Four Blind Mice

Sampson was the one who’d been physically wounded, and he was healing now too, but I was the one who seemed hurt the most. There had been too much killing, for too long, in my life.
    Early one morning Dr. Kayla Coles arrived at the house on Fifth Street. She marched right into the kitchen where Nana and I were eating breakfast.
    “What’s that?” she asked with an arched eyebrow, pointing an accusatory finger.
    “It’s decaf. Just terrible. A memory of real coffee, and a bad one at that,” Nana told her with a straight face.
    “No, I’m talking about
Alex’s
plate. What are you eating?”
    I pointed out the ingredients for her. “These are two eggs, over easy. What’s left of two hot sausage patties. Home fries, slightly burned. The remains of a homemade sticky bun. Mmm-mmm good.”
    “You made this for him?” She looked at Nana in horror.
    “No, Alex made it for himself. He’s been cooking most of the breakfasts since my fainting spell. He’s treating himself this morning because his big murder case is finally over. And he’s feeling better.”
    “Then I take it you don’t always eat like this?”
    I smiled at her. “No, Doctor. I don’t usually eat eggs, sausage, sticky buns, and greasy potatoes. I was almost killed down in Georgia, and I’m celebrating that I wasn’t. I guess that I prefer death by breakfast. Care to join us?”
    She laughed out loud. “I thought you’d never ask. I smelled something heavenly when I opened the car door. I followed it all the way to the kitchen door.”
    Kayla Coles asked a few questions about the case while she ate — a single egg, orange juice, just a bite of a sticky bun. I glossed over most of the details of the case, but I gave her a feel for the three killers and what they had done, and what I knew about
why
— which wasn’t enough, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.
    “Where’s John Sampson now?” she wanted to know.
    “Mantoloking, New Jersey,” I said. “He’s recovering from his wounds, among other things. He has a nurse. A live-in, I hear.”
    “She’s his girlfriend,” said Nana. “That’s what he really needed anyway.”
    After breakfast, Dr. Coles gave Nana a physical right in the house. She took her temperature, pulse, blood pressure, listened to her chest with a stethoscope, then did a P and A. She checked for fluid buildup in Nana’s ankles, the tops of her feet and hands, under her eyes. She looked into Nana’s eyes and ears, tested her reflexes, looked at the color of her lips and nail beds. I knew all the elements of the test and possibly could have done the exam myself, but Nana liked getting visits from Kayla Coles.
    I couldn’t take my eyes off Nana during the checkup. She just sat there, and she seemed like a little girl to me. She never said a word, never complained.
    When Kayla was finished, Nana finally spoke up. “Am I still alive? I haven’t passed, have I? Like that scary movie with what’s-his-name Willis.”
    “Bruce Willis . . . No, you’re still with us, Nana. You’re doing beautifully.”
    Nana took a deep breath and sighed. “Then I guess tomorrow’s the big day. Go in for my catheter ablation, my radio-frequency ablation, whatever it is.”
    Dr. Coles nodded. “You’ll be in and out of the hospital in a snap. I promise you that.”
    Nana narrowed her eyes. “You keep your promises?”
    “Always,” said Kayla Coles.

Chapter 101
    IN THE EARLY evening Nana and I took a ride out to Virginia in the old Porsche. She’d asked if we could take the drive, just the two of us. Aunt Tia was home with the kids.
    “Remember when you first got this car? We used to take a ride just about every Sunday. I looked forward to it all week,” she said once we were out of Washington and on the highway.
    “Car’s almost fifteen years old now,” I said.
    “Still runs pretty good, though,” Nana said. She patted the dash. “I like old things that work. Long, long time ago, I used to go for a car ride every Sunday with Charles. This was before you came to live with me, Alex. You remember your grandfather?”
    I shook my head. “Not as much as I’d like to. Just from the photographs around the house. I know the two of you came to visit in North Carolina when I was little. He was bald and used to wear red suspenders.”
    “Oh, those awful, awful suspenders of his. He had a couple of dozen pairs. All red.”
    She nodded. Then Nana seemed to go inside herself for a moment or two. She didn’t talk