seventy-one

“She’s pre-actively dying,” Ned explained as we took our coffee over to a park bench outside Kaldi’s. “Dodie is plucking at herself, acting restless, and not eating, right? I bet the store doesn’t matter to her anymore, does it? She wants to tie up the loose ends in her life. She’s said she’s dying because she is.”

His matter of fact delivery calmed me. “This is normal? How long does it last?”

“Usually two weeks. Occasionally, a person will rebound, especially if there’s a special reason to delay, such as an upcoming holiday or a visitor. But in general, she has two weeks and then she’ll move into the actively dying stage.” He smiled kindly at me. “Think of it as detaching. Her soul knows it no longer belongs here. She doesn’t need that body anymore. She longs to shuffle off her mortal coil. The activities of this world don’t interest her.”

Now that he explained the situation, I remembered that Dodie hadn’t asked me where Gracie was. Usually, Dodie visits with Gracie frequently during any workday. If I leave Gracie at home, Dodie always asks about the big dog. But not today.

I told Ned about my visit with Cherise Landon. “I’ll share it with Dodie and Horace tonight when he picks her up to take her home.”

“Don’t expect her to come back.”

“Why?”

“Because she doesn’t need you or the store anymore. This is the end. She’ll want to spend it with her husband and daughter.”

I took my fingers and pressed them against my eyes so I didn’t cry.

“You need to let her go. Don’t try to keep her here. Don’t beg her to eat, or demand that she stay awake. Respect this as a natural process and let her ease her way from this world to the next.”

I sniffled and nodded. “Okay.”

Ned changed the subject. “How’s that jailbird boyfriend of yours?”

I filled him in on all that had happened. Ned was a good listener who interrupted only for clarification. “Tell me more about Brenda’s body. You said it was wrapped in a blanket? What kind of blanket?”

When I finished he smirked. “Shades of David Hendricks.”

“Pardon?”

“Before your time. It was a notorious murder that happened in Decatur, Illinois. Hendricks was accused of killing his entire family, but he got off. It was difficult for the authorities to pinpoint the time of death. See, the killer wrapped the kids and Hendricks’ wife in electric blankets, plugging them in before he left. Time of death is calculated by the drop in body temperature. The heat of the blanket heats the corpse and throws the timing off. Look the murder up. Two books have been written about it. The scenario is also similar in that no one could figure out how Hendricks might have gotten from Chicago to Decatur and back in time for his scheduled business meetings.”

“How did he?”

“He had his own plane. He probably flew back and forth. But we’ll never know. He was retried and acquitted. The man is a genius, and if he did murder his family, he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. That’s how most killers get caught. Blabbing.”