Killer Pancake gbcm-5 Page 8

  “Marla. Please.”

  She wagged a finger absent of her customary flashing rings. “If they don’t let me out of here, they’ve seen their last donation from me, I can tell you that. That’s what I told the ER doc when I got here. He completely ignored me. ‘Look me up on your list of benefactors!’ I shouted at him. The guy acted deaf! I said, ‘Better ask your superiors how much Marla Korman gave this hospital last year! You don’t want to be responsible when those donations dry up!’”

  “Marla, for crying out loud. There must be ways they can tell whether you’ve had a heart attack. There’s your EKG—”

  Her eyes closed. “It’s a mistake, Goldy. Leave it to the medical profession to screw things up. What is going to give me a heart attack is thinking about all the piles of dough I’ve given this hospital.”

  “But you know it’s better to be cautious—” I started to protest, but she would have none of it and shook her head. The CCU nurse signaled my ten minutes were up. Reluctantly, I released Marla’s hand and checked her chart. Dr. Lyle Gordon, cardiologist, and I were going to have a chat. After a quick kiss on Marla’s plump cheek, I backed away from the cubicle.

  When I returned to the reception desk and asked where I could find Dr. Gordon, the red-haired woman glowered, then shrugged. Very calmly, I told her I wanted to have Dr. Gordon paged. Now, please. Twenty minutes later, a chunky fellow wearing thick glasses and a white lab coat pushed through the doors of the CCU waiting room. Lyle Gordon had a high premature fluff of gray hair that did not conceal a bald spot.

  “Don’t I know you?” he asked, squinting at me. “Aren’t you … or weren’t you … married to—?”

  I tried to look horrified at the idea. Dr. Gordon scowled suspiciously. “I’m Marla Korman’s sister,” I told him. “Could we talk?”

  He led the way and we sat in a corner grouping of uncomfortable beige sofas.

  “Okay, does your mother know about this yet?” he began.

  I had a quick image not of Marla’s mother, but of my own mother, Mildred Hollingwood Bear. Perhaps she would be at an Episcopal Church Women’s luncheon, or a New Jersey garden club brunch, when she was told that her daughter, the divorced-but-remarried caterer, had been arrested for impersonating the sister of her ex-husband’s other ex-wife …

  “Well, no—”

  “Your sister said your mother was in Europe and that finding her would be tough,” Dr. Gordon said politely, nudging his glasses up his nose with his forefinger. “Father deceased by heart attack at the age of forty-eight. Will you be able to find your mother?”

  “Er, probably.” Maybe, perhaps, hopefully, I added mentally. I imagined a lie detector needle etching out mountains and valleys of truth and deception.

  “Any other family history of heart disease?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Dr. Gordon adjusted his glasses again and succeeded in smearing his fingerprints on their thick lenses. “Your sister’s had a mild heart attack. She’s only forty-five. And unfortunately, she’s—”

  “She seems to think she hasn’t had a heart attack.”

  “Excuse me. Her first EKG indicated she was having extra heartbeats, one of the warning signals. We also saw her STs were way up—”

  “STs?”

  He sighed. “A portion of the electrocardiogram that shows the recovery of the heart between contractions is abnormal. If the STs are up, a person’s having a heart attack, okay? The paramedics called in the copter, put her on oxygen, put nitroglycerin under her tongue. It’s a blood vessel dilator.”

  “Yes … I do know about nitroglycerin.” I also knew that if the vessels could be dilated close enough to the beginning of an attack, blood could get to the heart and prevent damage, sometimes even abort the attack. I said tentatively, “Maybe—”

  “We think that the nitroglycerin actually thwarted a more severe attack. Her blood tests have come back, her enzymes are up, so no matter what she says now, she was having a heart attack. Do you believe me?”

  Blood rang in my ears. I felt despair closing in and weakness taking over. “Yeah, sure. Just … could you tell me if she’s going to be all right? What’s next?”

  “She’s scheduled for an angiogram first thing tomorrow morning. It depends on what that tells us about blockage. If an artery is badly blocked, we’ll probably schedule an atherectomy for the afternoon. Do you know what that is?”

  I said dully, “Roto-rooter through the arteries.” But not for Marla. Please, not for my best friend. I tried not to think about catheters.

  Gordon quirked his gray eyebrows at me, then continued: “Has she been under the care of a physician? She gave the name of a general practitioner in Aspen Meadow. We called him: He said he hadn’t seen her in five years. That’s why her phone call to him came as such a warning signal.”

  “Marla hates doctors.”

  “She claims she’s a hospital benefactor.”

  “My sister is superstitious, Dr. Gordon. She thinks if she gives a lot of money to a hospital, she’ll never actually have to spend any time in one.”

  “And she’s not married.”

  It was sort of a question. If an unknown sister turns up, a spouse may be next. “Not married,” I said curtly.

  “Well, then, I need to tell you this. As I said before, her blood tests show she’s had what looks like a very minor heart attack. If all goes well tomorrow, and barring any complications, I think we’ll be able to discharge her in three or four days. If the attack had been more severe, we would have to keep her in the hospital for a week or more. But when she does go home, she’s going to have to have care.”

  “No sweat. My sister has lots of—er—we have lots of money. I’ll get a private nurse. Just tell me what her prognosis is.”

  “She needs to change her lifestyle. Her cholesterol was at 340. That must be reduced. Then she has a good chance. We’ve got nutrition people who can help her. There’s a cardiac rehab program here at the hospital that she can get into. If she’s so inclined, that is. And she better become so inclined if she values her life.” His tone was grim.

  “Okay. Thanks. Can I see her again now?”

  “Not for long. Are there any other relatives I should know about?”

  Without missing a beat, I replied, “Our nephew might be in. His name is Julian Teller.”

  “Is this your son?”

  “No, the son of … another sister. Julian is nineteen. Actually, he’s here in the hospital. I think.”

  “Looking for his aunt?”

  “No, being treated. Could you check for me? Please? It’s so much easier for a doctor to get information than the rest of us peons.”

  Dr. Gordon disappeared for a few moments, then sat back heavily on the beige cushions. “Julian Teller was treated for shock and released about an hour ago. Shock brought on by hearing about his aunt Marla?”

  “No, something else. Another family tragedy.”

  The doctor gave me a strained, sympathetic smile. “Your family is having quite a day, Ms. Korman.” He shifted impatiently in the chair. Other patients are waiting? his movement said. “It would be good for your sister if you could visit as much as possible. Good vibes, touchy-feely, all that helps.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be here every day,” I wrote my phone number on a piece of paper. “Please call me if anything unusual develops with her situation. Will you be checking on her every day?”

  He wrinkled his face in incredulity. “Of course.” He looked at me unblinkingly through his spectacles that were so thick they reminded me of old Coke bottle bottoms. “She may get very depressed. It’s a common response to heart attack. Even if we can bring her back to health, she’s going to need you to give her courage and support. Are you going to be able to help with that?”

  It was my turn to give him an incredulous look. I pressed my lips together and nodded.

  The second time I saw Marla that afternoon she slept through the whole ten minutes of my visit. Her chest rose and fe
ll weakly inside the drab blue hospital gown that was nothing like her customary flamboyant outfits. I closed her hand lightly so as not to disturb her. Her lips, ordinarily lush with lipstick, were dry and cracked, and her breathing seemed uneven, I had seen a young woman dead that morning. Now more than anything I wanted to hold on to this friend who was closer to me than any sister could have been.

  I resolved to call our church as soon as I got home. Marla was both popular and active at St. Luke’s. She chaired the annual Episcopal Church Women’s jewelry raffle and animated the monthly vestry meetings with her irrepressible brassiness and wit. If I didn’t let the parish know what was going on, I’d be the recipient of some very unchristian phone calls. I also needed to find out about arranging for a private nurse to come in as soon as the hospital discharged Marla.

  I tried to make more mental lists but ended up driving home in a stupor. When the tires crunched over the gravel driveway, I was thankful to see that Tom had squeezed his Chrysler into our detached garage next to Julian’s Range Rover. Arch bounded in my direction as soon as I came through the security system. He was sporting the result of his afternoon of tie-dying: a T-shirt big enough for a quarterback and a pair of knee-length shorts streaked with vivid orange and purple splotches. I didn’t care what he looked like. I swept him into my arms and twirled him around in a circle. When, breathless, I let go of him, he stepped back, astonished.

  “Hey, Mom! Get real! What’s going on? I mean, what’s happening?” He pushed his glasses up his nose and eyed me. From his puzzled but happy response, I guessed Tom had not yet told Arch about the events of the morning. “Where’ve you been?” he continued suspiciously. “Tom brought Julian home but he’s lying down. Everybody around here is out of it. But look.” He stepped back dramatically and held out his thin arms. “Is my outfit cool or what?” A proud smile broke out over Arch’s freckled face as he waited for my assessment. I was not about to tell this just-turned-thirteen-year-old that the spotted, too-large outfit hung from his bony shoulders and small torso like something salvaged from a large person’s clothesline.

  “It is cool,” I agreed emphatically. “Really. You look absolutely, positively great.”

  He turned his mouth down in an exaggerated frown. “Mom? You’re not tripped out or anything, are you?”

  “Do you know what being tripped out means?”

  Arch scratched his belly under the shirt. “Forgetful? That’s what they used to say, ‘I can’t remember anything, man, I was tripped out—’”

  “Look, I’m fine. I’m only in my thirties, remember, and I was just a kid during the period you’re talking about. Where’s Tom?”

  “Cooking. I told him to fix something groovy from the sixties and he said the only groovy food he knew was hash brownies. That’s disgusting! How can you put corned beef hash in brownies?”

  It was going to be a tiresome hobby. When I entered the kitchen, Tom was bent so intently over a recipe that I repressed the greeting on my lips. The walls had been cleaned of the cocoa powder thrown by the Jerk, and lump crabmeat glistened invitingly on the countertop next to a tall green bottle of white wine. A seasoned crêpier waited next to a wide sauté pan, where butter for a sauce sizzled in a slow, circuitous melt. Tom relished cooking even more than gardening. I happily let him do both. I’d take crapes stuffed with crabmeat in white wine sauce any day. Especially when it was made by somebody else.

  As I watched, Tom leaned over the crabmeat and methodically nabbed and tossed bits of shell and cartilage. I felt a surge of pleasure. It was not only that I now lived in a household where people vied to prepare the food. Nor was it, because of the day’s events, that I’d developed a sudden appreciation for life. This unsettling joy surfaced because I still didn’t know why I’d been so reluctant to marry the man who now stood in what used to be my domain and was now our kitchen.

  I watched the butter dissolve into a golden pool. Of course, my hesitancy stemmed from all that bad history of my first marriage. After I’d left the Jerk I’d come to relish those years of single motherhood and solitude. Except for the celibacy, which I kept telling myself I’d get used to, being single constituted the perfect life for me, I’d decided. Until Tom.

  Nevertheless, transition from my fiercely maintained aloneness to daily companionship did have its glitches. There had been the financial questions. Years ago, the divorce settlement from Dr. John Richard Korman had paid for the expensive retrofit of my kitchen for commercial food service, and I couldn’t leave it and still maintain my business. So Tom had moved in with Arch, Julian, and me, and found a renter for his cabin in a remote mountain area. He insisted on putting the rent money into a vacation fund for the four of us. Of course, as a self-employed woman with the only catering business in town, I’d forgotten what the word vacation meant.

  These and other material aspects we’d been able to work out fairly well. Our biggest problem was anxiety. Tom worried about me and I returned the favor. Tom had seen some of the damage done by John Richard Korman before our split. He knew my left thumb didn’t bend properly because John Richard had broken it in three places with a hammer. Tom had examined the hutch glass I’d never replaced after John Richard had shattered it in one of his rampages, and the buffet permanently dented from the Jerk’s repeated kicking when I’d been hiding behind it. After Tom moved in, one of his first acts was to replace the hutch glass and sand and refinish the buffet’s dents.

  My apprehension over the dangers of his job were legion. Whenever I heard over the radio of a shooting, whenever a midnight phone call brought him out of our warm bed, whenever that midnight phone call meant that before he left he was cinching the Velcro bands around his white bulletproof vest, my heart ached with fear. My anxiety had not been eased when a murderer had kidnapped Tom for four days this spring, just as we were about to be married. He scoffed and said that had been a bizarre event. He hadn’t even believed it himself.

  Nor did Tom and I quite know how to talk to each other about our work. Tom claimed he enjoyed discussing investigations with me as long as I wouldn’t get upset. Or worse, tell anybody what he or I had uncovered. To me, Tom always appeared either in control: when he was surrounded by his team in an investigation, or in relaxed good humor, when we were together and he was telling me about bloodstain patterns or check-kiting. I, on the other hand, did not relish rehashing the trials of cooking for, serving to, and cleaning up after the rich and shameless. Occasionally I would regale him with stories about the Thai guest at a reception for two hundred who’d insisted on giving me his recipe for whole baked fish—in Thai, or about the drunk Polo Club host who fell off his horse before eating one bite of the vegetarian shish kebabs.

  Reflecting on all this, I’d failed to notice that Tom had stopped cooking and was staring at the cupboard above the kitchen counter, his face twisted with pain.

  “Tom! What is it?”

  Startled, he dropped the shell bits he was holding. I apologized and helped him wipe them off the floor. By the time he straightened up, he had assumed his normal end-of-the-day relaxed look. Still, I was taken aback. In the two months that we’d been married, I’d never seen him look agonized. Until now. Despite his disclaimers to the contrary, the job did take its toll, after all.

  He forced a wide grin. “Hey there, Miss G.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “No more than usual.” He rinsed his hands and dried them on a dish towel “Julian’s okay, he just needs to rest. I think he’s asleep. Did you get in to see Marla?”

  I hugged him briefly and murmured that I had. Which reminded me. I phoned the St. Luke’s answering machine and left a brief message about Marla’s condition, then left another message for a woman in the parish who had once hired a private nurse. Did she have any recommendations? I asked her tape. Then I washed my hands and glanced at the recipe before retrieving some fresh garlic. Alas, the Jerk had carried off my knives somewhere.

  “Marla was very angry. Claimed she hadn’t had a heart at
tack,” I commented over my shoulder as I looked around the dining room for my knifeblock. This seldom-used space was a monument to my former life as a doctor’s wife. It looked like a furniture store. I’d bought the solid cherry buffet, hutch, and dining room suite right after my first wedding. Then I’d feverishly crocheted an enormous tablecloth and undertaken the tiresome needlepointing of floral covers for the chair seats. I should have been taking a karate class. Better yet, shooting lessons. I hefted up the knifeblock from the table and brought it back to the kitchen.

  “I’m guessing Marla will be home at the beginning of next week,” I told Tom as I sniffed a clove of garlic. The garlic was fresh and juicy; its pungent smell filled the air. I told Tom what the cardiologist had told me about Marla’s condition and her upcoming angiogram and potential atherectomy. “I’m going to go in and see her every day,” I added defiantly as I minced. But of course Tom wouldn’t be jealous if I made a daily visit to a friend. I shook my head and reached for another clove of garlic. Old reactions died harder than I thought.

  Tom turned back to his recipe card and abruptly changed the subject. “How did Korman get through the security system?”

  “Look, it was a fluke … I was in the middle of undoing the dead bolt, and the phone rang, and he hollered that there was some bad news … and before I knew it, he was right beside me … I just wasn’t careful.”

  “Are you all right?” He glanced up from the recipe card, his mouth in a thin line.

  When I said I was, he frowned disbelievingly.

  “Sorry,” I amended, “it won’t happen again.” And there went my summer breeze through the unsecured upstairs windows, I thought. “What did the hospital say about Julian? Is there any special treatment?”

  He dropped ingredients into the melted butter. The delectable scent of crabmeat and garlic rose from the pan. “He just needs to rest. We probably shouldn’t talk about the accident around him. Not just yet, anyway, although we’ll have to eventually.” He reached for a wooden spoon and stirred in flour to make a roux.