Page 93 of Her Unending Horizon

“Yeah,” I said, and meant it. “No reason yet.”

We rolled through Jasper Creek, past the bakery, the diner, the hardware store that still had Christmas lights in the window even though it was March. Maple was a three-story brick apartment building near the edge of town—converted mill housing, cheap rent and thin walls.

We parked curbside. Fletcher grabbed the cardiac bag and monitor from the back and took the stairs two at a time—well, Fletcher took them two at a time. I took them one-and-a-half at a time and pretended it didn’t hurt.

The door to 3B was open. A middle-aged woman stood there wringing her hands.

“He’s in the living room,” she said. “Said his chest hurt and he couldn’t catch his breath.”

“Okay, ma’am,” Fletcher said, in his calm-voice. “We’ll check him out. I’m Fletcher, this is Post. You his daughter?”

“Neighbor,” she said. “He wouldn’t call 9-1-1, so I did.”

In the living room, an old man sat in a recliner, robe half open over a T-shirt, socks and slippers on his feet. A huge heart-shaped box of chocolates sat open on the coffee table in front of him—most of the candies missing.

He did not look like a man in the throes of a heart attack. He looked embarrassed.

“What’s your name, sir?” I asked.

“Jenkins. Harvey Jenkins.” He sounded pretty damn good.

“I’m Zarek. This is Fletcher. Hear you’re having some chest pain?”

“It’s gone now,” he said gruffly. “She overreacted.” He jerked his chin toward the neighbor.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Fletcher said, already setting the monitor down. “Mind if we get some vitals? Just to be safe.”

“Do what you gotta do,” Jenkins sighed.

We clipped the pulse ox on his finger, wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his arm, stuck leads on his chest for a quick rhythm strip. I ran through questions—onset, quality, aggravating factors, past cardiac history. He pointed at the box of chocolates and looked sheepish.

“Had a craving,” he admitted. “Might have ate more than I should.”

“What’s more than?” I asked.

He looked over at the box. “All of the top layer, and part of the second layer. Old buddy sent me the biggest box they had for my birthday.”

I hid a grin as I took note that his blood pressure was just fine. “So, you ate over a pound? What time did you start?”

“Halftime.”

I looked over at the television. The commentators were just starting their post-game wrap-up. So the old guy had finished over a pound of chocolates in less than two hours.

“That’s a lot of chocolate. Then what happened?”

“Claudia came in. My door’s never locked during the day. She wanted to share dinner tonight. Saw my color, then called emergency. But I’m fine now.”

I looked over at the chocolates again, and then I saw it, a small roll of Tums antacids. Only half left.

“You take anything?” I asked.

“Couple Tums,” he said. “Felt better after that. I feel fine now. Honestly.”

Fletcher looked over at me. He was holding back a grin as well. I finished up the exam. Heart rate a little elevated but nothing scary. Lungs clear. No pain when I palpated his chest wall. EKG showed a nice clean rhythm, no obvious ST-elevation or depression. No shortness of breath.

“Do you feel nauseous?” I asked.

“Not anymore,” the old man assured me.