Second Degree (Benjamin Davis Book Series 2) Read online

  He glanced at his watch; it was ten fifteen. He started unevenly buttoning his shirt, looked over, and saw that Robyn had stopped breathing. He rushed to her side, and he performed CPR. He got her breathing again and sighed with relief.

  Another two minutes passed. Then loud knocks jarred Charlie away from his focus on Robyn.

  He leaped from the bedroom floor toward the front door and opened it. Two paramedics burst in: one very old, and the other very young. The younger one carried a collapsible gurney, and the other held a duffle bag of equipment marked Hewes City Fire Dept.

  The older EMT took charge and barked at Charlie, “You gave us the wrong damn address. This is 521, not 512.”

  Charlie defensively responded, “Your dispatcher transposed the numbers. I know where we are.”

  The experienced paramedic knew better than to engage a distraught person and dropped the argument. He turned his attention to his patient. He ripped open the Velcro bag, and the two professionals went to work.

  Still focusing on Robyn, the senior one began peppering Charlie with questions: “What’s she on, sir? I can smell alcohol. What else? How long has she been in distress?”

  Charlie knew the EMT needed answers fast. He paused, gathered his thoughts, and in a commanding tone began answering the questions: “It’s Doctor, not sir! Since Friday night the patient has consumed at least two liters of vodka, smoked several joints in front of me, over my strong objection, and disappeared several times into the bathroom. Robyn’s an addict. I don’t know what else she may have taken. She’s also taking three prescription medications.”

  Charlie went to the nightstand on his side of the bed, and before he retrieved three bottles, without notice, he grabbed a Kleenex, so he could hand them over without leaving his prints. He left one bottle on the nightstand. “I don’t know which of these she’s taken, but she regularly takes hydrocodone, Xanax, and Prozac. I don’t know from whom she got these prescriptions. It wasn’t through me.”

  He strongly suspected that the drugs and the needles were in the bathroom somewhere. He absolutely knew what was in the nightstand drawer but remained silent. His silence was a lie. Charlie weighed the option of coming clean with the truth but forced himself to remain silent, justifying his silence by Robyn’s plea.

  The senior paramedic with gloved hands put the three vials into a plastic bag.

  “What’s that bottle?” He pointed to Charlie’s nightstand.

  “It’s mine.” Charlie picked up the bottle and handed it to the EMT.

  He examined the label and asked, “Viagra, isn’t that the new drug that’s supposed to enhance sexual performance?”

  “Yep, and it works.” Charlie glanced over at Robyn.

  He handed the bottle back to Charlie and returned to his patient. Charlie stuffed it in his front pants pocket.

  The younger EMT established a line, and they lifted the naked Robyn onto the gurney. The white-haired paramedic resumed his questioning. Charlie thought the man did not quite believe everything he said. He didn’t look in either nightstand; if he had, he would have hit pay dirt.

  “Can I look in the bathroom so I can inventory what other drugs she may have taken?” asked the EMT.

  Charlie got scared for himself and for Robyn. He looked hard at the paramedic and again in an authoritative tone told him, “There are dozens of pill bottles in the bathroom. She could have taken anything. You need to focus on your patient. She’s in real distress.”

  “Doctor, what is your relationship to the patient?”

  Charlie pondered the question a few moments. “She’s my fiancée. I came down from New York for the long holiday weekend to convince her that she needed to go into rehab. We broke up because of her drug use.”

  “What was the patient doing immediately before cardiac arrest?”

  Charlie knew the senior paramedic already had the answer to his question. There was no point in lying. She was stark naked. What else could they have been doing?

  “Sex! She climaxed and then went into cardiac arrest! Rather than ask me a bunch of irrelevant questions, let’s get her to the hospital. I’m riding in the ambulance. Move it!”

  Charlie grabbed his shoes and followed the gurney out the door. He locked up with his key. At the elevator, the group was met by two Hewes City police officers. Officer Bobby Pew, a former University of Tennessee running back, in a deep southern drawl addressed the older paramedic whose nameplate read Mackey, “What’ve you got, Mac?”

  “Drug overdose. He’s the boyfriend, and he’s a doctor.”

  Officer Pew turned to Charlie. “What’s she on, Doctor? Is it prescription or street drugs?”

  Charlie wished he were somewhere else, anywhere else. He tried to muster the courage to respond. He could tell that the black officer was listening carefully and about to weigh the truthfulness of his answer.

  “She’s an addict. I know she’s been drinking and smoked some weed, but I don’t know what else. She has done a lot of drugs the last few years. I can’t say for sure what she’s on right now.”

  “Do we have your permission to search the apartment? Maybe we can find a pill bottle or evidence of what drug she’s taken,” Officer Pew asked.

  Frightened now, Charlie strained to understand the last question in part because he was nervous but also because of Pew’s heavy accent. Charlie slowly repeated the question before he responded. The last thing he needed was legal problems. He’d had his fair share of them over the last few years, and he wanted no part of this.

  He replied, “Absolutely not! The apartment’s already locked up. We’ve got to get to the hospital. I’m riding in the ambulance. Let’s go!”

  Charlie surprised himself. He was proud of his commanding tone.

  The officer backed down and stated he’d follow the ambulance to the hospital. What he didn’t say and Charlie didn’t know was that he directed Officer Dawson to call the station and report the overdose. Dawson was to stay behind to meet backup to secure the premises as a possible crime scene.

  After the patient was loaded, Mackey jumped behind the wheel, looked at his watch, and called dispatch, “This is unit 12. It’s ten twenty-nine, and we’re leaving 4th for the hospital.”

  Charlie reflected, I failed to get her into rehab, but I saved her life just now. Robyn’s sister won’t see it that way, though. She’ll unfairly blame me. The last thing I want to do is face her, but damnit, I will.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A HARD GOOD-BYE

  Wednesday, August 23, 1995

  (About Five Years Earlier)

  Dr. Peter Nichols held his mother’s hand and looked into her blank face. She returned his loving look with a vacant stare. A single tear rolled down his right cheek because he knew that Lillian Nichols was dying. She didn’t have much time.

  Peter Nichols Sr., his father, died when Peter was eighteen; he’d been gone thirty-two years. Senior approved of Peter’s decision not to go into the family business. Right before his death the elder Nichols joked, “Son, being a dentist is an honorable profession, not quite as glamorous as a retail butcher and grocer, but it’s an honest living.”

  Peter Sr. died after being shot in a robbery. He knew as he bled out that the family business, Nichols’s Market, in downtown Nashville at 4th and Church, would survive in the capable hands of his older son, Albert. At the time of Peter Sr.’s death the German-style deli market had been serving lunch and offering take-home dinners and household necessities to downtown Nashville workers and busy single businessmen for two generations.

  “Mom, it’s Peter. Blink if you hear me. Let me know if you understand that I’m here.”

  It might have been his imagination, but Peter thought his mother’s face reacted to his voice. It seemed to strain, and her right eye closed ever so slightly. Peter desperately wanted to believe that his mother knew she wasn’t dying alone.

  He grabbed her hands. They were freezing, but he held them tightly and reminded himself that she always had a warm and
kind heart. Peter looked down at the mangled digits, deformed by age and late-stage arthritis, and cried. He pulled his white linen handkerchief from his inside jacket pocket and wiped his eyes. His mother embroidered his initials PEN in gold lettering.

  He could feel her pain, despite the lack of expression on her face. She was definitely conscious; she was just incapable of crying out.

  According to the doctors, she was suffering from a rare form of dementia. She’d suffered from the horrid disease the last six and a half years. During that time she deteriorated both physically and mentally.

  He’d been a good son. For the last six years his mother had lived in his home. His wife, Helen, and his two daughters were a solid support team, each pitching in.

  Last night, against medical advice, he’d brought her home to die after a brief hospitalization. Dr. Morgan, her internist, kept insisting that with proper care and a little bit of luck, Lillian could survive her latest problems. That wasn’t what Peter wanted, and more important, that wasn’t what his mother wanted.

  He recalled her once telling him, “If I can’t play bridge badly, just shoot me.”

  At the time they both laughed. Peter accepted that she was way past that point now. She didn’t know how to play any longer, and she wouldn’t have even recognized her partner.

  Dr. Peter Nichols was not a medical doctor. He’d been a cosmetic dentist for more than twenty years, yet Dr. Morgan, his mother’s physician, questioned Peter’s ability to provide her final care. Peter refused hospice, opting to personally care for his mother till the bitter end. Dr. Morgan argued that Peter was out of his field, but Peter rationalized, What harm can I do? Although he believed that Dr. Morgan and the hospital staff were well intentioned, Peter surmised they offered no better alternative than bringing his mother home to die.

  He closed his eyes, bent over, and kissed her. She was not only cold to the touch but also cold to the lips. He felt a shiver go down his spine, as if he felt the life drain from her through him. By the time he straightened up and opened his eyes, she was gone. He checked her pulse. There wasn’t one. He made no effort to revive her. She was in a better place.

  He just sat there for a few minutes, staring at her corpse. He wondered what she was doing in heaven. Peter knew that if there were a heaven, his mother would be there. She’d been a great human being and a great mother. He muttered a prayer she’d taught him as a child.

  They were alone in the house. At Peter’s insistence, Helen and the girls had gone to the movies. He’d wanted to be alone with his mom at the end.

  Peter walked downstairs, picked up the kitchen phone, and dialed 911.

  “Nine-one-one, what’s the nature of your emergency?”

  “My mother just died. She’s upstairs …”

  The dispatcher cut Peter off: “Did she die of natural causes, suicide, or at the hands of someone else?”

  “Natural causes …”

  The dispatcher, without an ounce of sympathy in her voice, interrupted Peter again: “This isn’t an emergency, sir. I suggest you call a mortuary of your choice.”

  Peter realized she was right but didn’t like her tone. Rather than argue, he slammed down the receiver. He took a deep breath and dialed Woodlawn Cemetery on Thompson Lane in Nashville. They’d prepare his mother for her eternal trip to be with her beloved husband.

  Lonny Benedict answered the phone. There was no warmth in his voice; he sounded all business.

  “Woodlawn, Mr. Benedict, how may I be of service?”

  “Mr. Benedict, I’m Dr. Peter Nichols. My mother, Lillian Nichols …”

  Peter paused to collect himself and in a strained voice said, “Just passed. I need your help. She needs to be picked up and brought to Woodlawn.”

  Benedict’s tone made a complete one eighty, and compassion oozed from his voice.

  “Dr. Nichols, I’m sorry to hear of your loss. In which hospital did Mrs. Nichols pass?”

  “She died at my home. The address is 4515 General Robert E. Lee Drive off Granny White Pike.”

  “Dr. Nichols, we’ll need a death certificate. Who is her treating physician?”

  There was silence on the line as Peter realized he’d have to call Dr. Terry Morgan and get his cooperation regarding the release of his mother’s body to Woodlawn. Then he told Benedict the name of the treating physician.

  “Dr. Morgan will have to examine your mother, pronounce her dead, and agree to complete the death certificate before we can accept her. Doctor, are you a medical doctor?”

  “No, I’m a dentist.”

  “Well, even if you were a licensed physician, as a family member, you couldn’t by law sign the death certificate. If Dr. Morgan won’t make a house call, we’ll have to take her to a hospital first, so the death certificate can be completed.”

  Peter advised Benedict he’d call him back. He dialed the office of Dr. Terry Morgan. The answering service told Peter that Dr. Morgan was making rounds at the hospital. Peter asked that the doctor call him back about a very important matter. Peter decided not to characterize the call as an emergency. Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang. It was Dr. Morgan.

  “How’s your mother? Has her condition worsened?”

  “Terry, that’s an understatement. She’s dead,” Peter mumbled. “She’s gone. I need a favor. Come by my house and pronounce her dead, so you can complete the death certificate.”

  Morgan was a real professional. His patients came first, even the dead ones.

  “Give me a half hour. I’ve got two more patients to see, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “She isn’t going anywhere. Treat your living patients and get here when you can.”

  Forty minutes later, Dr. Morgan rang the doorbell. Peter, who’d been sitting with his mother, walked to the front door with his third strong cup of coffee in his hand. The formalities took less than three minutes. Thirty minutes later Lillian Nichols was on her way to Woodlawn.

  Peter’s daughters, Nan and Jayne, and his wife, Helen, arrived twenty minutes after the body left. Peter was glad they’d been spared the last agonizing moments of the life of their grandmother and mother-in-law. It had been a hard six and a half years for the family.

  That evening, Peter met with Mr. Benedict; he knew his mother’s wishes. Before the disease had ravaged her, she’d made her desires clear.

  It was a beautiful day in Middle Tennessee when Lillian Nichols was laid to rest. Peter picked up his brother, Albert, at the assisted living facility at eight thirty.

  Last year, Albert was forced to retire and sell the family business, which had operated for three generations, more than seventy years. Albert suffered from the same rare form of dementia that plagued their mother. Albert was only fifty-three, but the signs of the disease had appeared much earlier than with their mother. Albert could no longer be trusted to drive a car or cook. He couldn’t run the family business or live alone any longer. Pointer Place offered him a safe environment, yet some independence. It also offered a progressive health care system, which would provide more services, as Albert needed them.

  As Peter drove up, he found Albert sitting on a bench under a vestibule in the front of the facility. He was properly dressed in a suit, but he held his tie. He’d forgotten how to tie it. The two brothers looked like brothers. Both were about six feet tall with salt-and-pepper short hair.

  At first they drove in silence. Peter broke the ice, “Mom wanted a closed casket. Would you like to look at her and say good-bye?”

  “We said good-bye several years ago when she still knew who I was. I don’t need to see the body. She’s already left that shell and is in a better place.”

  Peter thought his brother sounded good this morning, better than the last time they’d spoken on the phone. At the beginning the disease was like that. There were good days, bad days, and worse days.

  “How are you doing, Al? Is the therapy helping?”

  Pointer Place specialized in dealing with all forms of dementia and wor
ked with its patients to slow the process with drugs and various types of therapy.

  “It’s hard to explain. I remember our childhood in Germantown and the store downtown in the greatest detail, but last Wednesday, for the life of me I couldn’t tell my therapist who the president of the United States was, and I voted for him.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that lapse. One politician is the same as another. Trust me, I know politics. It doesn’t matter which bastard’s in office as long as it’s a Democrat.”

  They both laughed. It felt good to laugh on such a somber day. Peter returned to his brother’s memory problem.

  “It’s more important that you remember our childhood and all those years you worked in the store. Those are things that really matter in life.”

  They forced a second laugh, but Peter was worried. He changed the subject, “I asked Morty to give the eulogy. I couldn’t do it, and I didn’t think you were up to it.”

  Morty Steine was the perfect choice. He’d been a childhood friend of their father and, after his father’s death, a good friend to their mother and family. He’d acted as a father figure for both boys. Peter couldn’t remember a time when the cigar-smoking Morty wasn’t a part of their lives. He’d helped his mother through his father’s death, was appointed to prosecute their father’s killer, handled the estate matters, advised Peter when he established his practice, and until last year helped Albert with various legal problems so he could continue to run the market. Morty and his partner, Ben Davis, helped Albert sell the business last year.

  The chapel at Woodlawn filled up quickly, and courtesy of Morty, the chapel overflowed with white lilies, her favorite flower; they were everywhere, including Lilly’s casket. Morty was not only a loyal friend; he was a thoughtful person. Peter made a mental note to thank the man.

  Mr. Benedict brought in a few folding chairs, but demand was more than supply. The room was uncomfortably overcrowded. Peter saw Senator Burton Eden and his daughter Valerie Daniels standing in the rear of the chapel. The senator looked frail and was supported by a cane. His mother drew in all walks of life, and they were all here to pay their last respects. Peter hoped the fire marshal didn’t show up.