“Do we notify her next of kin?” Nita, glasses pinching the bridge of her nose, removed them.
“Yes.”
Nita checked Paula’s name with a red pen. “We’re going to have to draw up form letters for each type of storage unit.”
“I know. I know.” Al shook his head. “That was a loss. Paula.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Let’s hope some of her stored materials might be on her home computer, but,” he read, “yearbooks. Paper files. Some floppy disks.”
“Ah.” Nita put another red check by Paula’s name. “Naturally, honey, I will personalize the form letters. The last paragraph will list what you have on the waivers.”
“The crew can help.”
By “crew,” Big Al meant the four people who worked in the building, their hours meticulously arranged so Pinnacle always had two people in it during business hours. No one worked at night, although there was a cleaning service that vacuumed, mopped up each evening from seven to nine. There wasn’t much to do, as Pinnacle Records didn’t generate much foot traffic. Still, Big Al wanted the place to be clean. For one thing, he believed dust destroyed records. Even the big vaults collected small amounts of dust. Each time those heavy doors were opened, dust entered. He’d unlock the vaults once a week and stayed while they were cleaned. They received the least traffic. Not many people visited their records or checked them out. If they did, they retired to a twelve-by-ten room with a long table, where they could place their boxes or papers to examine.
A few regulars would cross the threshold about once every two weeks. Big Al and Nita knew Pinnacle Records was not secured to store jewelry, money, or drugs. However, the closely knit couple also knew there had to be drugs or money kept in some of the storage units. There was no way for the couple to inspect what was stored. The contract stated that if a bill had not been paid in three months, they could remove and destroy records. A few times they had to do just that. However, renters with a pile of money or a cache of OxyContin tended to pay on time.
Neither husband nor wife ever went through the stored records. Each felt that would constitute a violation of trust.
There was no way to screen out anyone storing contraband. In Charlottesville, Jamaican drug gangs had moved in. But no Jamaican came to Pinnacle Records. And these days a drug dealer did not faintly resemble the stereotype beloved of cop shows. In fact, one of the biggest drug dealers was an eighty-two-year-old, well-dressed, well-connected matron. She was shrewd, at the center of a good network, and could not be touched. Her social position was unassailable. She had become tremendously rich. No surprise.
Thankfully, since the fire there had been no lawsuits filed against Big Al. Both husband and wife knew if someone had stored money or drugs, they would never file a suit. Accidents happen, and the contracts were clear as to the Vitebsks’ liability, but that wouldn’t stop an ambulance chaser from convincing someone the Vitebsks had been negligent.
JoJo let out a loud snore.
Nita wistfully said, “I wonder when either of us will sleep that soundly again.”
Big Al rested his chin on his fist for a moment. “Whiskey helps.”
“You.” She smiled at her husband of thirty-two years. “Babydoll, we’ll get through it. It’s a great big mess. It will eat up hours and hours of our time. We’re still keeping our people on payroll, so it will eat up money, too. Can we rebuild the building? No. Can we rebuild the business, yes, and I will oversee construction of a new building. I think I can build a near-impregnable building unless it gets a direct hit from the Taliban.”
“I know you can.” She thought for a moment. “But right now I’m tired. I don’t want to give up, but I’m lacking in enthusiasm.”
After a long pause he said, “Yep.”
An hour later, their eyes aching, they finally stopped for the evening.
Before turning off her computer, Nita said, “How many boxes do you have left to go through?”
He counted. “Eleven.”
“You finished up the L’s.”
“Tomorrow we start with the M’s, and so many last names start with M or S. Or maybe I just think so, but those are fat folders.”
“Well, everyone who paid for the vaults has come out okay. And the others, depends.”
It was ten P.M. already. Big Al fixed himself a double whiskey and soda. Nita sipped a little sherry as they slumped in their living room club chairs, so comfortable.
“I’m almost too tired to take a shower.” Big Al petted JoJo, who was now on his lap.
“You’ve taken a shower every night since I married you.”
He grinned. “I figure if I smell like a rose, you might be interested.”
She laughed at him. “Al, if either one of us loses our sense of humor, then we should worry.”
Halfway through his whiskey, relaxing at last, Big Al mused, “Odd, isn’t it? Records. A way to hang on to information, but maybe a way to hang on to the past.”
“What made you think of that?”
“Paula Benton’s contract. She’d written ‘Yearbooks, high school! The past.’ And she’d come in the week before she died. Signed in. Signed out.” He shook his head. “Her past burned up. Once her class is gone many years hence, those old yearbooks would be interesting only to a historian who might want to know something about that particular high school. Life really is fleeting.”
“In her case, far too short.”
Harry, supper’s ready.”
Harry, grooming her gray pony, Popsicle, yelled from the barn, “Okay.” She kissed Popsicle’s nose. “I’ll see you tomorrow, and we can go down to the creek, where all the beavers are.”
“Good enough.”
As she led Popsicle into his stall, Champ, the family’s big tricolor collie, rose and stretched, following behind.
“Harry!”
“Mom, I’m coming.”
The nurses in the recovery room noticed Harry’s eyes moving. She was murmuring something.
Bill Menegatto walked over. Thirty-four, and usefully strong, he said, “She’s coming round.”
Violet Smith, older and pretty strong herself, bent over. “It’s a struggle to fight your way out of anesthesia. Maria Kimball said she thought the operation was a success. She’s seen enough of them.”
Maria Kimball was Dr. Jennifer Potter’s nurse in the operating room. The two made a good team. Maria sensed what Dr. Potter wanted even before she asked. She’d seen the young oncologist open up a patient only to confront a raging cancer, far worse than the tests had indicated. Imperturbable under pressure, Dr. Potter could make split-second decisions. Any specialist in oncology knows one can’t always save a patient, but you can generally give that patient more time with their loved ones. With the vicious cancers, such as ovarian, sometimes a doctor could extend a patient’s life using a drug like Avastin. A small percentage of people did survive gruesomely aggressive cancers, but most didn’t. Dr. Potter took those cancers as a personal affront, as did Maria Kimball. Both women hoped for and worked toward the day when these diseases would be eradicated. If not eradicated, then made less lethal.
Jennifer Potter often discussed cancer with Cory Schaeffer. They pored over cases and new research, as well as not only current litigation involving physicians but legal action aimed at the giant pharmaceutical companies.
Cory believed the nomenclature of cancer was misleading: lung, breast, colon, etc. He felt the disease was maddeningly complex. It might present itself as breast cancer, but did it truly start with those cells? Or was there a trigger elsewhere in the body?
Jennifer Potter believed that cancer created pathways through the body or followed established routes. How and why had yet to be determined, but she believed the answer would be found in gene study.