Nick moaned as Slater got up, and the pastor reached out and grabbed the back of Slater’s collar before he could react to Dan’s fighting words. “Stop it, both of you!” he shouted. “We’re coworkers here, and Dan, you should know better. I’m disappointed in you!”
Dan didn’t like being treated like a child, so he just turned and headed out of the room. Behind him, he could hear Slater cursing his back.
Chapter Twelve
Aunt Aggie would never have left Celia alone, but when Jill assured her that she’d canceled all of her appointments for the day and needed to spend the afternoon with Celia anyway getting all the information she could on the first trial, Aggie decided, with Celia’s blessings, to go to the hospital in Slidell.
She was glad she’d gotten a few hours’ sleep, at least. Now maybe she wouldn’t try beating up any more cops. She grimaced at the thought of how she’d slammed her purse into Sid Ford’s head. If she hadn’t been an old lady who’d been up all night, he probably would have thrown her in the slammer. Being old did have its perks, she supposed.
She pulled into the parking lot of the Slidell Memorial Hospital, carefully avoiding the “senior citizen” spaces marked near the wheelchair spaces close to the door. There was no reason she couldn’t walk like everybody else, she told herself. The day she surrendered to her age was the day they would bury her.
She checked with the information desk to see where Stan was and found out he was on the sixth floor. The elevator took her there, and she got off and saw the crowd of off-duty police officers, a few firemen, the preacher, and a few people she didn’t know, spilling out of the waiting room. No wonder Stan didn’t want to wake up, she thought. A crowd like that would keep anybody in a coma.
Bypassing them, she headed straight for his room. After all, she was his wife’s aunt, so if anyone was allowed in his room, she was. She reached his door and hesitated, wondering if she had the right room. There was an armed guard standing outside it, and she wondered who had hired him. With an air of authority, she walked right past him and pushed the door open.
He reached out and grabbed her arm, stopping her. “May I help you?”
“I want to see Stan,” she said, indignant. “I’m his tante.”
“You’ll have to wait,” he said. “I’ll check with his parents.”
His parents, she thought as he stepped inside the room. The ones who threw her Celia out. She had a bone to pick with them while she was here.
She waited for his parents to invite her in, but instead, the guard came back out. “Mrs. Shepherd said to tell you to wait in the waiting room with the others.”
“What you mean, ‘with the others’?” Aggie protested. “I ain’t one of them others. I’m flesh and blood, practically.” Realizing she was getting nowhere with the guard, she pushed past him, anyway. When he tried to grab her arm again, she felt for her purse and considered using it. Jerking away, she pushed into the room.
Bart and Hannah sat side by side on the vinyl sofa next to the bed, and she consoled herself with the fact that Hannah, who was at least twenty years her junior, looked worse than she. She stood up as Aggie entered, and Aggie started to tell her to sit down and rest before she keeled right over of natural causes.
“I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Shepherd,” the guard said behind her as he took Aggie’s arm again. “I didn’t think she would be so pushy. Looks can be deceiving.”
“It’s all right,” Hannah said, prompting him to let go of her in the nick of time.
The guard disappeared back out the door, and ignoring both Hannah and Bart, Aggie went to Stan’s bedside. He still looked as white as death, and had a breathing tube under his nose. An IV ran fluid into his veins, and a cardiac machine monitored his heart rhythm. Several other machines were attached to him, but Aunt Aggie couldn’t identify them. She touched his forehead, pushing the hair back from his eyebrows. He needed a haircut, bless his heart. She should have brought her scissors.
“Aggie, don’t touch him. Please.” Bart’s voice was just above a whisper.
“Please, Aggie,” Hannah whispered across her son. “We want you to wait in the waiting room.”
“What you’re whisperin’ for?” Aggie demanded loudly. “Ain’t the goal to wake him up? No wonder he still in a coma.”
“Aggie, please,” Hannah said again. “Don’t make us call the guard back in. You really need to leave.”
Aggie gaped at them, indignant. “I got as much right in here as y’all got. I love this boy arry bit as much as y’all do!”
“He doesn’t need visitors,” Bart whispered harshly.
“Is it ’cause of Celia?” Aunt Aggie demanded. “Cause what you done to that girl, sendin’ her home like you done…oughta be a law. Now you tryin’ to thow me out?”
“I’ll call the guard if I have to.”
Aggie wondered if this was the day she’d surrender to her age—and the burial part, too—as her heart began whamming into her chest. “You oughta be ashamed!” she threw back at them. “You know my Celia didn’t do this! She saved his life! If she wants him dead, she’d have waited to call the ambulance! Let him croak, then act like she tryin’ to save him.”
“She lied to us,” Hannah said through her teeth.
“How? When she told you a lie?”
“It’s what she didn’t tell us,” Bart returned. “She didn’t tell us that she’d killed her first husband!”
Aggie felt the weight of her purse and wondered if she could hit them with it from across the bed. She clutched her chest, as if that would slow her racing heart, and through her white caps said, “My Celia ain’t never killed a bug! She ain’t never lied to you! She didn’t tell you she was accused of Nathan’s death, ’cause she knowed folks like you wouldn’t wait for the firin’ squad. You’d mow her down before the words was even outa her mouth!”
“She betrayed us,” Hannah said, livid tears springing to her red eyes. “Stan may die. He’s our only son!”
“Read my lips,” Aggie said through her dental work. “She…didn’t…do it! ’Stead of bein’ mad at her, be mad at the po-leece who’s stopped lookin’ for the killer. He still’s out there, you know, the monster what really tried to kill Stan. It ain’t the likes o’ me that guard needs to keep out!”
“Until the police tell us differently, we want Celia to stay away,” Hannah said. “And we aren’t allowing any visitors at all.”
“Well, ain’t that con-ven-ient? She been good to y’all people, and she make your son happier than he ever been. And this what you do to her!”
“Bart, do something,” Hannah said.
He headed for the door and got the guard to come in. “Get her out,” he ordered.
Aggie swung her purse like a lasso, aiming right between the guard’s eyes. “You lay one hand on me, I’ll lay you out just like him,” she said, referring to Stan. “I know the way out.” Then, straightening her dress and picking a dot of lint off of her skirt, she made her way to the door.
Just before she left the room, she turned back. “You be sorry for this one day,” she said. “Destroyin’ somebody never did nothin’ but love your son. Someday she’ll be the mama of your grandchildren.”
Hannah didn’t answer. She only turned back to her son.
Chapter Thirteen
He’s getting away with it.” Allie looked up at Celia, who sat with her arms hugging her knees on the big four-poster bed in Aggie’s guest room. She looked so small there, so innocent. And so distraught. “Who?”
“Whoever it is,” she said dully. “He’s ripped my life at the seams twice, and gotten away with it both times.”
“He’s not going to get away with it,” Allie said. “Jill’s working on it right now. She’s doing everything she can, Celia.”
Celia wasn’t buying. “For at least two years after Nathan died, I was so paranoid, Allie. I kept thinking the killer was stalking me, watching me, waiting to take my life, too. For a while, I almost hoped he would.”
&n
bsp; “I remember when you first came to Newpointe,” Allie said. “You did seem timid, quiet. I thought you were just shy. Then you seemed to get over it, little by little.”
Celia sighed and rubbed her tired eyes. “I knew he was still out there. That never went away. But when I got involved in the church and met Stan, I just started concentrating more on living than dying. I think that kept me alive.” She looked down at her knees, clad in faded jeans. “I trusted him so much that I told him everything. And he trusted me unconditionally. He showed me how much God loved me, because he modeled it for me.” Sick grief reddened her face, and she leaned her head back on the ornate headboard.
“What if he wakes up and they tell him I tried to kill him, Allie? What if they convince him that I’ve had some dormant murderous instinct just waiting to jump out?”
“He won’t believe it, Celia. You know better. He believed you before. He’ll know you didn’t do it this time. And if he wakes up, maybe he’ll know where he got the poison, and the whole thing will be cleared up.”
“Or maybe he’ll die, and it won’t matter what they do to me.”
Allie got up and went to the bed, sat down beside her. Out of habit, she rubbed her hand over her round stomach. Celia’s eyes followed her hand.
“We wanted to start a family, Allie,” she whispered. “That’s why he started talking to my parents. He wanted to make things right, so our children would have grandparents on both sides. Today’s my birthday, so he went to see them yesterday in hopes of getting them to agree to come for a visit today. I was starting to think it was all behind me, all of it, that God was returning the days that the locusts ate. I was starting to think he didn’t let me die all those times I asked him to, because he had something wonderful waiting. But was this what he spared me for?”
Allie wiped the tears springing to her own eyes. “I don’t know, Celia.”
Celia reached for a tissue next to the bed and blew her nose. “I read about all those martyrs in the Bible who walked into furnaces and lions’ dens and were crucified and beaten and beheaded…and I can’t help wishing that I had some greater purpose for my suffering, too. Does it feel better to suffer for a noble cause? Does injustice carry any peace if you’re standing for some divine plan?”
Allie couldn’t answer. She pushed the hair back from where it stuck to Celia’s wet face.
“But there isn’t any grand purpose here, Allie. There’s no greater good. It’s all just a mistake, but even if I’m not convicted of this, there will always be people who think of me as a murderess.”
She slid off of the bed and went to the window to look out on Aunt Aggie’s backyard. Allie got up and followed her, and saw Chester, Aunt Aggie’s gardener, pruning a pear tree.
“Maybe God’s just pruning you, Celia. Sometimes bad things happen because he’s just trying to prune us. Make us bear more fruit.” It was not what Celia wanted to hear, she realized, but it still could have some truth.
“I feel more like all my limbs have been amputated, right down to the trunk,” Celia said. She turned back around. “I’m gonna be sick.”
“No, you’re not. You’ll get through this, Celia—”
“No. I’m really gonna be sick.” Allie stepped back as Celia dashed from the room, and she winced as she heard her retching into the toilet.
Allie went in behind her and held her hair back while she bent over the commode. She should have made her eat, she thought. But Celia had complained of queasiness, and now Allie wondered again if the doctors had overlooked the poison in Celia.
The doorbell rang, and Celia looked up at her. “Don’t answer it. It’s Jed from the newspaper. He keeps coming to the door trying to get a statement. This’ll be all over tonight’s paper.”
“But it might be someone with news,” Allie said. “I’ll go see. Will you be all right?”
Celia got up and stood over the sink to splash water on her face. “Yeah. Don’t let anybody in, Allie. I can’t see anyone right now.”
“Don’t worry,” Allie said, then hurried down the stairs to answer the door.
Allie saw the man through the peephole, and instantly thought he must be a news anchor from one of the New Orleans stations. He looked like a model, though he was small in stature, with perfectly coiffed blonde hair and large blue eyes. Behind him, a photographer who’d been planted on Aggie’s lawn was photographing and questioning him, but he ignored him.
“Who is it?” she asked through the door.
“David Bradford,” he said. “Celia’s brother.”
Allie caught her breath and let him in, then quickly closed the door on the photographer. “Celia’s brother,” she said, smiling at him. “I should have seen the resemblance.”
David shot past the small talk. “How is she?”
“Well, she’s…hanging in there. She’ll be better now that you’re here. I’m so glad you came. I’ll go get her.”
She left him standing there and rushed up the stairs. She found Celia brushing her teeth. “Celia, you have to come. It’s a surprise. I think it’ll cheer you up.”
“Allie, I don’t feel like company. Please…”
“No, come on. You’ll be glad you did. I promise.”
Celia stepped to the banister and peered over. Her brother David was coming up, and she caught her breath. “David!”
“Happy birthday,” he said. She met him halfway down and threw her arms around him, and he squeezed her so tight that Allie thought he might crush her. David was only three or four inches taller than Celia, but the similarities were so striking that Allie wondered if they were twins.
“You didn’t think I’d stay away, did you?” he said, pulling her back from him and getting a good look at her.
Celia nodded and touched her brother’s cheek. “It’s been a long time.” She looked at Allie. “I guess you’ve met my baby brother, Allie?”
“Baby brother?” Allie asked.
“She’s only three years older,” David said. “Celia, look at you. Have you slept at all?”
She shook her head. “How could I? Can you believe this is happening again?”
“They searched our house,” David said. “Took dishes and food and looked in every nook and cranny. You woulda thought we were criminals.”
Celia led him into the parlor and sank down on a couch. He took the seat across from her. “I suppose Mom and Dad were embarrassed to death.”
“You could say that. And just when they were ready to reconcile. The timing…”
“I know,” she said.
He looked around the room, got up, and ambled to a table with family pictures. He picked up one of Celia as a child, dressed in pageant dress and striking a pose. “Where’s Aunt Aggie?” he asked.
“She’s gone to the hospital to see how Stan is doing.”
He set the picture back down. “How is he?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “News hasn’t changed. All we can get is that he’s still in a coma. His parents don’t want me there.”
He slid his hands into his trouser pockets and settled his troubled eyes on her. “Who would do this? It’s so weird. Stan was just at the house yesterday. He looked great. And he did a great job with Mom and Dad, Celia. You would have been so proud of him. He did what I haven’t been able to do in all these years. He brought them around.”
“Until this morning, when they reverted back to believing the worst about me.”
“They’re in shock, Celia. We all are.”
“Tell me about it.” She rubbed her temples and shook her head. “The police questioned me for hours this morning, trying to reconstruct yesterday—everywhere Stan may have eaten. David, did he eat anything when he was visiting yesterday?”
David thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No, he didn’t eat anything. Cook brought out some cookies, but if I remember, he didn’t take one. He mentioned having a sour stomach. He did drink some tea, but so did we all, and it all came out of a common pitcher. The police were still th
ere when I left. Guess they have to test every place Stan was yesterday. Isn’t arsenic the poison you can get from eating almonds or something?”
“No, that’s cyanide,” Celia said. “Did you see him eating almonds?”
“No, but I thought maybe he had picked some up on the way home. Did the police check his car for fast-food bags or anything?”
“Yes, they checked everything.”
“Well, maybe there was a receipt in there that would tell us where he stopped, what he might have bought…”
“They’re working on tracing all those leads, but his car was pretty clean. There wasn’t much to go on. It was after midnight before he got really bad,” Celia said.
“Then it would have to be something he ate at home, wouldn’t it? Just before he went to bed. Are you sure he didn’t get up after you were asleep and eat something?”
“He didn’t feel well when we went to bed. I don’t think he would have eaten. Besides, they’ve tested the food we had in the house. Nothing had arsenic. No, wherever he got it, it wasn’t at home,” Celia said with certainty. “He got it on the road somewhere. During my trial, there were toxicology experts who said that arsenic could take up to twelve hours to work, so he could have gotten it almost anytime yesterday. But it’s not a coincidence, David. Two of my husbands would not be poisoned with arsenic by accident. Somebody’s trying to kill him, and we’ve got to find out who it is before they pull it off.”
Across town, Jill Clark sat at her desk, rubbing the ache at the back of her neck as she held the phone to her ear. Someone at Judge Spencer’s office in Jackson, Mississippi, had put her on hold almost ten minutes ago, but still, she waited.
While the Muzac played out an organ rendition of “Sweet Caroline,” she scanned the legal pad on which she had taken copious notes at Aunt Aggie’s house. Celia had easily answered all of her questions, holding nothing back. It was as if she thought that giving her enough puzzle pieces would help her to see the whole picture and quickly clear things up.