Page 40 - Vol. VI #2

E A Different Kind of Heart Attack
nda knew the Hy-Vee like the back of her
had happened; the moose, and the poor kid in the grain bin.
hand and she maneuvered her cart pur-
posefully up and down the aisles. It was sum-
mer, a withering hot August, and she only From her handbag, came the bloop sound she’d wanted to get in and out fast that morning, did been waiting for, a message from Bobbi Russo,
her level best not to make eye contact with the other shoppers. Just when she thought she was home free, there was their neighbor Ray, aiming his cart in her direction.
finally answering her text.
“Mrs. O’Fallan, hello!” Ray called out. “I’m glad I ran into you! Darndest thing,” he said straight off, “someone or something took my Nikes right off my porch. I took them off after a long run and went inside to shower. When I came out, poof! They were gone.”
“I’ve got to answer this,” she told Ray, holding up her cell phone, “I do hope your running shoes turn up.”
Ray was training for a marathon and nearly every day Enda saw him plodding along in the heat, up and down the county roads. He pointed down at the battered shoes he was wearing. “These are my back-ups,” he said.
She’d been trying all morning to reach Bobbi, who she hoped would help her plan a benefit supper for Dally-Boy’s young cousin coming over from Ireland. Earlier she had sent Bobbi an email and after a few minutes, she called and left a voice message.
Enda clucked sympathetically. “My,” she said, “that’s terrible.”
Bobbi suggested they meet at Sully’s, an unusual choice, out there on the far edge of town as it was, and not one of their usual lunch spots. But in fact Enda had been planning to ask Young Sully to donate the back room for the benefit supper, so Bobbi’s motion to lunch at Sully’s was prescient. With any luck Enda would have the benefit sup- per venue wrapped up by the end of the day.
But she had a strange feeling. That summer, and if Enda had to guess, she would say it was right around the time the moose was seen in town and the Mexican kid was rescued from Henry Bright’s grain bin, she began to find things stashed in her husband’s barn. Some of the things she found were inconsequential; a brittle red plastic basket from Mabel’s, a pinwheel from the flower box outside the hardware store. Other items were more valuable but still af- fordable if Dally-Boy had wanted them: a vial of saffron she recognized from the small cooking supply shop, for example, and a small leather notebook from the stationery store. But there was also the dog collar that should have been on Sparky, the springer spaniel belonging to anoth- er neighbor. Something told her she would find Ray’s shoes in the barn now too. Well, it had been a bloody hot summer and strange things
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Bobbi pointed to Enda’s glass of beer, “Drink some of that first,” she said and waited while
“Where are you?” she’d finally texted peevishly, because it really was unlike Bobbi not to respond. “How about meeting me for lunch?” she added.
“I’m about to tell you two things about my hus- band that I think you will find shocking,” said Bobbi. They were sitting at a table at Sully’s with a bowl of pretzels between them. Bobbi had got- ten there first and had ordered them each a tall glass of pale ale instead of their usual tea.
Enda’s face wrinkled with concern and she impul- sively reached for Bobbi’s hand. “Good God, what is it?” she said, “I knew something was wrong.”
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