George, Anne (19 page)

"Damn machines," I muttered.

"What's the matter?" Fred was standing in the kitchen door, tired but exhilarated-looking.

"I hate answering machines."

Fred sank down into his recliner. "We made our expenses for a whole month in two hours tonight."

"That's great. Did you have time to eat?"

"Turkey, like you said."

"You want anything else?"

"Maybe. After I wind down." He pointed to the phone. "Who are you trying to call?"

I explained about Trinity's call and Georgiana's illness. "I'm sure they'll take her to University Hospital, but she's not there yet. Trinity says there's a sister, but she doesn't answer her phone."

"Probably with Georgiana, then." Fred got up and stretched. "I'm going to get a shower." He started down the hall and then stuck his head back through the door. "Don't worry about this lady, honey. She'll be fine."

A couple of good days at work and he has the answer for everything.

I waited a few minutes and called the emergency room at UAB again. This time the woman said that Ms. Peach had just been brought in.

"Is anybody with her? Her sister?"

"Just a minute." Turning from the phone. "Delilah! Anybody with Ms. Peach?"

I couldn't hear Delilah's answer but it must have been, "Who?"

"Ms. Peach! The lady they just brought in!" Back to the phone. "No. Not yet."

"Thanks." Georgiana's voice saying "The Family Tree" on the answering machine had given me an idea. I got my purse and found the card Castine Murphy had given me the day before. Her home phone number was on it. Working with Georgiana, she would know about the sister or anybody else who needed to be contacted.

I lucked out. No machine. Just Cassie's clear voice saying, "Hello."

"Cassie," I said, "this is Patricia Anne Hollowell. Have you talked to Georgiana in the last hour or so?''

"I talked to her this afternoon, Mrs. Hollowell. Why? Is something wrong?"

"She's down at UAB hospital in the emergency room. Trinity Buckalew called her and she said she was so sick she had called 911."

"Georgiana's so sick she called 911?"

"And they took her to UAB. That's all I know, except nobody's with her. Do you know someone we should call?"

"Lord, I can't believe this. Wait a minute, let me think."

"Trinity said she had a sister."

"She does. Her name is Martha Matthews. But she lives all the way up on Lake Logan Martin." Cassie was quiet for a moment. "She's got some friends from her old neighborhood that she's still close to, but I can't think of any names." Another silence. "Do they think she's having a heart attack?"

"I have no idea."

"Well, she shouldn't be down there by herself. I'll run down and see what's going on. Okay?"

"That's wonderful. Will you call me?"

"Soon as I find out anything."

Fred came into the den as I was hanging up the phone. He was wearing his navy silk pajamas that he dearly loves, and his hair was wet and slicked back. The pajamas had been a Christmas gift a couple of years ago along with some satin sheets. It seemed like a good idea at the time, very sexy, guaranteed to light the old fires. Not so. Fred slipped into bed and kept slipping right out the other side. The satin sheets ended up at the back of the linen closet.

"You still on the phone?" he asked.

I explained about Cassie Murphy, that she worked with Georgiana and was going to go see about her. "One of my old students," I added.

"Sometimes I think everybody in Birmingham is an old student of yours."

"Are you being grouchy? A hundred and forty students a year for thirty years. That's a lot of kids."

"I'm sorry. Did I sound grouchy? I'm just tired."

"Get yourself a glass of milk." Four thousand, two hundred kids. Most of whom I cared for. Most of whom had turned out fine.

Fred shuffled into the kitchen in the backless bedroom slippers he's never learned to walk in. "You want some milk?"

"No." The phone rang again. Trinity. I told her Georgiana was at UAB and Castine Murphy had gone to see about her. "I'll call you, I promise, soon as I know something."

Fred settled into his recliner with the evening paper and promptly went to sleep; I tried to read some more letters from Meg's computer. Haley was right. Boring. I put them back in the envelope and picked up a novel, which I had trouble concentrating on.

At eleven-thirty, Cassie called. Georgiana had a perforated ulcer and they were going to do immediate surgery.

"There's no need for you to come down," she said when I offered. "There's not a thing you can do except sit here and worry."

"I could keep you company."

"I'm fine."

"Did you get her sister?"

"I tried, but no one answered."

I paused before I asked, "How sick is she?"

A pause before she answered. "Very sick."

"Call me if you need me."

"I will."

Fred was awake and listening. "She's in bad shape?"

"They're fixing to do surgery. A perforated ulcer." For which I had given her bourbon!

"Would you feel better if you went down there? I'll take you."

"There's nothing I can do."

But later, after I had called Trinity, after I had gotten into bed and heard Fred's breathing change into sleep, I lay awake and thought of Georgiana, the little bird with the eyes that missed nothing. I thought of her brother, George Peach, and the Moon Pie story. And I reached over and rubbed the hem of Fred's silk pajama coat like a child does a security blanket.

Down the block, a dog bayed at the moon. Another joined in, and then I heard our Woofer. He sang into the night as loudly as he had as a young dog.

"Good dog," I said, knowing that I should get up and quiet him, that tomorrow I would have to apologize to Mitzi and the other neighbors for their disturbed sleep. "Good dog."

Twelve A call to the hospital the next morning gave me the news that Georgiana was in surgical intensive care in critical condition. As I hung up the phone, it rang, Cassie telling me what I had just heard from the hospital.

"No malignancy," she said, "but peritonitis. The colon was ulcerated, too. They're pumping her full of antibiotics and have her totally sedated, of course."

"What kind of chance do they give her?"

"The doctors say she has a chance. That's as committal as they'll get."

"I can't believe she got so sick so quickly. Where are you now?"

"I just got home. I'm going to get a couple of hours' sleep and then go to the office. It wasn't that sudden, though. Georgiana hasn't been feeling good for quite a while, and we've been trying to get her to go to the doctor. But she kept saying she was okay."

"Can I help you? Answer the phone for you?"

"Thanks, but I'll just put an answering message on it that says Georgiana's ill and I'll get back as soon

as I can. One of the nice things about working in genealogy, you don't get emergencies."

"That's true." I asked if she had gotten in touch with Georgiana's sister.

"No. She must be out of town."

"Well, Georgiana's lucky to have you. Get some sleep now."

"Thanks, Mrs. Hollowell."

I hung up and dialed Trinity.

"Eating all those boiled peanuts," she said when I told her the details. "I swear I never saw anybody could eat boiled peanuts like Georgiana. I'd say, 'Georgiana, you are going to tear your stomach up with all those peanuts,' but you let us pass a curb market with a sign that said 'Boiled Peanuts' and Georgiana was pulling in to buy some. I declare, you could have followed her all over Alabama like Hansel and Gretel with peanut shells." Trinity paused, and with a catch in her voice, asked, "Is she going to be all right?"

"The doctors say she has a chance," I said truthfully.

"I can't lose her, too."

"You won't." My voice sounded sure and steady. Not at all the way I felt.

One more phone call, this one to Mary Alice to tell her about Georgiana. She was already gone, probably over to Debbie's to see the grandbabies. I dialed Debbie's number and Richardena, the nanny, answered.

"Hey, Mrs. Hollowell. Sure, she's here. She's been telling me about that poor lady at the wedding got kidnapped and hid in those caves under Vulcan. That poor soul."

"Nobody's been kidnapped and hidden in a cave, Richardena."

"Mrs. Crane said they had. That nice little aunt of Henry's, not big as a flea. Why would anybody treat that lady that way?"

"Mrs. Crane's a dingbat, Richardena. May I speak to her?"

"Okay, but you know it's God's truth there's no telling what's in those caves. Bodies. All sorts of stuff. No telling."

"Well, Meg Bryan's not one of them, Richardena. Let me talk to Sister."

"Here she is."

"For heaven's sake, Sister," I said when she answered. "Why are you telling Richardena that wild story?"

"Who says it's wild?"

"I do. Now, listen, Georgiana Peach is real sick." I told her about Trinity's call, Georgiana's surgery, and what Cassie had said about the prognosis.

"That's terrible," Mary Alice said. "Do you think it was the bourbon?"

"No more than I think it was the boiled peanuts."

"What boiled peanuts?"

"Forget it." In the background, I could hear Fay and May babbling to each other in their twin language that only they understand. "Are Debbie and Henry coming home today?"

"Yes, but what are you talking about? Boiled peanuts?"

"Georgiana Peach likes them."

"So do I. You know when I'm going to Florida, I'll go out of my way through Florala just so I can get boiled peanuts from that old guy by the railroad track with the kettle. Do they think boiled peanuts messed Georgiana's stomach up?"

no.and
it's the guy has the kettle, not the railroad track."

"Who said the guy had the railroad track?"

"Good-bye, Sister," I said, hanging up. It was too early in the morning for tbis.

Woofer wasn't particularly anxious for his walk. The community sing he had been involved in the night before had lasted several hours, and he thought he would sleep in.

"No, you don't," I said when he held back. "You danced and you have to pay the piper."

I let him set his own pace, though. We ambled down the block, sat on the curb once for a rest, enjoyed the smell of the wisteria. We were turning into our driveway when Bo Mitchell pulled up beside us in her black-and-white police car.

"Hey, Patricia Anne."

"Hey, Bo. You looking for me or just cruising?"

"Just cruising. Saw you and Woofer out practicing for the Olympics."

"Can you come in for a cup of coffee?"

Bo looked at her watch. "Just a minute. Let me make a call."

"I'll be in the kitchen." I put Woofer up and made a fresh pot of coffee. By the time Bo came in, I was taking some sticky buns from the microwave.

"Just what I need," she said.

I poured us both a cup of coffee and we sat at the kitchen table.

"Anything new on Judge Haskins's murder?" I asked.

"Not that I know of. His wife showed up bitching because he got blood on one of her fancy carpets. I keep hoping she's the one did it. About thirty years old. Looks like a tart."

I looked at Bo admiringly. "I haven't heard anyone described as looking like a tart in ages."

"One of my grandmama's favorite things. She'd say, 'That girl's nothing but a tart, Bo Peep. Switching her tail like a mule.' "

"And the judge's wife is a tail-switcher?"

"Switches it
all,
honey."

"I can't imagine him married to Meg Bryan," I said. "She didn't have anything to switch." Which reminded me. I told Bo about what sounded like Meg's voice saying "Help me" on Georgiana Peach's answering machine.

"Did you hear it?"

"Sure." I explained about Georgiana's visit and her illness. "It really did sound like Meg," I said. "Sister says she's not dead, that someone's kidnapped her and hidden her in those caves under Vulcan."

Bo snorted. "Might as well put her in the middle of Highway 280 there's so much traffic in those caves."

"I thought they were boarded up."

"They are." Bo held out her cup for a refill. "I'd like to hear that message."

"It's probably still on Georgiana's machine, but I don't know how to access it. Her phone's connected to her business, The Family Tree, so Cassie Murphy probably can get it. Isn't that illegal, though? Like wiretapping or something?"

"I have no idea. I just ride around in my black and white making folks feel safe." Bo Mitchell looked at her coffee thoughtfully. The dissatisfaction in her voice surprised me.

"What would you like to be doing?" I asked.