Sins and Needles (4 page)

“Well, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there were children with a family resemblance scattered all over the place, thanks to your Uncle Stewart!”

“
Mo
-ther! How can you say that?”

Her mother offered a pained smile. “Oh, you're right, of course. His two most obvious faults argue against that. First, he is possibly the laziest human alive. Anyone lazier couldn't be troubled to breathe or blink, and so wouldn't have survived. Second, he drinks. And as a nurse, you know what drink does to male, er, capability. Who was it who said, ‘Liquor enhances desire while diminishing performance'? So even if he fell over a willing female, or one fell over him…no.” She shook her head with a regretful smile.

“He has four daughters, so…” Jan boggled at getting even more specific. “And anyway, he's not an alcoholic, not really!”

“Well, it's true that I don't remember seeing him drunk until he got into high school.” Jan's mom gave her daughter a sardonic look as she took a drink of her Arnold Palmer—half iced tea, half lemonade, an Antiquity Rose specialty.

“Oh, Moth-
er
!” said Jan again.

“You sound just like you did when you were fourteen,” Susan said, amused.

“I do? I was imitating Ronnie.” Jan's younger son was at a tiresome stage of teendom.

Her mother raised her eyes to heaven. “It's a mother's hope come true: I often wished you'd have children who would give you the same grief you gave me.”

“Oh, Moth-
er
!”

“It's never as funny the third time.”

“You're right, you're right,” sighed Jan. “It's even less funny the twenty-fifth time.”

Her mother cast her amused eyes heavenward again but didn't say anything.

“Katie thinks she's after our money.”

“Who's after whose money?”

“Lucille, our Texas visitor. After Aunt Edyth's. I think Lucille is not well off, and Kate thinks she might have heard about Aunt Edyth and decided to see if she could cut herself a piece of that pie.”

Jan's mother snorted. “I wish her luck trying. She's not mine, and, thanks to DNA testing, people can't play tricks like that anymore, no matter how much they look like a member of the family. With your medical training, you must know that.”

“Yes, I do.” Oddly, the thought made her a little sad.

After lunch, Jan went across the street to the parking lot, a hollowed-out space in the center of the block, surrounded by the backsides of stores. She walked into the center and paused. As usual, she wasn't sure just where she'd left her car. She finally spied it farther down a row than she thought she'd put it. It was a cranberry red PT Cruiser, an eminently spottable car, and she hurried to it. She put the key in the door lock, but it wouldn't turn. Then she noticed the pair of fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. She stepped back, hoping no one noticed her trying to get into someone else's car and saw her own in the next row, about six cars nearer the lane that led out.

“Hi, Jan!” came a woman's voice, her Texas accent making it sound like, “Hah, Jee-an!” She looked around and saw Lucille in a deep orange sunsuit waving at her. With Lucille was a tall, deeply tanned, attractive man with curly silver-and-black hair, and a very white grin.

“Hi, Lucille!” called Jan, waving back. She trotted toward the pair. “Having trouble finding my own car,” she noted as she came up to them.

“This is my husband, Bobby Lee. Bobby Lee, this is Jan Henderson, a fellow stitcher.”

“How do?” said Bobby Lee in a drawl even more marked than Lucille's.

Lucille said, “I saw you admiring my car. Are you thinking of buying a Cruiser? They're super fun to drive, and”—she grinned—“they're easy to find in a parking lot.”

Jan turned to look again at the red car. “That PT is
yours
?”

“Sure! Why?”

“Because that one right over there is mine.” Jan pointed at her own cranberry red vehicle, and the pair turned to look.

Lucille exclaimed, “No, that's too much, that's way too much, that's
insane
!”

“Well, ain't that a kick in the head,” said Bobby Lee. “Luci here has wanted one ever since she saw it on the Internet. And it had to be that color red, too.”

“When I saw one on the Internet,” Jan said, “I thought it was a concept car, and I was so excited to find they were actually going to build them. This is my second one. My first one was black.”

“Did you put a bullet hole in it?” asked Lucille.

“A bullet hole?” echoed Jan, wondering if that was some strange Texas custom, for luck or something.

“You know, those decal things. I put just one, in the back passenger door, down in the corner, so hardly anyone can see it. A lot of Cruiser owners do that, for a joke.”

“No, it never occurred to me,” said Jan, relieved to find one difference between her and Lucille. She'd changed her mind: being too much like another person was scary—and, in an odd way, suffocating.

“I think I have another one back home I can send you.”

“No. No, thank you. I'd better get home. I've got a lot to do.”

 

B
OBBY
Lee watched Jan go down the row to her car and get in behind the steering wheel. “What do you think?” he asked his wife.

Lucille watched Jan start up and drive off. “So far, so good,” she said.

J
AN
came up to the beautiful carved walnut door of the old house and paused—as she often did—to admire the pattern of leaves and flowers carved into it, before pushing the doorbell. After a minute, she pushed it again. Still no answer, so she got out her copy of the old-fashioned bronze key. The house was big, and Aunt Edyth was slightly deaf, so sometimes she didn't hear the bell. Aunt Edyth's housekeeper had a key for the very same reason.

Jan was met at the door by Lizzie, Aunt Edyth's miniature fox terrier. The little black and white dog shot past her, across the porch and lawn to her favorite shrub, where she squatted with a look that could only be interpreted as relief.

That was odd. Aunt Edyth was always good about letting the dog out. Jan paused in the big entrance hall, waiting for Lizzie to come back. Meanwhile, she cocked her head, inhaling and listening. It was almost nine o'clock—she was here to take Aunt Edyth to church—and she was surprised not to smell coffee. Her aunt was an early riser in any case and enjoyed a cup of coffee first thing “to get her blood stirring,” as she put it. Jan enjoyed sharing that pre-church cup of the rich, dark brew.

But there was no welcoming smell, or even the small clatter of someone in the kitchen preparing it.

And poor Lizzie was still tinkling, an indication that she hadn't been let out last night, either.

Perhaps Aunt Edyth was ill. Though clear-minded and physically active, her great-aunt was, after all, ninety-seven. Starting to feel anxious, Jan went slowly up the stairs to the second floor. The windowless corridor was dim and creepy; she flipped on the ceiling lights. There were rooms on either side, their doors all shut, except one—the bathroom. Its open door laid a splash of light across the narrow carpet. At the end of the hall, facing Jan, was another door, also shut. Like all the woodwork in the house, it was made of oak so hard it hurt her knuckles when she rapped on it.

“Aunt Edyth? Are you in there?”

There was no reply. The open bathroom door meant she wasn't in there; the lack of coffee smell meant she wasn't in the kitchen; the anxious dog meant she hadn't gone out. Feeling frightened now, Jan opened the door.

On the tall wooden bed, which stood against the center of the wall, lay a thin figure. She was on her back, the covers draped evenly across her, head turned away, toward the window. Jan could see the white hair, thick and abundant for someone her aunt's age, pulled into its usual bun, half hidden by her big feather pillow.

“Aunt Edyth?” called Jan, loud enough to penetrate deaf ears. But there was no response; the figure lay perfectly still. Fearing the worst, Jan went around the bed for a look. Aunt Edyth's features were unnaturally pale and frozen into a look of surprise. Her chin was lifted. Her eyes and mouth were open, as if startled by Jan's appearance beside her pillow. “It's just me,” said Jan—then she realized that Aunt Edyth wasn't looking at her. Or at anything. Jan stretched out her forefinger to touch the wrinkled skin: cold.

“Oh, dear,” said Jan, pulling back her finger hastily. Then, feeling she ought to say something more sympathetic, she managed to murmur, “You poor thing.” Then it hit her: this was Great-aunt Edyth, who had loved her and bullied her and admired her—but would no more. She choked on a sob. As a nurse, she'd dealt with death, but never the death of a loved one. What should she do? From the chill of the body, it seemed clear that this must have happened early last night. Her sympathetic heart wanted to close her great-aunt's staring eyes, but something else kept her from it. Something that wasn't quite right. No, that was silly. She gave herself a rough shake. It was because she had begun to believe that Aunt Edyth would never die, that she would always be there, expressing a sharp opinion, telling uproarious stories, loving her dogs, ordering people about. That, and only that, was what was wrong.

Aunt Edyth, ever contrary, would have to pick a time when her housekeeper was out of town, leaving her body to be found by Jan. And yet it was nice to have had it happen quietly in bed—the bed covers were not disturbed, meaning there had been no struggle. She probably was gone before she got beyond that first look of surprise.

Jan rubbed her forehead to stop her rambling thoughts and went to the phone on the little bedside table to call 911. This wasn't an emergency, obviously, but she knew the rules. When someone is found dead at home, government officials have to be notified. Never mind that Jan Henderson, RN, knew a dead body when she saw it. Aunt Edyth wasn't really dead until the county's medical examiner declared it so. The operator said she'd send the police—no matter what the emergency, the first responder arrived in a squad car. Then Jan went downstairs to let Lizzie in and give her breakfast while they waited.

She was sitting with the dog on the front porch steps when the squad car pulled through the twin brick pillars that marked the entrance to the house's curving drive. No siren or lights, which was fine. And all the nice young police officer did was call the medical examiner's office, which is what Jan expected to happen. Funny, though, how the bureaucrats couldn't take even a policeman's word for it that Edyth Hanraty was dead but had to come for a look their own selves.

While they waited, Jan made the policeman a cup of tea, made one for herself, then sat down by the kitchen phone. She called her mother first. “Mother, bad news. I'm at Aunt Edyth's house—I said I'd take her to church this morning, you know—and she's…she's dead.”

“Oh, my dear, how awful! What happened? Did she fall?”

“No, she died quietly in her sleep.”

“Well, that's a blessing. The poor old thing, I suppose we should have been prepared for this, but it's still a shock.”

“Yes, it is. The police are here, and they've asked someone from the ME's office to come by, and I have to stay until that's finished. Could you call Jason and Uncle Stewart? I'll contact Reese at the university, and I'll tell Ronnie when I get home. Meanwhile, there's a list she had all drawn up of people to notify. I'll call her doctor and that Excelsior mortician she decided on, Huber's, to let them know they have a customer to take care of. She had a prepaid arrangement with them. It says on the list to remind them of that—wasn't she something? And her attorney, and Pastor Garson.”

“Give me those last two numbers. I'll call them for you.”

“All right. There are some other names here, too. Friends, I guess. I'll call them. Bless her for that list. This will make things a lot easier.”

 

S
USAN
was sitting in her kitchen, lingering over her lunchtime cup of tea and considering mortality. Aunt Edyth had been an old woman when Susan was a child and had seemed to live in a kind of time warp, never growing any older. Susan had started to wonder if she would outlive everyone.

But right now, this minute, Susan's brother Stewart was at Huber's Funeral Home waiting for the arrival of Aunt Edyth's body. It appeared Aunt Edyth was mortal after all. She had gone from a determined, opinionated, cranky old woman to a mere body.

If a body meet a body
…That weird song began to run through her head. When she was a child, she thought it a very scary song about dead bodies meeting in a field.
If a body kiss a body
…Ugh!

She remembered when her mother died. It had been explained to her that a dead body turned into a piece of property. So now that Aunt Edyth was dead, her body didn't belong to her anymore. Mortal remains belonged to the next of kin—as if anyone could think of doing anything with a dead body but burying it as quickly and decently as possible! But Aunt Edyth, bless her, was still maintaining control, having previously selected Huber's in Excelsior to handle “the arrangements”—an odd term. She had also set out the order of her funeral and sent copies to everyone last spring after a bad cold had turned into a mild case of pneumonia and frightened her. In that same letter, she had reiterated the terms of her peculiar will, which had reignited Stewart's old campaign to make her change it.

Even so, Stewart, to Susan's surprise, had proved surprisingly amenable to driving to Huber's Funeral Home to sign papers and get that process started. Susan would have done it herself but had found herself caught up in a sad weakness over all this. She'd been relieved when her brother—usually not one to step up to the plate—said he would handle it. Perhaps he understood that Susan had been genuinely fond of Aunt Edyth, even though she could be exasperating.

Only a couple of weeks ago, Aunt Edyth had complained to Susan that Stewart was trying, again, to make her think he was fond of her, too. He had come over several times, ostensibly to run errands, but in fact to hint ever so heavily that he had four daughters, and since Aunt Edyth liked girls so much, how come she wasn't willing to remember them in her will?

But Aunt Edyth wasn't to be swayed by the arguments of a male, particularly this one. She was sure he only wanted his daughters to be given some of her property so he could wrest control of it from them, and sell it. She had filled Susan's ears with her angry complaints and had threatened to sell off some of the items herself to stop his annoying hints.

The sad thing was, Susan mused, Aunt Edyth was undoubtedly right, both about his motive and his clumsiness in acting on it. Stew certainly would have guilted his daughters into sharing any property or money they came into possession of—and just as certainly have wasted it on improbable schemes.

He had the attention span of a housefly, and the work habits of a dead possum.

So Stewart's efforts were unavailing—and now there could be no more of them.

She looked down at the notepad beside her coffee. A lifelong list maker, she had started this one as soon as she finished talking with Jan. It was a to-do list, of course. It started with “phone Stewart” and “phone Jason.” There were check marks after each. Stewart hadn't been home when she called, but Katie was there. She had been shocked and was in tears before they hung up, which rather surprised Susan. She hadn't realized that Katie actually had been fond of Aunt Edyth. Jason's reaction had been, “Oh, really? Man, I thought she'd never die! I'm sorry, Mom, but seriously, didn't she seem, like, immortal?” Susan had been both shocked and amused that his reaction was so much like her own, if more boldly expressed.

Next on the list, “Funeral.” That was pretty much taken care of. St. Luke's Lutheran—whoops, she'd better call Pastor Garson again. He should be home from church by now. He would call her back, he said, after consulting his calendar, to arrange a date and time for the service. She'd already left a message with the attorney, Marcia Weiner, and Dr. Phyllis Brown.

Next on the list, “close house.” She remembered how sad and creepy it was going through her mother's things after she had died. This would be different: Aunt Edyth was so distant there wouldn't be that Peeping-Tom feeling. Besides…Susan tried but failed to suppress the thought.

Aunt Edyth's house had been built by her father early in the twentieth century. It was large and full of wonderful things. Susan allowed a guilty little thrill of anticipation to run through her. Going through that house was going to be…well…fun.

 

O
N
Monday morning, Jan was soothing a frightened child before Dr. Hugs came in to look at an infected thumb. Another nurse came in and said, “I'll take over here, Jan. You have a phone call, line three. It's your mother, and she says it's urgent.”

Jan's mother rarely disturbed her at work; that she felt it necessary to add that it was urgent made Jan go immediately to an empty exam room. She touched the button beside the blinking light and said, “Yes, what's the matter?”

“Jan, dear, I just got the strangest call. It's from a Dr. Wills, who works in the medical examiner's office. He says Mr. Huber at the funeral home notified him that—well, he says—” Her mother paused, whether to gather her strength or her vocabulary or her courage, Jan couldn't tell.

“Is this about Aunt Edyth?”

“Yes, of course. He says Mr. Huber was, er, arranging the body to prepare it for, for embalming, when he cut the finger of his glove—his rubber glove, presumably—on something stuck in Aunt Edyth's head.”

“Something stuck in her head?” Jan echoed. “What does that mean? A hairpin?”

“No, not a hairpin! Something actually stuck into her head, like a needle. Stuck right into the bone.”

Jan just sat there for a few moments.

“Jan? Are you there?”

“Yes. A needle, he said?”

“
Like
a needle, or a pin. And…and so, the medical examiner says they're going to do an
autopsy
.”

“I see.” A perfectly dreadful thought was forming in Jan's mind, although she fought against it with all her strength.

Susan continued. “I said, ‘But what about the funeral?' And he said he was very sorry, but we will have to put off the funeral.”

“Oh, yes, of course. Oh, Mother, do you know what this means?”