Frame Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 5) (20 page)

“Good! Good! Just slow, deep breaths. That’s the girl!”

How many of them were standing there in a circle around her? Three? Four!”

They were firemen.

No, firemen were down the street, and now a silver-glistening horizontal waterfall was attacking the beast that was the fire, attacking that roaring and smoking and bellowing and horribly angry animal, flooding right into it.

“Ma’am, can you tell us if you’re in pain?”

Now she was shaking her head.

And now she was back into her own head, and could talk, not just watch herself try to talk.

How strange it all was?

“I’m––I think I’m all right.”

“Can you sit up?”

She tried; she succeeded.

Now she was upright at least and not lying on the grass.

“Good job, Ms. Bannister! Can you tell us where you’re hurting?”

“I don’t hurt.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. I think I’m all right.”

“We need to get you into the ambulance, ma’am. We’re going to put you on this stretcher.”

“I don’t think I need…”

“Just be real calm now. We’re going to lift you, and put you on the stretcher.”

And now she was floating, and more faces hovered over her—and now she was descending, slender cloth belts wrapping themselves around her wrists, faces bending down close over her chest, metal circular things cold against her skin.

“Just hold on––we’re going to put you in the back of this ambulance...”

“I’m all right. Really, I am.”

“Yes, you are, dear. Yes you are.”

A woman’s voice.

“I’m Judy. I’m a paramedic.”

“Hi, Judy.”

Laughter from the faces circled above her.

That was good sign.

“Hi, Nina! You probably don’t know me. My daughter is a high school junior. She loved having you as principal last year.”

“What’s her name?”

“Tricia Sherwood.”

“Oh, Tricia. She made the honor roll every six weeks I was there.”

“Yes, she did.”

“I talked to her a few times in the hallway, between classes. She told me she wants to go to med school.”

“And you remember that?”

“Of course, I do!”

“Of course, you do. You do, dear, because that’s just the way you are. Now, hold on: we’re going to lift this stretcher into the back of the ambulance now. Just lay your head back on the pillow. You might even close your eyes if you can…”

They did, and she did.

And the world became a warm dark place where she could think about Tricia going to medical school.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
 
THE BELLS, THE BELLS…

At midnight in Bay St. Lucy, all of the bells in the city went off simultaneously.

Bells of the Lutheran Church, bells of the two Methodist Churches, bells of the three Baptist Churches, Bells of the Evangelical Church, and, of course, the truly big and sonorous bells of the Catholic Cathedral, which was located in the dead center of downtown.

There had been some talk of quieting the din, of letting the proper people—pastors, music directors, etc.—know that the sound of church bells in an evening was edifying, of course, but…

…but midnight?

…and
every
evening?

Still, nothing was done about the matter, because to have done so would have seemed distinctly sacrilegious, and because it was better to be awakened in the middle of the night than to be labeled Ebenezer Scrooge by one’s fellow citizens.

And so, the bells continued to chime, not
The Bells of St. Mary’s
but
The Bells of St. Lucy’s
, and that is what they were doing this particular night, and that is why Nina Bannister could hear them as she sat shivering and no longer quite shocked, on the end of a gray table in Observation Room 204 of Bay St. Lucy General Hospital.

People had been coming and going for what seemed to have been hours, but what had in reality been forty-seven minutes.

For that was the precise time—eleven-thirteen PM—that a bomb had detonated in Elementals: Treasures from the Earth and Sea.

“Can’t I at least get my clothes on?”

The young doctor nearest to her looked at the older doctor farthest from her, who was standing in the way of the middle aged nurse who was trying to get out of the room with a chart she was writing on, and thus had almost run into a very old but still spry looking nurse who was shaking a thermometer.

“We just want to be sure you’re all right.”

“I’m all right. I keep telling you: I’m all right.”

“You had quite a shock.”

“Yes, I did. But I’m all right. I fell off my Vespa. But I’m not even scratched.”

“You’re not having any problems breathing?”

“No. I’m just breathing right along, in out, in out, just like I learned to breathe a long time ago.”

“No dizziness?”

“No dizziness.”

“The room doesn’t seem to be going around?”

“The people in the room seem to be going around. But the room itself is just good old rock solid.”

This seemed to be the very statement that was necessary to make all of the doctors and nurses leave the room together, saying that they’d be back immediately, and for Nina simply to rest calmly.

So she was left by herself.

Wearing a hospital gown which opened, impossibly, in the back.

And which was cold.

The whole room was cold; the bed was cold, the ceiling was cold, the ventilator screen
on
the ceiling was cold.

She remembered a line from an Austrian play she’d read; during these last weeks when she’d been throwing herself into the literature of the country she and Carol were perhaps preparing to visit. The line had been delivered from a hypochondriac who was also fiercely afraid of being buried alive, and who explained his fears by saying:

“The doctors, even when they have succeeded in killing a man, are never quite certain that he is actually dead.”

She was fine.

She’d told them that.

She had been at least fifteen yards from the door of Elementals when the blast had gone off.

Then, true, it had been strange, as though someone had pushed the Vespa over.

This, she now realized, was a shock wave.

And, true, she’d certainly been dazed for a time, when the paramedics arrived and examined her initially.

But now she was fine.

Except for the possibility of getting pneumonia in this observation room.

She was considering making a break for it, when the door opened again and the man who had to be, she decided, the chief night physician of the emergency squad—she had recognized none of the people taking care of her, strange, she knowing every denizen of Bay St. Lucy, but indicative of the transient nature of midnight emergency crews, she decided—this man entered, nodded his head and said:

“Well, Ms. Bannister, the staff seems to be in agreement that the best advice might be for you to stay here tonight. Just for observation.”

“No.”

He shook his head:

“I understand that you want to go home, but…”

“I want to get dressed. I want to have my real clothes on. I want to wear garments that button in the front and don’t tie in the back. I want to put on those garments, stop shivering, and go home.”

“Well, we can’t keep you here against your will.”

“You are keeping me here against my will.”

He smiled.

“We hope you’ll forgive us for that, Ms. Bannister.”

“Only if you let me go right now. Otherwise, I’ll hate you forever.”

“We would regret that. But, since we can’t find anything wrong with you…”

“You’re letting me go?”

He shook his head.

Darn
, she thought.

Too good to be true.

“It’s not quite that simple.”

“Somehow I knew it wouldn’t be.”

“There are a number of people who are waiting to see you outside. We’ve pretty much held them at bay. And we can do so all night. If you’d like for us to give you a sedative, something to make you sleep, then you can get a good night’s rest. You can have breakfast here tomorrow morning; we’ll arrange a place for you to meet with all these folks, and the whole thing might be easier.”

She shook her head.

“No. Let’s get this over with. Who’s out there?”

“Most of the town.”

“Well. That’s nice of them.”

“The word got out quickly.”

“It’s Bay St. Lucy.”

“Yes, it is, Ms. Bannister. And you’re––well, you’re Nina Bannister. Everyone wants to know you’re ok.”

She was suddenly aware of a tightness in her throat.

The doctor continued:

“As it is, we could get you out a back entrance. But, if you really think you’re up to it, the police seem to feel talking to you is urgent.”

“I’m up to it.”

“All right. Then why don’t you get yourself dressed—your clothes are there on the chair—and we’ll set up a room where you can talk to people.”

With that he left.

She dressed.

Then she waited.

All she could do was look at the charts and pictures on the wall.

THE HUMAN HEART AND INDICATIONS OF ARTERIAL SCLEROSIS.

TIPS FOR AVOIDING MENINGITIS

FIVE INDICATIONS OF INCIPIENT BONE DISEASE

“They need,” she found herself saying,
Old Red Lighthouse #2.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in.”

The door opened and was filled with the form of Jackson Bennett, who flooded over her like an African-American tidal wave, hugged her for a few minutes, picked her up, looked carefully at her in what was not quite good enough light, broke a few of her ribs, and finally set her down, in the way that a tornado sets down a cow it has carried a few miles.

“Nina…”

She found herself crying.

Probably, she thought, because her chest had been crushed.

But for whatever reason, she just sat there blubbering.

“Nina, how are you?”

Blubber blubber.

She wanted to say
fine
, because she was.

But, seeing Jackson sitting there, and realizing half of the town had probably come to the hospital to pray for her…

…as well as the fact that she had, in fact, missed being killed by a matter of seconds…

…she decided a few tears were not such bad things, anyway.

So she shed them, and then finally said:

“I’m all right, Jackson.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded:

“After all this time, with all these doctors prodding and measuring and listening and recording—I’m probably the healthiest I’ve ever been. They’ve listened to my heart, looked into my ears, taken several big bottles of my blood, and examined my urine. I’ve never urinated this much in my life when I didn’t feel the urge to go. But I think now we can all say with some certainty that my urine is among the best urine in Bay St. Lucy.”

He smiled and shook his head:

“There are a lot of people out there waiting to see you.”

“I know. The doctor told me. He also said the police want to talk to me.”

Jackson pursed his lips:

“Do you feel up to that?”

“Yes. I’m not sure what I can tell them.”

“You want me to be there when you talk to them?”

“If you would.”

“Of course.”

“Is Moon Rivard out there?”

For some reason, Jackson hesitated, then said, quietly:

“Moon isn’t here.”

“Really?”

“There’s––been another crime.”

“What kind of a crime?”

He shook his head.

“Let’s not worry about that right now. Maybe we can just get this interview with the police done, and then…”

“Then I can go home.”

He rose.

“We’ll see.”

“Is Carol…”

“Come on.”

He held the door for her.

She followed him and two doctors down a corridor, then down another corridor, and then into what seemed like a consulting room of sorts.

There was a large oaken table, comfortable green leather chairs, and paintings of what seemed either the various stages of the life of Warren G. Harding or the people who’d founded the hospital.

Two police officers stood as she entered.

Again, she knew neither of them.

A young man and a young woman.