Guilt was once again wrapping its slimy body around my neck. I had been so preoccupied with Laura’s murder that I’d failed to pay attention to my job. Even if nobody else had thought of it, I should have known to bring Mazie to see Jeffrey the minute he’d been put in a floor bed. I was a pet sitter, not a detective, and I should have put all my energy into making sure Mazie’s needs were being met instead of running around asking questions that were Guidry’s job.
Pete said, “Ever since I met that kid, I’ve been afraid something would go wrong with his surgery. I wish I hadn’t done that. All that fear probably made Mazie afraid.”
I guess guilt always tries to come along for the ride with everybody.
I said, “Mazie would have been worried and stressed no matter what you were thinking.”
I remembered Pete telling me once that his own daughter had died. I didn’t know how old she’d been, but the loss of a child at any age is devastating, and I felt a new kinship to him. Every parent who’s ever lost a child has a link of sadness that nobody else can ever understand.
The room was quiet, the only sounds a distant ping of elevator doors and the hushed voice of a woman speaking on the hospital’s PA system.
I leaned my head against the recliner and closed my eyes. The next thing I knew, Hal Richards was kneeling beside me and saying my name.
Like Gillis, he looked haggard with fatigue, but younger. “Thank you for bringing Mazie. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you came. Gillis and I are taking turns sleeping, and I was at the hotel. It was a brilliant idea to bring Mazie, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.”
Pete said, “Mazie needed to see her boy. She didn’t know what had happened to him.”
Hal nodded somberly. “Jeffrey needed Mazie too.”
I looked at my watch and saw that two hours had passed since we’d left Mazie in Jeffrey’s room.
I said, “We should go now.”
With creaking sounds from the chair and his knees, Pete got to his feet and headed toward Jeffrey’s room. I followed, with Hal walking beside me. Pete opened the door and we all stopped to look at Mazie and Jeffrey. He was sleeping soundly, and she had moved so she covered both his legs like a blanket. When she saw us, she lifted her head as if she knew her time with Jeffrey had ended.
Hal said, “Hi, girl.”
Mazie’s tail wagged, and Hal went over to stroke her head. Meeting his wife’s eyes over Mazie’s head, Hal said, “Pete and Dixie are going to take Mazie home now.”
Pete said, “If it’s okay, I could bring her back tomorrow.”
Gillis gave him a radiant smile. “That would be great, Pete.”
Hal lifted Mazie and set her on the floor. Pete took her leash, and we all said awkward goodbyes. Silently, Pete and I went down the hall with Mazie walking between us. At the elevator, Mazie whined and strained against the leash when Pete led her inside.
He said, “She wants to stay here.”
As the elevator descended, Pete and I met each other’s eyes. Something about this visit hadn’t gone right, and we both knew it.
We made it all the way to the parking lot before Mazie jerked away and tore back to the hospital.
28
Streaking to the side door where we’d come out, Mazie ran full out and determined. She had her mind set on going back to Jeffrey, and she wasn’t waiting for any human to go with her. Pete and I ran to catch up. At the door, we met Hal.
He said, “Jeffrey’s crying again. Worse than before.”
Pete and I met each other’s eyes, both of us afraid the seizures had returned.
At Jeffrey’s floor, Mazie scrambled forward the minute the elevator doors opened, moving ahead so strongly that Hal had to run while he vainly tried to slow her to a walk. Jeffrey’s door was open, and we could hear him crying before we got there. It was the same droning sound I’d heard him make before, the same sound Mazie was accustomed to hearing when he was on the verge of a seizure. Jeffrey’s legs were kicking, and his face was grimly twisted like an old man’s. Dr. Travis was beside the bed, and the room seemed to contain a lot of other people wearing bunny smocks and anxious looks.
Mazie jerked away from Hal and leaped onto Jeffrey’s bed and settled her body against his side. Abruptly, the crying stopped, Jeffrey’s legs went still, his eyes closed and his face became calm. Everybody in the room smiled.
The only one who didn’t seem happy was Mazie. Pulling herself up on her elbows, she cocked her head and stared into Jeffrey’s passive face with an odd fierceness.
A couple of nurses whispered to each other that she was checking him out to make sure he was okay, but I didn’t think so. Something else was going on in Mazie’s mind, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Hal and Gillis exchanged a look, and I knew they also thought Mazie had some perceptive knowledge the rest of us didn’t have. Whatever was causing Mazie’s determined study, it gave her the invigilating look of a scientist inspecting a new find.
My own body hairs suddenly stood upright with a realization. Seizure-alert dogs recognize a change in body odor that presages a seizure, but maybe people with seizure disorders always have a unique odor that only dogs can detect. If that were true, and if surgery had removed the cause of Jeffrey’s seizures, there would have been a subtle change in his normal odor. To Mazie, that would be extremely puzzling because it would mean Jeffrey was no longer the same Jeffrey she knew.
As if she had come to a firm conclusion, Mazie got to her feet and stood on the bed with her legs braced beside Jeffrey’s feet. Lowering her head, she put her nose to his toes and licked them.
Jerking his feet away, Jeffrey’s eyes flew open and he giggled. “Stop it, Mazie!”
Beside the bed, Gillis covered her face with both hands and sobbed quietly. Hal moved to put an arm around her shoulders, his own eyes wet. They didn’t need to say that they’d had secret fears that Jeffrey would never laugh in his old way again. It had taken Mazie to harmonize the Jeffrey who’d had seizures with the Jeffrey who didn’t.
With an ear-to-ear grin, Dr. Travis said, “I think Mazie should stay here with Jeffrey.”
I felt like telling him that it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure that out. Instead, I almost gave myself whiplash from nodding.
Leaning to give Gillis a quick kiss, Hal said, “I’ll just walk to the elevator with Pete and Dixie.”
In the hall, Pete put a fatherly arm around Hal’s shoulders. “The boy’s going to be fine, just fine.”
I managed to make some squeaky sounds of agreement, but I was afraid I’d blubber if I tried to talk.
By the time we’d got to the elevator, we’d decided that Pete and I would go to a pet supply store, get the things Mazie would need, and bring them back to the hospital before we headed back to Siesta Key. For the rest of Jeffrey’s hospital stay, Mazie would spend part of her time in the hospital room and part of her time in the hotel with Hal or Gillis. When it was time for Jeffrey to come home, either Pete or I would go back and help transport Mazie.
Pete and I sort of floated out to the parking lot, grinning like idiots and wishing somebody would ask us why just so we could tell them that Jeffrey was okay.
I used my cell phone’s convenient locator service to find a pet supply store, and we were walking its aisles within fifteen minutes. We got a water bowl, a food bowl, a bag of kibble, some doggie treats, and a sleeping cushion. As we went down the aisle toward the checkout counter, we passed the store’s cat-food section, and I noticed a box of cat food like the one Laura had set out on her counter as a reminder. Something about that box of cat food set off little clanging bells in my head, but I didn’t know why.
The checker totaled up our purchases with a cheerful pinging sound, and I paid her and pocketed the receipt. Pete picked up the bags and we headed for the parking lot and the Bronco. At the hospital, I waited in the parking lot while Pete hustled in the doggie supplies to Hal. When he came out, he was almost bouncing.