A Midnight Clear (9 page)
Authors: Hope Ramsay
“Lark.”
“Lark? Like the bird?”
She nodded and swallowed hard. “Yeah. Mom and Pop were nonconformists.”
Now, there was an understatement. Folks of a certain age in this county still remembered her daddy. They mostly referred to him as that Yankee hippie.
“Is your last name Chaikin, too?”
She nodded. “Who runs the golf course these days?” she asked.
Stone hesitated. “That's a complicated question. Elbert Rhodes holds the deed to the land, but there's a committee that has taken over the rebuilding and expansion of the place. Hettie Marshall chairs that.”
Her bloodshot gaze wandered over his face and then down to the name badge on his chest. Her eyes widened a little. “Deputy Rhodes?” she said.
“That would be Chief Rhodes, ma'am.”
“And the âS' is forâ¦?”
He tried not to grimace. “Stonewall. Everyone calls me StoneâStony if they know me well.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “And you thought I had a strange name? So, are you related to Zeke and this Elbert guy?”
He didn't want this interview to get personal, but it was heading in that direction. It wasn't as if he could lie. “Yes, ma'am.”
“I need to talk to Elbert.”
“About what?”
She closed her eyes, and the shivers took her for a long moment. Stone took off his uniform jacket and draped it over her legs.
He was about to shout for Annie when Lark said through chattering teeth, “My father wants to have his ashes scattered on the eighteenth hole. He died a week ago.”
Holy crap.
“I can tell that I've surprised you,” Lark said. The shivering seemed to be passing.
“Well, as a matter of fact, yes, ma'am, you have.”
Lark's eyes flew open. “Look, I heard what you said, before. But my father didn't murder Zeke Rhodes. Pop always said he âfound himself' on the eighteenth hole at Golfing for God, whatever the heck that means.”
“Really? That's hardly evidence of his innocence, is it?”
She stared at him like he was an alien. “No, I guess not. But, to be honest, Pop never explained why he used to say that.”
“There you go. There is also the fact that your father left town suddenly on the same day as my granddaddy died.”
“Zeke Rhodes was your grandfather?”
*Â Â *Â Â *
The Last Chance chief of police stared down at Lark out of a pair of oddly familiar green eyes. “Yes, ma'am,” he drawled in a deep voice that sounded like it came right up from the earth itself.
“And you think my father murdered him?”
He shrugged. “I don't know. My granddaddy's death was ruled an accident. But my daddy always said it was kind of hard to explain how a man gets that beat up by accident.”
She must be having a fever dream because the gorgeous policeman was saying stuff about Pop that made no sense whatsoever.
Just then, a thin, youngish nurse wearing blue scrubs and bearing a badge with the name “A. Jasper” bustled in. The nurse interrupted the mutual interrogation. “Ruby called,” she said to the cop. “She's holding dinner for you. You need to be getting along home.”
“It'll keep. I need to ask the patient a couple ofâ”
“Your questions can wait.” The nurse advanced with a digital thermometer, which she pressed into Lark's ear. It beeped inside of thirty seconds.
“Uh-huh, you see? One hundred and three.” Nurse Jasper looked down at Lark. “You take any medicine?”
“A couple of aspirin about four hours ago, when the headache started.” Lark sank back into the pillows. Her head felt like an anvil. Every muscle screamed in agony if she so much as twitched, which was problematic because she was twitching all over with the shivers.
“All right,” Nurse Jasper said. “Let me go get Doc Cooper.”
“I'll just stay here and ask a fewâ”
“I told you, Stony, the questions can wait. Now, you go on home to your girls.” Nurse Jasper's voice knifed through Lark's head and sent pinpricks of pain shooting behind her eyes.
The chief folded his big arms across his chest. He didn't look very impressed with Nurse Jasper. “Can she drive?” he asked.
The nurse gave the cop an imperious stare before replying, “The patient has a hundred-and-three fever. She isn't going anywhere anytime soon. What's the problem?”
“Y'all gonna keep her here, then?”
“Depends on what Doc Cooper says. He'll either send her up to Orangeburg or see if Miz Miriam can nurse her.”
Lark was not entirely sure, but this news didn't seem to make the chief of police happy. Truth to tell, it didn't make her happy either.
“Um, no hospitals. It's just a virus,” she managed between her trembling jaws. “And as soon as I'm feeling better, I'd be happy to leave. Is there a hotel nearby with room service?”
The nurse and the cop laughed. Lark's head pounded.
“This ain't like New York,” the cop said.
The nurse put on a professional smile. Lark would give her points for her bedside manner. “Honey, don't you worry,” Nurse Jasper said. “We'll take good care of you.”
Then the nurse turned toward the cop. “And you quit harassing her. What's she done, anyway?”
“She's Abe Chaikin's daughter.”
That stopped the pretty nurse right in her tracks. “You're kidding?”
Chief Rhodes glanced toward Lark. “Am I kidding?”
Lark shook her head.
Big mistake. Her stomach roiled, and her brains rattled. She must have made some kind of gagging noise, because when her stomach heaved an instant later, Nurse Jasper was there with a basin.
“Aw, honey,” the nurse soothed, “there aren't any hotels worth staying at around here. So I reckon you'll be sent to the nursing home in Orangeburg. Or maybe Miriam Randall and the Ladies' Auxiliary will look after you. But don't you worry. And don't you listen to Chief Rhodes, now, you hear? Because there are plenty of folks in town, like Nita Wills, who think your daddy was a hero.”
Welcome to Last Chance
Home at Last Chance
Small Town Christmas
(anthology)
Last Chance Beauty Queen
Last Chance Bride
(short story)
Last Chance Christmas
Last Chance Book Club
Last Chance Summer
(short story)
Last Chance Knit & Stitch
Inn at Last Chance
A Christmas to Remember
(anthology)
Last Chance Family
Last Chance Hero
