Chapter 15. Moving Day

WHITNEY

Friday morning, I waited until ten o'clock to return to the townhouse. Samira and D-Jay would be at work, and wouldn't spot me changing the code on the exterior doors. I put in the digits for my upcoming wedding date on the front door, then walked to the kitchen to reprogram the side door.

As I went back out front, a commotion on Joanna's porch next door caught my attention. Alyssa stood there, dressed in a pair of ratty sneakers, nylon athletic pants, and a windbreaker, clothing that was much too hot for the summer season. Though it wasn't raining and there wasn't a cloud in sight, she had the hood of the windbreaker pulled up over her head. What's more, she wore long rubber gloves and a disposable mask, probably one leftover from the COVID pandemic. She wrangled a big black garbage bag that appeared full and heavy.

"Hi, Alyssa."

She started and cried out before turning my way. She must not have heard me over the sound of the items rustling around in the bag. "Gah! I didn't see you there."

"Sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to startle you. That bag looks heavy. You want some help?"

"Nah, I'm good. But thanks for offering."

I didn't press her further. I remembered how it felt to be a teenager, wanting to do things myself to prove that I was capable and self-sufficient.

She pulled down her mask. "I volunteered to clean my grandmother's place before the move, but it's crazy dusty upstairs. Grammy hasn't gone up to the second floor in years. Guess she didn't have a reason to once Mom and Uncle Lane moved out. Everything in the attic is covered in dust, too."

The dust explained the improvised hazmat suit. I could relate. After all, I wore coveralls for the same reason. "That's sweet of you to help." I dipped my head to indicate the bag. "If you need some place to ditch the trash, feel free to use our dumpster around the corner."

"Thanks. I was wondering what to do with it. My grandmother's can is nearly full."

I watched as she wrestled the bag down the steps. The hood still seemed a bit much to me, but teenage girls could be very vain. Maybe she didn't want the dust getting in her pretty hair, or maybe the hood helped to keep the airborne dust particles out of her eyes.

After she stepped off the bottom stair, she turned back to look at me. Her nose and lips wriggled as she fought to keep from crying. Poor girl. Losing her grandmother so suddenly had to be both shocking and heartbreaking. She issued a garbled sound as she tried to clear her emotion from her throat. "Grammy… when she went to the fire station… was she… bad? I mean, I know she had a headache, but was she in pain? Did she get hurt when she fell?"

I didn't want to lie to the girl and, fortunately, I didn't have to. "No, Alyssa," I said softly. "She didn't seem to be in pain. Just disoriented. She didn't get hurt. I was able to lower her gently to the floor and put her head in my lap until help arrived. It just seemed like she was drifting off to sleep."

She nodded and sniffled. "Thanks. That's comforting to hear."

I was glad I could make her feel a little better. My work here done, I headed back to the fire station, leaving her to struggle with the sack.

Buck and I spent the day framing the walls that would divide the bathroom and the secondary bedroom in two. It was exciting to see our ideas taking shape, especially after the setback of the fire.

At the end of the day, we readied our dollies and heavy-duty nylon straps in the bay downstairs, where we could quickly access them for the move tomorrow. After locking up, we bade each other goodbye and aimed for our vehicles. As I went to climb in the driver's seat, a warm breeze blew by, my loose hair tickling the skin on my face. Movement caught my eye as a stronger gust lifted the sleeve of Alyssa's lightweight nylon windbreaker, which hung over the side of the bin where she'd tossed it. The sleeve rose into the air, like a ghost hand reaching out from the grave. When the wind shifted, so did the sleeve, appearing now to be waving an eerie goodbye.

My phone pinged, drawing my attention down to my screen. It was a shipping update for the wedding dress I'd ordered online. The gown had been picked up by the carrier and was on its way. Hooray! I could hardly wait to try it on.

Holden was as good as his word. He greeted us at eight o'clock Saturday morning with a full pot of coffee. As Buck, Holden, and I drank the warm brew and formulated a game plan for the day, Macy lounged in a recliner in the living room. She wore a loose T-shirt, yoga pants, and slippers, comfy attire for lounging and incubating a baby. Alyssa sat cross-legged on the couch, dressed in her cute new sneakers, more seasonal shorts, and a crop-top today, ready and willing to help in any way she could. Gideon sat beside her. I wasn't sure how much he could carry given his advanced age and arthritic condition, but he could be a big help organizing cabinets and drawers. Collin, his best man Ren, and Owen, Buck's brother, were also on their way to help, though they had yet to arrive.

"Step one," Buck told Holden, "is getting Joanna's furniture out to the trailer. Once it's loaded, Whitney can drive my van over to the charity thrift shop to drop it off."

"Good," Holden agreed. "While she's doing that, we can carry the large pieces across the street." He turned to look at his daughter. "Your job is to move the smaller stuff. Dishes, lamps, clothes, books."

She gave him a thumbs-up. "Got it. Grammy still had my old Radio Flyer wagon in her garage, so I can load it up with stuff." She crooked her arm and used her elbow to give Gideon a gentle nudge in the ribs. "You're with me, buddy. Okay?"

"Whatever you say, boss." He forced a smile, but the pain of loss remained in his eyes. I hoped he would find a new best friend soon. I hated the thought of him being lonely.

Leaving Macy behind, we rose and moved en masse to Joanna's townhouse. As we approached the porch, I noticed that there wasn't a single spider web hanging about. The window screens were dust free and the glass gleamed. Alyssa must have hosed down the porch and cleaned the windows when she worked here the day before.

"Watch your step," Holden warned. "One of the boards is loose."

Buck glowered. "I know. Stubbed my toe on it the other day."

Being oh-so-helpful, I said, "Someone should nail it down."

My cousin cast a glance my way. "Maybe that someone should be you."

We went inside to find the interior of Joanna's townhouse to be in immaculate condition, too. There wasn't a speck of dust anywhere, and the entire place gleamed and sparkled. How the girl could have accomplished such a detailed cleaning in a single day was beyond me. The energy of youth, I supposed.

"Wow!" Holden turned to his daughter. "The place looks spotless. Good work, Lyss."

Alyssa beamed.

Owen, Collin, and Ren pulled up to help. Being tall and blond, Owen resembled Buck, though he was thinner and cleanshaven. Ren wasn't tall, but he was beefy, a dedicated gym rat, with shoulder-length dark hair worn in a trendy, shaggy style.

"Thanks for coming to help," I told Ren.

He flexed an impressive bicep. "What good is all this muscle if I don't put it to use?"

After everyone was introduced, the group got to work. My first order of business was to put a nail in the loose board on the porch so nobody would trip over it while carrying the furniture and other items. Buck had parked his van and trailer at the curb in front, and the helpers began to load it up. Joanna's couch went onto the trailer first, then her love seat and entertainment center. While Gideon moved Joanna's knickknacks into the kitchen to be dealt with later, Alyssa and I worked together to move the coffee table and end tables outside, as well as the chairs for her dining table. By then, the trailer was full. Joanna's bedroom furniture would have to wait to be transported in a second trip.

Collin came along to help me unload the furniture at the Salvation Army drop-off location. While Joanna's furniture might not be trendy, it was well made and in good condition. Someone would surely be interested in buying it.

Once we'd off-loaded everything from the trailer, we drove back to Joanna's for the second load. Macy had made the short journey across the street, and someone brought her recliner along with her. They'd set her up in Joanna's bedroom. Alyssa sorted through Joanna's drawers and closet, holding up each item so her mother could tell her whether to keep it, toss it, or box it up to donate to charity. Occasionally, one or the other would get misty.

Alyssa held up a blue blouse with silver buttons, and choked back a sob. "Grammy wore this shirt to my last choir concert."

When Alyssa reached into the bottom of the closet and pulled out a pair of black loafers with thick rubber heels, Macy barked a joyless laugh. "I told Mom over and over that those were the ugliest shoes I'd ever seen. She said she didn't care that they were ugly because they were comfortable." Macy heaved a shuddering sigh and pointed to a trash bag. "Toss them."

Two of the three men who'd come to the fire station to give me their two cents on drywall had taken up residence on Joanna's rockers on the porch. They proceeded to supervise our activity as we carried Joanna's bedroom furniture out to the trailer.

"That's now how I'd load it," warned one.

"Me neither," said the other, gesturing. "You want to distribute the weight evenly."

They were wrong, but I wasn't going to waste my breath arguing with them again. Buck wasn't above it, though. "It's best to place the load over the axle, with a little more weight near the front. If there's too much weight in the back, the trailer will fishtail."

The men shook their heads, their expressions saying it all. What a bunch of idiots.

Buck scowled. "Don't you two have something better to do?"

The men exchanged glances before turning back to Buck. "Not really."

After making the second delivery, the heat and physical labor were starting to get to me. My muscles felt strained and shaky, my skin was damp with sweat, and my throat was dry with thirst. Buck, Owen, and Holden had already moved the kitchen table over from across the street. The umarells had invited themselves in and sat at the table, sipping glasses of Joanna's lemonade. I plunked myself down in one of the chairs to rest for a moment.

Holden gestured to the refrigerator. "Help yourself to a cold drink if you'd like."

"Thanks." I stood, walked over, and pulled the door open to look inside. Sure enough, a pitcher of lemonade sat on the middle shelf next to a pitcher of tea. Canned sodas and beer filled the top shelf. I reached up and grabbed a ginger ale for myself. "Anyone else?" I called, reciting the options. Both Collin and Ren opted for lemonade, while Buck and Owen opted for tea. I removed the pitchers from the fridge and poured them each a glass.

As I went to return the pitchers to the fridge, an assortment of plastic storage containers on the bottom shelf caught my eye. I bent down to take a closer look. Joanna was methodical, having attached a sticky note to the top of each container, noting the contents and the date it was placed in the fridge. There were a couple shrimp and a dollop of red sauce left over from her shrimp cocktail from the proceeding Wednesday. A small portion of the tuna casserole Gideon had brought to Joanna on Saturday remained. She must have eaten the rest of it. One container held king mackerel. The one next to it had a small portion of grouper. Another note read "orange roughy." An alarm bell went off in my mind. Colette had specifically mentioned tuna when we'd been discussing the types of fish that were high in mercury, but hadn't she also mentioned orange roughy?

Gideon's voice came from the kitchen doorway, where he stood with one hand on the frame to support himself, watching me. "Joanna sure did love fish. She must have been a cat in a former life." He hobbled over and took a seat across from me. "She grew up in Gulfport, Mississippi, and was raised on seafood. Couldn't get enough of the stuff. She was always asking me to make some sort of fish or another. She said the food reminded her of home."

I looked from him back to the multitude of containers. Could Joanna have gotten mercury poisoning from the seafood? Could that have been what killed her? I didn't want to raise the possibility with Gideon. The man was elderly and frail. If he thought he'd accidentally poisoned his best friend, there was no telling what it might do to him. But I have to say something, don't I? At least to Macy? Then again, Gideon showed no signs of being sick. If Joanna had ingested too much mercury, it seemed he would have, too. Maybe he sometimes prepared the seafood for Joanna yet didn't eat it himself. That would explain how he'd avoided getting ill. "What about you?" I gestured to the containers in the open fridge in front of me. "You brought her a lot of seafood. Do you like it, too?"

He shrugged. "I always loved my mother's tuna casserole but, other than that, I can take it or leave it. I lean toward vegetarian fare, even more so since I lost my partner. He died of a stroke. Even with medication, his cholesterol was through the roof. I cooked healthy meals for us at home, but every chance he got he'd stop at some fast-food place or another and grab a greasy burger or two. I begged him to stop sneaking burgers and barbecue, but he wouldn't hear it." He turned his face upward to the heavens and wagged a finger. "You should've listened to me! You'd still be here if you had!"

As Gideon hobbled over to the table to take a seat, Samira and D-Jay appeared in the kitchen doorway he'd vacated. Kavish peeked over his mother's shoulder, enjoying a piggyback ride. "Ba-ba-da-ga!" he hollered. Samira winced. At close range like that, it was a wonder her eardrum hadn't burst. She turned her head to eye her son. "Use your inside voice, silly boy."

It was likely a pointless instruction. Kavish was too young to understand her.

Between the Griffins, Buck, Owen, Collin, Ren, Gideon, the meddling men, and me, the townhouse was already packed. With the addition of these three, it was virtually bursting at the seams.

Samira glanced around the crowd. "We saw everyone working over here and came to help. What can we do?"

Samira and D-Jay seemed to have a poor sense of boundaries, showing up whether they'd been invited or not. Once more, I found myself feeling intruded upon—ironic in light of the fact that I had no claim to the space where I found myself now. But I supposed they were only trying to be neighborly and helpful. Or maybe they're being nosey.

Before Holden could make a suggestion, Samira slid Kavish off her back and opened the pantry door in the kitchen. She ran her gaze from top to bottom. "This cupboard needs to be sorted out." She reached in and pulled out a can of tomato soup. Her nose crinkled in disgust as she consulted the label. "This soup expired in twenty nineteen."

"I'm not surprised," Holden said. "With Gideon bringing food over all the time, Joanna rarely cooked herself a meal."

Again, I felt that eerie little niggle that said Gideon might have accidentally brought about Joanna's demise with all that seafood. I looked his way to gauge his response, but he simply stared down at the table in front of him.

Samira shifted her gaze to the old man, too, her lips spreading in a broad smile. "If you would like to continue feeding someone, Mister Gideon, we would be happy to volunteer."

Gideon raised his gaze and waved a gnarled, dismissive hand. "You'd be disappointed. I tried some of that stuff you brought to the Griffins. The rice and lentil dish? It was superb. No way I could top that."

D-Jay offered a smile now, too. "My wife does know her way around the kitchen." Samira yanked a wooden spoon from a holder on the counter and handed it to her son along with a plastic bowl she found in a cabinet. While Kavish banged the spoon on the back of the bowl like a drummer in a rock 'n' roll band, Samira snatched a trash bag from the cardboard dispenser on the counter and handed it to her husband. He held it open while she emptied the pantry. She worked with the speed and efficiency of a young mother who had too much to do and not enough time to do it. She checked the date on a box of crackers before opening it to sample one. "Stale." She tossed the box into the trash bag. It hit the bottom of the bag with a muffled clunk.

She continued on, moving some things around, disposing of others, organizing the spices in the rack affixed to the inside of the door. I was nearly to the bottom of my can of ginger ale when she stood on her tiptoes to reach something at the back of an upper shelf. When she pulled it out, I recognized the signature green color on the small rectangular box immediately. It was an open carton of Newport cigarettes. As she tossed the carton into D-Jay's bag, a pack fell out and hit the floor at his feet. She quickly snatched up the pack and tossed it into the sack, as well.

Cigarettes were expensive. I'd seen the astronomical prices listed on posters in the windows of gas stations when I'd stopped for fuel, and was grateful not to be addicted to the darn things. How smokers kept from going broke was beyond me. It seemed a waste to see something so valuable being thrown away yet, at the same time, I wouldn't want anyone else to smoke them. The darn things had taken too many lives through lung cancer and emphysema, not to mention the deadly fires that had been inadvertently started with cigarettes.

When everyone finished their drinks, we rallied and resumed our work, carrying load after load across the street. There was no point in boxing things up for such a short trip. Instead, we simply carried the dresser drawers over individually with everything still inside. We loaded the dishes, pots, and pans into Alyssa's wagon and rolled them over. What wouldn't fit in the wagon we stowed in the bed of Holden's pickup, which he then drove across the street. Doing so saved us only a few steps, but when performing hard labor for hours on end, every step counted. Our legs and backs would thank us later. Some of the kitchen items were duplicates of things Joanna already had, and there wasn't enough room in the cabinets to put everything away, so we set much of it on the countertops for the Griffins to sort through later.

Eventually, everything had been moved out of the townhouse across the street and into Joanna's place—which I supposed I should now start thinking of as Macy and Holden's place. As we gathered up our dollies and straps, Alyssa came to find me in the living room. She placed her grandmother's crystal candy dish on their coffee table, and plucked out one of the candies, unwrapping it, and tossing it into her mouth. She spoke around the candy, pushing it into her cheek. "My mom wants to talk to you before you go."

I walked past the kitchen and down the hall to the master. Though the door stood ajar, I rapped quietly anyway. "Macy?" I said softly.

"Come in!" she called.

I entered to see her sitting propped up atop the bed now. A laptop computer was perched on her thighs. Her moppy little mutt lay on the bed beside her. He lazily raised his head to take a look at me before putting it back down and closing his eyes to continue his nap.

I stopped just inside the door. "Alyssa said you wanted to see me?"

"Yes." She looked around, but the only place for me to sit was on the bed. The chair was loaded down with towels for the master bath. She gestured to the foot of the bed. "Sit if you'd like."

I walked over and perched on the end of the bed, curious why she'd summoned me.

"We're having a memorial service for my mother on Tuesday evening. It won't be a full-fledged funeral. She wanted to be cremated rather than buried. We'll take care of the cremation once the autopsy is done. You are welcome to attend the service, if you'd like."

"I would." I wanted to pay my final respects to Joanna and her family. I also hoped to get some closure on this tragic event. Maybe the memorial service would help me put the matter to rest.

Moving on to related matters, Macy heaved a loud breath. "I'm pretty sure the doctor at urgent care screwed up. He should've done more than just send my mother home with headache medicine. He should've run more tests on her."

"Gideon mentioned that you were concerned."

"Concerned and angry." Her hands fisted beside her on the bedspread. "With Mom being a smoker, she had a higher risk of an aneurysm. The doctor should've known that and performed more than just a quick exam. If I pursue a case against the doctor, you'll be called to testify in court if it gets that far. You'd at least have to give a deposition before the case would be settled."

No doubt she'd been researching medical malpractice cases online. The idea of being grilled in court made me anxious, and I had no idea whether the doctor had committed malpractice or not. But I figured if I simply told the truth about what happened when Joanna came to the firehouse, the rest would be sorted out by the judge or jury. It would be their job to reach a conclusion, not mine. "I'll cooperate with everyone, if that's what you're asking."

"Good." She gestured to her computer. "From what I see here, it's standard procedure to issue a subpoena to witnesses, even when someone's agreed to show up. Just wanted to make you aware of that so you're not surprised if someone shows up to serve you."

The idea of being served with a subpoena, a process server tracking me down like an escaped fugitive, made me uncomfortable. Of course, the only experience I had with subpoenas was what I'd seen in legal programs on TV. If it was only a matter of someone handing paperwork over to me, perhaps it could be scheduled in advance for everyone's convenience. Of course, I was getting way ahead of myself here. So was Macy. The results of the autopsy weren't even back yet. We didn't know for certain whether Joanna had actually died of a ruptured aneurysm, though all signs seemed to point to one. The headaches she'd suffered beforehand; her age; the fact that she smoked—even if she had cut way back. "Have you hired an attorney already?"

"I put out some feelers, and I spoke with one lawyer on the phone yesterday afternoon. She said she'd need to see what the autopsy says before she'll know if I have a case."

I hated to point a finger at Gideon, but I didn't know whether screening for mercury was standard procedure during an autopsy. Once Joanna was buried or cremated, any evidence of mercury poisoning would be lost. Macy wanted to know the truth about her mother's death, and it was only right to help her discern the facts. I kept my voice low so the others wouldn't overhear me. No sense starting rumors. "Do you think your mother could have died of mercury poisoning? Or maybe ciguatera or scombroid poisoning?"

Her head tilted and her eyes narrowed. "What now?"

"You know how pregnant women aren't supposed to eat fish?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you know why that is?"

"Not really," she said. "I figured it had something to do with bacteria from dirty water. I've heard that raw sewage is dumped directly into the ocean in some poor countries." She made a revolted face and stuck out her tongue. "Parts of the ocean are basically cesspools."

I told her what I'd learned from Colette and the internet. "Pregnant women aren't supposed to eat fish because of the risk of mercury poisoning. Seafood has mercury in it. There's not much in the small fish, but the big fish can accumulate quite a bit of it from eating the small fish. It builds up. The process is called biomagnification. I can't claim to know much about it, but I've got a friend who's pregnant, like you. She mentioned it over dinner the other night. She's a professional chef and she learned about it in cooking school." I gestured in the general direction of the kitchen. "I noticed your mother has a lot of leftover seafood in her fridge. Tuna. Shrimp. Orange roughy."

Her brows lifting, Macy put her fingers to her keyboard. "What did you say the process was called? Bio…?"

"Biomagnification," I repeated.

Macy typed the word into her browser then spent a moment or two reading over the links. She pondered the results aloud. "It says here that it's sometimes called Minamata disease. A chemical company dumped mercury in Minamata Bay in Japan and a lot of people got sick afterward when they ate seafood that was harvested there." Her expression grew increasingly concerned as she clicked each successive link. "Dizziness? Numbness? Tremors? Being unsteady when walking?" She looked up at me, her eyes bright with astonishment. "This describes my mother to a T." She looked down and scrolled through a couple more links. "It says here that mercury poisoning is treatable through something called"—she leaned in to take a closer look—"chelation therapy. The patient is given a special drug that binds with the metals in their systems and carries the metal out through the urination process."

I filled her in on the other possibilities—ciguatera or scombroid poisoning. Like Buck, she was thoroughly repulsed. She put one hand over her mouth, raising the other to tell me to shut mine immediately. When she got her nausea under control, she lowered her hands. "Thanks for this information, Whitney." She looked to the partially opened door and called for her husband. "Holden! Can you come here a second?"

A moment later, the door opened farther and her husband stepped into the room.

Macy pointed to me. "Whitney thinks Mom might have been poisoned by mercury."

"Mercury?" he repeated. "Like the planet?"

She rolled her eyes. "No! Mercury like mercury. We learned about it in chemistry class in high school, remember? The periodic table and all that?"

Holden's lips spread in a wry smile. "I don't remember much about chemistry class other than my beautiful blonde lab partner. She was all I could think about."

She rolled her eyes again, though this time a small smile tugged at her lips before she returned her attention to me. "It's a good thing you brought this up now. The autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow morning." She reached for her cell phone on the bedside table. "I'm calling the pathologist."