Safe from Harm (9781101619629) (33 page)

“He'll be able to make it, I guess. What with the money he got from the policy he took out on Jenny. The money from Jenny's insurance policy? That went to Phoebe? That went to him, too.” He was telling this to Wanderley. He'd already told me. “Phoebe left it all to him. Liz wanted me to fight Phoebe's will.”

“You wouldn't have done that, would you?” I didn't like Mitch DeWitt but for two people with so much, to fight one poor old guy for so little, that was small.

Mark flashed his perfect teeth at me and dipped his head in approval. Nothing of the grieving widower in his face. He was grave, but not grieving.

“Anyway. Liz found the policy I took out for Phoebe. By going through my drawers. She was comfortable going through people's drawers, because they were really her drawers. Her house, her piece of furniture.” He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“She set up appointments with our lawyer and my insurance guy, Manny Alvarado. I played ball with Manny in high school. Her guy has offices at The Galleria. Liz wanted me to make her the beneficiary of my policy. I wanted to make it over to my grandparents first, and if they died before me, to my parents, because what was Liz going to do with an extra hundred thousand? She said, how would I feel if
her
policy went to
her
mother? I said I hadn't taken out a policy on her, Liz seemed like the kind of woman who would live forever, but if she took out a policy on herself, then yeah, she should go ahead and name her mom as the beneficiary. This was all said in front of Manny. We compromised and I listed the boys. She probably did the same. I don't know.” Mark touched the stitches on his face. “I'll be okay. Even if she left everything to her mom, I'll be okay. So will the boys. Heck, we'll be okay even if she found a way to take it all with her. And she might have, Detective. Money was very important to Liz.”

Wanderley snorted and ran that pick over his teeth with his tongue.

“I still want to know what happened,” I said. Mark looked confused. “At the picnic today,” I clarified. “You went for a walk and Liz dropped her phone and then what? How did she have an allergic reaction? She was so careful. All those hard-and-fasts.”

“Oh!” Mark thought for a while. His face grew heavy. When he started speaking again, he spoke slowly, carefully.

“Liz set out the lunch, she said how great it was to have strawberries in January. I'd bought strawberries at Whole Foods because Liz loves them, along with a double-cream Camembert to go with them. I opened a bottle of wine and she liked what I'd chosen. She doesn't always, but she liked this one. I can't remember what it was. A sauvignon blanc—some kid at Whole Foods picked it out for me. I don't know anything about wine. It was cold and I liked it. White, because she was having chicken and that kind of thing was important to Liz, the right wine with the right food.

“We toasted the day. There was pâté and those tiny French pickles you're supposed to eat with pâté.” Mark wasn't looking at us. He was looking back at the picnic. “I'd gotten so many of her favorites, I wasn't even sure she would eat her sandwich. Maybe save it. But it was the first thing she bit into. She never got to the strawberries. She didn't eat any of the strawberries at all.”

A last meal. That's what it sounded like. All her favorites.

Mark's face twisted. It was the first sign of grief I had seen. He took a breath to start speaking and stopped. When he began again, he was talking to me, all his attention on my face. This is what he'd wanted me here for—whatever was coming, I thought,
This is
it
.

“I went to the car to get Liz her sweater. It had clouded over and she was cold. She had gooseflesh on her arms. When I came back, the sandwiches were unwrapped and half a sandwich was in her hand. She dropped it on the quilt and she looked up at me.”

Tears pooled in Mark's eyes. His free hand picked at the edges of the tape that crisscrossed his chest. “Her lips and eyes were swelling. It happened that fast. I had no idea it could happen that
fast
.

“She dumped her purse out, searching for her EpiPen. We couldn't find it. We turned the purse inside out but it wasn't there. I helped her up and before we could make it to the car, she collapsed. She couldn't walk. I had to carry her to the car. All this is less than five minutes, less than five minutes from the time I got back from the car with her sweater.

“I started the car up and realized we'd left her purse and I ran back, scooped everything in it, everything I could find—I was thinking about the phone, Liz's phone, and I got to the car and realized her phone was dead—from the water. We couldn't call out. I was in a blue panic.”

Mark gripped the side bars of the bed and his knuckles were white. He was in real distress. He wasn't putting this on—I would have been able to tell. I hoped Wanderley was taking this in.

“I said, ‘Liz, we passed a hospital on 59, I'm going to get you there, you're going to be okay.' She shook her head. She couldn't answer me. She was having trouble breathing. She pulled at her seat belt, the shoulder strap, like it was pressing on her, choking her. So I held the strap away from her with one hand. I'm driving with the other. Her eyes got so puffed up she could hardly see—looking out at me through these slits. She clawed at her throat. Then my damn seat belt alarm set itself off. I couldn't buckle up, I had one hand on the wheel and one holding the shoulder strap off her neck and that alarm is going off
bong, bong, bong
like a countdown. I let go of the shoulder strap and tried to buckle up and I hit a tree. The air bags exploded.” Mark leaned his head back on his pillow and closed his eyes on tears. Wanderley didn't say anything snotty.

After a moment, I asked, “Can I get you anything, Mark?”

“There's some pills on the tray.”

I didn't see any.

“On a napkin.”

I remembered and pulled the tissue from my pocket and unfolded it to find two white pills. I gave them to Mark and he took them, drank some water and leaned his head back down again on his pillow.

“She was dead.” Mark's eyes stayed closed. “When I came to.”

Wanderley waited as long as he could. Finally he got off the chair, put it against the wall with a whack and stood next to the head of Mark's bed. He examined the man's face.

“But you hiked out for help anyway, and on a broken leg,” said Wanderley.

“Yeah.”

“Even though you thought she was dead.”

“I had to do something. She was so still, and covered in powder. There's powder in the air bags.”

“You think the sandwich caused the reaction?”

“Yeah. The tuna sandwich.”

Wanderley and I both did a double take.

“She ate tuna? She's allergic to fish and she ate tuna?” Wanderley said at the same time I said, “What about the hard-and-fasts?”

Mark nodded. “A bite. That's all it took.”

“How do you think
that
happened?” Wanderley was incredulous. I was feeling some of that, too.

“I think she got the sandwiches mixed up.”

“Tell me about that.”

“She had chicken salad. I had tuna. I think she got them mixed up.”

Wanderley shifted his weight. He danced the guitar pick between his fingers. “Let me make sure I have this straight. You went for a picnic with your wife—”

“Yeah.”

“Way the hell out there by the George Ranch, down a private road no one hardly uses—”

“Yeah.”

“And you brought tuna sandwiches, despite knowing your wife has a life-threatening allergy to fish.”

Mark opened his eyes. “The tuna was for me. She had the chicken.”

I said, “Mark, you're telling us you knew you had a tuna salad sandwich in that picnic bag?”

“Oh, right,” said Wanderley. “So then your wife somehow mistakes tuna salad for chicken salad.”

“They look alike, but they were marked.”

“They were clearly marked yet she ate tuna anyway.”

“You know, I didn't stop and check out the sandwiches,” Mark said in frustration. “Liz was having a reaction. I was trying to get her to the hospital. For all I know, a bee stung her.”

“She was allergic to bees, too?”

“Not that I ever heard of.”

The dancing guitar pick stilled. It went back in Wanderley's mouth and I heard it click against his teeth as his tongue worked it back and forth. I had long since given up worrying about James Wanderley's tooth enamel.

“Mr. Pickersley, if I were a suspicious man, do you know what I'd think?”

The door to Mark's room slammed open so hard it smacked the wall. Liz's sister, Sue Ellen, burst in like all three Furies. I was standing in her way and she pushed me to get at Mark. With one foot she shoved the recliner I'd pulled up to the bed so hard it bounced against the wall. She had her fingers around Mark's throat before I knew what she was up to.

He screamed. I grabbed Sue Ellen around her waist and picked her up off her feet, moving away from the bed. She held on to Mark, nearly yanking him out of the bed before she had to release him. Once her hands were free, she reached back and clenched them in my hair. She dang near pulled my scalp down to my chin. I gently bumped her into a wall to get her to let go. She let go of my hair when her head clunked against the wall, reached between her legs and fumbled for my crotch. I found the door and threw her out and got it closed right before she flung herself at it. I braced my back against the door, all 230 pounds of me, and she still managed to pop it open an inch each time she threw herself against it.

Mark was moaning, curled over himself, cradling his arm and shoulder. Wanderley, stalwart lad that he was, was talking on the phone.

“You want to lend your weight here?” I asked him.

Wanderley held one finger up, letting me know he'd be done in a minute. He mouthed “security.” The door popped open again behind me.

“Now?” I said.

Wanderley came over, not hurrying any, and put his shoulder against the door.

“That's a nice healthy woman you've got on the other side of this door, Bear.” The door popped, only half an inch now that there were two of us struggling to hold it closed. “Is she a random nutcase or someone special to you and Mr. Pickersley?”

“Liz's sister, Sue Ellen. Dang!” She took another run at the door.

There was a scuffle in the hall. I looked out the narrow window. Two good-sized orderlies had hold of Sue Ellen. I waited until I was sure they had a firm grip, then opened the door. A nurse hurried into the room to tend to the groaning Mark. Sue Ellen was struggling like a demented warthog. The stream of words from her mouth was foul but unimaginative. She tried to spit at me but spattered her own shoes, black cotton Mary Janes with flimsy rubber soles.

“This lady is Junior League. All the way,” commented an orderly.

Wanderley pulled something out of his jeans pockets. “If you gentlemen will hold her still a moment longer, I'll cuff her.”

“What you going to cuff her with?” I asked.

Wanderley held up some plastic strips.

In terms I won't repeat, Sue Ellen inquired into why she was being cuffed.

“I'm arresting you. I'm expecting some uniforms here in—there they are! Hey, Craig! Who's your friend? Ah. Officer Khan. Thank you for coming so promptly. Will you please cuff this good citizen for me? You're better with the plasticuffs than I am. It's assault. Put me and the preacher here down as your witnesses.” He turned to Sue Ellen, who was trying to head butt anyone in reach and instead caught the wall for a much more solid clunk than I had given her. “How's that? When you go to trial, you'll have a cop and a minister testifying against you.”

Sue Ellen let fly with another gob of spit.

“Whoa! Is that nice? Is that nice? Craig! You got a muzzle or something? This is a very nasty subject.” Wanderley took a roll of paper towels off a cart and wiped the front of his shirt. “I'm giving this shirt away. Tide can only do so much.”

I ducked my head in Mark's door. “Is he okay?” I asked the nurse.

“No. That collarbone is pulled out of whack again. His doctor is on his way.” She seemed mad at me personally.

I said to Wanderley, “Did you hear that? Mark has to have that collarbone set again.”

Wanderley said to his officers, “Can you cuff her feet together, too? Hey, Sue Ellen, that's your name? On behalf of myself and my officers, we want to thank you for choosing the Chinese house shoes over your biker boots this morning. You do have biker boots, don't you?”

Sue Ellen lowered her head, exhausted and finally subdued, and then with no warning, thrust herself forward at Wanderley's upper thighs. I snatched him back a fraction of a second before he would have had to give up the idea of fathering brothers and sisters for Molly. Sue Ellen crashed to the floor on her face. Craig and his fellow officer made another attempt at the flailing legs.

Wanderley bent down to look in her face. “Sue Ellen, right now you're looking at assault and battery and attacking an officer and resisting arrest. If you keep this up, I'm going to ask Craig to go get his Taser and I'm not going to be too picky about what mode he uses. Are we clear?”

Sue Ellen, her ankles tethered together, struggled to her feet with Craig and the other officer helping her. I was watching her mouth. They hadn't done anything to disarm those teeth.

She shook her lank hair from her face. Sue Ellen was going to have a bump on her forehead. I couldn't decide if her nose was beginning to swell or if it had always been that shape. Okay, I take that back. I'm being mean. But keep in mind the woman did try to neuter me.

“You're arresting me, not him?”
UNCLEAR ON CONCEPT
lit up and blinked on her forehead.

“You. Are. Under. Arrest.” Wanderley was calm and smiling and, I swear to you, seemed amused.