Murder in the Past Tense (Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series Book 3) (18 page)

Lord, didn’t You hear me?

My answer was what seemed to be an unusually violent kick from the baby. I grunted softly and grimaced from the pain.

Terence’s expression hardened. He pressed the barrel of the gun into my chest.

“I haven’t time for this. Come now or I—BEGAD, WOMAN!”

He jumped back, letting go of my arm, and nearly dropping the gun. He scowled down at the floor.

“You peed on my shoe!” The suede of his left loafer was black with wetness.

“I did no such thing!” Outrage overtook my fear. “I would never—” I looked down, feeling with growing humiliation the moisture that was pouring down my right leg. “Oh, dear!”

A wave of pain swept my abdomen. A force was pulling my insides down and out of my body. I sat, heavily, back down on the chair. It tilted, but held. I rocked helplessly, gripping my abdomen, until the pain subsided.

“I didn’t pee,” I explained weakly. “My water broke. I’ve got to get to . . . ”

“You’re
pregnant
?” Terence staggered back a step and directed his gaze at my middle. “Stupid, foolish girl! Why didn’t you tell me?” He thrust his fingers into his hair.

“I didn’t think it would be so soon; they told me I probably had a couple of weeks left.”

I savored the subsidence of the pain. In that short space of time, I had forgotten how good it felt
not
to hurt.

“I don’t know why it’s happening now.” I had also forgotten the gun.

He reached into his pocket and extracted a cell phone. “No bars!” he muttered and thrust it back inside. He looked around frantically.

I pulled my own cell phone from my pocket and handed it to him. He opened it, shook his head and muttered, “What can we do? What can we do?”

I clung to that “we.” When my water broke, I had no idea what Terence had been about to say, or—even more important—do. But he was all I had right now.

Terence looked around the sparsely furnished hovel. “You can’t give birth here. It’s filthy! Where’s your car? I’ll drive you, if you promise not to tell.”

Another wave of pain began. Before it engulfed me completely, I managed to croak, “No car. I walked. My house is just—
aaaaaaah!
”

I gave myself over to the pain.

As the tide of agony ebbed away again, I heard Terence cursing. “Dierdre won’t be coming for hours yet. Oh, wait, I know! Dr. Ridley has a camp a little bit further down the shore. We can head for there.”

“But he’s a . . . a . . . urologist!” I objected, my awareness returning with the relief from pain. “He’s my husband’s doctor!”

“What does it matter at this point! They all have to learn the plumbing, don’t they? Any old port, I always say!” He lifted his sweater, thrust the long barrel of the
San Juan Hill
gun into his belt, and pulled me to my feet. “We’ll take the old Joseph boat. Come on, go faster!”

He gripped my elbow and tugged mightily, trying to propel me along. It was a useless effort. Terence, ravaged by some fearsome, fatal disease, was weaker than I.

Nausea teased my body, but I managed to propel myself forward. “We’ll have to hurry,” I warned. “The pains—they’ll come back.”

Waddling now, I made my way desperately to the door, where I leaned, panting, for a moment before proceeding into the cooler outdoor air. A mosquito with a one-inch wingspan landed on my bare upper arm. I swatted, hard, leaving a bloody smudge.

Would a mosquito bite hurt the baby?
my right brain wondered.
Only if it carries malaria,
wryly answered the left brain, causing speculation of a new menace to multiply like post-rain mushrooms on a lawn:
Oh, no, malaria?

The worry was rendered moot as the agony began again, forcing me to my knees on the rough, pebbled path, where I rocked and moaned, giving no thought to the unseemliness of it all.

“Oh, Lord!” murmured Terence, uselessly stroking my shoulder. “Oh, please!” Whether he was directing his requests to me or heaven, only he knew.

My eyes were level with Terence’s belt. And the gun that he’d stuffed in it. What if that thing went off
?

It’s already killed one man. And he’d been planning to kill himself.

Another worry forced itself through the haze of pain.
What if he accidentally hit the baby?
I opened my mouth to ask him to be careful, but only a moan escaped.

Finally, I gasped, “Let’s go.” I took Terence’s proffered arm, thin and delicate as a wishbone through the plaid cotton of his sleeve, and pulled myself to my feet once again.

The boat sat bobbing at the end of the short weathered dock. It was sturdy enough to my eye, but not very stable.

Terence hopped in with relative ease, making a hollow-sounding thump, and held out his hands. “Come on, get in.”

I put a tentative foot on the edge of the boat, and it wobbled. I withdrew my foot.

“Come on, Amelia, come on,” he chided, “we’ve got to get you aboard.”

Moving slowly, I got down on all fours and slung a leg over the side. Clinging to the dock with a death grip, I slid clumsily into the boat, hoping I wasn’t mashing my little one in the process. As if in answer, the pains began their dreaded ascent.

“Ohh, they’re starting again!”

I slumped to the floor of the boat. It was a very tight fit.

“Lie still.”

Terence went to the end of the boat and started the engine, which sputtered tentatively. He muttered an oath. The engine sputtered, then started.

“Wha-what’s wrong?” I asked between moans.

“We’re low on fuel. Say a prayer!” he added grimly and swung the boat out onto the water.

I said several, inwardly, and then outwardly, with great volume. After a bit, the pains subsided. An irrational talkativeness overtook me. I began a semi-yelled discourse, and once again, tended to be philosophical.

“I didn’t know what to expect with labor. It’s painful, like they said, but not as bad as I expected. I mean, as an English teacher, Shakespeare and everything, one hears alarming things like . . . “from his mother’s womb untimely ripped,” and all that. What was that from
Julius Caesar
or
MacBeth
? Oh, I remember, that was MacDuff who—”

“The Scottish play! The Scottish play! Amelia, please!” Terence yelled into the wind. “We’ve enough problems without adding bad luck to the mix.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot. I’m sorry.” I felt better, and managed to crawl to an upright position and take a seat. The wind whipped my face, but I didn’t mind. I was a mess, literally, but soon, God willing, I’d meet little Janet . . .

I smiled. A twinge signaled the beginnings of another round of labor pains.

“Ohhh.” I slid back down onto the floor of the boat and rocked back and forth. “Ohhh!”

“Hang on, dear,” Terence said over his shoulder.

I did hang on. And I prayed. I thanked the Lord for this man who was helping me instead of—well, doing something else. I gave thanks for Gil and prayed for the good health of my little girl. And I prayed for the soul of this unlikely helper.

“Here we are!” Terence yelled.

We pulled up to a small dock. He jumped out, tied up the boat and reached a hand for me. “Can you walk?”

I nodded. Clumsily I climbed onto the dock and with Terence holding my arm, I made my way toward the large house beyond. All at once, the pains began to grow again and I had to lie down on the broad wooden slats, where I writhed helplessly.

“Stay here! I’ll get help from the house.”

I floated in a sea of pain while Terence was gone. The pains were just subsiding when he returned, swearing violently.

“Nobody home and it’s locked up tighter than a drum!”

I wiped sweat from my forehead. “Alec’s place—no, wait, he’s probably still in town. Um, my place is not too far, in that direction.” I pointed across the lake from whence we had come. “I should get back in the boat and go with you. The pains are getting closer together.”

“Your house better not be too far. I wasted most of my gas coming here.” He was out of breath. “Come on.”

I don’t remember exactly how I got into the boat again or what happened in the next few minutes. The memory is all a blur. When I did come to my senses and the pain had stepped back for a few minutes, I realized that Terence was swearing again and leaning over the side of the boat with a paddle. His white hair lay in the bottom of the boat. He was completely bald, with freckles dotting his bare, round head. He glanced at me.

“We’re almost . . . there,” he gasped. “Almost . . . ”

“The gas?”

“Gone. Gotta use . . . the paddle . . . ” He swore, then coughed.

I lifted myself up on an elbow and looked to the shore. I could see my house clearly. The lights were on. Gil was home, praise God!

I grabbed the wig, which was sliding under a seat, and held it tightly to my chest. Something dark and heavy slid past my hand, out of my reach, and thumped against the side of the boat. The gun? It didn’t matter now. Never mind, we were almost home! We had to be!

“Terence?”

“Yes?”

“Back there in the cabin.”

“What?”

“What were you going to do?”

He was as breathless as I was. “Don’t think . . . about it.” He continued paddling.

“You’re not . . . a bad . . . man, Terence,” I concluded. “I know you wouldn’t have done it.” I was lying.

“Whatever . . . you . . . say.”

I recited the Lord’s Prayer aloud, and Terence joined me, timing the phrases with strokes of the paddles.

“ . . . hallowed be Thy Name . . . Thy Kingdom, come . . . Thy will be done . . .

“Ohhh!” The pains returned and I was lost in the terrible mist again.

Whenever the pain subsided, my prayers were loud and insistent. “Oh Lord, have mercy on us! Please—”

“And . . . add this thief on the cross, would you, dear?” a gasping voice interrupted me.

“Of course,” I managed to groan.

He continued to paddle.

I couldn’t say another word aloud, but something in my spirit pled for this poor man.
Forgive.

At the end of an eternity, I heard Terence’s voice calling, as strongly as it ever had in the theatre, “Ahoy, the house! Ahoy, the house!”

I looked up and observed him, standing in the boat, firmly pulling the wig back on his head before he cupped his hands and called again.

That was the last time I ever saw Terence Jamison.

As they say in Victorian novels, I will draw a veil over the next few hours and only point out that they involved a long and bumpy ride in an ambulance, being unceremoniously ushered into the hospital, bounced from one gurney to another and abruptly jabbed with a variety of needles.

“The Storybook Dragon did it,” I told them, gasping from inside a world of pain. “He saved the day. He was a good guy after all.”

“Whatever you say, ma’am.”

“C-section,” I heard somebody say.

That meant caesarean section
. “Caesar wrote about Shakespeare,” I reminded them blearily, “But don’t ever say
Julius Caesar
. No, wait, it’s
MacBeth
! Say the Scottish play.”

“She’s hallucinating. Better get her under right way.”

“I am not! It makes perfectly good sense—okay, all right, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven . . . ” I descended into a semi-dream.

“Good job, Mama,” a voice said in the middle of my dream. “It’s a girl!”

I regained my senses just in time to experience someone painfully kneading my abdomen.

“I’m sorry. We have to do this,” the nurse said in answer to my groans. “Helps you get back to normal, you know.” She concluded her cruel work after an eon and consulted a clipboard. “Lucky lady, you didn’t need a C-section, after all. You were halfway out of it the whole time. Remember anything?”

I ruminated a moment. “No.”

“I must say, your husband got a kick out of all that Shakespeare stuff.”

“What?”

“You said something about Scotland—” She was interrupted by the man himself, wearing scrubs. “I’ll leave you folks to visit.” She drew the curtain closed.

Gil looked exhausted, but he wore one of his radiant smiles. He kissed me on the forehead.

“That was the most amazing experience I have ever had!”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” I said dryly.

He took my hand. “And you were so brave.”

“I don’t remember a thing. I’m sorry about the movie, though.”

“Movie?”

“You said we’d go see one.”

He shrugged. “There’s nothing worth seeing, anyway. I checked with the entertainment editor.”

He wobbled his left eyebrow. Gil was the entertainment editor. And the sports editor and the editorial page editor, too.

“Thank him for me. Tell me, what about Shakespeare? The nurse said I was quoting Shakespeare?”

He chuckled. “Not quoting. You were going on and on about not saying the word
MacBeth.
‘Scottish play,’ you kept saying, ‘only the Scottish play,’ probably because we’d been talking about the summer theater stuff recently.”

“Oh, I know what that was. It was because of Terence.” The memory of my strange back-and-forth interaction with the man suddenly came flooding back. “Oh, Gil, about Terence, he—”

Wearing a frown, Gil sidled up to the bed, sat and took my hand in his. “Honey, I know, you wanted to thank him, but—”

“Gil, he’s a mur—”

“Amelia, he’s dead!”

For once, I was shocked into silence. Tears sprang into my eyes.

He handed me a scratchy, hospital-provided tissue. “Honey, I’m sorry I blurted it out like that. I was going to try to break it to you gently. When he got you to the house, I followed the ambulance to the hospital. He said he needed to get to town, so he rode with me. I noticed that he didn’t look very good, sweating and all out of breath, so when we got here, I grabbed somebody and asked them to take a look at him. Before they could, he collapsed. They couldn’t revive him. Heart attack, they think.”

“Oh, Gil!” I blew my nose. “He died helping me!” New tears filled my eyes.

“I know.” He shook his head. “I’ll always be grateful. Oh, honey, don’t cry. It’s going to be all right.”

He climbed onto the bed and took me in his arms. He knew the drill. I needed time to exhaust my sobs before I could be cogent again. At last, I leaned back, sighed and made good use of half-a-dozen tissues.

Gil slid off the bed. The front of his scrubs uniform was damp, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“What were you saying before, I mean, before I interrupted you?”

I couldn’t deal with it all. “Can I tell you about it later? Right now, I’m really tired. Is it okay if I take a nap?”

Gil grinned. “Aren’t you forgetting somebody?”

“Who? I mean, whom am I forgetting?”

“Miss Janet Lillian Dickensen made her appearance at 11:51 p.m., weighing seven pounds, six ounces. If she could stand up, she’d be twenty-one inches tall. And she’s beautiful, Amelia. Not much hair, but gorgeous.”

He smiled that hundred-watt grin again and I answered with my own, albeit weak, smile.

I was horrified. “Oh, Gil, I forgot my own baby! How awful!” I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was five a.m. “It was probably the drugs they gave me. I’ll never forget her again, I promise.” I held up my hand. “When can I see her?”

Once they moved me out of recovery and into a private room, they let Gil bring her to me, a tiny wrinkled bundle, eyes wide, squeaking like a kitten. A nurse followed him.

“Is she all right?” I asked her as Gil placed Janet in my arms. “She isn’t very loud.” I stroked the tiny groping fingers and murmured soothing noises.

“Give her time. She’s just not quite used to the outside world yet. And she’s hungry. It will be best for both you and her if you feed her now.”

She proceeded to show me how to nurse my child. I expected difficulty, but all went well, and in a little while, our daughter was sleeping peacefully in Gil’s arms, her tummy satisfied. The nurse had gone, the doctor had visited, rapidly declared us healthy and left, and the door was standing open.

A young man stood in the doorway. “Um, Miss Prentice? I mean—Mrs. . . . um . . . ”

“That’s all right, Brian. People still call me that sometimes.” It was one of my former students, Brian Lake, sweetheart of the amiable, seventeen-year-old grocery store clerk, Kim Mallard, and father of her baby.

He moved hesitantly into the room and handed me a copy of the tabloid newspaper
Worldwide Buzz.
“Well, um, Kim heard you were here. She told me to come find you and tell you we had a boy yesterday. And give you that. I got it in the gift shop. It’s a little old, but Kim remembered that you liked that paper. She’s gettin’ outta here tomorrow.” He stood up straight. “Elton Lake, we’re gonna call him, after my dad. He was a little bit early, but he’s okay.” He nodded reassuringly. “And we’re gettin’ married in about a month, ’cause I got a good job now, so . . . ”

“Well, that’s great. I’m very happy for you, Brian.” I smiled at him and made a mental note to shop for a baby gift and a wedding gift as soon as I was able.

There was a tiny, sleepy squeak from the rocker in the corner. Brian turned.

“Oh, there’s your baby. I heard it’s a girl. Congrats, Grandpa,” he said to Gil, misinterpreting my husband’s gray hair. It would not be the last time someone did this. “I better get back to, um,” he pointed to the hall, “you know.” He waved as he moved away.

“Tell Kim I said thanks for the newspaper!” I called after him. I looked over at Gil as he contentedly rocked the sleeping child and shrugged. “They’re getting married.”

“Hello, Mrs. Dickensen!” This time, it was pretty, dark-haired Melody Branch at the door, wearing a nurse’s scrubs in a cheerful cartoon print. “Someone is here to see you.” She stepped into the hall and was heard coaxing someone into the room. “Come on,
I mean it . . . ”

A huge, pink, floppy-eared stuffed dog of indeterminate breed preceded Vern Thomas into the room.

Melody remained, smiling and leaning on the doorframe with crossed arms.

“Here.” Vern thrust the animal at me.

“Who’s your friend?” Gil asked from the corner.

“If you mean the student nurse turned busybody, that’s Melody, who dragged me over here at the crack of dawn.” He jerked his head toward the entrance, then held up the toy dog. “If you mean this, Melody picked her out, but I named her Uma, since you didn’t have any use for the name.” He tossed it on my bed.

“How are you?” I refused to let tears once more fill my eyes. He looked thinner to me. “Are you all settled in your new place?” I pulled the dog to me and stroked its ears.

“I better be since I’ve been there since February.”

It hadn’t seemed that long. “Oh, yes. So you’re all right.”

Melody pulled a pager from her pocket. “Oops, pediatrics calling. Gotta run.” She pointed a finger at Vern. “Be good!”

“Yeah, I’m all right. I gotta go too.” He began moving toward the door.

“Thank you for the gift.” I gestured toward the corner where Janet lay sleeping in her father’s arms. “Don’t you want to see the baby?”

“Oh yeah.” Vern wheeled around and bent over Janet where she lay in Gil’s arms. He smiled. “Cute.” He turned back.

“I had quite an adventure just before she was born, Vern,” I said invitingly. “Don’t you want to hear about it?”

“I would, but there’s no time right now, sorry.” With a vague wave, he was gone.

I heaved a huge sigh. “Oh, Gil.”

A tear ran down my cheek. I was a mess. When were these soggy emotional reactions going to stop? I grabbed for the tissue box.

Gil deposited Janet in the crib and came over to my bed. “I know, honey. He’s still peeved at us, the stupid kid.” He put took my hand and patted it.

A few months ago, we’d help extricate Vern from a sticky situation, but not without stepping on his toes, or rather, his pride.

“Will he ever forgive us?”

Gil smiled ruefully. “For being right when he was wrong? If I were to guess, I’d say yes, judging by the hold that young lady has over him.” He resumed his seat next to the crib. “Meanwhile, I’m going to enjoy being a daddy. Not a
grandpa
, by the way,” he said with a rueful half-grin, “I’ve waited long enough for this.”

Sinking back onto my pillow, I turned my attention to the tabloid Kim had sent me. It was dated the week before. One headline read: “Dying Mobster Confesses Decades-old Mob Hit Mystery! Who Are the Victims? And Where Are They?”

I turned the pages until I found the article. It featured a slightly blurry but recognizable image of Gino Bernini, who had aged considerably since that day in Lake Placid.

Gil squinted over at me and chuckled. “Really? Are you reading that? Again?”

“Nobody brought me a copy of the
Press Advertiser
, so I make use of what I have at hand.”

I read for a bit before commenting, “They say they can’t find the graves of those poor people. The woods are so thick and Bernini’s directions are vague. And the men who actually buried the bodies are long dead. Poor Janey, or rather, Eileen. I need to talk to Dennis as soon as possible,” I said, referring to Police Sergeant Dennis O’Brien, a family friend.

“Can’t it wait, honey?”

“I’m not sure it can. By the way, you never did ask how I ended up on the lake in a boat with Terence Jamison.”

Gil tilted his head and looked at me. “Good point. How did you?”

I folded the tabloid on my lap and began, “Well, I had all this energy yesterday, so . . . ”

~~~

“ . . . and then you told me he died. I don’t know what to do.”

“Listen, Amelia.” Gil hefted the precious sleeping burden he had been rocking and deposited her gently into the rolling hospital crib. “You’ve got enough to worry about. Let’s dump this whole thing in O’Brien’s lap and let him sort it out. It may not even be his job. DiNicco was killed in New York City. There are bound to be jurisdictional issues and whatnot.”

“Knock, knock,” someone said at the door.

“Speak of the—” Gil began.

“Dennis!” I said. “And Dorothy! How sweet of you to come!”

Dorothy O’Brien smiled. Her halo of red hair glowed in the intense hospital lights. Her daughter, a miniature of her mother, stepped out from behind her and thrust a package into my hand.

“This is for you. We want to see the baby!” She looked around the room. “Is that her?” She pointed a small finger at the clear plastic crib.

She.
But I said nothing. Six-year-old Meaghan would learn proper grammar in due course.

“Yes, that’s Janet.”

“Not too close, sweetie,” Dorothy warned and said to me, “I’m not sure if it’s against the rules for her to be here, but nobody stopped us.”

I tore open the package and thanked them profusely for a delicate pink blanket with a matching rattle.

“We got it in the store downstairs,” Meaghan said before her mother could shush her.

I laughed, beckoned Gil over close to me and whispered, “I need to tell Dennis what I told you.”

He nodded and turned to our guests. “Look, the baby’s asleep. They’re both going to need their rest. Meaghan, would you like me to show you and your mom where the newborn nursery is? You can see all the babies through a window.”

Meaghan nodded enthusiastically.

“Dennis, would you hang around here with Amelia?” he said as they left.