“I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I was hoping to pick up her plate number, but no such luck,” I said. “What’s going on? It sounds like you’re taking a trip.”
“I’m flying to Detroit. Nell took a spill. Lewis called first thing this morning and woke me out of a sound sleep.”
“She fell? That’s not like her. She’s usually steady as a rock.”
He saturated a cotton ball with peroxide and dabbed my wound. A light foam bubbled on the edge of the scrape. The wound no longer hurt, but there was something lovely about being tended to by a bona fide mother substitute. He frowned. “She was opening a can of tuna and the cat was winding back and forth between her legs. You know how they do. She went to set his bowl on the floor, tumbled over him, and came down on her hip. Lewis said it sounded like a well-struck baseball flying out of the park. She tried to pull herself up but the pain was excruciating, so the boys called 9-1-1. She went from the ER straight into surgery, which is when he called me. I contacted my travel agent as soon as the office opened and she got me a seat on the first flight out.”
“What cat? I didn’t know they had a cat.”
“I thought I told you about him. Charlie took in a stray a month ago. Skin and bones from all reports, no tail, and half of one ear gone. Lewis was adamant about turning the scruffy guy over to the pound, but Charlie and Nell ganged up and voted him down. Lewis made his usual dire predictions-mange, cat scratch fever, septicemia, ringworm-and sure enough, this morning ‘tragedy struck,’ as he put it. Most of his report was taken up with I- told-you-so’s.” He returned the first-aid items to the drawer.
“But Nell’s okay?”
Henry wagged his hand. “Lewis says they put a fourteen-inch titanium pin in her femur and I don’t know what else. It was tough to keep him on point. I gather she’ll be in the hospital for a few days and then go to rehab.”
“Well, the poor thing.”
Henry’s sister, Nell, was ninety-nine years old and ordinarily the picture of health, not only active but vigorous. The only other hospitalization I’d heard about was nineteen years before, when she’d developed “female trouble” and had undergone a hysterectomy. Afterward she’d declared that while at eighty she was fully reconciled to the notion that her childbearing days were done, she was sorry to lose the organ. She’d never had a body part removed and she’d been hoping to leave the world with all her original equipment intact. Nell had never married and had no children of her own. Her four younger brothers had served as surrogates, aggravating the life out of her as kids are meant to do. Henry, as the youngest, was more closely allied with Nell than any of the intervening sibs. The two of them were like bookends, holding the three middle brothers upright. After Nell, Henry was the take-charge member of the family. In truth, he sometimes served in that capacity in my life as well.
William, age eighty-nine and senior to Henry by one year, had relocated to Santa Teresa four years before and had subsequently married my friend Rosie, who owns the neighborhood tavern where I hang out. As for Lewis and Charlie, still living at home, they were entirely capable of taking care of themselves. It was Nell, the temporary invalid, they’d find difficult to accept. All the boys deferred to her, giving her full command over their lives and well-being. If she was out of commission, even briefly, Lewis and Charlie would be lost.
“What time’s your flight?”
“Six thirty. Means getting up at four thirty, but I can sleep on the plane.”
“Is William going with you?”
“I talked him out of it. He’s been complaining about his stomach, and the news of Nell’s fall threw him into a tizzy. If he went, I’d end up with two patients on my hands.”
William was a born-again hypochondriac and couldn’t be trusted around the sick or infirm. Henry had told me that in the months before Nell’s hysterectomy, William suffered from monthly cramps, which were later diagnosed as irritable bowel syndrome.
“I’ll be happy to take you to the airport,” I said.
“Perfect. That way I won’t have to leave my car in the long-term parking lot.” He put the oven on preheat and fixed a blue-eyed gaze on me. “You have dinner plans?”
“Forget it. I don’t want you worrying about me. Have you packed?”
“Not yet, but I still have to eat. After supper I’ll haul out a suitcase. I have a load in the dryer so I can’t do much anyway until it’s done. Chardonnay’s in the fridge.”
I poured myself some white wine and then took out an old-fashioned glass and filled it with ice. He keeps his Black Jack in a cabinet near the sink, so I added three fingers. I looked at him and he said, “And this much water.” He held his thumb and index finger close together to specify the amount.
I added tap water and passed him the drink, which he sipped while he continued dinner preparations.
I set the table. Henry pulled four homemade dinner rolls from the freezer and put them on a baking sheet. As soon as the oven peeped, he slid the pan in and set the timer. Henry’s a retired commercial baker who even now produces a steady stream of breads, rolls, cookies, cakes, and cinnamon buns so tasty they make me whimper.
I sat down at the table, catching sight of a list of items he needed to handle before he left town. He’d already canceled the newspaper, picked up his cleaning, and rescheduled a dental appointment. He’d drawn a happy face on that line. Henry hates dentists and postpones his visits for as long as he can. He’d crossed out a reminder to himself to roll out the garbage bins for Monday pickup. He’d also put his interior lights on timers and shut down the water valve to the washer so the machine wouldn’t suffer a mishap in his absence. He intended to ask me to water his plants as needed and cruise through his place every two days to make sure things were okay. I checked that item off the list myself. By then the salad had been made and Henry was ladling soup into bowls. We snarfed down our food with the usual dispatch, competing for the land speed record. So far I was ahead.
After supper I helped him with the dishes and then went back to my place, toting a brown paper bag full of perishables he’d passed along to me.
In the morning, I woke at 5:00, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and pulled a knit cap over my mop of hair, which was mashed flat on one side and stood straight up everywhere else. Since it was Saturday, I wouldn’t be doing my usual three-mile jog, but I stepped into sweats and running shoes for simplicity’s sake. Henry was waiting on the back patio when I emerged. He looked adorable, of course: chinos and a white dress shirt with a blue cashmere sweater worn over it. His white hair, still damp from the shower, was neatly brushed to one side. I could picture “widder” women in the airport waiting room, angling for the chance to sit next to him.
We chitchatted on the twenty-minute drive to the airport, which allowed me to repress the feelings of melancholy I experienced the minute I dropped him at the gate. I made sure his flight was on time and then I waved once and took off, swallowing the lump in my throat. For a hard-assed private eye, I’m a wienie when it comes to saying good-bye. Home again, I pulled off my shoes, stripped my sweats, crawled into bed, and pulled the covers up to my chin. The Plexiglas skylight above my bed was streaked with the pink-and-blue streamers of a burgeoning dawn when I finally closed my eyes and sank into the warmth.
I woke again at 8:00, showered, dressed in my habitual jeans, turtleneck, and boots, and watched a segment of the news while I finished my cereal and washed my bowl. Neither the newspaper nor the local television station made reference to the shoplifting episode, not even as a tiny two-line report on an inside page. I would have appreciated learning the woman’s name and age, along with some hint of what had happened to her. Was she arrested and charged, or kicked out of the store and told never to return? Policy varied from one retail establishment to the next and ranged from warn-and-release to criminal prosecution-the alternative I’d vote for if it were up to me.
I don’t know why I thought the disturbance would warrant a news story. Crimes take place daily that don’t generate a smidge of interest in the public at large. Minor matters of burglary and theft are relegated to the back page, break-ins reported by neighborhood with a cursory list of items stolen. Vandalism might be elevated to a one-inch squib. Depending on the political climate, taggers might or might not be accorded column space. White- collar crime-especially fraud and embezzlement of public funds-are more likely than murder to inspire irate letters to the editor and the denunciation of corporate greed. My shoplifter and her coconspirator were probably long gone, my bruised shin the only testimony that remained, painful witness to their skullduggery. For the foreseeable future, I’d be scanning pedestrians, alert to the presence of any black Mercedes sedan, all in hopes of spotting one or the other of the two women. Mentally, I sharpened the metal toes of my boots.
In the meantime, I loaded my car with cleaning equipment in anticipation of my Saturday chores. I was at the
