2 Any Meat In That Soup? (17 page)

That did help me relax a little. I shot my eyebrows up questioningly, and she said, “George brought you in.” She nodded to the other side of my bed where my hero stood. “And you can talk just fine. You’ll just have to get used to the NG tube.”

Tears threatened to fall. George was already holding my hand, and leaned over and kissed my cheek. I squeezed his hand, but still needed to know more. “What’s happening?” I whispered.

George took over then. “Carter and you both had a reaction to the rat poison. You most likely had a slight case of arsenic poisoning.”

I squeaked, “Slight?” I wanted to yell, “SLIGHT?”

“Yes, slight. You’re going to be fine. At least that’s what Jill says. Carter’s going to be okay too.”

Jill excused herself to go check on Carter for me. I still was confused, and George must have known it. My stomach, my head, and my throat hurt. I didn’t like talking with this tube down my throat. It felt like it was as big as a tunnel.

He continued, “We have Dr. Johnson in custody, but he contends he’s innocent. He won’t talk more and is lawyered up. We took the bag of rat stuff from his house and it’s being analyzed now. Looks like it does contain arsenic though; it says so on the bag.”

George leaned over and kissed my cheek again. “I can’t believe I’m talking and you haven’t interrupted me once.”

I managed to grunt and kicked him in the side with my foot. He laughed at me. “Is it okay if I leave you alone for a minute? I have a call to make.”

I nodded.

As he walked toward the door, he turned and said, “I love you too.”

The most romantic words George had ever said to me, and he’s leaving, while I’m lying in a hospital bed with a tube down my throat and needles in my arm. Something was horribly wrong with this picture.

I wasn’t surprised Dougie hadn’t confessed. Why would he? But it looked like Carter was right and I owed Loretta an apology. She probably wouldn’t accept it because her shining star, baby boy was in jail and accused of several murders and attempted murders. For some reason, it just didn’t feel right to me. Although my vibes were present around him, they weren’t the “omigod, I’m in the presence of a murderer” type of vibes. More like “get out of my face” vibes.

Couldn’t do anything about it anyway. I was stuck in my own brand of jail, and I wanted the damn tube out. Immediately. I rang the call bell, and the smiling nurse immediately retreated when she saw my face. A moment later Jill returned.

“Sam, wait just a few more minutes. We want to see if any more juice is coming out of your stomach. If it’s about done, then I’ll take the tube out. Promise.”

I held up five fingers and croaked, “Five.”

“Yeah, five minutes ought to do it.”

I pointed toward the door and arched my eyebrows.

“Carter is about in the same position you are. Because he’s so much younger, he…”

She stopped before I kicked her too.

“Anyway, he’s going to be fine.”

Her pager went off and she said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes to take out your tube.”

I held up four fingers. All she did was laugh as she left.

I must have dozed off. The next thing I knew I couldn’t breathe. My eyes popped open to see Loretta even closer than usual. Her cinnamon-scented breath would have gagged me if I’d been able to gag. As it was I had a stupid tube down my throat, two petite hands trying to kill me, and my arms incapacitated with needles in them.

She let go for a split second as both my legs scissored up and kicked her in the head. It must have pissed her off because she slugged me. I thought that at least she wasn’t choking me. Where was Jill? Where was George?

I began panicking again as she choked me after slugging me one more time. I was able to kick her again, but was losing what little strength I had.

Throughout the struggle she was talking through clenched teeth. I could make out something about her baby and what I was doing to him. I would have loved to have answered, but I was being choked to death with a stupid tube in me.

Just as I thought I was going to die, a big, beautiful, blonde, furry creature came flying through the air. Clancy knocked what little air I had left out of me. But even better she landed on Loretta and put her teeth around Loretta’s arm and pulled. Loretta didn’t scream but she let go of me immediately. Clancy continued pulling her until Loretta was off the bed; then Clancy knocked her to the floor. My brave canine stood over Loretta with her teeth bared, just daring Loretta to move.

At that point I noticed that Gus had entered the room.

“Are you okay, honey?” he asked, leaning over me and looking as mad as I’d ever seen him when he turned around to glare at Loretta.

I nodded while I was sobbing, making as much noise as I could with the damn, damn, damn tube down my throat. When would this end?

George ran into the room, followed quickly by Jill. Once he saw that I seemed to be alive and breathing, George took out his handcuffs and read Loretta her rights. He asked a security guard, who also appeared, to watch Loretta in the corner for a minute.

He held my hand while Jill deflated the balloon inside my stomach so the tube would come out easily. I had to cough more, and didn’t know if it was from the tube coming out or if it was from inhaling the arsenic, but I didn’t care. I was rid of the tube and I was alive.

Now that Loretta was safely away from me, Clancy jumped on my bed and nuzzled against me. “Oh my sweet girl,” were the first words I said as I hugged her the best I could considering I was still tied up to IV poles.

“What happened?” George asked, still holding my hand and gazing at me as though he wanted to wrap his arms around me despite the crowd.

Loretta was in the corner and screeched to anyone who would listen, “You had my boy arrested. He’s the only good thing in my life, and it’s all your fault he’s in jail and his career is ruined.”

“His career isn’t ruined if he’s innocent,” George said. “Is there anything you want to say?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” She looked at George, then at me, and then back at George.

“I can have Dougie out of jail this afternoon if he’s not the one who’s been killing people,” George said to her.

Loretta started sobbing. “I didn’t mean for anyone to die.”

It was hard to hear what else she said because she was sobbing from her very soul. After a few minutes, she began talking again. “You don’t understand what it’s like. He’s the first one in our family to go to college, and he ended up being a doctor. But no one here recognized his brilliance. Everyone was always bragging about Jill.” She glared at me as if that was my fault. “I had to do something to show people what a wonderful doctor Douglas is.”

George prompted her with, “So you…”

“So I thought it wouldn’t hurt anyone very much if I put just a little rat poison on some food. I was very careful and I practiced on dogs first.”

Clancy growled and no one blamed her.

“Once I got good enough at poisoning dogs that they stopped dying, but just got sick, I decided to begin on people.”

Outraged as I was, I was able to squeak out a few words, “But there were some dogs poisoned after people started dying.”

“Yes, there was some leftover meat I’d had for the dogs. I just threw it in a trash bin on Maine Street. They must have gotten it there.”

And some of it dropped on the sidewalk and my dog almost died from eating it, I thought. I choked up and couldn’t get any words out. All I could do was hug my sweet heroine, Clancy.

George asked another question, “How did you know to order rat poison from Haiti?”

She didn’t answer, but her worried expression told us there was an interesting answer there somewhere.

I hated to change the subject but had to ask Gus, “How did you get permission to bring Clancy up to see me?”

“Permission?” was all he said. He winked, and I swear Clancy smiled.

TWENTY-FIVE

J
ill said she would release me in a few hours. In the meantime no one made a move to remove Clancy from my bed.

My brother Rob arrived with another officer to take Loretta to the station. After a quick hug, and an “I love you,” he left. But I knew I’d hear a lecture later, about the fact that I wasn’t a cop. Boy, oh boy, I’d heard that often enough. And it probably wasn’t the last time.

Michael walked in. I’d forgotten all about him. I didn’t have to ask where he’d been, because he started talking right away.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been here sooner, but I kept in touch and knew you were okay. I went to Loretta’s house with the police and we saw some white powder in her garage. Figured it’s the rat poison, and we’ll find out from Dr. Johnson why he had it.”

He walked over and gave me a quick hug. George and Clancy allowed it.

Gus had gone to be with Carter because he didn’t have anyone with him, and there was no one to call. I had a feeling Gus would be just the poison antidote Carter needed.

Michael left pretty quickly. I thought about how fast things, and my affections, had changed. Just a short time ago I had yearned for Michael to return my interest, but now I knew that had been a passing fancy.

George took Clancy and me home a few hours later. I still had on the gown from the ER, so he put me to bed, and I conked out immediately after getting a sweet, loving kiss. My last thought before falling asleep was that I wanted more.

I woke up to someone whistling. When I opened my eyes I could see the sunshine beaming onto the carpet, letting me know I really needed to vacuum. George bounded in with coffee and toast.

He said, “This is all the food I could find.”

“It’s perfect,” I replied as I tried to sit up.

“And don’t worry. Clancy has already been out.”

A movement on the other side of the bed caught my attention. Clancy snuggled up next to me as she always did when I was in bed.

“Have you been here all night?” I asked George.

“Yeah.”

“Where did you sleep?”

“Well, I was kind of worried about you, so I just slept by you so I’d be there if you needed anything.”

“Thank you,” was all I could say. Then I thought of something else, “Where did Clancy sleep?”

“Well, we both wanted to be by you so she slept on one side of you and I slept on the other. A little crowded, but you were well-guarded.”

After grinning, I began devouring the toast, and took a sip of the coffee, swallowing gingerly because of my throat. “Have you heard anything yet?”

He knew what I meant.

“Yeah, I’ve been on the phone with the station. Dougie is innocent of everything except not reporting his mom. He bought the rat poison innocently enough. Loretta told him that his grandma had some rats and wanted the type of product she remembered from her childhood in Haiti. He wasn’t aware it contained arsenic, but even if he had known, it’s unlikely he would have suspected his mom was up to no good.”

“So that explains why he bought it. Why did he have it at his house?”

“Well, this is where he committed a crime. After he noticed he was always on duty when the poisoned patients came to the ER, he started to suspect that his own mother might be behind the poisonings. She kept calling for him whenever a new patient came in; that gave her away, and he wanted to stop her. So he took the bag back from her and stashed it at his house. He wanted to see if the poisonings would stop if he had the bag.”

“Did they?”

“There were a few more. Loretta had some of the powder at her home. But no one else died. She’d figured out the dosage by then.”

I had one more question. “I understand how the dogs were poisoned. How did she do it to people?”

He frowned as he said, “Well, the first victim, Pluto, was poisoned at the party. This was Loretta’s first attempt, so she scattered some of the poison on a few wings, and she used too little. Other people got somewhat ill, but that was it. Not enough to make their nausea look like more than the flu—or to have them admitted to the hospital so that Dr. Dougie would have to save them. But because Pluto’s immune system was compromised from living on the street for many years, and because of his alcoholism, he was more susceptible. He was doomed.”

“So she used more the next time, to make even healthy people ill…‌and she used too much?”

George nodded, sadly. “And finally,” he said, “she found just the right dosage.”

“But how was she able to poison the people in the hospital, like Dr. Adams?”

“Funny thing about that,” he said. “Some people were poisoned right there in the ER. When they asked for a soda or coffee, she would put a little rat poison in it. She could gauge the dose pretty well by then, even accounting for body mass. She’s a nurse, after all.”

My curiosity wasn’t satisfied yet. “What about the other people?”

“Well, she went to a lot of church and community functions. Sprinkle, sprinkle, and there you have it.”

He leaned over and kissed me.

“Because you’ve been through a lot I’m not going to give you a long lecture. But you are a social worker…”

“Not a cop. I know, I know, I know. But I can’t help myself.” I kissed him back. “And if I hadn’t snooped at Holtschlag’s, you would have never known about the rat poison.”

He was mercifully quiet, staying true to his word of not lecturing me too much. I finished the toast and slurped up the last of the coffee. I looked at Clancy, then I looked at George. I was pretty content at that moment. Pretty content.

“George, please take Clancy to the living room and turn on Animal Planet. That will occupy her for a while. I’m going to jump in the shower and I’ll see you in a minute.”

He looked at me with mischief in his eyes. One of the many reasons I loved him. Without a word to me, he called Clancy and they disappeared into the living room. It was only a moment before I heard the TV telling Clancy all about wildlife in Idaho.

As I climbed out of bed I felt a little dizzy, so I moved slowly. Besides the dizziness, I had a sore throat, but other than that I felt pretty good. I steadied myself against the bedstead and stood for a moment.

I felt some strong arms hold on to me, making me feel safe. And loved.