Windwood Farm (Taryn's Camera) (18 page)

In the biographical book of Stokes County
, her question was answered for her. Old Jonathan Fitzgerald was a looker. In fact, posing with his two older brothers and father, and if they were any indication of how he would look when he was even older then Clara had nothing to worry about; no wonder she went for the older men. With his skinny moustache and little hat and big smile, he was all right. For the time, anyway. Besides, even a fifteen years age difference only made him, what, thirty-one? It might have been all right. Still, what was a wealthy Fitzgerald with all of his railroad money doing with a kid from a family that didn’t have much but a nice house?

“That still doesn’t explain Donald,” she sighed. “Unless there was some kind of lover’s spat and one killed the other over Clara and Robert had nothing to do with it. But it says here that Jonathan married, had seven kids, and lived to be ninety-seven.”

She wasn’t any closer than she was when she started.

She was tempted to put the books back on the shelf so as not to give the obviously overworked librarian any more work than he needed, but she remembered the childhood rule about always putting the books back on the little cart or leaving them on the table so she stacked them up neatly in front of her and left, noting that the old couple in the rocking chairs
was gone and she was alone in the small library. Even the sniveling librarian was gone, replaced by an overweight woman who had bright orange hair and black roots and was wearing a shiny polyester top. She was reading a Nora Roberts book and sipping something from an extremely large plastic cup behind the desk. She didn’t notice Taryn leave.

The bright sunshine hit her when she stepped out the door and it took her a moment to adjust her eyes. She had to almost feel her way to her car
, which is why she thought she was seeing things when she first noticed her back tire. “Holy shit!” she screamed, dropping to her knees and running her hand along the frayed rubber.

It was no heat mirage, though. Not only was the
right rear tire completely flat, it looked like someone had taken something very, very sharp and filleted it. They hadn’t just punctured it; they had nearly sawed it right in half. “Oh my God,” she seethed, to nobody in particular. “What the fuck did they do? Sit here and wait for the air to go out and then saw it in two?” And that’s exactly what it looked like they had done.

Seconds later, Taryn felt the stickiness under her and realized that when she dropped to her knees
she landed in a puddle of oil. At first she thought her car was leaking, another problem she’d have to get fixed, but a glance around showed her an empty bottle and in horror she saw that it was intentional: whoever murdered her tire also left this little joy for her to find as well—her own little personal swimming pool to land in. Nice.

When the police finally came, they found her stomping around the parking lot, rainbows of slimy juice running down her legs and landing in droplets on the pavement as she waved her hands and muttered to herself. She didn’t resist as a nice young officer helpfully dried her off with a towel
that an elderly woman from a house next door had brought over. She barely put up a fight as he helped her into the cruiser and drove her the two blocks to the station so that she could file a report.

When they started asking her who she thought
might have done this, however, she went a little berserk.

“How the hell am I supposed to know
?” she shrieked. “I’m not even
from
here! I don’t know anyone! The only people I’ve met are Reagan, the property guy, the mean librarian, and the old people from the Stokes County Historical Society. So unless you want to pin it on one of them…”

“It’s probably just some kid playing a prank,” the
better-looking of the two policemen offered helpfully. “We’ll look into it.”

“Don’t you have some kind of surveillance video?” she asked. She knew she was pouting but she couldn’t help it. Her legs burned from the oil and she was tired. And now her stomach was acting up again
, but she was too embarrassed to tell the two police officers that she had diarrhea.

At her question, both men busted out laughing. The older cop, the one with a beer gut and what she only imagine
d was a toupee, actually doubled over. “At the library? What are they going to steal?”

“You know…books?” She answered lamely.

While she let them have their laugh, her stomach rumbled even more. Soon, she realized her stomach wasn’t going to be able to be ignored any longer. “Um, guys, could I have a bathroom or something? Because—” the words weren’t even out of her mouth when suddenly a gush of vomit spewed all over the table in front of her and ran down the side of the wall. She didn’t have time to feel embarrassed because no sooner had she stopped throwing up than she felt her eyes roll back in her head and she was toppling to the ground before either man could reach her.

“
W
here the hell am I?” The bed was as hard as a rock and she seemed to be tied down to something. On the other hand, it was nice and cool and the drowsy feeling wasn’t half bad. There was a low murmur in the air and when she opened her eyes she saw it was the TV.

“Stokes County General, sweetie,” a sweet female voice answered from somewhere to the r
ight of her. “You need anything?”

“Sure,” she replied,
and found that she was having trouble forming her words. “More information.”

“You gave the boys a scare over at the police station. Nothing sends them running like seeing a woman fall over. You were dehydrated
; pretty bad, too. Vomiting, diarrhea. Pretty sick. They brought you over here. We got some fluids in you. You’re going to be okay.”

Taryn looked around and as the room came into focus
, she saw that she was indeed inside a hospital room. Her window looked out into the low-rising hills and the bed next to her was empty. The nurse was busy changing her saline bag. She was short and squat with mousy brown hair, but her smile was big and she had the smoothest skin Taryn had ever seen. I’ve been on since five o’clock this morning. I’m getting ready to go home, but I wanted to change this. You’ve been beeping.”

“How long have I been in here?” Taryn asked
incredulously, trying to rise up on her elbows. She couldn’t believe how weak she felt.

“Oh, almost twenty-four hours.”

“What the fuck?” she cried, and fell back down. “I’m sorry.”

“You were pretty out of it.”

“What was it, the flu or something?” She couldn’t believe it. She was feeling fine at the library. Well, almost fine. Better than she had been in the hotel room.

“They’re calling it gastroententitis at the moment,” the nurse shrugged. “It goes around sometimes. It can get pretty nasty. They sent some of your stool off to be sampled, just in case. Is your throat sore? Some of your vomit had blood in it.”

“Yeah, now that you mention it. I’ve never had anything like that.”

The nurse perched in the chair next to Taryn’s bed and looked over at her, patted her leg. “Is there anyo
ne I can call?”

S
he thought about Matt, but she knew he would just worry. At any rate, he probably already knew something was up. She didn’t want him to worry any further. She’d call and let him know what happened when she was feeling better, that way he could worry all at once and be done with it.

“No, it’s fine. My parents died a few years ago
, and the only other family I have is an aunt in New Hampshire I haven’t seen since I was a kid. I’m okay,” she said dismissively.

Susan had
five brothers and sisters and a grandmother whose house they still gathered at for supper every Sunday after church. She thought that sounded like one of the saddest things she’d ever heard and immediately wanted to adopt Taryn. But things were different these days and family just didn’t seem to mean as much as it used to. She held her tongue and tried not to mother and cuddle the poor sick child, and she really
was
a sick one.

“Well, they’re taking good care of you here
, and if you need anything, just let us know. And the food’s not even too bad, either. You can eat now if you want to. I’m getting off in a few minutes, but Verna’s taking over, and you’ll like her.”

Taryn did like Verna, too. She was a grandmotherly type and she fussed over her and even brought her knitting in at one point and sat in the rocking chair in the corner
. She beguiled Taryn with tales of panthers and “booger mans” that her own “nana” had told her when she was a little girl until Taryn was laughing and her sides were hurting.

Apparently, there weren’t many patients in Stokes County General, at least not on her floor.
When she asked, Verna laughed and waved away her concern, “Lord, no, honey. They’re either old and been here for months or they’re on drugs and crying for more and we can’t give them anything. You’re the first real sick one we’ve had in a long time.”

“Well, not that I’m not enjoying myself, but do you think I’ll get to go home tomorrow? Or at least back to my hotel?”

She was enjoying her supper of penne pasta, a homemade roll, and a tossed salad a lot more than she thought she would but she was itching to get back to work. Although she was slightly afraid to get off the Zofran through the IV. She didn’t know what would happen to her stomach once she stopped taking it.

“We’ll have to see what the doctor says. He’ll do his rounds in the morning. They sent your labs off and you should get them back then,” Verna sighed. “I tell you, the way you was carrying on, well, you looked like something out of a horror movie. I’m glad you don’t remember any of it.”

“Well, I remember some of it.” She did remember a lot about what happened in the hotel room and that was more than enough.

H
er sleep that night was as peaceful as it could be. Verna did her best to check her blood pressure and temperature without waking her up, but now that she knew she was in a hospital the night sounds kept her restless. The slamming of doors, the lights in the hallways, the rustling papers, the nurses talking at their station…she tossed and turned a lot.

At six o’clock
, a Dr. Moody woke her up by clearing his throat and standing at the foot of her bed. He was several minutes into his speech before she was fully awake and listening. She was sure she missed some vital bits of information but something caught her ear and she had him go back and repeat it three times just to make sure she understood him correctly.

“Pine Sol?”

The tall, thin, blond-headed man who could have been a tennis player or PE coach nodded his head emphatically. “Yes, that’s what I said. Most commonly used in household cleaning products like Pine Sol.”

“Are you saying I was poisoned?
“Well, not necessarily. I’m saying that your system had ingested, in one form or another, the chemical compound—”

“So you’re saying that either I drank Pine Sol myself or that someone gave it to me,” she finished for him.

His cheeks turned red, making his blond hair even brighter.

“That would be the other alternative, yes.”

“Do I look like the kind of person who might chug down a bottle of floor cleaner to you?” she demanded.

“Ma’am, there are high school kids out there snorting everything under the sun. I can’t even begin to imagine what kinds of people may or may not do certain things,” he replied apologetically.

Taryn looked down at her arm and the IV stuck in it. “Yeah, that’s true I guess. But when could someone have poisoned me. And how?”

“Do you drink any tea?” Verna piped up. “Because Pine Sol looks like tea.
Or coke. Same color and all. Someone could have put it in there.”

“Well, I…” And sure, she did. She took tea with her when she painted. And had it with her at the library. She left it at the easel when she went inside the house, when she visited the graveside, every time she went to the bathroom…There were plenty of opportunities for someone to do something to it.

“Wouldn’t you have noticed if someone had slipped something into the tea?” Dr. Moody asked.

“Not necessarily,” Taryn said drily. “I make terrible tea, to start with. And since coming here
, I’ve switched to another brand. I thought it tasted funny but chalked it up to being cheap.”

None of them
were able to help stifling their chuckles.

“Well, I could stand to lose a couple of pounds anyway,” she muttered, feeling her flat stomach underneath her hospital gown.

“Well, frankly, you’re lucky it didn’t do any more damage than it did. It could have caused some serious internal bleeding. Dehydration is no joking matter, young lady. A few more days of that vomiting and diarrhea and you might have been facing some really serious damage,” he lectured.

“Oh, I know,” she agreed. “But I don’t know who could have done this. This wasn’t the work of some ghost. Long story,” she waved away at the look of confusion on his face.

She agreed to remain in the hospital under observation for another twenty-four hours. She didn’t mind. She still felt weak and, besides, they had more channels than the hotel’s cable anyway.