Рита Браун - Tail Gait

Nelson answered simply, “Frank, you’re going to live.”

Frank flinched. “Why? I’ve made a mess of it, and I killed Professor McConnell.”

Paul took a chair beside the hospital bed. “That doesn’t seem possible.”

But Frank just nodded.

His four visitors exchanged glances.

Paul Huber said, “Frank, what you did was swallow rat poison, but not enough. You’ll come through this. This is a blessing in disguise. You can come back. I know you can.”

“He’s right.” Nelson seconded the idea.

“Better I die. I don’t want to go on trial.”

Not one of the men thought Frank had killed Ginger McConnell. Too many gaping holes in that scenario.

Marshall grinned, trying to jolly Frank along. “You drank too much, buddy. We all know a Wahoo can drink, but you are in a class by yourself.”

Frank smiled weakly. “Not this time.” Then, suddenly animated, he sat up and spoke louder. “I saw her. I saw her, and she was beautiful.”

They all knew who, even though they didn’t know of the incident with Olivia on the mall. The four stayed another half an hour. At last Frank, wearied, fell asleep.

The men stepped outside into the hall.

A nurse walked by.

Marshall whispered, for they were in a hospital. “No way in hell he could have killed Professor McConnell. Christ, he couldn’t hold a gun without it shaking. He’s delusional. Do you think he really saw Olivia?”

“He thinks he did,” Nelson noted.

“Complicates things. If he pulls through, where does he go? Back on the mall?” Paul hated seeing a former All-American in this condition.

Rudy folded his arms across his chest. “No. We’ll think of something.”

“He might come up with something,” said Marshall. “I’ll call Lionel.”

Lionel had returned to L.A., but was coming back to Charlottesville for the professor’s funeral. Good thing he was successful, as those coast-to-coast flights cost a bundle.

“There’s a halfway house, city owned, on the east side of the mall,” said Paul, who volunteered, “I’ll check into it.”

“I don’t think he’ll live with other people.” Marshall gratefully sank onto the bench along the wall. The others took seats as well.

“Everything at once.” Rudy’s shoulders sagged. “But the endowed chair seems to be coming along.”

“Tim Jardine knows money better than anyone,” said Nelson. “I think we should each give Frank’s physician and the nurses on this floor our cell numbers. If he does anything foolish, tries to leave, makes a scene, one of us might be reached. I also think we could make a schedule so that one of us visits him every day until he’s discharged. With luck, by then the police should know more about who shot Ginger.”

“God, what a mess!” Rudy dropped his head for a moment.

“Yes, it is, but it’s gotten us back together, working as a team.” Nelson stood up, slapped Rudy on the back. He looked for the head nurse to give her his cell number.

April 18, 2015

Trudy stepped out through her front door as Harry and Susan set the last dwarf crepe myrtle in a hole. “Girls, come on in and have some lemonade.”

“Wonderful idea,” Susan enthused. “Be another ten minutes at the most,” she called to Trudy. “Don’t you think planting these four balances the ones we put in earlier? It bothered me that you’d have all this color on the right side of the house. Needs balance.”

“You’re right, but then, Susan, you’re the gardener,” said Trudy. “Don’t bother to knock. Just come in.” She closed the door.

The two friends finished up, watered the crepe myrtles, washed their hands under the hose, checked their shoes. Had they tracked dirt in the house, Trudy wouldn’t have minded, but Susan would have pitched a fit. Harry, not so much.

Tucker and Owen, who had accompanied Harry and Susan, got their paws wiped before entering the house. Tucker wiggled with happiness—in part because she could go home and lord it over Pewter, expressly not invited.

As they entered the front door, Trudy called out, “In the kitchen.”

The four creatures walked down a wide center aisle to the rest of the house. The kitchen sparkled. Ginger and Trudy had lavished attention and money on a colonial kitchen with a walk-in fireplace on the western wall. Fieldstone covered that entire wall. The one non-colonial element they had insisted on when they were building the house was a wall of windows. She hated a dark house. So the kitchen, apart from the windows overlooking the backyard, also had two large French doors with paned glass. The kitchen glowed with light at two o’clock in the afternoon.

Trudy put the finishing touches on a tray, on which was a large lemonade pitcher, glasses with polka dots, a china plate filled with peanut-butter cookies, and a smaller plate loaded with dog biscuits.

“Oh, Trudy, you’re the best.” Harry filched a cookie before they even sat down. “The Devil made me do it!”

Susan carried the tray to the kitchen table. Too hot outside. Glad for the company, Trudy chattered about the weather, the ongoing struggles over a proposed bypass, the state’s response to federal guidelines for schools. Trudy’s passion had always been education, and when she and Ginger first married, she had taught at an elementary school until her children were born.

Tucker and Owen sat on either side of Trudy, who fed them a treat now and then. The reward was a love-drenched look.

“Did I tell you the girls drove to Richmond to pick up Adrian?”

Susan bit into a fat-filled cookie. “No. I wondered where they were.”

“Adrian will be here through the next week. He apologized over and over for not coming with Olivia, but I told him I understood. Running a big company has to be both exciting and frustrating.” Adrian Gaston made a fortune by perfecting a special plastic packaging. Starting with two other workers, his factory had expanded to 650. His product was used by almost every food service, shipper, and supermarket in the eastern United States.

“An amazing man.” Harry admired anyone who started their own business, whether it was an artisan cabinetmaker or someone who made it big like Adrian.

“Olivia.” Trudy paused. “So many gentlemen callers, as my mother would say. That girl would walk into a room and men would trail her like ducklings.” She smiled. “Rennie wasn’t a wallflower by a long shot, but Olivia has that magnetic personality. Well, Ginger had it.”

“In spades.” Susan smiled.

Trudy was solemn for a moment. “Thank you for the crepe myrtles, for spending some time with Olivia, and most of all for not coming around here with long faces just oozing sympathy.”

“It was terrible,” said Susan. “It’s still terrible, but, well—” She considered her words carefully. “People think that’s the right thing to do. And really, how does one express sympathy? You’re such a positive and strong woman, but others need all the props. Maybe I shouldn’t say props ?”

Trudy waved her hand, Tucker and Owen intently focusing on every move just in case any food fell. “For some people, it’s the one time they get to be the center of attention. Their marriage, the birth of their children, and then passing. Personally, I don’t want to be the center of attention.” She stopped then, and with clarity and some volume, said, “What I want is an answer!”

“Yes. Everyone who loved Ginger wants that.” Susan sank in her chair a bit, tired from the physical labor and everything else.

“The sheriff and that nice deputy, your neighbor, Harry, were very sensitive. They asked questions the day he was killed, and they’ve come back. You don’t realize how good a public servant is until you need him or her.”