Casket Case (20 page)

“The
hearse
? I’m not dead.” I tried to shout it, but my words came out a whisper.

“The
Hurst
. It’s one of those car can openers, like the Jaws of Life. We’ll have you out of here in no time.” As he talked, he wrapped my head in some kind of swaddling that held it still against a hard surface.

When the man arrived with the machine, the EMT in the car with me laid a cloth over my face, explaining, “This is just to keep any glass that rattles loose from getting into your face.”

For some reason, when I’d seen them use equipment like this on television, I’d always thought of it as gentle. It wasn’t. The car rocked back and forth violently as they tried to open it. I caught a faint whiff of something unpleasant.

“Gas! Get her out of there before this thing explodes,” another voice called. The next thing I knew I was being pulled from the car onto a body board and wrapped snugly to it. I glanced around and saw two fire trucks, several Jade County Sheriff Department cruisers, and two ambulances—all of them a pretty far distance from the Lincoln.

The guys carrying me on my body board slid me into the back of an ambulance, which drove off just as I heard the
boom
of Middleton Mortuary’s best family car explode.

Inside the ambulance, a young technician unwound enough wrappings to take my left arm out and stabilize it on a smaller board. He took my blood pressure, then patted the inside of my elbow. He muttered, “Her veins are rolling like crazy,” but after several jabs, he succeeded in getting a needle in and hung an IV over me.

“Can you call someone for me?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, “who do you want me to call?”

“Middleton’s Mortuary.”

“Honey, you’re going to be okay. You don’t need a funeral home,” he answered.

“You don’t understand. I work there.”

“Don’t worry about your job right now,” he consoled.

“You still don’t understand.” Tears filled my eyes. “The car that just exploded belonged to my bosses.”

Déjà vu.
Back in the ER with handsome, smooth-talking Dr. Don Walters leaning over me, pointing his little flashlight into my eyes.

“Callie,” he said, “the waiting room is full of Parrish men, the sheriff, your friend Jane, and some trucker who just wants to know you’re going to be okay before he gets back on his route.” He shined the light up my nose. I was glad I didn’t have a cold.

“Of course,” he continued, “there are two undertakers waiting to hear about you, too. The bald-headed one is cussing, and I think the spiffy one is praying. They all want to see you, but I need tests before I let them. Scans of your head, chest, and back.” He straightened up.

“Can you tell me how you feel?” he asked.

“I hurt, but not unbearably.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere.”

“Can you stand it until we get the scans? I had the nurse give you a little something for pain through your IV, but I’d rather hold off on anything stronger until after the scans. If we need to call in a neurosurgeon, I’d like for you to be able to answer her questions.”

I grinned.

“Yes,” he said, “I said
her
. The best in this area is a female, and if you need one, we’ll get the best.”

Don hadn’t said what he was looking for, but I knew. Damage to my brain or spine. He hadn’t unbound me from the board. The transport personnel put me on the gurney still wrapped to the body board to go to X-ray.

Up or down? I was too spacey to feel which direction we moved on the elevator or where we went when we got off. They lifted me onto a table similar to the ones we use in the prep room at the mortuary.

“Take off her earrings,” the attendant said. I saw and felt hands remove my birthday pearl studs from my ears. Vaguely aware of being left in the room alone, I heard the mechanical voice say, “Breathe in and hold it.”

What felt like eternity.

“You may breathe out.”

This occurred over and over as the equipment moved me backward and forward through an opening in the gigantic machine that seemed to groan and moan when not telling me how to breathe.

The transporters had me back to the elevator before I remembered.

“My earrings. They took them off, and I didn’t get them back.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, they’re pink pearl studs.”

“I’ll go check.”

They wheeled me off the elevator, down the hall, and into a private room before the young man returned with my earrings. He put them back into my ears “so they won’t get lost.” He didn’t say stolen, but I thought it.

I heard voices.
Frank and Jane were talking to Don. I wondered if all the other people he’d named were there, but when I opened my eyes, only the three of them were in the room.

“Callie?” Don leaned over me. I swear that man winds up over me every time I get hurt. Notice I didn’t say on top of me, just leaning over me. “I gave you some pain medicine after the scans were negative.

“You have a couple of cracked ribs, but other than that, you’re fine except for bruises, some small cuts, and probably two black eyes,” he continued. “I’ve been letting your friends and family come in to see you two at a time. Now that you’re awake, they can speak to you for a few moments, then I want them to go home and let you sleep through the night. Your body needs rest.”

Jane and Frank had little to say. Just, “We’re so sorry you were hit, but so glad that you aren’t hurt worse.” I could hear in Jane’s voice that she’d been crying.

The trucker came in next. He’d been waiting to get back on the road. “Miss,” he said, “I’m glad you’re going to be okay. I gave the sheriff the license number for the Tahoe that hit you. I’ll check on you next time I’m through St. Mary.” I thanked him again and again until Don sent him away, saying there were others waiting.

Don Walters lied to me again. He said two at a time, but Daddy came in with Bill and Mike. Even as drugged up as I felt, I knew that was three people, not two. They didn’t have much to say except that if they found whoever was driving that Tahoe, all of them might go to jail. Before they left, Daddy kissed me on the cheek.

I lay there, drifting off, enjoying the sensation of my daddy showing me the feelings I’d always known he had but he’d never before been able to express.

“They said she was awake.” I heard Odell’s raspy voice complain.

“Well, she’s asleep, so don’t wake her,” Otis answered.

“I’m awake,” I mumbled. “I’m sorry, so sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Odell.

“Your Lincoln. It has to have been totaled, as many times as it was hit, but then it burned.”

“Don’t worry. It’s insured,” Otis said. “The important thing is that you’re okay. Lord knows, if you’d been in your Mustang, you’d probably be dead now.”

“Don’t even think of Callie getting killed, Doofus,” Odell scolded. “Let her go back to sleep.” Danged if Odell didn’t kiss me on one cheek and Otis on the other.

I’d been kissed more in the past few days than in a year, but they were all just affectionate family-type kisses. Except for that one sweet kiss from Levi. What did it matter? I felt so sore that if Levi Pinckney himself crawled in bed with me, I’d probably push him away, roll over, and go to sleep.

 
“Wake up, sunshine,
your breakfast is here.” The attendant was pleasant and smiling. She pulled a side table across my bed and placed a covered tray on it. “Do you need help with eating or can you do it by yourself?” she asked.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, then added, “thank you,” as she left.

Sometimes I react to situations like a child. I was hungry and the covered tray delighted me. I’d almost been killed, could even have burned to death, but here I was ecstatic over a breakfast tray.

I hoped that removing the lid would reveal pancakes. I grinned and snatched the top off the plate. No such luck. Grits, scrambled eggs, and two slices of bacon. Not so good as pancakes, but as hungry as I was, I dug in.

A saucer beside my plate had two slices of buttered toast and little plastic packets of strawberry preserves. I slathered the toast with jelly and put the bacon inside. One of my favorites—a bacon and jam sandwich. I ate that first with the little carton of milk, then stirred the grits and eggs together. I was finishing them off and ready for my coffee when Dr. Don Walters came in.

I glanced down at my chest. Well, actually at my lack of a chest. Like the first time I’d ever met Donald Walters, I wore one of those little cotton thingies that hospitals use instead of gowns and pajamas.

Oh, well, Don was a doctor. He wasn’t supposed to be aware of such things when acting professionally, was he? I wondered if he ever thought about why I looked and felt so round except when in the hospital.

“Callie Parrish, you’re a lucky young woman. From what that trucker and Sheriff Harmon said, it’s almost unbelievable that your injuries are so minimal. I didn’t tape your cracked ribs last night because they’ll heal the same without it. If you want them wrapped, I can do it, but most patients say the taping is more painful than letting them mend by themselves.”

“Don’t do anything that’s going to hurt more,” I said. I finished the last swallow of coffee. “When can I go home?”

“As soon as someone comes for you. Who do you want the nurse to call to pick you up?”

I didn’t answer because I wasn’t sure who to request. I didn’t want anyone making a fuss over me and reminding me that, from what everyone said, I should have been dead. I didn’t want to think about it.

Didn’t want to remember that black Tahoe aiming at me, trying to kill me. I didn’t want to think about the flashing lights and sirens of the ambulances, fire trucks, and law enforcement vehicles the night before.

“Tell you what,” Don said. “I’m off right now anyway—why don’t I drive you home? Where do you want to go? Maybe your dad’s? I’m letting you leave the hospital, but I’d really rather you not be alone for a day or so.”

“I can go to my place. Jane’s staying with me for a few days.”

“She’s blind.”

“Yes, but Jane sees more than most sighted people.”

“I’m
never going to marry or have kids because I’m not the nurturing kind.”

Jane used to say that all the time, but she’d certainly been a tremendous supportive help when I divorced. Now she was overdoing it.

“Do you want another pillow? Can you reach the remote control? Do you like this program or should I change it? Are you too hot? Do you feel chilled?” A thousand questions, one after the other, then she’d start over and add, “What do you want for lunch? Shall I make some tuna salad? How about homemade beef stew or vegetable soup?”

“Nothing!” I finally screamed. “I just want to be left alone.”

Normally, if I’d said those words in that tone, she would have reacted in the same mode. Now she just said, “I’m sorry,” and sounded hurt. Big Boy whimpered from the side of my bed.

“I’m sorry, too,” I apologized. “It’s not you, Jane. I just feel irritable, and I hurt all over. Why don’t you bring me a glass of water? I’ll take one of those pain pills and try to sleep for a while.”

I awoke from my nap to Jane’s voice saying that she didn’t need a ride to the hospital. “Okay, Frank,” she said before I heard the telephone disconnect. She came in to check on me and fluffed my pillows—again.

“The doctor said you need to drink lots of fluids. I’ll get you a Coke.”

She came back with a tall glass full of iced Coca-Cola. I usually drink soda from a chilled can and will, given no other choice, drink it at room temperature, but my favorite way is over ice. She’d even put a straw in it.

“You’ve had lots of calls,” she said as she handed me the glass and sat on the edge of the bed. “Frank is coming over, and the sheriff needs to talk to you. I told everyone else to wait a while because the doctor advised you to rest and sleep today.”