Dead Over Heels (13 page)
Authors: Charlaine Harris
“Yes.”
“How long ago?”
“Five minutes,” I guessed. “They’re on this side of town, they’ll be here any minute.”
Sure enough, I saw the blinking red lights far down the road toward town. I tried to pray, but the rain was plastering my hair to my skull and dripping down my neck, and Shelby seemed so close to leaving us that all I could do was urge the ambulance forward mentally, hoping that the best team Lawrenceton had to offer was on duty this cool spring night.
I had a flash of sense as the young man and woman were loading Shelby into the back of the ambulance. I dashed into the house, opened the coat closet, and yanked out Martin’s lined raincoat. Pounding down the porch steps, I yelled to Angel just as she was about to climb in the ambulance. I could see the flash of annoyance on her face, but she realized she needed more body coverage than she had, and she turned her back to me and held her arms a little out and down, and I slid the coat over her wet arms and nightgown as quickly as I could.
With a scream of the siren the ambulance was off, and I could finally go inside. Everything I had on was soaked through, and though the morning was not really cold, I was chilled to the bone. I stripped right inside the front door so I wouldn’t get more water on my wooden floors than I absolutely had to—I could see the splotches left from my previous entrances and exits—and I sprinted upstairs to the shower to let the hot water wash the dirt and rain off. I dressed in record time, turning on the heat lamp in the bathroom to start my hair drying, and I plugged in my usual handheld dryer too; but with a mass of thick hair like mine, it took too long, and I drove to the hospital with damp hair that was curling and waving around my face like streamers of confetti.
I’d taken the time to use my emergency key to the Youngbloods’ apartment to grab some clothes for Angel. It felt very strange to be poking through her things, dropping the basic garments into a plastic Wal-Mart bag. I included shoes, a toothbrush, and a hairbrush at the last second.
Angel was sitting in the emergency waiting room at the little Lawrenceton Hospital, her hands folded and her face blank. She didn’t recognize me for a moment.
“What have they told you?” I asked.
“Ahhh . . . he’s got a concussion, a bad one. He has to stay here for a few days.” Her voice was expressionless, numb.
“He’s going to be all right?”
“We’ll see when he wakes up.”
“Listen, then, Angel . . . are you hearing me?”
“Yes. I hear you.” She was a pathetic sight. She was as wet as I had been, and she had pulled on Martin’s raincoat over her wet clothes, so she was warm enough for the moment; but the damp was sealed inside the coat. Her blond hair hung in rattails down her back, and her feet were bare and streaked with dirt and bits of grass. The passivity of her strong body was so upsetting I had to retreat into briskness.
“I brought some clothes and shoes, and your toothbrush, and your hairbrush. Is Shelby in a room yet?”
“No, he’s still in emergency. They brought in a portable X-ray machine, and since I’m pregnant I had to leave. They didn’t even want me to put on the heavy apron, they wanted me out.”
“Well. We’re going to find out what room they’re going to put him in, and you’re going to go in there and take a shower, and by then the cafeteria here will be open, and we’re going to go in there and eat.”
Angel blinked. She seemed a little more aware.
“That sounds okay,” she said hesitantly. “But no one will be with him.”
“You don’t need to watch him, they’re doing it for you. He’s going to be okay,” I said soothingly. “Now, I’m going to find the admissions person, and see about getting all this started.”
The “admissions person” was glad to see me, since she hadn’t been able to get much out of Angel besides Shelby’s name and his birthday. I gave the clerk Shelby’s insurance program group number, the same as Martin’s since they were both covered by Pan-Am Agra’s group plan. I gave the clerk an address, next of kin, everything but Social Security number, and I promised her Angel would remember that after breakfast. By dint of being cheerful and persistent, I was able to get Shelby’s future room number, and took Angel there, resisting the impulse to ask to see Shelby myself.
After fifteen minutes with Shelby’s admissions hygiene kit, a hot shower, and clean clothes, Angel was a new woman, and after we talked our way into the employee cafeteria and she downed a plate of grits and sausage and toast, she was approaching normality.
It was while we were sitting there, Angel with another glass of orange juice and me with my third cup of coffee, that the deputy found us.
He was a young man I didn’t know, dressed in a crisp uniform. He seemed concerned and wary, all at the same time. He introduced himself as Jimmy Henske.
“Do you have a relative on the town force?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am, my uncle Faron. You know Uncle Faron?”
“Yes, I do.” He’d questioned Angel the day before, Arthur had told me. Faron was a good ole boy, with a heavy Southern drawl and an unreconstructed attitude about women on the force and black people having power and money. But Faron was also a courteous and anxious man who had no idea he was biased and would swear on a stack of family Bibles that he was fair to one and all.
Jimmy had the family coloring and build. The Henskes tended to be tall, thin, and reddish, with high-bridged noses and big hands and feet (including the women). Jimmy was trying to pay courteous attention to his conversation with me, but his eyes kept straying to Angel. I sighed, trying to keep it quiet.
“Now, Ms. Teagarden, I understand you found Mr. Youngblood in your yard?” He’d torn his gaze away from her to begin his questioning.
I told him what had happened, said I hadn’t heard any noises in the night (though with the wind and rain it would have been surprising if I had), and explained that my husband was out of town. Jimmy Henske instantly came to attention; if he’d been a bird dog, he would’ve been pointing his nose. Clearly, he was wondering if Angel had bashed her husband because Shelby was sneaking over to see me. Or perhaps (and his gaze swung my way) I’d done it when he’d tried to make advances to me?
I did my best to disabuse him of those suspicions by telling him that while Martin was gone, Shelby sometimes patrolled the yard, and that I was sure he must have been doing so the night before because of the incident of Madeleine’s ribbon.
It was lucky Shelby had taken Madeleine in to Dr. Jamerson, I thought as I explained the incident to Deputy Henske, because it was confirmation that we suspected someone had been on my property.
Jimmy didn’t know what to make of a prowler sneaking into the yard to tie a ribbon on Madeleine’s neck, and to tell the truth, I didn’t either; but I was glad to think the solution was his problem rather than mine.
After a confused-looking Jimmy Henske left for Spacolec, his little notebook full of indecipherable squiggles, a nurse came to tell us Shelby was in his room, and conscious.
Angel was on her feet faster than lightning, and I put our trays on the appropriate rack and followed at a slower pace. She needed time alone with Shelby, and I had to call Pan-Am Agra and tell Martin’s production head that he would be short a crew leader that day, and for several days following. I took care of that little chore, wondered if I should pick up Shelby’s paycheck, and snapped to when an orderly eyed me curiously. I was standing by the pay telephone in the hall, my hand still resting on the receiver, staring blankly at the coin input slot. Lack of sleep was catching up with me as the emergency-produced adrenaline ebbed.
A glance at my watch told me it was all of eight o’clock by then.
It had already been a long day.
With a sinking heart, I realized I had to go in to work. With Beverly in the hospital, it was especially important for me to show up. I wondered how she was doing. Well, I was in the place to find out.
I went to the nurses’ station and inquired about both Beverly and her mother, Selena. The nurse, a young woman I’d never seen before, told me briefly that both mother and daughter had died in the course of the night.
I sat in the waiting area for a while with a magazine on my lap, hoping no one would talk to me, feeling sick at heart.
When my mind finally began functioning again, I was almost sorry. My thoughts were all unpleasant ones. Could it really be a coincidence that Beverly Rillington, who had threatened Angel publicly, and Angel’s husband Shelby had both been admitted to the hospital with head wounds in the same week?
Finally I roused myself to find Shelby’s room, and knocked gently on the door. Angel stuck her head out.
“How is he?” I whispered.
“Come in.”
Shelby looked horrible. He was asleep, but Angel told me in a low voice that the doctor had said he must not sleep long at a stretch. He had to be woken up periodically. There was a good reason for this, but my overloaded system didn’t absorb it.
“He didn’t see whoever did it, Roe, he doesn’t remember anything since he ate supper last night. He didn’t remember putting on his clothes and his raincoat, or why he thought he ought to go outside . . .”
I stared at Shelby while Angel murmured on and on. She was chatty with relief now that she was reasonably sure Shelby was going to recover.
Shelby’s face was stubbly with unshaven beard, a state I’d seen before, but the skin underneath the bristles was a distressing gray. The hair protruding from underneath the bandage was matted with blood and stringy from drying with rainwater on it. There was a huge dark bruise on his right arm, which Angel thought was a defense wound. Shelby had taken a blow on that arm defending his own head, but it hadn’t worked a second time. One of his ribs was broken, too, Angel said . . . he’d been kicked when he was down.
I didn’t have to look at Angel to know she would kill whoever had done this to Shelby if she could find him.
After a while, Angel ran down. She stood looking at Shelby as if her eyes could glue him to her, as if his life could not escape him if she were there to make sure it stayed.
I was thinking my own thoughts. Why hadn’t Shelby heard the attack coming? He’d made his living as a bodyguard for years. He was tough and quick and ruthless. Had the sound of the rain and wind dulled Shelby’s senses, so the approach of the trespasser was totally unexpected?
Or had he turned to see someone he knew, someone he did not think of as an enemy?
Chapter Seven
N
ormally, when Martin returned from a business trip I got to tell him about the kid who threw up on the Berenstain Bears book, or what the plumber had told me when he’d come to repair the hot water heater.
ormally, when Martin returned from a business trip I got to tell him about the kid who threw up on the Berenstain Bears book, or what the plumber had told me when he’d come to repair the hot water heater.
When he walked in the front door late that afternoon, I hardly knew where to begin. As it turned out, Martin had stopped at the Pan-Am Agra plant, so he already knew that Shelby was in the hospital. After his first anxious questions, he settled down to listen with that total concentration that made him such a good executive.
I think Martin was just as shocked by Angel’s pregnancy as by Shelby being attacked in our front yard. And when I told him about the ribbon around Madeleine’s neck and the deaths of Beverly and Selena Rillington, he had to get up and walk around the kitchen.
It was still raining, and I watched the drops hit the large window by the table where Martin and I usually ate, the window overlooking the side of the garage and the steps up to the apartment, as well as some lovely pink azaleas hidden now by the darkness. The drops might hit at random, but they ran down the glass with monotonous regularity. The rain increased my sense of being stockaded against the danger outside, besieged.
Martin strode through the dining room, out into the living room, back through the archway into the dining room. He circled the table and shot back into the kitchen again, stopping by the window to stare out into the blackness.
“Who sent the flowers?” he asked abruptly, and I glanced into the dining room to see that they were still in their vase on the table. A few blossoms were shrivel ing, and one or two bits of baby’s breath had fallen to the polished surface of the old table.
The delivery of the flowers seemed so long ago I’d forgotten about it completely. Now, when I added it to my list of happenings, Martin gave me a sharp look, one that said effectively, “All this you didn’t tell me over the telephone?”
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