The only good thing about this crisis was that, when the screaming started, Miss Betsy Powell’s hideous, high-pitched shriek didn’t mingle with screams from the other ladies.
“Oh, good Lord, what now?” Not the kindest remark I could make under the circumstances, but Miss Betsy Powell had been such a pain in the neck for so long, I forgave myself.
Flossie, thinking more quickly than anyone else present, including me, rushed to the fallen woman, held a finger to her neck and glanced up at me. “She’s got a pulse. I think she just fainted from too much exertion.”
“Well, I’m glad she’s alive, anyway.” My tone did not overflow with the milk of human kindness. And here we were in church. Ah, well.
The other ladies had all gathered round the Powell heap, so I stood on my tiptoes and shot a quick peek at the back of the room. My relief nearly made me faint when I saw Sam, a finger to his lips, slip out the back door of the hall. Figuring he’d know what to do and how to do it, I joined the rest of the women fussing around their fallen comrade.
“Do you suppose she really did faint from doing the exercises?” asked Regina. “I didn’t think they were difficult. Just stretches.”
“They weren’t tough,” said Flossie as if she knew what she was talking about. “However, if Miss Powell is unused to any exercise at all, they might have been challenging for her.”
Flossie was always so nice.
“I think she only wants attention,” said Mrs. Dermott, making my heart all warm and fuzzy. Unless that was mold.
“She does seem to appreciate being noticed,” said Lucy in an understatement that might just make a world’s record if anyone was keeping track of these things.
A loud knocking reached us from the hall door to the outside. I, having seen Sam leave by the back door, figured it was he now knocking at the side door. And, as I hurried out of the room and dashed to peer through the door’s window, I saw I was right. At once, I tried to open it, realized it had somehow got itself locked again—by me, I think—reached into my pocket, fetched the key, and unlocked it.
Sam growled, “Why’d you lock the door?”
“I don’t know. You saw what happened, right?”
“Yes. Give me the key. I’ll go to Smith’s office and call Doctor Benjamin.”
“Thanks, Sam.”
So Sam took himself to Reverend Smith’s office and I rejoined the exercise class. Miss Betsy Powell seemed to be stirring. Guess she wasn’t dead. Huh.
“Ooooooh,” she whimpered.
“Are you feeling all right, Miss Powell?” cooed the always-wonderful Flossie.
“Maybe I should get her a glass of water?” said Regina tentatively.
“I’ll get it, dear. I know my way around the kitchen,” said Mrs. Dermott.
“Thank you, Mrs. Dermott,” I said.
“I feel…sick,” said Miss Betsy Powell.
Lucy rushed into action. “I’ll get a basin from the kitchen!” And she did. Came back just in time for Miss Betsy Powell to be sick in it, too. Ew.
“Better bring a clean wet rag!” I called to Mrs. Dermott, who lingered in the kitchen, probably filling a glass with water, because I heard the tap running. Then I wished I’d gone to get water and let Mrs. Dermott see to the fallen woman, but I hadn’t known Miss Powell aimed to get sick.
“Oooooh,” Miss Betsy Powell repeated. “I…I’m s-sorry.”
“It’s all right, dear,” said Flossie, whose heart, unlike those belonging to some of us, was clean and pure. “Everything will be all right. Do you feel well enough to sit up?”
“Oh, my stomach feels so queer,” said Miss Betsy Powell. For a second, it looked as though she might be sick again, so Lucy, staunch supporter that she was, held out the basin once more. Her face had screwed itself into a grimace of disgust, which made perfect sense.
When Miss Betsy Powell threw up the second time, the gathered women scattered, which also made sense. I, having appointed myself leader of the gang, decided it would be right and proper of me to join Flossie in nursing the victim, even given the victim in question. So I did, giving myself an imaginary medal for bravery in action as I did so.
“What happened, Miss Powell?” I asked, attempting to make my voice sweet as honey. With a glance at Flossie, who looked as if she were trying not to giggle, I decided I hadn’t achieved my aim. After clearing my throat, I tried again. “Would you like a cool, damp rag, Miss Powell?” I took the rag Mrs. Dermott dangled at my shoulder and offered it to Miss Powell.
“Yes,” she whimpered. “Th-thank you. Oh, I felt so sick there for a couple of minutes.”
“Do you believe you’ll be sick again?” I asked, inching away from her a trifle.
After thinking about it, she said, “N-no. I don’t think so.”
“Daisy,” said Flossie. “Will you give me a hand here? We’ll help Miss Powell to a chair.”
“Happy to,” I fibbed.
So Flossie and I heaved Miss Betsy Powell to her feet. Mrs. Dermott shoved a chair under her bottom, kneecapping her from behind, and she sat with a whump onto the hard chair.
“Uhhhhph,” said Miss Betsy Powell.
I smiled up at Mrs. Dermott. “Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome.” Mrs. Dermott gave me such a devilish smile, I decided she was all right. I grinned back at her, and we knew we’d just shared a secret. I think the secret was that we both wished Miss Betsy Powell would crawl back under the rock from which she slithered, which wasn’t kind of us, but we’d known the woman longer than anyone else in the room except for Lucy, and she didn’t like Miss Powell any better than we did.
If any of that made sense.
“Here you go,” I said, handing the wet rag to the seated woman.
“Thank you.” Miss Betsy Powell commenced dabbing at her face with the cooling rag.
Just to be on the safe side, I moved the basin up next to the chair. “In case you feel sick again, here’s the basin, Miss Powell.”
“Thank you. I don’t think I’ll be sick again.” She put a hand over her stomach. “I don’t know what came over me.”
Once Miss Powell looked as if she wouldn’t fall off the chair, Lucy said, “Will you be all right now, Miss Powell?”
“I-I think so,” came her faint response. Miss Powell continued to dab. She eyed the basin at her feet with loathing. “I’m sure I won’t be sick again.”
“Let me take this away and rinse it out, then,” said Flossie the Practical. And she did. She also dried it and brought it back. With a peek at me, she said, “Just in case.”
“Thanks, Flossie.”
Lucy, standing with her fists on her almost nonexistent hips and squinting down at Miss Powell, said, “Then I suppose we’d better telephone for a doctor.”
“Oh, I don’t think I need a—”
“Doctor Benjamin will be here in a few minutes,” came Sam’s rumbling bass voice from the door to Fellowship Hall.
Everyone, including me, jumped an inch or so off the ground. Miss Betsy Powell squealed. Her squeal was only a centimeter or so more tolerable than one of her screams. Flossie instantly braced her shoulders to hold her in the chair.
“No need to be afraid,” I told her sharply, pressing a hand to my own palpitating heart. “Detective Rotondo drove Flossie and me up here, and he called the doctor. The doctor will attend to you as soon as he arrives.”
“Oh,” said she. “Th-thank you.”
“Not a problem,” said Sam, eyeing the seated woman without benevolence. “What happened here?”
He sounded awfully gruff. His tone made all the women except Flossie and me back away. Well, Miss Betsy Powell stayed put, too, probably because she felt too weak to get out of her chair.
“At the very end of one of the exercises, she collapsed,” I told Sam, knowing I didn’t need to, but playing along. Casting a quick peek at the back of the hall, I saw neither hide nor hair—nor peg—of Mr. Prophet.
“And you said you felt sick to your stomach?” asked Sam, who shouldn’t have known that, but nobody called him on it.
“Yes. Perhaps it was something I ate.”
“Hmmm. Yes,” said Sam, pushing his left coat sleeve up and peering at the watch strapped thereon. “It’s just about two o’clock. I guess the rest of the class can go on home now.”
“Thank you, Sam.” I gave him a quick pat on his padded shoulder—not sure if he felt it or not—and turned to the ladies of the class. “You may all go on home now, ladies. Try to do the exercises we did here at home. They aren’t difficult, and you don’t need to do any jumping or running or anything.” I thought of something. “Unless, of course, you’d like to run around the hall a couple of times, just…because.”
None of the participating ladies wanted to run around the hall. They all collected their handbags, etc., and exited the hall with, I presume, the intention of going home. Except, of course, for Flossie, who’d ridden to the scene of the crime—I mean class—in Sam’s Hudson with Mr. Prophet and me. Well, and Frank Pagano and Officer Doan.
Lucy popped back into the hall a second or two after she’d left it. “When do we want to meet again?”
Who was this we of whom she spoke? I didn’t ask. “Don’t know. Perhaps you and the other ladies can work out details while Flossie and I remain here to help Miss Powell.”
“That’s a great idea,” said Mrs. Dermott, taking Lucy by the arm and yanking her from the hall again.
“How are you feeling now, Miss Powell,” asked Flossie as if she really wanted to hear the answer. Knowing Flossie, she probably did. A good woman, Flossie. I should have taken lessons from her, but didn’t. Bad me.
“Awfully weak,” said Miss Powell.
“When did you first feel sick?” asked Sam after everyone except the core four had left the room.
“It was…um…during the last exercise, when we were stretching to our right and then our left. My stomach came all over queer.” She pressed a hand to her middle and her chin trembled. She looked up at me and said, “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Majesty! I didn’t mean to ruin the class for everyone.”
“You didn’t ruin it,” I told her. T’was but the truth. “I’m sorry you got sick, though.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I don’t understand it.”
“What did you eat last,” asked Sam.
I heard a clop-thud-clop-thud and turned to see Mr. Prophet limp into the room. He came over to us, and Miss Betsy Powell shrank back in her chair, looking up at him as if he were the devil coming to claim her soul. Her cowardice irked me. Yes, the man was old and one-legged, and yes, maybe he did look kind of like Old Scratch in street clothes, but for heaven’s sake! She’d met him before.
Seeing her flinch, Mr. Prophet—after, of course, rolling his eyes—said, “I’ll go set them tables to rights,” and clop-thumped to the back of the hall.
“I’ll help you,” said Flossie, doing so.
“Well?” asked Sam of his victim. I mean Miss Betsy Powell.
“What…what did you ask me?”
“What was the last thing you ate?” said Sam patiently.
To the accompaniment of tables being turned right-side up and arranged properly in the back of the hall, Miss Betsy Powell paused to think about what her last meal had been.
“It wasn’t all that long ago,” I told her, perhaps too brusquely.
A tear spilled from one of her eyes. Maybe both of them. “I-I had a sandwich.”
Sam glared at me, thereby telling me to keep my yap shut, and said, “What was in the sandwich? Did you buy it at a café or make it at home?”
“Oh,” said she. “I made it myself with some leftover ham loaf my gentleman friend brought me from his employer’s house.” She simpered. “He’s so sweet to me, you see.”
“Yes,” said Sam. “I see.”
Her words had galvanized me, and I wanted to yank on Sam’s coat sleeve and participate in a conversation about whether or not my darling aunt had decided to feed her captors food that would make them sick. If, of course, she’d made the ham loaf Miss Powell had eaten. If, of course, Vi was where we thought she was. If, of course, we were correct in our assumption she’d been kidnapped so she could cook for the leader of the gang. And if, of course, Vi would dream of sullying her sterling reputation as the best cook in the world by contaminating her own creations.
Sam shut my open mouth with a glare so hideous that I vowed then and there to make him promise he’d never use that expression on any children we might eventually have. If we ever managed to get married.
“Is this where the sick person is?” came Doc Benjamin’s voice from down the hall at the north side entrance door.
“Go fetch him,” Sam ordered me, only he was using his nice voice.
I went to get the good doctor. As I did so, I heard Flossie’s sweet voice and deduced she and Mr. Prophet had done their duty by the tables and rejoined Sam and the patient.
Sure enough, there was Dr. Benjamin. He grinned at me, appeared to be taken aback for a second, and then gave me another good look, this one taking in my red polka-dotted gym bloomers. “Good Lord, Daisy, are you aiming to join a circus or something? In church?”
“Hey, Doc,” I said, smiling. “No. I was elected to lead a ladies’ exercise class here at the church. Couldn’t find my old gym bloomers, so I made these. Only fabric I could find that I had enough of.” Oh, dear, another preposition! Shame on me.
“Ah. I see.”
“Anyway, we got through most of the exercises, and then Miss Betsy Powell collapsed.”
He stopped walking abruptly. Startled, I stopped walking, too, and looked at him. “What?”
“She isn’t going to scream at me, is she?” Doc asked with trepidation.
“No.” I actually managed a soft chuckle. “She collapsed to the floor and then got sick and threw up a couple of times. I don’t know what her problem is.”
With a gusty sigh, Dr. Benjamin said, “Who does?”
“Excellent question, and one to which I don’t know the answer.”
We both stopped laughing when we entered Fellowship Hall and saw Miss Betsy Powell, white as a snowdrift, sagging on her chair with Flossie, Sam and Mr. Prophet attempting to hold her upright. Even I felt a little sorry for her. She looked genuinely sick.