Murder With All The Trimmings Part 13

He's pa.s.sed out from the alcohol, Josie thought, as she shook him again. "Nate," she said. "Nate, please. You're scaring me."

Then she saw the vomit on his jacket. She shook him again, and Nate tumbled down the stairs and hit the sidewalk with his head.

Josie screamed. She heard her mother running down the stairs, saw all the lights pop on in Mrs. Mueller's house, then the flashing lights of the ambulance.

The last thing Josie remembered, as the paramedics took Nate away, was the sound of her daughter weeping.

Chapter 15.

The emergency room hit Josie with the sharp stink of hospital disinfectant, sweat, and something indefinably nasty. Was it fear, blood, or restrooms that needed cleaning?

Josie couldn't tell. The misery in the waiting room left her dazed. A forlorn collection of people were huddled on the hard plastic chairs, like shipwreck survivors.

Josie tried to follow Nate's stretcher through the ER doors, but she was stopped by a stern nurse and steered toward the business section. Josie took a pale pink chair in a cramped cubicle. An African American woman with an elegant chignon began asking Josie questions. Her name tag said DIEDRE.

"The patient's name?" Diedre asked.

"Nathan-Nate-Weekler," Josie said.

"Who is the next of kin?"

"His father, I think," Josie said. "His name is Jack, or John Weekler. I believe Mr. Weekler Sr. lives in Toronto. I don't have his address or phone number. It might be in Nate's wallet or on his pa.s.sport."

"We'll check," Diedre said. "Is Nate Weekler married?"

"I don't know," Josie said.

"Do you know if he has health insurance?" Diedre had a high forehead and shiny dark brown skin. Her eyebrows were delicate arches. One went up with the question.

"Nate is Canadian," Josie said. "He lives in Toronto. Don't they have national health insurance?"

"Yes. But unless he has private supplemental insurance, the province will probably pay only a limited amount of his hospital bill," Diedre said. "He may be responsible for the remainder."

"Oh," Josie said. "I think he has some cash." I just don't know where he stores his drug money, she thought. Maybe she should have hung on to that ten thousand dollars for a rainy day. It was pouring now.

"What's your relationship to the patient?" Diedre asked.

Good question, Josie thought. "He's the father of my nine-year-old daughter, but he left the United States before she was born." She didn't add "in handcuffs." That would make Diedre's eyebrow go up even higher.

"Nate came back to see his daughter this week," Josie said. "He was drunk. I didn't want to let him in my home in his condition. I locked the door. Later, I found him collapsed on my porch. He'd been drinking, but I don't know if that caused his medical problem. He was eating a chocolate snowman cake. I brought the container with me."

Josie held up a plastic bag with the sticky cake remains. She'd already told the paramedics. They told her to bring it along, just in case.

Diedre made a face. The delicate arched brow went up a millimeter higher. "The doctor on duty will take that information."

"May I see Nate now?"

"No, the doctor will see you when the patient is stabilized."

Josie was ushered into the waiting room, still clutching the cake bag. The only chair open was next to a tired woman with two small children. The little boy was bouncing on a side table as if it were a trampoline. The baby pulled the woman's worn brown hair and cried. The mother tried to rock the child, but she didn't seem to have the energy. The bouncing boy was unstoppable.

An old man clutched his cane with two hands and stared straight ahead. A young dark-skinned woman held an ice pack to her eye and moaned. The muscular man next to her rubbed her back and told her everything would be okay.

The television blared a news program no one watched.

"Josie Marcus," called a doctor in green scrubs. He looked younger than Josie's thirty-one years but weary. He had green-gold eyes, dark brown hair, and dark circles under his eyes. When was the last time he had any sleep?

He escorted Josie to a small room in the ER. She gasped when she saw Nate. He had an IV line in his right hand and an oxygen line in his nose. A horrible machine covered his mouth and made an evil sucking sound.

"Is that a ventilator?" Josie said. Her voice shook.

"Yes," the doctor said. "The patient needs a.s.sistance breathing. We're waiting for the results of some lab work."

"Is he going to die?" Josie said.

Nate looked dead already. The red hue had fled his face, leaving his skin pale and lardlike. His thin hair clung like old rags to his scalp. His body was unnaturally still, except for the forced rise and fall of the ventilator.

"We don't know the prognosis yet," the doctor said. "We're still waiting for the test results. What can you tell us about the patient?"

"I haven't seen him in ten years," Josie said. "When I knew him, he was a helicopter pilot. I don't know what he does now. He seems to have a drinking problem. Today he turned up with a chocolate snowman cake from a little shop on Manchester. He wanted to give it to his daughter, but I refused. He was intoxicated again, and I was afraid to let him in my home. Nate ate the whole cake-or most of it-sitting on my porch in the cold. At first I thought he was asleep. Then I realized he was unconscious."

"Was the cake from Elsie's Elf House?" the doctor asked.

Josie's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Yes, how did you know?"

"We had a woman in here two hours earlier with similar symptoms. She'd eaten a big slice of chocolate snowman cake from that store. Her daughter said there was something wrong with it."

"Do you suspect poisoning?"

"We're still testing, but her daughter does. She insists her mother was healthy. She blames the cake. She called the shop a few minutes ago and Elsie pulled the remaining batch, just in case."

"Is the woman still alive?"

"So far. But her kidneys are shutting down. She's in a coma. We pumped her stomach and gave her activated charcoal to absorb a possible toxin. The tests will show if she's been poisoned."

"What kind of poison do you suspect?"

"We can't tell until we get the results. It may not even be poison. In Mr. Weekler's case, the alcohol could be causing his kidney and liver problems. And despite the daughter's protests, the other victim was sixty-seven years old and she had health problems."

The blood drained from Josie's face. What if Nate had given that poisoned snowman cake to Amelia? Her daughter could be dead now. She grabbed a countertop to keep from falling.

"Are you okay?" the doctor asked, his brown eyes concerned. "You look pale."

"I'm fine. It's just that this is so horrible."

"Do you know who would want to try to kill Mr. Weekler?" the doctor said.

"No," Josie said. "He hasn't been in St. Louis for a decade. He has friends here, but I don't know if they knew Nate was in town."

What if the killer was one of Nate's drug buddies from the old days? she wondered. Didn't drug dealers shoot people rather than poison them?

"What's the name of the woman who might have been poisoned?" Josie asked.

"I'm not at liberty to say," the doctor said. "But it should be on the news later."

"May I stay with Nate in case he comes to?" Josie said.

"Sure," the doctor said. "As soon as he's settled in the ICU. But he needs complete rest. If he becomes agitated, the nurses will ask you to leave. They'll let you know when he's ready."

Josie stepped outside to call her mother on her cell phone. Jane had stayed home to watch Amelia while Josie followed the ambulance to the hospital.

"It doesn't look good, Mom," Josie said. "Nate's on a ventilator in the ICU."

"Poor Amelia. She's going to take this badly," Jane said. "She's still crying."

"I don't think Nate will be too happy, either," Josie said. "I have to find his father and let him know."

"I'll try to track him down," Jane said.

"Thanks, Mom. I'm going to stay with Nate a while, in case he regains consciousness. I don't want him to wake up alone at a hospital in a strange country."

"You do that, dear. I'll make sure Amelia has dinner and goes to bed on time."

"Thanks, Mom." Josie hung up the phone, relieved. Jane could be irritating, but she came through when Josie needed her. How many single moms had a free sitter on call 24/7?

Josie stared at the TV in the lounge, but she had a hard time watching the program. Even a mindless game show was too much for her.

Finally a nurse told her she could go into the third-floor ICU. Nate's room was dark, except for a harsh light over the bed. The tubes, wires, and computer monitors made Nate look like a lab experiment. He remained perfectly still except for the mechanical rise and fall of his chest.

The nurse checked his IV line, then left.

Josie held Nate's left hand, the one that wasn't stuck with an IV needle, and said, "Nate, please get well. Your daughter needs you."

Nate didn't move. The room was strangely still, as if he were waiting for Josie to beg him to live for her. She couldn't do it. There were only the beep of the monitors and the inhuman hiss of the ventilator, which sounded as if it were sucking the life out of Nate.

Josie wondered if he would survive. He's only thirty-five, she thought. He looks like an exhausted old man.

She searched his face for signs of the young man she'd loved so wildly. She tried to remember their time together. She saw him as he'd looked the first time, at the Irish bar in St. Louis. She realized now that he'd been drinking all afternoon, but Nate had an amazing capacity for alcohol. He never looked drunk. She could tell, though, when he started slurring his words. Then he would propose some reckless plan, and they would run off to New York or Martinique.

So many of their dates had involved alcohol. I thought I was intoxicated by love. Maybe I was just drunk, Josie thought.

Their days together had pa.s.sed in a whirl of champagne, margaritas, and beer, with b.l.o.o.d.y Marys and mimosas for breakfast. She'd been in college then, and no one gave a second thought to drinking. It was what they did at that age. Sometimes Josie had been too hungover to go to cla.s.ses. Jane had warned her that she was drinking too much, but Josie had ignored her mother. What did a dried-up old woman like Jane know? Her own husband had walked out on her, Josie had thought, with the casual cruelty of the young.

Josie had discovered she was pregnant about the same time she'd learned that Nate had been arrested. He'd been on his way back to the States. His friend Mitch had called Josie with the news. "I'm sorry, Josie," he'd said. "He was arrested as he was leaving Canada. He can't enter this country. They found some contraband in his plane."

"Contraband," Josie repeated dully.

"You know. c.o.ke."

"What kind of c.o.ke?" Josie said.

"Drugs, sweetie. You knew how Nate made his money, didn't you? He was a dealer, and I'm not talking about Tupperware. h.e.l.lo? Josie, are you there?"

She'd dropped the phone. Josie hadn't spoken to Mitch since.

For a while Josie thought that she might lose the baby, but the child survived. So did Josie. She'd learned a terrible truth: few women died of love, though some wished they could.

What had happened to Mitch? Josie hadn't seen him in years.

Jane had been angry when she discovered her daughter was pregnant and leaving college to be a mystery shopper. But once Jane saw Amelia, she forgave Josie, though she was not above reminding her daughter of her mistake.

Josie's cell phone went off and she hurried out of the room to the stairway to talk to her mother. "I found Nate's father," Jane said. "Jack can get a seat on a flight out of Toronto first thing in the morning and be in St. Louis before noon tomorrow. I'll pick him up at the airport."

Josie looked at the time on her phone-11:16.

When she returned to the room, there was a buzz of activity. Nate was thrashing around in the bed while two nurses held him down. A doctor brushed past Josie. Alarms and buzzers sounded.

"What's wrong?" Josie said.

"We think he may be waking up," the nurse said. "You'd better go."

"But-" Josie said.

"We have your number in the files. If he needs you, we'll let you know. You can't help him now."

The nurse practically pushed the bewildered Josie out the door. She drove home alone in the dark.

Chapter 16.

Josie's phone rang. She woke up and fumbled for the phone by her bed. Glowing green numbers on her bedside clock gave the time as 3:08.

A call at this hour can't be good news, Josie thought.

The voice on the phone was crisp. "Ms. Marcus, this is Maddie in the ICU at Holy Redeemer Hospital."

"Nate!" Josie said. "Is he okay?"