Wreath of Deception (20 page)

“Actually,” Jo said, gathering up the protective paper from the table, “I have a little more to do before I close up here. But thanks. I don’t think we have to worry about Mr. Schroder. I saw his pickup drive safely away.”

“Scruffy-looking man,” Deirdre said with a grimace. “Well, if you’re sure you’re all right, I’ll get going then.”

Jo walked Deirdre to the door and waited until she saw her wave from inside her car. Then she locked the door and cleared the cash register. She checked a few odds and ends in the stockroom, then turned out all the lights and headed to her car, carrying along the trash bag she and Deirdre had filled to toss in the Dumpster.

The streets of Abbotsville were at their usual quiet, post-9 P.M. state, which Jo often savored on the drive home, usually opting to listen to a little soft jazz on the radio. Tonight she felt keyed up, though, as she started her ignition. Was it from going over all those points of the murder with the group? Or from the unexpected appearance of Hank Schroder at the end of the night? In any event, she didn’t feel like going straight home yet, and so she turned right instead of left at the corner.

Jo headed to Highpoint Road, thinking she would drive past the place Genna had fallen to her death. She wanted to see just how dark it was at this time of night. She and Charlie had been there during daylight, and she hadn’t noticed how many streetlights there were or how close they were to the spot.

Jo stopped at a red light on the way, the lone car except for one other passing in the opposite direction. As she waited, her stomach gave a surprising painful twist, enough to make her wince. It eased, and when the light turned green, she pulled ahead.

She thought of Hank Schroder and his appearance at the shop, and it suddenly occurred to her to wonder how he had known where to find her. Jo didn’t remember mentioning anything to him about her shop. She turned onto Highpoint, and, as she did, came up with a possible answer. He could have asked Bob Gordon, of course, or anyone of half a dozen people at the country club who knew she was setting up the craft show. It seemed, though, a lot of trouble to go to just to locate and hire another crew member. Had Charlie impressed him that much?

Jo’s stomach suddenly became a caldron of pain. She groaned, and grabbed at it with one hand, while steering with the other. Her eyes blurred for a moment. A honk from behind startled her, and a glance into her rearview mirror showed a small refrigerated truck close behind her. She must have slowed down a lot, and here, near the Wildwood apartments, traffic had increased. The driver was obviously annoyed at being unable to pass her. She picked up speed, but at the first opportunity the truck pulled around her, zooming by. She was barely aware of it, though, since by this time she was struggling to keep from doubling over from extreme nausea.

A searing stab of pain suddenly shot through her abdomen, making her cry out, and her foot reflexively pressed down on the accelerator. At the same time, she was seeing double, and one of the lampposts she had gone to check on became two and then four as it or they loomed before her. Jo battled with the pain as well as the confusion, trying, in a few quick moments, to steer, but unsure where to point the car. Her brain told her to pull over and brake, but which way was “over,” and where was the brake?

Her stomach interrupted her brain, signaling extreme distress. Then there was noise, shock, and pain as her rusty Toyota came to a sudden, crashing stop.

Chapter 22

There was a party going on somewhere, because Jo could hear it. People talking, glasses clinking. The squeaky wheels of a portable bar. Laughing. Crying? She really wished her neighborhood would quiet down. These houses were too close together. In the morning she’d look for a place off by itself. And those bright lights. Had she forgotten to close her draperies? She needed sleep. She felt so tired.

“Jo, Jo, are you awake?”

Someone was rubbing her hand. Jo opened one eye a bit and saw Carrie. Why was Carrie in her bedroom?

“What are you doing here?” she rasped. Her tongue felt swollen and her consonants came out mushy.

“One of the nurses—Bobbie Fraehling—lives down the street from me,” Carrie explained. “They wanted to call your mom, but Bobbie had them call me.”

“My mom? Why would they call my mom? And who’s ‘they’?”

“Hospitals always call the nearest relative. Except your mom’s way down in Florida. They found her name in your wallet.”

Jo was totally confused. Of course Mom was in Florida. She’d been there since Dad died nine years ago. Both eyes open now, Jo glanced around. All she saw were white walls. No, they were white curtains. This wasn’t her bedroom, was it?

“Where am I? What happened?”

“Don’t you know?”

Carrie’s eyes looked worried. Jo shook her head, then winced at the sudden pain.

“You drove your car into a tree over on Highpoint. Don’t you remember? What were you doing on Highpoint?”

Jo thought hard. “I felt sick.”

“Yes, they said you had thrown up. Were you trying to get yourself to the hospital?”

“No, I don’t think so.” It was such an effort to remember. “I think I went there to see where Genna had fallen.”

Carrie nodded. “But what made you crash?”

“I remember a truck.” Things were starting to come back. “He wanted to pass me. But I felt so sick.” She glanced at Carrie. “I threw up?”

“Uh-huh. They found you hanging half out of the car. You must have got the door open, but your seat belt held you in.”

Jo winced. “How bad is my car?”

“Why don’t you ask how bad you are?” Carrie asked, with exasperation, as though Jo were a child who had just done a very foolish and frightening thing.
Don’t ever do that to me again,
she seemed ready to scold.

“Okay,” Jo said contritely, “how bad am I?”

“Nothing’s broken, thank God. They had to put a few stitches in your scalp.”

Jo touched her head. So that was why it hurt so.

“And your hair might look a little odd for a while til it grows out. Some bumps and bruises, but nothing too terrible. You were lucky.”

“Yes. Apparently. Now, my car?”

“It’s . . . fixable.”

Jo groaned.

“Don’t worry. Nothing too major. They have to straighten something around the wheel that hit the tree, pound out some dents. You should have it back in a couple days at most.”

“How much will that cost?”

“I don’t know, Jo. But don’t worry about that. You need to rest up right now.”

“Right. Where are my clothes? Can you take me home?”

“No, you have to rest
here
,” Carrie said, spelling it out, “in the hospital. Jo, you blacked out, remember? That’s serious. They want to keep you for observation.”

“And how much will their observations cost me? Carrie, I don’t have health insurance, remember? I couldn’t afford it. So I can’t afford
this
either.”

“Jo, be sensible. If you go home too soon and have complications, you could run up an even higher bill. Not to mention what it might do to your health.”

As if to block any thoughts of flight, a white-coated technician snapped open the curtain and stood there, holding a tray of sinister-looking needles and tubes.

“Ms. McAllister? I need some of your blood.”

Jo grimaced. “It’ll be on sale tomorrow if you can wait. Twenty percent off.”

The woman gave a polite laugh, probably having heard similar jokes hundreds of times, as well as such accusations as “vampire” and “leech,” which occurred to Jo but never reached her lips. Carrie stepped out as Jo presented her arm to be bound, swabbed, and pierced. By the time the Band-Aid was applied, Jo realized that she really
wasn’t
feeling well enough to go home and would appreciate a few hours of recovery time there under professional eyes. So when an orderly came to wheel her from the emergency area to a room, she offered no protest, only waving wanly to Carrie as well as ordering her as firmly as she could manage to return home to her family.

“I’ll be back in the morning,” Carrie promised, leaving Jo to watch a succession of acoustical ceiling tiles roll by on her way to her destination. By the time she reached her room, her eyes had grown too heavy to check it out, so she simply stated that it would do. She sank into oblivion on the cheerful parting words of the nurse: “Press this call button when you need the bedpan.”

 

Carrie arrived early, shortly after Jo’s food tray had been delivered.

“Well, aren’t we royalty now,” she declared. “Breakfast in bed!”

“And a princely one it is too,” Jo said after swallowing a spoonful of her watery Cream of Wheat. “The coffee is almost warm. At least I think it’s coffee.”

“You’re looking better—a little more color. How do you feel?”

“Good. Well, reasonably good, considering. I understand the reason for the stitches and bruises, but I’ve been trying to figure out what was going on with my stomach last night.”

“You mean why you threw up?”

“Yes. I really felt awful, Carrie. I realize now that was the whole reason I crashed into the pole. But what brought it on? I mean, it felt like the worst flu I’ve ever had, or the worst food poisoning.”

“Have you seen the doctor this morning? Did he say anything about it?”

“The doc who treated me last night stopped by earlier and checked my eyes and ears for possible concussion. I guess I’m okay on that point since he said I’m free to go. He couldn’t say what brought on my stomach attack. Apparently, whatever was in my stomach didn’t make it with me to the hospital. He seemed to shrug it off, since I don’t have any symptoms left.”

“There’s such a thing as a twenty-four-hour flu. Maybe that’s what you had, though I haven’t heard of it going around lately. What did you have for dinner last night?”

“Nothing special. I brought in leftovers from a chicken stir-fry I made the other night. It didn’t make me sick the first time I ate it.”

“Was it in the fridge at the store until you ate it?”

“Yes, right up until the time I heated it up in the microwave, which was shortly before the workshop ladies arrived.”

“Hmmm.”

“There’s one thing, though.” Jo told Carrie about Hank Schroder stopping in just before closing time.

“That’s weird. Couldn’t he have just called and asked for Charlie’s number?”

“You’d think so. Maybe he got tired of getting wrong numbers. I gave Charlie an out, by the way, for not taking the job. He’s coming down with the chicken pox—caught from your twins.”

“My what?”

“It’s a long story. Anyway, Schroder went over to the cooler to get himself a soda—at my invitation. But my open can was still sitting there, and I got distracted by the phone.”

“You think he might have dropped something into it? An insecticide, perhaps, from his landscaping work?”

Jo shrugged. “All I know is he was in the shop. If there’s a connection, it’s flimsy, but it’s the only possibility I can come up with so far.”

“But what would Hank gain from that?”

“That’s what I can’t figure out. Maybe he caught on that I was trying to connect him to Kyle’s murder, and Genna’s too.”

“Maybe he thinks you know more than you do. Jo, I think you should go to the police with this.”

“With what, Carrie? I don’t have anything concrete. No way am I going to face Lieutenant Morgan with a story like this.”

“Jo!”

“No, absolutely not. He’ll only twist it around somehow to make me look like the guilty one.” Jo pushed away the tray with her half-finished breakfast. “How about helping me check out of here so I can get back to work? The store opens up in less than two hours.”

“You’re not working today. I’m taking you to our place. You can have Amanda’s room for a couple days, to rest up. I’ll handle the store.”

Jo laughed, having half-expected such a plan from her friend.

“Will you bring me breakfast in bed?” she asked, easing herself to a standing position. “And lunch and dinner too? I like a fresh rose on my tray, if you please, oh, and a linen napkin.”

“I’m serious, Jo. You can’t stay home alone. You’ve been in a car accident.”

Jo located the bag containing her clothes and headed to the bathroom, clutching at the back of her gown. “I won’t be at my place alone. I’ll be at the store. I just need a shower and change of clothes.”

“Jo!”

Jo pulled the door closed behind her to end the discussion, then winced as she caught sight of her reflection in the bathroom mirror: dark circles under her eyes, puffy eyelids, and a large chunk of hair cut away around a bandaged area where her stitches had been put in. Not exactly the look needed to greet those few customers still brave enough to set foot in her shop. Maybe Carrie was right—maybe she shouldn’t go straight home.

“Carrie,” she called, “let’s stop at the drugstore on the way, okay? I’m going to need a few things.”

Chapter 23

Jo dabbed her new cover-stick makeup around her eyes. It wasn’t helping much to conceal the deep blue. For that matter, household putty might have trouble. The ice pack before her shower, though, had taken the swelling down some. Her hair was something else. She had been warned against a full shampoo because of the stitches, but even a shampoo and blow-dry wouldn’t do much to disguise the lopsidedness of the cut. Emergency room doctors were no hair stylists.

She rifled through her scarf drawer and pulled out a brightly colored silk square salvaged from her New York days. A few folds and a couple of experimental drapes and ties about her head later, and she nodded. That would do for now. Too bad she couldn’t run the shop wearing dark glasses, or a Halloween mask, though some might say that’s what she was starting with.

“I made coffee,” Carrie called from the kitchen. “Ready for it yet?”

“Let’s take it along,” Jo answered, leaning out the bedroom door. “There are two thermal mugs with lids in the left-side cabinet.” She threw her makeup into her purse, along with the prescription pain pills they had given her at the hospital, and took a final check in the mirror before stepping out.