes (23 page)

Bessie smiled, finding
herself
liking the man in spite of herself.  Now if he could just do something
about the nurses, she thought.  

“I'll tell you what,” Dr. Cannell said to
Bessie.
 
“I'll let you go home this
afternoon if all of your vitals are good and you promise to have someone stay
with you for a few days.”  Bessie nodded at his words.  

He held up a hand.  “But,” he continued, “
you
go home with two prescriptions, one for the same painkillers
that we gave you overnight and a second one for something not quite as strong.
 You can choose which to take when, but I want you taking something every
four hours or so throughout the day, and I want you to promise to take the
stronger ones at bedtime until at least Monday.  The best thing you can do
for your body right now is let it rest and recover.”  

Bessie nodded, willing to agree to just about
anything if it would get her home.  Hospitals had bad food, funny smells and
old and dying people in them; she hated being there.

“Don't worry, Doctor,” Doona told the man.
 
“I'll make sure she behaves.”  

Bessie rolled her eyes at Doona behind the
doctor's head, which made Doona snicker.  The man fussed over Bessie for a
few minutes, checking this and that and asking terribly personal questions
before he finally gave her hand a pat.

“Dr. Quayle will be in to check on you after
lunch,” he told Bessie.
 
“Assuming
all your vitals are still good, you'll be free to go.”

“He's awfully cute,” Doona remarked as the door
closed behind him.

“He's awfully young,”
Bessie
answered her. 

“Hmm,” Doona said thoughtfully. “I've never
dated a younger man.”

Bessie shook her head.  “I'm so glad my
misfortune has given you an opportunity to brush up on your flirting,” she said
sardonically.  

Doona just laughed.  She
was still sitting with Bessie a short time later when Inspector Rockwell
arrived.

“I hope you had a good
night,” the inspector told Bessie as he handed her a small vase full of
flowers.
 
“And I hope these brighten
your room.”

“They’re lovely, and I shall
be very happy to take them home with me later today,” Bessie told him.

“They’re letting you go home,
then?” he asked.
 

“After lunch, if all my signs
are good,” Bessie replied.
 
“And not
a moment too soon.”

Rockwell smiled.
 
“I’d love to think that I’ll have the
killer locked up before you get out of here, but that isn’t looking very likely
at the moment.”

Bessie frowned.
 
“I was hoping you’d have better news
than that,” she told him.

“You need to tell me what
happened at Thie yn Traie,” Rockwell told her.
 
“Who did you see and what did you
say?
 
Something had to trigger the attack
on you.”

Bessie shook her head
slowly.
 
“I’ve been trying to think
it through,” she told the inspector.
 
“I had a short visit with Mrs. Pierce, Vikky and Donny and exchanged a
few words with Bahey.
 
That was
about it.”

Inspector Rockwell took her
through her entire visit slowly, having her recount every conversation as close
to verbatim as possible.
 
Halfway
through the recitation, a different nurse came in to offer Bessie something for
pain, and she took it reluctantly.

“This one won’t make you
sleepy,” the pleasantly plump nurse, who had to be in her sixties, assured
Bessie.
 
“It’ll just take the edge
off.”

Bessie wasn’t sure that the
nurse had been telling the truth half an hour later when she finally finished
going through her previous afternoon.
 
She felt exhausted.
 

“I’ve already told you how
Robert showed me to the stairs and then left,” she told Rockwell.
 
“And how I started down and then got
pushed from behind.”

The inspector nodded.
 
“I don’t know,” he told her.
 
“There doesn’t seem to be anything in
there that would trigger an attack on you.”
 
He gave a frustrated-sounding sigh.
 
“Perhaps the killer thought you were
someone else.”

“Who else would be climbing
down those stairs?” Bessie asked incredulously.

“No one,” Rockwell
admitted.
 
“At least no one that I
can think of.”
 
He sighed
again.
 
“I have to get back to my
office.
 
The Chief Constable has
called a meeting this afternoon so that we can get together and compare
notes.
 
I know Inspector Kelly is
convinced that he’s got everything wrapped up.
 
I just hope the Chief Constable agrees
that the attack on you is connected to the murders.”

“I think you need to get some
sleep,” Doona told Bessie, after the inspector left.
 
“I’ll just sit here and read
quietly.
 
You shut your eyes for a
bit.”

Bessie was going to protest,
really she was, but she fell asleep before she managed to do so.

A different, but still
terribly young nurse’s aide with a lunch tray woke her.
 
“Here we are then,” the woman smiled at
her.
 
“I’ve brought you some nice
lunch.”

Bessie looked down at the
tray and grimaced.
 
Nothing looked
particularly tasty and much of it appeared almost inedible.
 
She gave the aide a pained look.
 
“Would you eat that?” she asked.

The aide chuckled.
 
“No ma’am,” she told Bessie.
 
“I bring my lunch in from home every
day.
 
I’ve yet to see anything sent
up from that cafeteria that looks edible.
 
Most days I carry trays back down just as full as the ones I brought
up.”

Bessie laughed.
 
“Well, I certainly don’t want that,” she
told her.
 
“I don’t even know what
it is.”

“It’s, um,” the aide reached
into a pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper.
 
Bessie could see the words “Today’s
Menu” across the top.
 
“Chicken and
rice in savoury gravy with mushy peas and mashed potatoes.
 
Pudding is cinnamon spiced apple sauce
with cream.”

Bessie looked again at the
tray.
 
“If you say so,” she said
doubtfully.
 

The aide shrugged.
 
“I’m supposed to leave it with you for
at least ten minutes,” she said apologetically.
 
“At least a few patients end up getting
desperate enough to eat some of it.”

Bessie nodded.
 
“Go ahead and leave it, then, but I
won’t be eating a single bite.
 
I’m
supposed to go home this afternoon, anyway.
 
I can wait until I get there to get some
lunch.”

The aide nodded and then
bustled out again, back to her trolley full of meals.
 
Bessie pushed her tray table away and
then frowned.
 
Doona had obviously gone,
and now she felt wide-awake and bored.
 
She thought about trying to get out of bed, but that had been such a
chore when the nurse had helped her to the loo before breakfast that she
decided to stay put.
 
If she were
going home later, she would have plenty of opportunity to push her damaged body
then.

She didn’t have much time to
get bored, however.
 
Doona rushed in
only a few moments later.
 
She was
carrying several bags and struggling to catch her breath.

“I was supposed to be back
half an hour ago,” she gasped at Bessie.
 

“No worries,” Bessie
grinned.
 
“I’m not going anywhere in
a hurry.”

Doona smiled back at
her.
 
“Yeah, but I was supposed to
relieve the guy on door duty,” she told her friend.
 
“Anyway, at least I brought enough lunch
for you and me and poor Nigel on the door.
 
I’ve given him his sandwich and a piece of cake and sent him away.”

As she spoke, Doona moved
Bessie’s lunch tray off the small table and set it just outside the door.
 
Then she pulled sandwiches and packets
of crisps from one bag and bottles of juice from another.
 
In minutes she had an appetising lunch
laid out in front of Bessie.

“Door duty?” Bessie said in a
confused voice as she watched Doona work.

“Yep, Hugh was here until
three in the morning and then Nigel took over for him.
 
I was supposed to relieve him at noon on
the dot and I’m late,” Doona explained as she pulled another sandwich from a
bag and took a big bite.

“Really?
 
Does Inspector Rockwell genuinely think
I’m in danger?” Bessie asked in surprise.

“We all do,” Doona answered
after a sip of her juice.
 
“Well,
all of us except Inspector Kelly.
 
He thinks you fell down the stairs and are claiming that you were pushed
because you’re embarrassed about it.”

Bessie stared at her friend,
too angry to speak for a moment.
 
“He actually said that?” she asked.

“Well, not in so many words,”
Doona admitted.
 
“But that was what
he meant.”

Bessie shook her head.
 
“Just wait until I see his mother the
next time.
 
She and I will have a
long chat.”

Doona laughed.
 
“Don’t let it bother you,” she soothed.
 
“Inspector Kelly is just eager to get
the case solved and get the Pierce family off the island.
 
I gather the whole situation with Maeve
has been causing him trouble.”

“What is the situation with
Maeve?” Bessie asked.
 

Doona shrugged.
 
“I’ve only heard bits and pieces,” she
told Bessie.
 
“She and Donny are
still married, but apparently they haven’t seen each other in a long time.
 
According to Maeve’s statement that she
gave to the papers, their both being on the island right now was a total
coincidence.”

“She made a statement to the
papers?”

“Oh, indeed,” Doona
answered.
 
“She held her own little
press conference yesterday afternoon, right before the one the police were
giving and just in time for today’s local paper.
 
She got a fair bit of coverage from the
papers in UK as well, which I suspect was her real aim.”

“Why?”

“She’s looking for her
fifteen minutes of fame, I guess,” Doona said.
 
“She got all dramatically teary-eyed and
weepy as she recounted how she had been cruelly dragged away from her first and
really, truly, only true love.”
 
Doona scoffed.
 
“By the time
Donny got ahold of her, she’d already been through half a dozen ‘true loves,’
if my sources are anything to go on.”

Bessie shrugged.
 
“All that must have happened in
Douglas,” she remarked.
 

“Well, yes, mostly, I guess,”
Doona
answered.
 
“The Kelly family was living there at that point and from what I gather,
young Donald was spending as much time in the ‘big city’ as he could when the
family was here on holiday.”

“What else did she tell the
press?”

“How worried she is about
‘her’ Donny now that he’s caught up in a murder investigation and how surprised
she was to learn that he was here when she arrived for a short visit with her
dearly loved mother.
 
I know her
little brother is technically my boss, but I didn’t believe a word she said.”

 
Bessie sighed.
 
“Even if she was lying through her
teeth, though, what possible motive could she have had for killing Danny or
pushing me off the steps yesterday?”

Doona shrugged.
 
“I don’t know, but I don’t trust
her.
 
Eat your lunch.”

Bessie grinned.
 
“Yes, ma’am,” she said mockingly.
 
Then she took a bite and gave Doona an
even bigger smile.
 
“This is delicious,”
she told her friend.

“I bought all the ingredients
and then ran home and made the sandwiches myself,” Doona told her.
 
“That way I could be sure to put
together exactly what I know you like.”

Bessie thanked her
again.
 
The sandwiches and crisps
disappeared quickly and Bessie found that she felt much better once her tummy
was full.
 
She obediently took yet
another pain tablet when the nurse popped in while she was eating her pudding
and then settled back into the bed.