I’M SORRY, BAY, DID I WAKE YOU?” Erik’s voice penetrated the fog in my brain, and I sat up, pulling the duvet around me against the chill morning air.
“What time is it?”
“Seven thirty. I’m heading out for the store, and I wanted to fill you in before I go. I found some interesting stuff on the Net last night.”
I knew he wanted to string it out, to weave the information into a story with a dramatic punch line, but I wasn’t in the mood.
“Just tell me, okay? I have to get dressed and get to the hospital.”
The unspoken reference to the Judge sobered him. “Sorry. There was a Mitchell Brothers grocery store on Edisto. It’s mentioned in some memoir-type things people have written for the Charleston paper. It catered mostly to the black population, but they sold sweet-grass baskets and some homemade stuff, so there was a lot of crossover. It started going downhill in 1942 when the last of the brothers joined up. There was an antique store in there for a while after the war, but the whole thing got wiped out when Hurricane Gracie went through in 1959. I sent the articles to your computer at home and at work.”
While Erik talked, I’d been dressing, the phone tucked between my cheek and shoulder. By the time he finished, I’d moved into the bathroom.
“Interesting. Was there any mention about the rest of the family?”
“No, except the other brother. There were two of them left before the war, but the older one was killed over there, in Europe. When Mrs. Eastman’s grandfather came back, the place had already folded, taken by the county for back taxes. The Mitchells moved down here, by Bluffton.”
I ran water in the sink and stared into the mirror at my bloodshot eyes. With the tiny red lines radiating out from the vivid green centers, I looked more like my mother than usual.
“Maybe we need to concentrate the search around here then. Edisto may be a dead end.”
“I’m not done,” Erik said, and again I caught that storyteller’s exhilaration in his voice. “I did some checking on our database sites and came up with a Maeline Hatcher in Jacksonboro.”
I caught some of his excitement. “I know that place. It’s right on 17. Rob and I used to pass through it when we took the back way down to Hilton Head from Charleston.”
I could picture the town, just a few businesses, a couple of gas stations, and a wide sweeping intersection where the road turned off toward Walterboro. Rob had always slowed down to exactly thirty-five, because the little burg had a reputation as a speed trap. There couldn’t be many houses. I felt the pull of the chase, but experience had taught me to tread carefully. The word caution should have been tattooed on my forehead for any number of reasons.
“Were there any others? With that first name, I mean?”
“Not that I ran across on a cursory search. But don’t you think this one sounds like a winner?”
I smiled at myself in the mirror. I loved Erik’s enthusiasm. “Yes, I agree. Did you send that info to me as well?”
“You bet.” He hesitated. “We need to get you a laptop or an iPhone. You could be working on this stuff while you’re waiting around at the hospital.”
I knew he didn’t mean to sound callous. Erik loved his toys and gadgets and just couldn’t seem to understand why the whole world wasn’t as wired up as he was.
“I have other priorities right now,” I said, sounding pompous even to my own ears. Then the picture of the young tennis player, Kimmie Eastman, popped into my head. “But I’ll make sure to pull everything sometime today and follow up. This could be a great lead. Nice work.”
“Thanks. I hope everything goes okay for the Judge. Tell him I’m . . . I’m rooting for him.”
That brought a smile. “I will. I’ll call you at the store if anything comes up.”
I set the phone on the shelf below the mirror, brushed my teeth, and ran a comb through my unruly mop of hair. The overhead light glinted off the red tinge I’d always been secretly proud of, but it also revealed a new crop of silver threading its way through the tangle of curls.
“Bay? Are you up?” Red’s voice drifted in from the bedroom doorway.
“Coming,” I called and swiped on lip gloss before tucking the phone in my pocket.
Red turned, and I followed him out into the hallway. “I was gonna start breakfast, but—”
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s grab something on the run,” I said, eyeing Lavinia’s closed door as we passed. “I want to get to the hospital.”
“Did I hear the phone earlier?” Red asked.
“Erik. Some information about the new client’s business.”
I made certain the fire was completely out in the parlor and the flue closed before I led the way out onto the verandah. Red held the door of the cruiser open for me, and I slid into the seat. Even riding up front, I still felt awkward in the big car with its radio squawking in the background and an alarming array of wires and switches covering the dashboard. Intimidated was the right word, I decided and wondered how much worse it must feel to be stuck in the back behind the mesh screen that protected the officers from their prisoners.
“You didn’t say much about this new case yesterday.” Red glanced briefly in my direction.
“It’s confidential,” I said. “You know that.”
“Anything you should share? From a law enforcement standpoint?”
He stole another glance as he maneuvered down the Avenue of Oaks, the giant trees forming a lush canopy over our heads while we bounced and rocked along the narrow sandy lane.
“Nope,” I said, and for once it was the truth.
The ICU waiting area was empty. I glanced in on the Judge, who appeared to be sleeping peacefully, his good hand resting on the pristine blanket pulled up to his chin. I asked how he’d passed the night, and the nurse on duty answered, “Comfortably,” in that brisk tone the medical professionals so often adopted with outsiders.
I found Lavinia in the fresh clothes I’d left her, seated at a round table in the cafeteria with three other black women. She looked up as I approached.
“Oh, Bay, honey. Good morning. You remember Glory Merrick? Mr. Gadsden’s daughter?”
“Of course. How are you?”
The woman nodded, and her smiling face belied the terror she’d endured just a few months before when her missing octogenarian father had been the focus of an island-wide search.
“And this is Sallie Grant and Letha Barnwell. From the church.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you,” I said.
They murmured greetings and slid around to make room for me. I pulled a chair over from an adjoining table and sat down.
“How’s the Judge?” I asked. “Any change? I stopped upstairs, but he was sleeping.”
Glory Merrick rose. “We’ll leave you to discuss your business in private,” she said, and the other ladies joined her. “We’re prayin’ for your daddy, Bay. He’s a strong man, and the Lord admires strength. He’ll see Judge Simpson through.” She patted my shoulder. “You just call on us if there’s anything we can do, anything at all.”
“Thank you,” I managed to mumble around an unexpected lump of tears caught in my chest. “You’re very kind.”
“We’ll be around visitin’ for another hour or two, Lavinia,” Letha Barnwell said. “We’ll stop back and check on you before we go.”
The sausage-and-egg biscuit I’d wolfed down sat like a glutinous lump in the bottom of my stomach as I studied Lavinia’s worn face. “It’s not good, is it?” I asked, and she shook her head.
“That Dr. Utley was by real early this mornin’. He said again that he won’t be responsible for your father’s . . . outcome if he doesn’t get that balloon thing done.”
Outcome? I thought. That was another of those euphemisms they all loved. I thought Joline Eastman had used the same word to describe the consequences if her daughter didn’t receive a bone marrow transplant. And quickly.
I jerked myself back to the cafeteria and Lavinia’s somber face. “Angioplasty? Is that what they’re suggesting?”
“That’s it.”
“Did you talk to the Judge about it?”
Again she shook her head. “He wasn’t quite . . . up to it this morning. After he has a little rest, Dr. Coffin said he’d be by, and we can discuss it, the three of us.”
Lavinia picked up her cup and studied the contents as if the answers might lie within the overly sweetened dregs of coffee.
“He said no operation,” I reminded her, barely controlling the sob of fear threatening to escape from deep within me. “We have to go by his wishes. It’s his life.”
“That I’ve spent the better part of mine nursin’ and carin’ for! He doesn’t have any right just to give up! No right!”
The outburst stunned me and caused more than a few heads to turn in our direction. For a moment I sat speechless, staring at Lavinia’s mottled, angry face. I swallowed hard and spoke softly.
“Yes, he does, Lavinia. It’s the last real decision any of us are allowed to make—if we’re given the opportunity to choose.”
“I won’t let him die, not like this. I won’t. Not without a fight.”
Though she’d lowered her voice, the fierce determination in her tone carried far past our single table. Behind me, I heard a chair scrape, and a moment later I felt a presence behind me.
“Excuse me, ladies, but I couldn’t help overhearing. I agree with you completely, Mrs. Smalls.”
I half turned and looked up. The standard white coat and dangling stethoscope hung on a tall rangy body now leaning over my right shoulder. I had a glimpse of piercing green eyes, much like my own, beneath a shock of nearly white-blond hair and a pair of thin lips compressed into what I thought might have been an attempt at a smile.
“Tom Utley,” the man said, moving around so that I could look him full in the face. “I’m your father’s cardiologist, Mrs. Tanner.”
The hand he held out looked huge, much too large for the delicate surgery his specialty must sometimes require.
“Bay Tanner,” I said, returning his handshake firmly.
“I know. Your reputation precedes you.” Again he spoke around something resembling a smile, but there was an edge to the words that I couldn’t mistake. Apparently the surgeon didn’t entirely approve of whatever he’d heard about me.
Tough, I thought. “My father is opposed to this operation,” I said while Dr. Utley seated himself, uninvited, in one of the chairs vacated by Lavinia’s church friends.
“I’m sure among us we can convince him otherwise,” he said, a hint of smugness tingeing his voice. “It’s the only viable option.”
“It’s his life,” I said, feeling as if those three words had become some sort of mantra. “His decision.”
The doctor and Lavinia exchanged a look. “Not necessarily,” he said. “I understand you hold his medical power of attorney.”
“Which is only valid if he’s comatose or otherwise unable to make his wishes known. And that’s not the case here. He’s lucid, rational, and has expressed to me in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t want an angioplasty. Case closed.”
“Bay—,” Lavinia began, but Dr. Utley cut her off.
“Lucid and rational are not qualities I would necessarily apply to your father’s state of mind at this time,” he said. “He has extended periods of unconsciousness, and his speech has become somewhat slurred. He also fails to recognize persons he’s known for years, like Mrs. Smalls here.”
A fleeting moment of panic gripped me as I remembered the words he’d uttered while I sat by his bed: “Get Julia.” Had his mental condition so deteriorated that he’d confused me with his other daughter, the one whose existence I’d known nothing about less than twenty-four hours before?
I shook my head and stared straight into the doctor’s face. “That may be, but he was perfectly clear in his instructions to me yesterday. And I intend to abide by them.”
Again Tom Utley and Lavinia glanced sideways at each other, and suddenly I understood.
“You will not declare him incompetent,” I said, my teeth clenched so tightly I could barely speak. Lavinia dropped her head under my blazing stare. “You wouldn’t do that to him, Lavinia. You couldn’t. If he ever found out—”
“I don’t want him to die,” she whispered, and a single tear dropped onto the table in front of her.
Without thinking, I grabbed for her hand. “I don’t either. You know that. But we have to let him control what’s left of his life. We owe him that, don’t we?”
She sat mutely, her head still bowed when the doctor spoke.
“You’re making a grave mistake, Mrs. Tanner. I can’t advise you strongly enough to reconsider.”
I released Lavinia’s hand and rose from the table. “I’m sorry, Doctor, but my father’s wishes will be honored. Even if you find some way to have him declared incompetent, you’ll still have me to deal with. And I’m not changing my mind.”