Elizabeth C. Main - Jane Serrano 01 - Murder of the Month (13 page)

“But you didn’t,” I said. “Tell me you didn’t.”

“
We tried, but after we messed around with it a little bit, we decided it wasn’t going to work. Too bad. Anyway, Gil should be looking at a note by now telling about the pictures.

“The non-existent ones?” Alix asked.

“Right. The anonymous note promised that pictures would follow later, but now I think we should concentrate on finding the missing videotape instead.”

I tried another approach. “But if you’re using the book’s plot as a pattern, you must know that there was no reason for Gil to kill Vanessa. Bernard needed his wife’s fortune to buy the tropical island. Vanessa didn’t have a fortune, and Gil already had access to her money.”

“
I didn’t say I have everything worked out. Maybe she knew too much.”

“
About what?” Minnie asked. “What could she possibly know?”

“
I don’t know yet, but that happens a lot in mysteries.”

Alix asked, “Does it matter to you at all that Gil has an airtight alibi? Jenna Lang, the realtor in charge of the open house, swears he was there the whole time, and other people saw him there, too.”

“
I already said I haven’t worked out a couple of the details yet. All I know for sure is that Gil murdered Vanessa. Now, can we get to work? You’ve all read the book. The plot shows that sometimes you have to pay attention to evidence that others dismiss. Minnie, doesn’t your church teach you to have faith?”

“
Yes, of course, but I have faith in the goodness of human nature, and I think you’re completely wrong about Gil,” Minnie answered. “I’m sorry, Bianca, but I can’t and won’t help you harass that poor man any further.”

“
I wouldn’t mind harassing Gil in general,” said Alix, “but this is a bit much, even for my warped sense of humor. Count me out, too. You don’t need us. Wendell will probably solve the whole thing for you in a couple of days.”

“Mom?” Bianca turned to me at last. Where was Raymond Morris when I needed him? I wanted to support my daughter, I didn’t want to leave her humiliated and alienated from the group, but what could I do? Her idea was just plain crazy. Unfortunately, the determination on her face told me there was nothing I could do to change her mind.

“
I’m sorry, Bianca,” I said.

“I should have known.” Bianca’s color was high. “I can’t believe … oh, never mind. Come on, Wendell. We’re on our own.”

Had the phone been ringing only in my dreams? The silence that greeted me when I picked up the receiver made me wonder. A stifled sob on the other end of the line sent a sudden ice cube down my spine. It was two-forty-three A.M. Like all mothers, I did a rapid, panicky inventory of the whereabouts of my children. Heart thudding, I sat bolt upright. “Hello?”

“
Jane, it’s Grandpa … he’s … it’s awful.” I barely recognized Tyler’s voice. He spoke briefly to someone in the background. “I gotta go. We’re on our way to the hospital.”

“
I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“
Jane … could you hurry?” Again the quaver in his voice.

“
Eight minutes.”

Though Juniper’s population had exploded in the past few years, the streets were still deserted at this time of night, reminding me of the days when our part of town consisted of open fields, not cookie cutter housing communities with artificial names. I shot past Rambling Ridge and Forever Sage before slowing briefly at the intersection of Custer Street and Highway 28 to check for cross-traffic. Seeing none, I ran the red light and roared past the garish Central Oregon Shopping Center toward my destination half a mile beyond.

High Desert Community Hospital had long been the tallest building in Juniper, and at night its eight stories of lighted windows resembled a solitary cruise ship navigating the night. To assuage my guilt for running the red light, I slowed to the required ten MPH as I wound along the asphalt road through the sagebrush and juniper to the emergency entrance.

My headlights picked out the bright red letters on the ambulance at the curb as I made the final turn, but the attendants pulling the gurney from the back didn’t look up from their work. After parking crookedly in the nearest slot, I ran to Tyler’s side at the back of the ambulance. In the instant before he unexpectedly hurtled into my arms, I noted that Tyler was still wearing the clothes he had worn yesterday afternoon when he’d stormed out of the bookstore. No trace of yesterday’s defiant expression remained on his face though. The sullen mask had been replaced by the wide-eyed stare of someone in shock.

He clung to me. “It’s all my fault. I stayed out in the lawn swing last night to make him worry. You know, make him sorry for accusing me—”

“
Never mind that now.” I patted his back. “Just tell me what happened.”

“
Well, I couldn’t get comfortable, so I was sort of awake, and then I heard him call out, or I thought I did, so I sneaked in the back door to listen. He was making sounds, like maybe he was dreaming. Anyway, then he started groaning something awful. I ran in and he was clutching his chest before he slumped over.”

“
Oh, Tyler!”

“
Then I called 911 and started CPR, or as much as I could remember from our dumb health class. It’s a lot harder on a real person. I was afraid I’d hurt him, so I was real glad when the paramedics took over. That’s when I called you.”

I continued to hold the shaking boy, feeling the slimness of his frame and marveling that this scared kid had done all the right things. “Tyler, you’re terrific! You know that?”

The gurney carrying Laurence swept through the automatic doors and made straight for the area marked “No Unauthorized Personnel.” Tyler turned his stricken gaze to me. “He’s not gonna—”

“
Of course not,” I said. “They’ll fix him up in no time. I’ll just park my car so I’m not taking up three spaces and then we’ll get the paperwork done.”

At the admitting desk a few minutes later, Tyler flopped into a chair and I stood behind him, keeping one hand reassuringly on his bony shoulder. The RN on duty took one look at Tyler and directed her questions to me. It wasn’t long before she was asking for information I didn’t have.

“What’s your grandfather’s date of birth, Tyler?” I asked him.

“
I don’t know,” he answered, “but there’s probably something here.” He produced a battered black wallet from the pocket of his oversized jeans. “I grabbed it on the way out the door. Thought it might come in handy.”

“
Remind me to sign you up if I ever recruit people for an emergency response team,” I said. For the first time a smile flickered across his pale face, and I made a mental note to praise him whenever I could find the slightest excuse to do so. The admitting nurse asked Tyler the rest of the questions. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought he sat up a little straighter in the chair from then on.

Once the formalities were completed, we took chairs in the adjacent waiting room and settled down to wait. Apparently, Juniper was experiencing a calm night because we had the place to ourselves except for one pajama-clad man who had been pressed into taxi service, according to what we overheard, when his wife had dropped a vodka bottle on her foot, possibly breaking a toe in the process. After checking her in, the man joined us, his collar askew and his eyes red-rimmed. He huddled in the corner, his neck craned at an awkward angle as he strained to catch the baseball scores being presented on the wall-mounted television set. I assumed he found watching the day’s home run tally more relaxing than thinking about his wife clutching a vodka bottle at two-thirty in the morning.

Two hours later “Toe Woman” limped out of the hospital, complaining as she made her slow way to the parking lot, trailed by her reluctant husband. No wonder he preferred TV sports to everyday life. Listening to that voice would drive me to watch anything that would drown it out.

Whenever the doors to the emergency room swung open, Tyler and I looked hopefully in that direction. We watched as two uniformed police officers from the City of Juniper escorted a handcuffed young man to a patrol car parked outside. Later, several hospital employees checked out, laughing and cradling paper coffee containers in their hands. Finally, a doctor who looked too young to have finished college, let alone medical school, made his weary way toward us.

“
You’re here for Mr. Thornton?” He was looking at me. “I’m Dr. Blair. He’s your …?”

” … grandfather,” Tyler supplied. “He’s my grandfather. I’m Tyler and Jane is our friend.”

Dr. Blair shifted his gaze to Tyler. “Okay, Tyler. Well, your grandfather is stable and resting comfortably.”

“Will he be all right?” Tyler asked.

“I hope so. The next few hours should tell us more.”

“
It was a heart attack?” I asked.

“Yes, a major episode. It’s a good thing that you brought him in right away.”

“
Not me. Tyler’s the one who called 911 … and did CPR until the ambulance arrived.”

I had the sensation that the doctor was starting to look past Tyler’s baggy pants and the Smashing Pumpkins tee-shirt he wore. So was I.

“Really,” he said. “That was fine work. If your grandfather makes it through this—and I have every hope that he will—it will be in large part because of your quick thinking. Where’d you learn CPR?”

“
School.”

The doctor smiled and clapped him on the arm. “Well, well. Our tax dollars paying off at last.”

“
Can I see him?” Tyler muttered, looking down. “Just to make sure …”

“
Maybe later. I’ll let you know.”

By the time the early morning light penetrated the waiting room, we had digested the previous day’s sports scores, the details of a catastrophic earthquake in central Turkey, and the contents of the tattered copies of
Reader’s Digest
and
Automotive Week
scattered around. The uncomfortable chairs didn’t encourage sleep, so we finally just watched the fish swim around and around in the greenish wall tank. Eventually I levered myself to a standing position and approached the admitting nurse once again.

“
Are you sure there’s no word yet?”

“
These things take time,” she responded. After a glance at Tyler across the room, she continued in a low voice, “And it depends on the patient’s condition.”

Tears stung my tired eyes. “So it’s a good sign that we haven’t heard anything yet? I mean, if the news were really bad, surely we’d know by now.”

The nurse withdrew behind a professionally neutral expression. “That’s certainly the best way to look at it.” She returned her attention to the computer screen in front of her.

I sat next to Tyler again. “Should we call your mother?”

Tyler assumed the guarded look I had come to associate with any mention of his mother. “What for?” he asked bluntly. “She can’t do anything.”

“
She’ll want to know.”

“
It would just set her off again. Nah, they wouldn’t even put a call through to her at this stage of rehab.”

“
I don’t know much about—”

“
I know enough for both of us,” Tyler said flatly.

I’ll just bet you do, I thought. Aloud I said, “Okay, what about your dad?”

“
Out of touch until next week.”

“
But Laurence must have some way to get through to him in an emergency. That’s only prudent …”

Again Tyler’s look silenced me. I struggled to contain my fury at Tyler’s parents and their cavalier attitude toward their son. One of them in rehab and the other somewhere in Australia shooting a movie. All this after dumping their son with a grandfather he hardly knew, a grandfather who was now lying helpless in a hospital bed. By default, I was the closest thing to a relative that Tyler had right now. I only hoped that Susannah didn’t decide to give birth in the next day or two. Then there was the still unsettled matter of Bianca’s mischief. For someone with a supposedly empty nest, I had no lack of baby birds to tend.

“
You up for some breakfast?” I asked. “The cafeteria’s upstairs.”

“
Shouldn’t we stay here? Just in case?”

“
I’ll tell the nurse where we’ll be.”

“
Okay.” He rose stiffly and stretched. “Man, I’m ready to get out of that chair for a while.”

We made our way to the sweeping staircase and followed signs to the cafeteria on the second floor. Tyler was deep in his own thoughts, and I was too tired to manufacture encouraging comments.

As I sipped my third cup of coffee a few minutes later, I marveled at the volume of food that Tyler had been able to consume in the midst of this crisis, putting away every bit of the double-sized breakfast platter he had chosen. He popped the last bite of biscuit into his mouth and sat back at last.

“
Do you always eat this much breakfast?” I asked.

“
I missed dinner.”

“
Oh, yes.” The blowup between Laurence and Tyler yesterday seemed like ancient history.

Tyler began slowly, “About the car …”

“
You don’t have to explain.”

“
I want to. It didn’t seem so terrible at the time.” He looked at me with haunted eyes that belonged in the face of a much older person. After a pause, he came out with what was bothering him. “But I keep thinking … if I hadn’t taken the car, this wouldn’t have happened.”