the concrete. Below us were the cars in the school lot. Patty Sue passed out.
Unfortunately, I could see our trajectory only too well. We were aiming for a roof, a car roof, that I tried to imagine being soft. A cloud. A trampoline.
But no. When the Honda landed on my van, it collapsed like a beer can.
CHAPTER 16
I really get off on women in hospital gowns,” Investigator Tom Schulz said as he patted my knee beneath the white sheet.
The room was slightly fuzzy, but then cleared to pale institutional green walls and a window luminous with the apricot light of sunset. I said to Tom Schulz, “Are you here because I broke a law?”
He gave a low whistle.
“And here I was trying to be sweet and pay you a nice visit. Look. What’s wrong with this picture?”
He handed me a photograph, whether made by the police, the school, a bystander, or the
I handed it back to him. “Where are the mountains in the background? There ought to be something pretty about this.”
“Your friend didn’t try to ski the car, Miss Goldy, she tried to fly it.”
A nurse swished in and I checked her name tag. I was at Lutheran Hospital. “Am I all right? Is Patty Sue Williams—”
“You’re just banged up,” she said. She checked my vital signs and shook her head. “You’re lucky you’re not dead. And that nothing’s broken. Want some pain medication?” I nodded and she went on. “You’ll probably only be here tonight. We’re just watching you.” She smiled. “They said it looks like you’ll be discharged in the morning.”
Schulz winked at me. “Why don’t you let me watch her?”
She ignored him and left.
I closed my eyes and made a mental journey through my body. My head throbbed and my back and hips hurt.
“Do you know about my son?” I asked Schulz. “What time is it?”
“He went to your friend Marla’s house. When I heard about an accident at the high school, and that you were in it—” He stopped to shake his head. “I went by your house. Your son had already come home and left you a note. On the door, very bad. Tells criminals you’re not home. Anyway, I called the place where he said he was. Talked to that yakkety-yak woman Marla, who says Arch can stay as long as you’re in the hospital.”
“Thank you,” I said. I wasn’t just touched by his effort. I was overwhelmed. I said, “That’s my ex-husband’s second ex-wife you’re talking about.”
“Well,” he said while studying the view out my window, “except for his first wife, the guy shows no taste.”
I said, “How’s Patty Sue?”
“She got here and asked for your ex-father-in-law. To treat her broken arm.”
“But he just does ob-gyn.”
“Pardon me, Goldilocks, but your friend isn’t very smart. Not to mention that her driving needs a whole lot of work.”
“Forgive me for failing to see the humor in this,” I said to Schulz. “I do appreciate your efforts, but why are you here, anyway? I thought you were investigating bike gangs.”
“I get around,” he said. “Radios are a wonderful invention. Not to mention that I was supposed to call you.”
I avoided looking at the closet, which I hoped held my purse with Arch’s letter from Laura Smiley.
“So you want to talk, or not?” he asked, tapping the sheet.
I said, “I have no job, no car, no helpers, my son is at a friend’s house, and I don’t have the faintest idea how I’m going to cover the cost of this hospital visit. I’m really not in the mood for talking about the so-called poisoning incident right now.”
He clucked his tongue. “Spare me. You were going to check out your ex-mother-in-law and your little friend Trixie and get back to me, remember? I was kind of hoping it would be over pizza tonight. In fact,” he went on cheerfully, “I could even go out and get us some right now. Have a supper date right here in the hospital. You like pepperoni?”
My head began its internal thunder again. As if on cue the nurse swept in with a small tray containing what I hoped was an extremely potent narcotic.
“Oh thank you,” I said extravagantly, and then to Schulz, “I haven’t gotten much out of Vonette. But I will. Trixie, Patty Sue, and Laura Smiley had a conversation in a steamroom close to when Laura died.” I took my pill, thought for a minute. “I found an old article about a mistrial back in Illinois. Involving Korman senior. You might want to see what you can dig up. The torn article is by my phone at home. It’s what I’ve been trying to reach you about all week. I’ll get it for you as soon as I get out.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s all I’ve found out. I don’t feel too great,” I said honestly. He
“No sweat,” he said. “I’ll want that article. Now, have you found out anything about someone named Hollen- beck?”
“I saw the name on a photograph.”
“I got the name of the high school in Illinois where Laura Smiley did her internship,” he said. “Called out there and talked with the one teacher who was there when our departed friend was there. She remembered a student of Smiley’s named Bebe Hollenbeck.”
“Can we talk to this student? Can she tell us something?”
“She’s been dead for twenty years. But apparently Laura and this gal were very tight.”
I said, “Laura kept pictures of her.” I thought. “I’ll ask Vonette, maybe she’ll talk about that time in Illinois.”
“Okeydoke.” He gave me a wide grin. “You still not sure about going out with me? It’s one way for me to keep tabs on you, to make sure you stay safe.” He smiled. “If that’s possible.”
I returned his smile, which was difficult because pain was still knotting up my back. I said, “The athletic club Halloween party. Trick or treat. We can go together, if you’d like.”
The nurse gave Schulz an ominous stare, and he left. But not before he had nodded to me. And winked.
“There was another fellow who wanted to see you a little while ago,” the nurse said when we were alone. “He went away when he saw you had a visitor, but I imagine he’ll be back.”
“Please don’t tell me it was a doctor.”
“I don’t think so,” said the nurse. “Tall? Good-looking? Claimed he was the one responsible for this mess.”
Great. I couldn’t wait to throttle that stellar driving instructor, Pomeroy Locraft. Perhaps my window was high enough off the ground so that I could ask the nurse to throw him out.
The nurse was saying, “Do you have someone to pick up you and Miss Williams tomorrow?”
“I’ll work something out,” I assured her. “Just let me deal with one crisis at a time.”
I called Marla; Arch was fine. They were on their way out for burgers after Arch used the last of her Brie to finish constructing an elaborate trap for the resident mice.
Next I called Vonette Korman. It was past five, but she was still coherent. I reminded Vonette that I’d taken in Patty Sue at her request, that Patty Sue was a patient of her husband’s, and that it was her son who had treated me so rottenly in the first place that I had to do catering and cleaning in a van that Patty Sue had wrecked. And furthermore, I added before she could do more than make sympathetic murmuring noises, now the two of us were at Lutheran Hospital and we needed her to come and pick us up tomorrow morning. Early.
“That’s awful,” said Vonette.
“Right,” I said. My door was opening again; I needed to get off the phone. “And may I borrow one of your
