Laurie Cass - Bookmobile Cat 02 - Tailing a Tabby

Chapter 2

Vehicles that are thirty-one feet long and weigh twenty-three thousand pounds loaded do not stop on a dime, but even so, I was surprised at how quickly the air brakes brought us to a halt.

Faster than thought, I unbuckled myself and reached to unlatch the door of the cat carrier. “Eddie? You all right? Sorry about that hard screeching stop.”

He glared at me from the farthest and darkest possible corner of the carrier and didn’t reply. I’d rigged up a way to strap the carrier down, but even so the hard braking would have caused him to slide around inside the carrier.

Since he didn’t look as if he was in dire shape, I left him to his sulk and opened the bookmobile door. I hurried down the steps and ran back to the woman. “Ma’am? Are you okay?”

As we drew closer to each other, I could see that the woman was wheezing with exertion. Her brown graying hair was falling out of its ponytail, and while her cheeks were red with the effort from running, the rest of her face was pale.

“It’s my husband,” she panted.

A black-and-white blur made of one hundred percent Eddie streaked past us, galloped down the road, then made a hard right down a driveway.

The woman paid no attention. “It’s my husband, down at our house. He’s having a stroke, I’m sure of it, and I need to get him to the hospital.” Tears coated her cheeks. “We don’t have a landline. I tried to call nine-one-one on my cell, but I dropped it. The back fell off and the battery popped out, it takes forever to cycle on again, and I couldn’t find my husband’s phone, so I just ran up here. I need help to get him into my car and please, oh, please…”

She grabbed my hands and suddenly no more words needed to be said. I wanted to chase after Eddie, but this came first. I didn’t know much about medicine, but I knew that getting stroke victims to the hospital as soon as possible was critical. It would take an ambulance half an hour to get to this part of the county. Add another half hour to get to the hospital, and that was… way too much time.

I cast aside all of Stephen’s warnings about waivers and insurance papers for anyone who rode along on the bookmobile. “Let’s go,” I said, her sense of urgency infecting me. “No.” I grabbed her sleeve when she turned around. “I’ll drive. It’ll be faster.”

Both of us running, we returned to the bookmobile. I had the door shut and the vehicle in drive faster than I should have, but not fast enough, not nearly fast enough. “How far?”

The woman was banging her thighs with clenched fists. “A little farther,” she whispered, looking out the front window. “One more driveway… there!”

“Got it.” I made a hard right and stomped on the gas pedal.

The narrow gravel driveway was tree-lined and not made for a vehicle the size of the bookmobile. Tree branches scraped our sides and the roof. I spared a single thought for the damage the mysterious equipment that lived up there could be sustaining, another for what the chances of insurance coverage might be, then stopped thinking about it.

“It’s such a long driveway,” the woman murmured. “We’re so far away from everyone… How could we be so stupid?” She pounded her thighs again. “Can’t you go any faster?”

I didn’t reply. Couldn’t, really, because it was taking all my concentration to fly us through the winding curves that were taking us inexorably downhill to the shores of a small lake, visible now through the trees.

“Faster,” she breathed. “Please…”

I pressed the gas pedal down a little farther. We rounded a sharp corner where the drive turned from gravel to asphalt, hurtled down a last small hill, and burst into a clearing with a large Mission-style house on the far side and a blessedly large turnaround area.

Eddie sat on the porch, licking one paw and looking as if he’d been there for half an hour.

The woman was up out of her seat while we were still moving. She thumped the door with her fist, but its safety feature wouldn’t let the lock release until we came to a stop. When I could finally unlock it, she shoved it open and ran. “This way,” she shouted over her shoulder. “He’s in his office.”

I hurried after her, fixing Eddie with a steely glare. “Don’t you go anywhere,” I told him as I ran past.

The woman had left the front door, a heavy wooden thing held together with wrought iron, wide open. Not a simple rectangle, the door had a curved top, something that had to be expensive. This fact had barely registered when I was through the entrance, into the house, and into a low-ceilinged, oak-floored foyer that led to hallways and doorways and a switchback stairway. I stopped, trying to figure out which way to go.

Eddie streaked past. “Mrr,” he called, and I followed him.

I don’t know if it was a cat-born instinct or some keen sense of hearing that he’d never bothered to demonstrate before, but Eddie arrowed straight through the rough-plastered entrance to a hallway lined with framed paintings of moonlit water. Real paintings, painted with real paint, and they looked vaguely familiar. I put the assumption in my head that they were from a local artist and hurried past.

“In here!” the woman called.

At the end of the hall were three doorways that led in three different directions. Through one I saw a black-and-white tile floor and white porcelain bathroom fixtures. Through another I saw shelves and shelves of books. Eddie trotted through the third, and if cats had heels, I was right on his.

The woman was kneeling on the thick carpet, her back to a stone fireplace. A man lay sprawled on the floor, his entire left side limp and lifeless. The woman held her husband’s good hand to her cheek. “Honey, I brought help. We’ll get you to a hospital in no time.” She looked up to me, her eyes asking the question.

I nodded. “We can take him in the bookmobile. It’ll be easiest.” Although how we were going to get him into it, I wasn’t quite sure. The man, who looked to be in his mid-fifties, also looked to be heavy. And big. Or at least a lot bigger than five-foot-nothing Minnie. His wife had a few inches on me, but the two of us dragging this ill man through the hallway, down the front steps, and into the bookmobile was going to be imposs—

No. There had to be a way. All I had to do was find it. “Think, Minnie, think,” I muttered. What was the good of taking all those first aid classes last winter in preparation for bookmobile emergencies if I couldn’t remember what to do when an emergency happened? There must have been something I’d learned about transporting an injured person.

I unclenched my fists. Yes. There had been. “We need a heavy blanket. Or a rug.”

The woman nodded across the room. “The sofa.”

I looked over and saw Eddie sitting on the back of a brass-studded leather couch. “Move it, pal,” I said, and he did as I crossed the room and snatched the blanket. A pure wool Hudson Bay blanket imported from England, if I was any judge.

“We need to get him on his side.” I dropped to my knees and tried to remember the techniques I’d been taught. Using care not to hurt the man, but with speed enough to move things along, I moved his right arm straight above his head, arranged his left across his body, laid his right leg straight, propped his left leg up, gently put my hands on his left hip and knee, and pushed. With almost no effort on my part, the man rolled onto his side.

“Hot dog,” I murmured. “It worked.”

“What’s that?” the woman asked.

“Hold him in place while I get the blanket set, okay?” In seconds, I’d laid one end of the blanket on the floor just south of his hips and flopped the far end past his head. “Okay, let him down.”

The woman gently rolled her husband onto the blanket. “We’re going to move you, honey, okay? We’ll be as gentle as we can.”

He made a guttural noise that I took for assent. I stood and stooped to pick up the loose end of the blanket. “I can try to move him by myself, but—”

She was already on her feet. “I’ll take one corner.”

We walked backward, grunting with the effort of pulling the stricken man out of the study, down the hall, into the foyer, and over the small bump of the threshold with Eddie on solemn parade near the man’s feet.

I looked at the front steps. “Do you have a piece of plywood in your garage? I don’t want him to get hurt.” Wooden steps I might have risked, but these were hard slate. “Something for a ramp.”

The woman’s gaze darted to the detached garage. “No, no plywood.” She made a small, panicked-animal noise. “No wood scraps, nothing like—”

She stopped, laid the corner of the blanket on the floor, and ran back into the house. I dragged the man closer to the steps and was almost there when she returned carrying a wide plank about eighteen inches wide and five feet long. A table leaf. Perfect.

She dropped it onto the steps where it instantly became a sturdy ramp, and we eased her husband down it, across the drive, and next to the back end of the bookmobile.

“How… ?” The woman looked up at the tall rear door, her face pale.

“Hang on.” I hurried into the bookmobile and quickly had the electric-powered handicap ramp moving toward the ground. I ran outside, flipped the metal base unit down, and the two of us slid the woman’s husband onto the ramp. “Keep him in position, okay? I’ll get him at the top.”

No words had been necessary; she was already doing what needed to be done. I ran back inside, followed by Eddie, and powered the ramp back upstairs. Moments later, the woman and I got him safely onto the bookmobile’s floor.

I shut the doors and hurried to the driver’s seat. When I buckled my seat belt, I looked back. The woman was lying next to her husband, caressing his face, and murmuring, “It won’t be long now, sweetheart. Not long at all.”

There was no way I was going to insist that she follow standard operating procedure and buckle up, so I started the engine. Eddie jumped onto the passenger’s seat and sat, looking straight ahead. Since I didn’t want to take the time to shove a reluctant cat into the carrier, I murmured a short prayer for a safe trip and dropped the transmission into gear.

Turning the vehicle around was usually a slow business; I’d turn on the video camera that had a spectacular view of the rear bumper and inch my way backward and forward, backward and forward, until I’d made a twenty-eight-point turn.

This time, I glanced in the side mirrors, cranked the steering wheel around, pressed my foot firmly on the gas pedal, and roared back. A hard stomp on the brake, then back to the gas pedal as I spun the wheel in the opposite direction, and off we went up the hill we’d come down—I eyed the dashboard clock—not even ten minutes ago.

We roared up the hill and when we reached the asphalt of the county road, I took a look over my shoulder. The woman was still on the floor next to her husband, cradling his head in her arms, protecting him from the bounces of the bookmobile.

“The hospital in Charlevoix is the closest,” I called back. “Or I can take you to Petoskey or… ?”

She didn’t look up. “Whatever is fastest.”

Charlevoix, then. It would take half an hour to get us there, which was probably far too long for a stroke victim, but it was the best I could do.

No. There was one other thing.

I broke another bookmobile rule and took one hand off the wheel. My backpack lay on the console between the seats and I dug through it for my cell phone.

Please let there be coverage, I thought as I turned it on. Please.

I glanced at the screen. Cell phone reception was tricky in this part of the county; its hills and valleys had a way of creating dead zones that was extremely annoying, not to say frustrating. But for now there was a signal. I scrolled through the listing, found the name that I wanted, and pushed. One ring, and someone picked up. “Charlevoix Area Hospital, how may I direct your call?”

“Emergency room, please.”

“One moment.”

I tried to keep my concentration in front of us, scanning the road, shoulders, and forest edges. Now would be a truly bad time for a deer to wander into our path.

“Emergency, how may I help you?”

“I’m bringing in a stroke victim,” I said. “We’ll be there in half an hour or less.”

“Can you hold, please?” There was a short pause; then another voice came on the line. “This is Rita. I’m the ER nurse today. You said you’re bringing in a stroke victim?”

Rita? Who was Rita? “Yes,” I said. “He lives out on the lake road and his wife flagged me down. I figured it was better to get him there as fast as possible than to wait for an ambulance.”

I’d hoped for an assurance that I’d done the right thing, but instead she asked, “How long ago was the stroke?”

“Hang on.” Keeping my gaze on the road, I turned my head and called back the question.

“I… don’t know,” the woman said. “What time is it?” After I told her, she said, “It couldn’t have been more than half an hour. Maybe less.”

I relayed the information into the phone.

“Okay,” Rita said. “How old is the patient? Does he have any medical issues? Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, history of cancer?”

More information was exchanged inside the bookmobile. “He’s fifty-six,” I told Rita. “The only health problem he has is osteoarthritis.”

“Medications?” Rita asked.

“Just multivitamins and ibuprofen for the arthritis every once in a while.”

“And what is the patient’s name?”

I almost laughed. I’d been in this guy’s house, touched parts of him (through clothes) that were typically reserved for family and close friends, dragged him across his driveway, and was using the bookmobile to get him to emergency care, but I had no idea what his name was.

“Just a second,” I told Rita. “One more question,” I said to the rear of the bookmobile. “The hospital needs to know his name.”

“Yes,” the woman said quietly. “I suppose they do, don’t they?”

At this odd response, I turned my head halfway around, but I couldn’t see her face; she had her back to me as she tended to her husband. “His name is Russell McCade,” she finally said.

I faced front. Russell McCade. Why was that name familiar? I would have sworn on a stack of Nancy Drews that I’d never met either him or his wife before, so why did I know the name?

“Ma’am?” Rita asked. “The name?”

“Russell McCade,” I said.

“Sorry?” she asked. “You’re breaking up out there. Can you repeat that?”

I spoke louder. “Russell. McCade.” And that’s when the name suddenly made sense to me.

Rita’s voice started cutting out. “Okay, his first—Russell. What—name?”

“McCade,” I said forcefully. “McCade! And tell Tucker that it’s Minnie bringing him in.”

The line went dead and I had no idea if she’d heard me or not. Mechanically, I put the phone back in my backpack as my mind ran around in tiny, panicked circles. Russell McCade. Russell McCade was in the bookmobile, suffering from a stroke. Russell McCade, who went by the name Cade, who was one of the country’s best-known and most successful artists.

It was all making sense. The paintings in the hallway were early works, created before he’d established his trademark style that I’d heard described as impressionism meets postmodernism. While I had no idea what that meant, I knew that I’d loved his paintings for years, and even more so since I’d seen an original hanging in a local art gallery.

Cade had a magical ability to appeal to consumers and critics alike. Sure, some critics dismissed his work as sentimental schlock, but most agreed that it was quality schlock, and the prices on his works had long ago reached the point where owning one was considered an investment.

Though I’d heard he had a place up here, I’d had no idea where it was. Easy enough to shield ownership of property by setting up a limited liability company that would purchase your home for you. And easy enough to avoid talking to neighbors if you didn’t have any close by.

I flicked another glance back. Easy enough to do all that if you wanted to avoid gawkers and stalkers and unwanted intrusions, but it sounded like a lonely existence.

“How much farther?” Cade’s wife asked, her voice cracking.

“Not far,” I said. Maybe this guy was internationally famous and fabulously wealthy, but right now he was a suffering man with a wife who was worried sick about him. I pressed a little harder on the gas pedal and we rocketed down the road.

• • •

We sped down the highway, over the Charlevoix drawbridge, through the side streets of town, and, accompanied by the massive bulk of Lake Michigan that lay west of the hospital, we pulled into the emergency entrance.

Half the ER staff was waiting for us. As soon as we stopped, two ER workers were up the bookmobile steps and inside with a gurney. They hefted Cade with a calm competence that was reassuring.

Dr. Tucker Kleinow, the good-looking blond, and tall, but not too tall, ER doctor who was scheduled to work that day, waited outside. “Minnie. Are you all right?” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it.

“Sure. Did…” I didn’t want to ask, but I had to. “Did I do the right thing? Bringing him here myself instead of waiting for an ambulance?”

“Absolutely.” My love interest of less than a month squeezed my hand again. “Time is a crucial element for stroke victims.” The gurney came down the steps and Tucker left my side. “All right, guys,” he said. “Let’s get him in.”

Cade’s wife was clutching the side of the gurney. “I’m going with him. I’m his wife.”

Tucker made a come-along gesture and the small group started to move away fast toward the white lights of the ER.

I trotted after them. From my back pocket I pulled out a small rectangular piece of cardstock. “Here,” I said, sliding my business card into the woman’s hand. “Let me know how he is, okay? And I won’t… I won’t tell anyone anything.”

She flashed me a short smile and glanced at the card. “Thank you, Minnie. Thank you so much for everything.”

I fell back. Everyone else went through the hospital doors and was gone.

For a long moment I stood there, watching the doors and seeing nothing, hearing nothing except my own heart beating too fast. I’d done what I could, and now… what? Tucker and the rest of the ER staff would take it from here. There was nothing left for me to do.

“Mrr.” Eddie bonked the back of my leg with his head, purring loud enough for me to feel it in my knees.

“What’s that?” I asked, scooping him up. “You’re saying of course there’s something to do, because there’s always an Eddie to pet?”

He bonked my forehead. “Mrr.”

I smiled into his fur and suddenly wanted to cry. “Yeah, ‘Mrr’ to you, too, pal.”