Page 28 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

“Well, I mean I already told ya my dad got his head blown off, so…”

“You sure did,” Evan says, because what elsecanhe say? And then, mercifully, we are pulling into the hospital parking lot and Evan drops us right at the front emergency exit and tells us he’ll wait right here and playForge of Empireson his phone until we’re through…whatever that means.

We all buy a gift for Poppy from the gift shop, and everyone hands them to me when it’s decided that I’ll go up while they wait in the lobby waiting room so it’s not too much. As I wait in the elevator, I look down to see that the gift Millie handed me was a pair of red mittens she must have been working on for a very long time to learn how to make for little Poppy and my heart warms and I feel a tear threatening to fall, but instead I smile at the beautiful gesture and stay strong as I walk down the hall to her room.

When I see Shelby, she’s pacing outside Poppy’s room on the phone, dabbing her eyes with a paper towel, then she ends the call and notices me. I hand her a tissue from my purse and she seems quite surprised I’m there, but hugs me tightly anyway.

“What are you doing here?”

“We’re all here. The gang is down in the waiting room. We don’t want to bother Poppy, we just wanted to come and sit with you if you need us,” I say, and she hugs me again and sits on the little vinyl bench in the hallway. I sit next to her.

“What happened? Is she okay?”

“She’ll be okay. We pulled her out right away and the fishing hut was really warm, we had heated blankets while we waited for the ambulance. God!” She starts to cry again. “I have been on the phone with the police, and they’re saying someone did this.”

“What do you mean? How could someone…”

“They found…someone cut holes all over the ice near our spot. Someone was probably trying to weaken the ice so maybe the ice hut would fall through and kill us.It’s a miracle nobody else fell into one of these when we walked across from the car to the ice hut. Someone wants me dead, Flor. And he almost got Poppy instead,” she sobs into my shoulder.

“But she’s okay, love, she’s okay.” I pat her back and make a soothing noise with my lips, but I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I mean, I know the threats are real and something terrible is going on, but there are little girls involved, and for someone to go to such lengths…my God.

“How could someone do that and not be seen?” I ask, because that’s the first question in my head.

“Nobody else has been out on the ice in days because it’s too cold. They would have had every opportunity, probably hoping the weather warmed maybe—so by the next time we were there, the ice would be weakened even more. It could have been so much worse,” she says, and then blows her nose and wipes the mascara from under her eyes.

“I’m so sorry, love,” I say.

“Thanks. She’s asleep, but I wanna be there if she wakes up. Tell the gang thanks for coming, but I’m gonna stay with her.”

“Of course. Here,” I say handing her some coloring books and a stuffed elephant and the lovely red mittens. I point to them. “From Millie,” I say, and she squeezes them and smiles.

“We just wanted to be here if you needed us.”

Shelby stands to go, then she sits back down suddenly, holding the gifts on her lap, looking left and right to make sure nobody is within earshot.

“That podcast. I’ve thought about it, and I wanna help. Let’s get this motherfucker,” she says. Then she stands again, moving to Poppy’s door, and turns to me one more time. “Don’t tell Mack. She’ll freak, but maybe we can get enough info out there to make a difference until she finds out about it on her own. It’s my girls involved now. I can’t worry about that.” I nod and she disappears back into the hospital room.

I’m glad to hear this because I planned to do it anyway, but it’s very pleasant news that I won’t have to deceive my friend in order to help her. Before I go and find the rest of the gang, I look to see if Karla Laurier, the nurse who tended to Otis much of the time, is working. Winny told me she’d be a good person to chat with if I wanted to suss out some information that might help us, and she doesn’t have the stomach to come back to this hospital. I can’t blame her for that.

I ask after Karla at one of the nurse’s stations and a distracted woman in tight scrubs and a side ponytail tells me she’s in Critical Care on the third floor. As I walk down the sad, gray hallway and smell the antiseptic and bleach wafting from hospital bedding and the microwaved food sitting untouched in room trays, I feel a pang of sadness for Otis who had to spend his last moments here, but I take a deep breath and try to keep my head in the right space. I am here for information.

The receptionist points me to room 302 when I ask again for Karla on the hub on floor three, and moments later I find her in an empty room, wrapping a vomit-soaked sheet up into a bundle and throwing it into a linen bin.

“Oh, Mrs. Hopkins was brought down to imaging, I’m afraid,” says the stout nurse with rosy cheeks, her hair pulled back so tightly into a bun it looks like her hair follicles might be torn from the roots.

“Oh, no, dear, I came to talk to you, if that’s alright.” Karla stops what she’s doing and turns to look at me.

“Oh. Um, what can I help you with? Are you a family member?”

“Actually, I’m here about Otis Thorgard. I was told that you cared for him often.”

“I did. Oh, sweet Otis. I’m so sorry. He was your…”

“Friend,” I say. “Winny tells me you were a great comfort to him.” And when I look at Karla I’m certainly not getting murderer vibes, but I guess that’s probably the case with all of these sorts of awful situations.Amelia Dyer notoriously murdered four hundred people and she looked like the organ player at my church. But it really could be anyone with access to Otis. The hospital staff are all listed on the website and I plan to go through each name, but the list is so big it’s beginning to seem like a futile task. The visitor log coupled with the hospital staff site might at least give us a short list of suspects.

“Did Otis have many other caregivers or visitors?” I ask, and the look on her face is hesitant, like she might not answer or might begin to question my question, but it’s innocent enough and I put a pearl headband with a rose on it in my hair earlier for extra effect, so she just sits down on the edge of the bare bed and sighs.

“He had a million visitors. Everyone loved Otis, and he’s lived in town his whole life. Why do you ask?”

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