The Last Harvest(50)

Whatever’s happening, it all leads back here. I have to finish the last harvest, before it’s too late.

The first frost is coming.

I can feel it.





33

AS I’M heading to school, I make a last-second turn onto Hammond Street. It feels like Old Blue knows where I’m going before I do—Oakmoor. I park a few blocks away in front of the Miller lumber yard and head over on foot. I don’t want anyone knowing my business.

There’s a couple of abandoned wheelchairs out front. A man sitting under a tree, rocking back and forth, while a nurse stands over him. The front of the building’s painted yellow, which seems like it would be cheerful, but it looks more urine-stained than anything else. A little chime goes off as I open the cracked glass door.

“Be with you in a second, hon,” Mrs. Gifford calls out. “I gotta go, it’s Clay Tate,” she whispers before hanging up. “Did you bring that precious girl with you?” she asks as she puts her dangly banana earring back on and peers over the counter.

“Nope. Just dropped her off at school.”

“Well, she’s a ray of sunshine,” she says, as she unwraps a grape Jolly Rancher and pops it in her mouth. “The patients just love her. She works miracles with the hospice patients. Most kids would be afraid, but not Noodle. She holds their hands and sings that little song. She’s our sweet angel around here, easin’ them right on through to the other side.”

“That’s nice to hear.”

She pats my hand. “What can I do for you, hon?”

“I came about Miss Granger—”

“Are you trying to make an appointment for Jess … or your mom?” She says their names, like they’re dirty words.

“No … I just—”

“Oh, I’m sorry, that was plain rude. I just heard about what happened over at the Harvest Festival and.… never you mind.”

“It’s fine, I just—”

“Doesn’t matter anyway. Emma hasn’t been taking any appointments. Hasn’t been in for months. Ever since she had her last appointment with L.A.W.” She whispers the letters.

“Law?” I ask. “What, with Sheriff Ely?”

“That’ll be the day.” She chuckles. “That man’s as solid as a cement house. No, Lee Aric Wiggins,” she says. “The boy with all the burns.”

L.A.W. The same initials written in the margin of the family Bible … written all over the bank ledger. Could my dad have been giving money to that scumbag? For what? For meth?

“She’d been meeting with him every Saturday for the past year. They had no problems whatsoever, and then something happened. She came out of the room like she’d just seen a ghost. She was real scared like. Kinda how you look right now, hon,” she says, as she pushes the plastic candy dish over to me. “Here, have one. Just don’t eat the grape, those are my favorite. And the next thing I know she’s asking me for his birth certificate … acting real different. She even started scratching her head so hard it was bleeding. I thought maybe she was fixin’ to call the sheriff, report him for something, but I never heard another word about it. Oh, did she send you for her things? I’ve been on her to pick up that box for months now.”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind.” I force myself to meet her eyes. I feel terrible lying like this, but I’m desperate.

“You bet, hon. I just have to get it from the storage room. Would you mind answering the phone for me? If it’s someone calling about Mr. Pinner, well, he died last night, I guess you best leave that to me. Back in a jiffy.”

I hear her shoes squeaking against the linoleum and then disappear into the carpeting of the back offices. I hop around the counter and move the mouse around the screen. She’s got a Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman screen saver. Figures.

I scan through the files for patient records and pull up Emily Granger. Bam. Sure enough, Tyler was telling the truth. Checked herself in almost exactly two years ago. Self-pay. She was here a little under a year. PTSD. Religious ideology. Delusions of grandeur.

She’s still not back, so I type in Lee Wiggins. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. PTSD. Burn trauma. Claims father tried to kill him night of accident, but Devil saved him for higher calling. Prescribed: Lithium. Zoloft. Hydrocodone.

As soon as I hear Mrs. Giffords’s squeaky soles hit the linoleum, I wipe the history and hop back over the counter.

“Is it hot in here?” she asks, as she sets the box on the counter. “See, I’m a little chilly, but you’re all sweated up. Hope I’m not coming down with something.”

I inspect the box. “But this says Mrs. Wilkerson on the side.”

“Oh, they belong to Emma now. Mrs. Wilkerson left her everything. The house, too. Lucky duck. Those Catholics sure stick together.”

“She passed?”

“Last year. I think that’s why Emma stayed with us so long. She didn’t need to be here. She was smarter than Dr. Flannigan, that’s for sure. I think she just needed a rest and she wanted to be here for her friend when the time came. It was an odd thing, though … how she died.”

“What do you mean?”

“Emma was holding her hand, saying some kind of prayer in Catholic—”

“You mean Latin?”