The Secrets of Rosa Lee (17 page)

The third try didn't look any more promising. Here most of the patients were in wheelchairs and the staff appeared bored and overworked. Their questions were passed along from one orderly to another over the blare of a TV in the lobby area.

Sidney hated the place. It smelled of urine and dust. The front desk was cluttered with half-eaten breakfasts on trays.

Sloan leaned over the counter and shouted his ques
tion for the fourth time. A tired-looking woman glanced up and pointed toward the left hallway. “Carter's in there. Number three. She doesn't get many visitors.”

As they headed toward the room, Sloan slid his arm across her shoulder and Sidney didn't move away. The comfort felt good as they slowly pushed the door open.

Annie Carter looked tiny in her chair by the window. Her room was orderly, but plain. One painting hung on the wall, a small depiction of an English garden done in shades of blue. Whoever had hung it hadn't considered that the person looking at it would be in a wheelchair.

“Miss Carter?” Sidney stepped into the room. “May we come in?”

The little woman's eyes widened in fear. “Are you real or spirit?”

Sidney was taken aback by the question, but Sloan simply knelt beside the tiny woman's chair. “I'm flesh and blood, Miss Carter. Would you like to pinch me to make sure?”

When she raised her fingers, he added, “Not too hard now, I tend to yell.”

A wrinkled hand patted his arm. “No, thank you, I don't want to hurt you. I just have to ask now and then. When you're my age and close to crossing over, you need to be reminded which world you're in now and then.”

“I understand,” he said. “It won't be long before you're walking with the angels.”

“Oh happy day,” she nodded. “I'm ready with my bag packed whenever the good Lord decides to take me. Some of us leave too early, but most of us are forced to set at the station long after we're ready to go.”

Sloan held her tiny hand and turned to Sidney. “Miss Carter, I'd like you to meet Sidney Dickerson. She teaches at the college in Clifton Creek.”

“Oh,” Miss Carter looked impressed. “She looks like someone I used to know, but I can't recall anyone named Dickerson.”

To Sidney's surprise, Miss Carter giggled. “But then, these days everyone is someone I
used
to know. I've outlived two husbands, all my brothers and sisters, and most of my friends. If I hang around much longer I won't have anyone at my funeral.”

“Maybe it's time you made a few new friends. Name's Sloan McCormick.”

Dancing eyes darted from him to Sidney. “You her fellow?”

Before Sidney could answer, he said, “That I am. Fell for her at first sight.”

Sidney couldn't believe it. Sloan had wrapped Miss Carter around his finger in less than a minute and proceeded to tell her lies. One dinner didn't make them a couple any more than one kiss did. But now wasn't the time to straighten out the facts. She'd do that later. Right now she needed to find out as much as she could about Annie Carter and her last day in Rosa Lee's employ.

She sat down in the only other chair in the room and got out her notepad while Sloan complimented the old woman on the only personal item they could see in the room. “That's a mighty fine painting,” he said.

“Thank you,” Miss Carter answered. She watched Sidney carefully as if she didn't quite believe her real. “I've had it for years. A dear friend gave it to me. She could paint flowers so real you'd swear you could smell them.”

“Miss Carter,” Sidney began. “I'd like to ask you a few questions about Rosa Lee Altman.”

“Of course you would, my dear.” The old woman leaned back in her chair. “After we talk, can we go down the hall
to the kitchen and have ice cream? It'll make the day seem like a party. I have a weakness for chocolate ice cream. It keeps a little fat on my bones.”

“I'll push you myself,” Sloan said.

Sidney wondered how much of the old woman's mind was left. She didn't seem to grasp the idea that they were strangers.

“Where do you want me to start, dear?” She patted Sidney's hand.

“At the beginning.”

Miss Carter closed her eyes for a minute, collected her thoughts. When she opened them once more, Sidney saw determination in her watery gaze. “I retired from being a school nurse over twenty years ago. My arthritis was bothering me too bad to keep working so hard, but I found a part-time job with Dr. Eastland. He wanted me to check on some of his older patients who couldn't, or wouldn't, come to the office. Miss Altman was one of them.”

Miss Carter waited for Sidney to make notes. “She must have been about eighty when I first knocked on her door. For a while she wouldn't let me in, so we visited on the porch. But slowly, she finally asked me inside. I felt quite honored to be invited. She might have been shy but she was a fine southern lady. I could tell just by looking. The place was like a library, books everywhere. She told me she ordered them from a bookstore in Dallas. I'll bet she had a hundred on gardening alone.”

“What kind of health was she in?” Sidney moved closer hoping to keep Miss Carter on track.

“Good, strong as an ox. Worked out in those flower beds of hers from dawn till dark. Dr. Eastland said she had good bones but she worried about her mind failing. She always wanted me to question her to make sure she wasn't
slipping mentally. I told her I wasn't all that far behind her in age and I might not notice, but she made me ask.”

“What kind of questions?” Sloan leaned against the windowsill. He looked so totally out of place, both women smiled at him.

Miss Carter continued, “Made me ask her to recite her social-security number like if she accidentally forgot it I should put her to sleep right then. I thought it was a game, but she never missed, not one number of it, or the code.”

“The code?” Sidney and Sloan both echoed.

“She had a rhyme she always said. Told me someone would ask me to repeat it one day after her death.” The old woman frowned. “I didn't figure you'd wait years to come by. I'm not even sure I remember it now. In truth, I thought it was just a memory game she played.”

Sidney knew Miss Carter's story had nothing to do with whether to save the house, but she was fascinated. “Try,” she whispered.

After a few minutes the old woman shook her head. “I can't.” Tears floated in her eyes. “It's been too long. I'd love to keep my promise to her, but I can't.”

Sloan put his hand over hers and said, “It will come, Miss Carter. How about we go down for ice cream?”

They pushed her down the hallway to a large lunchroom and Miss Carter seemed to cheer up. “I usually only come here for dinner. They bring my breakfast and lunch to the room. I like the evening meal, lots of people, lots of noise. Only independent people eat here and my hands won't let me push myself three times a day.”

Sloan walked over to an ice-cream machine at the corner of a bar cluttered with coffee and tea containers. “I'm surprised you don't come down for the ice cream.” He pulled a cone from the box next to it. He glanced from her to the machine. “You can't reach the machine, can you?”

She shrugged. “Keeps me thin. Otherwise, I'd be a ball. Once in a while someone helps me and I sneak down here. One of the orderlies usually gets me one after dinner if he's not too busy.”

Sloan made her an ice-cream cone Dairy Queen would be proud of, then without asking, made Sidney one. They ate over by the windows.

When they'd finished, Miss Carter put her hand on Sidney's arm. “I found her resting in her bed, like she'd passed in her sleep. I don't think she suffered, dear. I think she dreamed her way into heaven.”

Sidney guessed the old woman must have thought she knew Rosa Lee. “I'm glad,” Sidney said and was surprised how much she meant the words.

Miss Carter continued, “She left me a note about what to do with her clothes and such. She said she didn't want anyone in the house but me and the people who came to take her body out.

“I stayed right by her side until they carried her out, then I locked the door, like I knew she would have wanted me to. If she didn't want people wandering about when she was alive, she sure wouldn't want them doing so after she died.”

“That was kind of you,” Sidney said.

“I was her friend,” Miss Carter answered with tears sparkling in her eyes.

Sloan pushed Miss Carter back to her room. When she was in her place by the window, he knelt down close to her chair. “I'll be back next week, Miss Carter, for another date if you've a mind to hit the ice-cream machine again.”

“I'll be waiting.”

Sidney hugged her goodbye. “I'd like to come again, too. Just for a visit. Not to talk about Rosa Lee.”

Miss Carter let out a short cry. “I remember,” she said.
“I remember the line Miss Altman used to say. I thought she must have learned it when she was a child because it had her name in it.”

Sidney and Sloan waited while the old woman took a deep breath and said, “Gone in thirty-four, a love forgotten nevermore. Look among roses ever bright for the key to unlock the secrets of Rosa Lee.”

Miss Carter frowned. “There was another line, but I don't remember it.”

Sidney scribbled the saying and glanced up. “Try,” she whispered.

Miss Carter closed her eyes. “A mirror turns, blending old and young, to the chime of a tune that was never sung.”

“What does it mean?” Sloan asked.

“I don't know. Maybe it was just a saying. She never would explain anything more about it.” Miss Carter looked tired. “After she died, I looked among her roses for a key, but I never found anything. The garden was a maze. No matter which path you took, you returned to her back door. It must have been just a rhyme because what kind of rose is ever bright?” The old woman laughed. “She had lots of talents, but Rosa Lee wasn't much on poetry.”

Miss Carter said her farewell and pulled the cord for the nurse.

Sloan offered to lift her into bed, but she said he needed to take care of his woman.

Sidney felt his arm go round her and pull her into the hallway. “Are you all right?” He sounded frightened.

“Why?” she managed to say, her thoughts still filled with the rhyme.

“Because you look like you're about to pass out.”

S
loan slammed Sidney's door and ran through the rain to the other side of his truck. He flipped the driver's seat down and reached in the back for a flask. Without bothering to ask, he mixed the whiskey with what was left of her Coke and handed it to her. He had no idea if the whiskey would help, but it couldn't hurt. The professor looked as if she'd seen a ghost.

As she drank, he watched a little of the color return to her face. The rain pounded hard, closing out all the world but the pickup's cab. He started the engine wishing he understood what had upset her, surprising himself by how much he cared. “Do I need to drive to the hospital?” Maybe she was having one of those spells she'd had on Monday when the drill bit flew through the window at the Altman place. He was no doctor. He had no idea what would help.

“No. It's not another panic attack or whatever the doctors called it on Monday,” she answered his unasked question and took a long drink. “I'll be all right in a minute.”

“What did you have to eat today?” His mom's answer to everything from a cold to cancer was food. They had picked up Cokes on their way out of Clifton Creek but he hadn't thought to ask if she'd wanted anything else.

“I skipped breakfast.”

“I was afraid of that. It's after one. How about we eat lunch and you tell me what shook you up back there?”

Sidney nodded. “Your bedside manner could use a little work, but thanks for getting me out of that place. If I'd had to breathe that air much longer I might truly have passed out.”

He watched her closely, unsure she wasn't putting on an act of being brave. She looked healthy, but she might be one of those fragile women for all he knew. His mother had spent her entire marriage convincing Sloan's dad how fragile she was. She'd stayed in bed most of her three pregnancies and continued nap time long after her children had given it up because she had to rest. Strange thing was, she outlived Sloan's dad by almost twenty years.

Sidney broke into his thoughts. “I'm fine. Really.”

He leaned across and tilted her face up with his hand. “You still look pale.” His thumb brushed across her cheek as he studied her. Her skin was soft, warm and free of makeup. Most women her age wore so much they needed a separate piece of luggage just to carry it all.

“I promise, I'm all right,” she insisted, reading his mind again. “But, you're right. I'm starving.”

He relaxed and straightened back to his side of the seat. “I know just the place. Best chicken-fry in the state.”

Fifteen minutes later they were shown to a booth in a crowded restaurant known as the Pioneer. He shook his head when the waitress tried to hand him a menu and ordered two chicken-fried steak specials.

“Specials?” Sidney asked when they were alone once more.

“Beans, fried okra, potatoes and steak covered in gravy.”

She turned her head as if she were trying to understand another language. He liked that about her, he decided. She
never acted as if she knew something when she didn't, but she was a woman no one would ever take for a fool.

When the food arrived he noticed he'd forgotten to mention rolls, corn bread and a salad. While they ate, the place began to clear. It finally got quiet enough to hear music in the background blending with the sound of the rain. Sloan listened to the voices around him and decided not to ask Sidney any questions here.

He ordered cobbler, but neither of them ate more than a few bites. She didn't try to make small talk. He needed to think, to replay again the last thing Miss Carter had said. Somewhere in the rhyme lay the answer and maybe even a key to understanding Sidney.

He paid the bill, took her hand as they left the booth and didn't turn loose of her until they were back in his truck. Something about her made him feel like a kid on his first date. He couldn't remember how many years it had been since he'd wanted to hold a woman's hand. Sloan wasn't sure he could explain his attraction to her if he tried.

“Better?” he asked, liking the color returning to her face. She had a kind of beauty that would still be there when she was eighty, he thought.

“Much better. How'd you find this place?”

“When you knock around all the oil fields in Texas you learn the towns. Or at least the hotels, cafés and bars.”

“Bars?”

He nodded. “If you want to know about a town, you'll hear it all in the bars. The closer it gets to closing time, the more you learn.”

“Where do you call home?” she asked.

He didn't miss the look in her eye. She was thinking the question might have been too personal. Had she gone too far? Had she been too bold?

“Nowhere,” he answered. “I've got a place on Lake
Travis where I go to fish, and an apartment in Houston that looks like a hotel room.”

“No one waiting anywhere?”

There was the look again. She worried about her boldness. He almost told her how damn sexy he thought it was. Not the question, but the shyness behind it. She was a woman who spent her whole life thinking about everything she said. She'd never learned to play games.

“No one. Not for a long time,” he answered. He could have told her of all the women he knew. Women who were dinner companions, company, even lovers. But none were home.

When she was silent for a while, he asked, “Any more questions?”

“I didn't mean to pry.”

“You didn't. You've got a right to know.”

She shook her head. “It's really none of my business.”

Dear God, how he wanted to hold her. She sat so proper beside him, so remote. She would never assume…never push. Something had frightened her back at the retirement home, but she didn't seem to want to talk about it. He didn't know her well enough to ask. He really hadn't known her well enough to kiss her yesterday, either. Her politeness in asking him not to repeat the kiss stopped him cold. Too bad she hadn't asked him to stop thinking about it.

Not that the kiss had been all that great. Maybe she wasn't ready, or maybe no one had ever taken the time to teach her to kiss. He'd met a few women like that. Some who'd even been around, but they'd never taken the time between hello and bed to learn how to kiss. He had a feeling with the professor it would more likely be lack of practice or opportunity. A few personal questions he'd like to ask her came to mind.

He put the car in gear and drove toward the interstate. After a while, the silence got to him. “I liked Miss Carter,” he said as if they had just been talking.

“I did, too.” She didn't turn to look at him.

“I can see why Rosa Lee Altman must have trusted her.” When she didn't comment, he added, “I'll bet they were great friends. Maybe your grandmother was that kind of friend to Rosa Lee. After all, your grandmother, Minnie, and Miss Carter were both nurses.”

He didn't know how long he could go on talking to himself. He tried again. “We never did get around to asking her about cause of death. Though I guess when someone is ninety-two there's not much guessing to it.”

Nothing from the other side of the car.

“I bet that was real hard on Miss Carter, finding her friend like that. But, maybe she found comfort in knowing Rosa Lee died in her sleep. She seemed to think telling you would help you for some reason.”

A truck passed, splashing a wave of water at his pickup. Sloan slowed. “If this rain doesn't let up we might want to pull over.”

He frowned. He felt as if he were traveling alone.

“Don't you think it's strange that she remembered that saying after all these years? I can understand the part about the social-security number. I've often been afraid I'd get Alzheimer's. A few of my relatives have it. I don't want to be walking around not remembering my own name. I've thought it might make sense to rig up a bomb. If you didn't punch in your phone number, driver's license number and social every week, it would blow you off the face of the earth. Then you wouldn't have to worry about ending up in a nursing home.”

He laughed. “Except the other day at the bank I wrote
down my cell-phone number as my account. It may already be too late for me.”

Sidney didn't answer.

Sloan started to truly worry. He spotted a roadside picnic area and pulled off the road. He twisted in the seat and waited for her to look at him.

When she turned, he swore he felt his heart miss a beat. Professor Sidney Dickerson was crying.

Without a word, he opened his arms and she moved toward him. He held her for a long while, feeling her sobs as she silently cried on the front of his shirt. He wished he could think of something to say, but he wasn't sure what was wrong and like most men over eighteen, he'd learned to keep his mouth closed and wait.

Finally, she pulled away and dug in the bottom of her briefcase for a tissue. “I'm sorry.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“There's nothing to say. I know there's something in what Miss Carter said that may be a clue to understanding Rosa Lee, and why she was the way she was, but I've only got four days to figure it out. Even if I do learn something, it may not save a house.”

“Is that what you want, to save the house?”

Sidney shook her head. “I don't know. I'm drawn to the place, but I need to think about what's best for the town.” She blew her nose. “The money would make a difference. No one in the town seems to care about the house but me, and I'm an outsider.”

She looked up at him and he saw the hesitation in her eyes. She wanted to tell him more, but she wasn't sure she could trust him.

Hell, he thought, he wasn't sure he could trust himself. If it got right down to finding something that would make that old dump worth saving, or making half his year's
income on the sale, was he willing to help her? He'd been researching this deal for over a month. He had all the facts he needed and he hadn't felt this sure about the drilling site being good in a long time. The company he worked for stood to make a great deal of money, but the whole process couldn't start until he got at least a lease. The mayor had made it plain they were far more interested in selling than leasing the land so it looked as if the house would end up belonging to the oil company.

Sloan shifted, fighting the urge to touch her. Before they went any further, he had to decide if he would walk away with nothing just to keep her pale blue eyes from crying.

He told himself, at forty, he was too old to be that kind of fool, but in forty years he'd never met a woman like this one.