L.A.W. The same initials written in the margin of the family Bible … written all over the bank ledger. Could my dad have been giving money to that scumbag? For what? For meth?
“She’d been meeting with him every Saturday for the past year. They had no problems whatsoever, and then something happened. She came out of the room like she’d just seen a ghost. She was real scared like. Kinda how you look right now, hon,” she says, as she pushes the plastic candy dish over to me. “Here, have one. Just don’t eat the grape, those are my favorite. And the next thing I know she’s asking me for his birth certificate … acting real different. She even started scratching her head so hard it was bleeding. I thought maybe she was fixin’ to call the sheriff, report him for something, but I never heard another word about it. Oh, did she send you for her things? I’ve been on her to pick up that box for months now.”
“Yeah, if you don’t mind.” I force myself to meet her eyes. I feel terrible lying like this, but I’m desperate.
“You bet, hon. I just have to get it from the storage room. Would you mind answering the phone for me? If it’s someone calling about Mr. Pinner, well, he died last night, I guess you best leave that to me. Back in a jiffy.”
I hear her shoes squeaking against the linoleum and then disappear into the carpeting of the back offices. I hop around the counter and move the mouse around the screen. She’s got a Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman screen saver. Figures.
I scan through the files for patient records and pull up Emily Granger. Bam. Sure enough, Tyler was telling the truth. Checked herself in almost exactly two years ago. Self-pay. She was here a little under a year. PTSD. Religious ideology. Delusions of grandeur.
She’s still not back, so I type in Lee Wiggins. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. PTSD. Burn trauma. Claims father tried to kill him night of accident, but Devil saved him for higher calling. Prescribed: Lithium. Zoloft. Hydrocodone.
As soon as I hear Mrs. Giffords’s squeaky soles hit the linoleum, I wipe the history and hop back over the counter.
“Is it hot in here?” she asks, as she sets the box on the counter. “See, I’m a little chilly, but you’re all sweated up. Hope I’m not coming down with something.”
I inspect the box. “But this says Mrs. Wilkerson on the side.”
“Oh, they belong to Emma now. Mrs. Wilkerson left her everything. The house, too. Lucky duck. Those Catholics sure stick together.”
“She passed?”
“Last year. I think that’s why Emma stayed with us so long. She didn’t need to be here. She was smarter than Dr. Flannigan, that’s for sure. I think she just needed a rest and she wanted to be here for her friend when the time came. It was an odd thing, though … how she died.”
“What do you mean?”
“Emma was holding her hand, saying some kind of prayer in Catholic—”
“You mean Latin?”
“Sure, I guess, and Mrs. Wilkerson went all rigid. The look on her face was like something out of a nightmare. Like she just forgot the Thanksgiving turkey in the oven. And then she said something real funny … something about a blood creed or a creed of blood.”
“Was it … ‘I plead the blood’?”
“Yes! That was it.” Mrs. Gifford puts her finger on the tip of her nose, like we’re playing a game of charades.
It feels like all the blood is being drained from my body.
“They said it was a massive heart attack that made her lock up like that. That’s why they couldn’t do an open casket down at Newcomers. Her face was stuck like that.”
“Like what?” I manage to ask.
“Like this.” She opens her mouth as wide as it’ll go, her eyes bulging, the tendons in her neck flaring.
It gives me the chills. That’s the same look my dad had in the end. His same words. What does it mean? What’s the connection?
The phone rings. She holds up a finger and takes off her earring.
“Oakmoor, this is Janelle, how can I help you?” she says in a sickening sweet voice, as I watch the hard candy bash against her teeth. “Oh, hold on a sec.” She puts the receiver to her chest. “Listen to me jabbering on,” she says. “You must be late for school. Want me to call over there and tell Miss Granger you’re on the way?”
“No … no, I’m good,” I say as I turn for the exit.
“Clay,” she calls out. “The box?”
“Yeah,” I murmur as I head back and grab it.
I think she says something else to me, but I can’t hear anything over the buzzing in my ears, like the flies … like something terrible is about to happen.