Lie of the Needle (A Deadly Notions Mystery) Read Free Page B

the nurse well enough that she could have handled the task, difficult and unappealing as it admittedly was.
    I struggled to think of something to say.
    Throughout the house there were hundreds of books. He’d been such a vibrant, educated man. There were even two bookshelves on the back wall of this huge master bedroom.
    I’d always relished our conversations about novels we’d enjoyed, the current state of world affairs, and even news of his chemical research. He had a way of explaining things that made it easy to understand.
    We also shared a passion for quirky historical facts.
    “Hey, Stanley, did you know that Charles Dickens always faced to the north when sleeping?” I said to him, hoping to see some sort of familiar answering spark in his eyes. “That the first novel ever written on a typewriter was
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
? Or that ketchup was sold in the 1830s as a
medicine
?” He used to tease me about my penchant for putting the tomato condiment on anything and everything.
    He stared unblinking at the ceiling.
    Never mind not recognizing me; it was as if he couldn’t hear me at all.
    I sighed, remembering one time when the four of us had gone out to dinner, right before he retired. Stanley insisted on taking the bill when it came to the table because Joe and I had treated the time before. But then he took so long figuring out the tip that Ruth pulled out her own credit card. Stanley was furious at his wife, and it was an uncomfortable scene, to say the least. She’d excused the episode afterward by saying he’d been under a lot of stress at work.
    Now I wondered if Stanley had retired because he’d had a premonition that something might be going wrong.
    His thin fingers plucked restlessly at the sheet, and he turned to look at me.
    “I know you.” His face crumpled and he started crying. “It’s your birthday, isn’t it? That’s why you’re here. And I forgot your birthday.”
    “No, no, it’s not my birthday. It’s okay. Really.”
    “Card. I should have bought you a card.”
    I tried again to tell him it wasn’t my birthday, but he wouldn’t be consoled. In fact, the more I protested, the more agitated he became. Desperate, I looked around. There was a small writing desk near the window with a stack of expensive cream-colored writing paper.
    A memory flashed into my head of making Mother’s Day cards with the elementary school children, cutting hearts out of paper doilies and decorating borders with snippets of lace, sequins, and buttons.
    “Okay, you know what, Stanley? You’re right. It
is
my birthday. So let’s make a card. What should I put on it?”
    But he lapsed into silence once more.
    I hurried over to the desk, folded a piece of letterhead adorned with an embossed
B
in half, and selected a fountain pen from the marble cup. I knew he liked dogs, so I drew a stick figure of a dog that looked a bit like my golden retriever mix puppy. I added a bunch of flowers and wrote
Happy Birthday
inside.
    I went back to the bed and sat next to him. “Look. Here it is. Do you want to give it to me now?”
    I held it out, but he suddenly gripped my wrist so tightly that the paper fell from my fingers onto the stiff sheets.
    “Help me, Daisy,” he said in a hoarse whisper, his eyes focused and very bright. “She’s trying to kill me!”

Chapter Two

    “W
hat?”
I sucked in a breath.
    Soft footsteps sounded in the hallway, and Stanley slumped back against the pillows.
    “Everything all right?” Ruth came back into the bedroom, worry etched across her beautiful face.
    “Yes, fine,” I said, forcing a smile. “Stanley was just giving me my birthday card.”
    For a second she frowned, and then she nodded in understanding.
    I cleared my throat and gestured to the bedside table. “Um, I was wondering, Ruth. All those drugs. What do they do?”
    She explained that some were to try to delay the progression of the disease as long as possible, some were for anxiety and depression, and