Death Dangles a Participle (Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series) (13 page)

“Then why wasn’t I informed? I got married in December!”

Ben put the chart down with a wry smile. “It was in the booklet I gave you.”

I sighed. “It was so long ago, and I never thought . . . ” We both knew what I meant. I never thought I’d ever get married.

“Look, I’m sorry, Amelia, but you’re an exceptionally healthy woman and an intelligent one. You know the facts of life.” Infuriatingly, he crooked his fingers in quotation marks.

“But these symptoms, the nausea, the fatigue, aren’t they a little early?”

He shook his head. “They can occur as early as a week into the pregnancy. Hmm, a honeymoon baby; rare, but not unheard of. By the way, I’m sorry we were out of town for your wedding. Alec told me it was bonnie.” Ben and Alec were golfing buddies.

“But—but, I mean, this is going to change everything! I never imagined . . . ” Tears sprang into my eyes.

He pushed a tissue box toward me. “Cheer up, Amelia, it’s not terminal. A few months from now, all this will be behind you, and you and your husband will have a little dividend to show for it.”

Little dividend? I thought as I dabbed at my eyes. Gil’s words echoed in my mind:
Nosiree. I couldn’t handle the crying and diapers and mess. That’s why Vern is so perfect. No fuss, no muss.

“But isn’t it dangerous at my age? For the child, I mean?”

Ben smiled. “Only a little more than for a younger woman, not nearly as much as in years past.” He leaned forward and said in a lowered voice, “If you want a referral to the Women’s Center downstate, you’ll have to ask another doctor.”

“What?” I looked up, shocked. “Absolutely not! What a suggestion, from you of all people, Ben!” The doctor was a devout Catholic. I sat straighter. “I’ll just have to get used to the idea.”

“That’s the spirit. Okay then, you’re all checked out until next month. They’ll schedule your appointment out front. Here are some prenatal vitamin samples and a prescription for more.” He pushed several small pill bottles across the desk. “And some information you’ll need.” He fished a thick pamphlet from a desk file drawer and handed it over.

I dropped them in my purse.

Ben jotted a note on a pad. “You’ll want to sign up for childbirth classes at the hospital.”

“Hold on, Ben. Obviously Gil doesn’t know about this yet. I’ll call you about all that later. I have time, don’t I?”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself, but the classes fill up pretty quickly. Why not drop by the hospital and see when they have an opening. Sometime in July would be best, because you’re due in early September.”

I left the office in a state of numbness. I had an hour before I was due back at school, plenty of time to go across the street to the hospital and sign up for the class. I walked flatfooted, carefully watching the salted sidewalks for patches of ice. It seemed I was in a delicate condition now and needed to be careful.

Shortly before her death, my mother had prayed that I not be left alone, and I had thought Gil was the answer to that prayer. Apparently there was more answer to come.

First
Thessalonians 5:18
, “
In everything, give thanks,” had been one of Mother’s favorite scripture quotes.

Help me be thankful,
I prayed.
And please, please, please, help me tell Gil!

I tried to look on the bright side. Well, at least this explained the nausea and the tightness of my clothes. I was healthy. And apparently Gil was healthy too.

I paused, feeling a pang. Years ago, when we were first dating, I’d told Gil what the doctors had told me, and he’d accepted it and still wanted to get married. Now, over twenty years later, he was going to find out he’d married me under false pretenses. What would this do to our relationship? Hadn’t we promised each other only last night to keep things just as they were?

I sighed. So much for cross my heart and hope to spit.

I cast my mind back to any pregnancies I might have observed. My sister Barbara had a vigorous brood of four, but she had done all her gestating years ago in her adopted home state of Florida.

Another image swam into my head as I paused at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change: TV re-runs of Lucy Ricardo, a human beach ball in voluminous smock and rakish beret, squishing a huge mound of clay so her child would appreciate art, waking up at all hours with odd cravings, and generally driving her husband, Ricky, nuts.

Would that be me? Would the hormones make me impossible to live with? How would Gil react? Tears sprang into my eyes.

I stopped abruptly in my tracks and frowned.
Cut it out, Amelia. Let’s see a little courage here. You’re going to be a mother. You owe it to little what’s-his-name.

Names! I’d need names. One if it’s a boy and another for a girl. Maybe Janet, after my mother. Or something literary: Oliver, perhaps, or maybe a name from Gil’s side.

Gil. I sighed again. The fatigue that had plagued me for weeks began to descend. It was just too tiring to think about how to break this to him.

It needn’t be done immediately.
After all,
I reminded myself,
tomorrow is another day.

As walked through the automatic doors of the hospital, I had discarded Scarlett as a girl’s name, but was giving serious thought to Melanie.

The maternity floor was relentlessly cheery. The walls along the passageways were bedecked with colorful nursery rhyme characters, and the waiting room had a bank of telephones and a row of recliners. There was another question: Would Gil want to be in the delivery room, or would he wait outside in the manner preferred by our fathers?

I roused a bored receptionist and was given a place in a birthing class the week after July 4
^th
. I sighed as I slid the appointment card in my wallet.

It’s starting already, Gil
, I thought.
This parent stuff: the responsibilities, the obligations. Are we up to it? Are you? Am I?

As I boarded the elevator, I heard someone calling me.

“Mrs. Dickensen! Wait up!”

I turned to see Courtney, of the lovely Gervais twins, walking briskly to catch up to me.

“Everything okay with you?”

Curiosity shone in her long-lashed brown eyes. Under her open parka, I could see the pink uniform of a hospital volunteer. On her tall young frame, it looked particularly attractive. For some reason, I had little difficulty distinguishing the girls from one another. Crystal was the sturdy one and Courtney was the friendly one.

“Fine, thanks. In fact, I’m an exceptionally healthy woman,” I quipped, quoting Dr. Ben.

“Oh, that’s good. I hate going to the doctor, don’t you? Don’t like needles and things, which is funny, because here I am volunteering at the hospital. Now, Crystal, my sister, it doesn’t bother her. She used to pick scabs off her knee, just to watch ’em bleed. Mom could tell us apart that way.”

“Oh, dear.” I tried to picture the willowy, ethereal Crystal, who worked part-time helping Hester at Chez Prentice, as a scabby little tomboy, and couldn’t.

“Yeah, weird, don’t you think? Well, I don’t care, I’m weird, too, I admit it. I like helping people and making them feel better, even if I can’t give them a shot or operate or anything. I just want to help.”

She paused, apparently out of breath, but not yet out of words. She continued, “Let’s walk together, okay? I’m finished at the hospital for today, but I have to be back at school in time for gym class in fifteen minutes. I like to have somebody to walk with, don’t you?”

I agreed that it made a long walk more pleasant.

“You wanna know my favorite place? The newborn nursery. I love to rock and hold the babies. And the nicest doctor is Dr. Stout. He delivered me and my sister. He wasn’t the one who was supposed to, but Mom and Dad were over at St Armand’s beach and we just . . . started coming. Her water broke and stuff.”

“Oh, my.” This story was beginning to get a little more graphic than I cared to hear, especially under the circumstances.

“Yeah, it was weird. I mean, I don’t know how they did it, because of all the sand and stuff, and I guess I just don’t want to know.”

Neither did I. Desperate to change the subject, I hastily grabbed at another one.

“Were you at school when the Rousseau boys were arrested?” The instant the words left my lips, I regretted them. I had no business gossiping like this.

“No, I wasn’t. I mean, I was outside on the field at band practice. It was horrible. I heard they took them away in chains!” To my surprise, tears filled Courtney’s eyes. “They couldn’t have did what they said they did, Miss Prentice, they just couldn’t! Especially not Dustin!” She sniffed and accepted the clean tissue I found in my coat pocket. “Lots of people don’t think they’re guilty.”

“I’ll be bringing them their homework tomorrow,” I said.

Courtney stopped walking and grabbed my forearm. “You will? Oh, please tell Dus—I mean, tell them both what I said. Me and Crystal don’t believe they did that thing, not for a minute, not for a second! Tell them, please? Okay?”

Apparently, the brothers had somebody else on their side.

Marie LeBow looked happy to see me. “Amelia!” she said as I walked into the kitchen at Chez Prentice at the end of the school day. “We were just talking about you!”

She was sitting at the table with a small group of guests: Mrs. Daye and a pair of nuns in sedate navy blue, young Sister Priscilla Miller and elderly Sister Margaret DeLancey, in town for a teachers’ conference.

“All good, I hope,” I said automatically, managing a wan smile. I was hungry. “Could I get a glass of milk?”

“In the fridge, dear,” said Hester, pulling on her coat as she nodded toward the old kitchen clock, “There’s cookies on the table there. Everybody help yourself. I gotta get home. Bert’s gonna want his dinner early tonight.”

“I gather he and Etienne are going great guns on this project.”

“Got that right! Bert’s cell is ringing off the hook. He’s been back there in the garage every night this week, putting together them shanties.” Realizing she needed to explain to the guests, she gestured with her hands. “Building little pre-fab houses and selling or renting ’em out. There’s an ice-fishing contest, y’know.”

I shivered inwardly, in part at the thought of long, chilly hours spent on the frozen surface of the lake, and partly at the murder that had transpired there.

He froze right into the ice; at least, his head did.

It was a mental image difficult to shake.

“Well, this snack was nice,” said the more elderly of the two sisters, pushing her chair back, “but we need some real dinner. Anybody have a suggestion?”

“There’s Ernie’s if you like Italian food,” said Marie. “It’s four blocks down, across from the old post office. The best marinara sauce in the world.”

“ ’Allo, everyone!” We all turned to see Etienne LeBow, having just completed the sixty-mile commute from Montreal, resplendent in a dress overcoat and carrying a leather attaché case in one hand and, incongruously, a domed lunchbox in the other.

Marie hastened to give him a wifely hug. “Everything okay today?”

“
Comme toujours!”
He set his burdens on a counter, eased out of his coat, hung it up on a peg, and pulled open the refrigerator door as he loosened his tie. “I am starving. What is on the menu?”

“Hester made pork chops,” Marie told him, “and apple dumplings for dessert.”

“That sounds really good,” said Sister Priscilla, “Is there any chance?” she asked with a pleading look in her eye.

“Sorry,” said Marie, “breakfast only.”

This really wasn’t as heartless as it sounded. Our breakfasts were sumptuous affairs, with all the trimmings, served to order any time from seven to ten a.m. Hester prepared meals for Marie and Etienne and left them in the refrigerator, but, although light homemade snacks and beverages were available all the time, paying guests were on their own for lunch and dinner. It was a firm rule.

“You know what you ladies should do? You should get a Michigan at Fritzi’s,” said Etienne brightly, pouring himself some coffee.

“What’s a Michigan?”

“It’s a kind of chili dog,” I explained.

Etienne frowned as he set his coffee mug on the table and sat. “Oh, Amelia, a Michigan is not just a chili dog, it’s a specialty of the region! Nowhere else do you find it, and you may trust me—I have looked!”

He leaned forward. “You take a fresh bun. Be sure it’s white bread,” he admonished, raising a warning forefinger, “It must be a rectangle with a slit in it. Some call it a lobster roll.” He formed the rectangle with his hands. “You place the steamed hot dog in this slit.” He suited the action to his words. His short-fingered hands were articulate. A solid gold signet ring gleamed on his right pinky.
“Voila.”

I glanced at Marie, who was suppressing a grin.

“And now,” He raised his forefinger again. “Over the top you spoon the wonderful sauce, but not chili—no!” He tenderly spooned imaginary sauce over the hot dog, then, frowning, explained, “A spicy meat sauce, the texture of
bolognaise
. Delicious!”

My mouth began watering. I could tell by the others’ expressions that theirs were too.

“And on top, sweet chopped onions.” He began sprinkling the onions on the imaginary hot dog, and it was all I could do not to snatch it off the table and take a huge bite. “And just the tiniest little line of yellow mustard along the top.”

He actually kissed his fingers in that corny gesture you see performed by cartoon chefs, then sat back and sighed. I caught him tossing a microscopic wink at his wife.

“Was that for real?” I whispered to Marie behind my hand.

“Nah. He worked at Fritzi’s for a few months right before we got married,” Marie whispered back. “He loves to do that bit. He says he’s practicing his salesmanship.”

“Where can we get these . . . Michigans?” asked the younger sister.

“Fritzi’s,” Etienne said. “The best are at Fritzi’s.”

“Is there lots of salt in it?” Mrs. Daye asked. “And fat?”