Authors: Shirlee Lewis
Not looking forward to court, I didn’t want to face Max. I was sure Max would be in prison for the rest of his life, especially for what he
had done to Sharon Wilson, my friend. I could imagine the fear and torment she went through because I went through it myself. I lived through it—she didn’t.
Mr. Santino put the papers back in his briefcase and stood. “My office will be in tou
ch with you later in the year.” He stood up. “Thank you for your patience.” He headed to the door.
Tony
escorted Mr. Santino to the door. Hanging his head, he turned and looked at me. The pain and sadness on his face was unbearable.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I should have been there. I shouldn’t have left,” he mumbled.
“Please don’t do this. Don’t beat yourself up over something you had no control over. We need to put this behind us. I need to put it in the past.”
I went to Tony and hugged him. “I love you.”
“I love you too, but I should have….”
“Tony. Please.” I begged. “You had things you had to get done in Davenport so that you could move here. Nobody could have predicted when, where or who he was going to target next, not even you.”
We sat back on the sofa. “Besides—you have a trip to Italy to think about, and getting the blood bank ready for opening day.”
Tony turned on the television and I went to start a pot of coffee. Running the water into the coffee pot, there was a knock was at the door. “I’ll get it,” I called from the kitchen. Thinking it was Mr. Santino again, I hurried to the door.
Mildred was on the porch. She started to knock again when I opened the door. “Good morning, Mildred. Can I help you?”
“I am out of sugar for my cinnamon rolls and came to see if you might have a cup. I brought my own container to put it in.”
“Sure, I’ll be right back.” Taking the container, I left Mildred standing on the porch. Tony was upset with remembering the Max episode. I didn’t want Mildred seeing him this way. Hurriedly
, I filled it with sugar and took it back to her. Mildred was staring into the living room at Tony. “Here you go Mildred. I hope it’s enough.”
She smiled and said, “I’m sure it will be. Thanks so much.”
I watched her walk back to her house. Every few steps she would turn and look at the house and smile. When she got on her porch, she looked at the house and wiped the smile off her face.
Weird
, I thought.
“Tony, are we going to the blood bank today?”
“We have to start setting up the equipment and supplies. I guess, we should head that way,” he said, getting up.
He went to the bedroom and I poured my coffee into a thermos. Rain was starting to come down. Tony came back and handed me my raincoat. We put them on and headed out the door.
Driving by Mildred’s I looked the house over. The front door was closed. She was the oddest person I had ever met. “What do we have to do today?” I asked Tony.
“We are setting up the IV stands and getting the beds and chairs in the rooms.”
I leaned over and lightly kissed his cheek. I was spending the day with him and hoping our task at hand with the equipment would take his mind off of everything. He smiled his half smile and intertwined our fingers. Not much was said on the drive to Portland.
Around ten we arrived at the blood bank. The rain was coming down harder and thunder cracked in the distance. As Tony was unlocking the door, lightening struck behind us in the empty field. I jumped from the sound of the bolt of lightning. Tony laughed and opened the door for me. Inside the door a box sat on a small table. I opened it to see magazines. Closing the lid, I went to the first room on the right. Opening the box sitti
ng on the counter, I didn’t notice Tony in the doorway. “Jess, I should have…”
“Tony please don’t, it’s
not good for you to be this upset. You have too much to do right now.”
“You don’t understand.”
I turned around to face him and he looked down at the floor.
“What am I not understanding?”
“Please let me finish. I have this horrible guilt over me for not being there for you when I should have been. I wasn’t there to protect you.”
I started to say, “Tony…”
“Please Jess, let me finish. I left you twice, but this thing with Max is the worst I could possibly carry around with me. To see you lying helpless made my heart hurt. All I could ask myself was, “What have I done?” I don’t ever want to go through that again.”
I went over to him and hugged him tight. “Tony, you’re beating yourself up
for no reason. I’m not going to stand by and watch it eat you up with guilt. It will never happen again because Max is locked up. He’ll be locked up for a long time. I have already put this behind me and you should too. I have to talk about it one more time and that will be in court. When the trial is over, we can lock it up forever and never bring it up again.”
I backed away from Tony. I wanted him to look me in the eyes. I put my hand under his chin. He looked up at me. “No one can ever hurt me again. I have you here with me, protecting me and keeping me safe. Nobody can come between us or keep us apart. I love you.”
“Jess, I love you with every beat of my heart. I promise you won’t go unprotected as long as I live.” Tony pulled me to him and hugged me tight.
“I won’t let you leave me unprotected,” I whispered.
Tony kissed me until I had to make him stop so I could catch my breath. “We have a lot to do, Tony.”
Tony released me.
I went back to the box on the counter and started unpacking. I heard Tony going to the next room to start setting up the IV stands. I smiled knowing Tony was my protector and as long as we lived I had nothing to worry about.
Tony and I worked all day getting the equipment set up. I ordered a pizza to be delivered for my supper. The lounge for employees wasn’t set up and boxes were on the table. Tony was bringing an icebox in on a dolly. The pizza hadn’t come, so I emptied the boxes of their contents putting everything away. Victor had a box with my name on it sitting on the counter. Looking in the box, I smiled. Victor remembered I was a coffee drinker. He specially ordered me a coffee pot. “Next time you talk to your father, tell him thank you for the coffee pot,” I said, getting it out of the box.
“Hello, I have a delivery for Ms. Pearl,” a voice called from the hall.
“Be right there,” I said.
I dug in my pocket for the money as I was walking down the hall. I paid the delivery man and went back to the lounge.
Tony was stocking the icebox with bags of blood. On the front he had placed a sign.
‘
Private, keep out’
.
I knew that was Tony’s personal inventory.
After eating, Tony and I finished emptying the boxes and taking them to the dumpster. The rain had let up before we headed back to Mayville.
“We’ve accomplished more today than I thought we would,” Tony said.
“Are there any more deliveries?” I asked.
“I’ll call father when we get home and see. I have to let him know how much we’ve accomplished and inform him we talked about my trip to Italy.”
“I think I will stay with Jennifer.” I didn’t mention to Tony I’d already talked with Jennifer about the meeting. He had no clue I knew what the devastating mess was about. I just smiled at him.
Tony smiled his half smile and intertwined our hands.
Pulling into the driveway, we noticed the living room light on. “Did you leave a light on?” I asked Tony.
“No I didn’t. We never leave lights on when we go anywhere.”
“This is odd,” I mumbled under my breath.
“Wait here in the car. I’ll see if anyone’s in the house,” Tony said, and then got out of the car.
I watched Tony go into the house, and then looked toward Mildred’s. She was nowhere to be seen. I turned back toward my house. Looking at the clock on my dash, I decided Tony had been in the house longer than he should. Getting worried, I opened the car door. Walking up to the front steps slowly, I heard shuffling behind me. Freezing in place, I slowly turned to see Mildred coming up the sidewalk behind me.
“Hi Jessica, how are you tonight?” she asked.
“I’m fine. What brings you here?” I slightly snapped at her. Tony still hadn’t come out of the house.
“I thought I’d visit my neighbor tonight.”
“Could we visit tomorrow?”
“Anything wrong, Jessica?” Mildred asked. The left side of her lip raised and her eyes darted from me to the house.
“Nothing’s wrong. Why do you ask?”
“No reason. I’ll talk to you tomorrow then,” she said, and headed back to her house.
Tony was coming out of the house when I turned around. “What did Mildred want?”
“She wanted to visit. Is everything okay in the house?” I asked.
“The house is a mess. Someone was looking for something. My safe is pried open. Detective Sean should be here soon. Let’s sit on the porch and wait for him.”
“I’d like to see inside the house, Tony.”
“I don’t want you too,” he said, guiding me to the chair.
Detective Sean pulled up just as I sat down. Tony went out to the patrol car. I tried to hear what he was saying, but Tony was talking low. Detective Sean and Tony came up on the porch. “Hello Jess,” Detective Sean said.
“Hello Detective.”
“Please wait here with Jess, Tony. I need to look around. I’ll get you when I am done,” Detective Sean said, and then went inside the house.
“Tony, what’s in there you don’t want me to see?”
“Not only is the house a mess Jess, but a small gray kitten is butchered in the kitchen. I don’t want you to see it, okay,” he said, putting my hair behind my ear.
“Who on earth would do something like this?”
“I don’t know, Jess. I don’t know.”
Sitting in the chair and waiting for Detective Sean to come out of the house, it suddenly dawned on me about a gray kitten. Was it the same kitten Mildred was looking for the other night so late? Surely, it can’t be the same kitten. Or could it? Wishing I should have mentioned it to Tony, I looked toward Mildred’s house. She was sitting on her porch with her chair turned in our direction. “Maybe Mildred saw someone? Detective Sean should go and talk to her when he’s finished here,” I said. “See if she might have seen anyone at the house.”
Tony looked toward Mildred’s. “I’ll pass that along to Detective Sean when he comes out.”
Detective Sean called for Tony to go in the house. I started to get up, but Tony said, “Jess, please wait out here.”
I sat back down sighing. As a nurse, I could handle messy things. A small kitten wasn’t going to make me queasy. Against Tony’s wishes, I went in the house.
Everything in my living room was turned over. The drawers to the end tables were open with the contents strewn on the floor. Tony and Detective Sean were in the kitchen standing over the kitten. I went down the hall to my bedroom. The safe was sitting on the bed and sure enough it was pried open with one of my kitchen knives that lay on the bed. The papers from the safe were strewn over the bed and floor. If anything was missing, I couldn’t tell. My bathroom light was off. Turning it on, I started
screaming and backing out of the doorway. A baby kitten was lying in the sink cut open. Another kitten was lying over the side of the bathtub. It was a horrible mess. Tony came around the corner and said, “Jess, what?”
I couldn’t speak. All I could do was point. Tony pushed past me nearly knocking me down. He stopped inside the bathroom door. “Who in the world could do this to kitten’s?”
Detective Sean hurried down the hall. I went back outside and tried to clear my mind of the scene inside my house. I looked toward Mildred’s. She was smiling the widest smile I ever saw on anyone’s face. Now, I was beginning to wish Tony hadn’t rented to Frank and Mildred. This wasn’t as bad as Charlotte, but it could have been worse.
Detective Sean and Ton
y soon came out on the porch. I was watching Mildred. She got up and went inside the house when she saw them.
“I’m going to talk to your neighbor and see if they saw anyone,” Detective Sean said, heading to his car.
I looked up at Tony. “Who could have done such a thing?” I asked.
“I don’t know sweetie. I just don’t know,” he said. “Wait out here and let me get some of this cleaned up.”
“I’ll run to the store and pick up some bleach.”
“I should have it cleaned by the time you get back.” Tony hugged me and kissed the top of my head.