Doctored Death

by P. D. Workman

  “So tell me about Lola. Did you get her when she was a puppy?”

  “No. She belonged to a friend of the family. He passed away, and everyone thought I should take Lola. She wasn’t left specifically to me. But no one else could take her. I was living somewhere that allowed dogs at the time, and Jay said he didn’t mind, so I took her in. She’s not a young dog. She’s... mature.”

  Kenzie nodded encouragingly. “And your family friend? What did he die of?”

  “I don’t know. I think it was maybe a stroke. Something quick. By the time anyone found him, it was too late. He had a bad heart, you know. He’d always said that. Had this surgery a few years ago to replace faulty valves. He said he was doing better. But then...” Francine trailed off.

  “Yes. I’m sorry to hear that. What was his name?”

  “Do you need that? It seems to me that you don’t need to document the dog’s entire life to do... whatever this is. An investigation into a death. You said someone at the nursing home died, right?”

  “Yes. This is just background information, but I do need to know who owned her before you did.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Francine muttered. But she was on the move, walking over to a side table with a tiny drawer in it, from which she removed an address book. “Eugene Hopewell. No current address or phone number,” she added tartly.

  Kenzie smiled. She liked Francine. “Thank you. Much appreciated. And when Lola was with you... was she ever sick?”

  “Sick? No, I don’t think so. Dogs eat things and throw up sometimes... or eat things and get the runs... or they roll in something or get sprayed by a skunk. But nothing, really, she was a nice dog to have around. Friendly. Never bit anyone even if they deserved it.”

  “No viruses or infections that you knew of.”

  “No.”

  “And where did Eugene live, when he was still alive? Was he in a nursing home? Or in an apartment building or a house...?”

  “He lived on his own. In a little bungalow.”

  “Where was that, do you know? Do you have the address?”

  Francine looked down at her address book and gave the address to Kenzie. Kenzie wrote it down along with his name.

  “That’s really helpful. And when you had Lola, you lived here?” Kenzie looked around at the small apartment.

  “No. I was with my boyfriend at the time. Lived at his place. I told you that.”

  “Oh, of course. And that was at...” Kenzie looked through her notes and read off the address that she had previously visited in hopes of meeting Lola’s owner.

  “Yes, that’s right. Is that everything?”

  “Almost done. Does your boyfriend still live there? If I wanted to see the place that Lola lived, do you think he would talk to me? Maybe you could call him and let him know that I’m not some crank?”

  “As far as I know, you could be. I’m not really in touch with him anymore. It was a mutual break, but... we didn’t stay friends. As far as I know, he is still in the same place, but he could have moved. He wouldn’t have bothered to tell me, and we don’t have mutual friends.”

  “Do you have his phone number?”

  Francine flipped the pages in her address book to refresh her memory. Kenzie could see that his information had been struck through. But Francine was still able to read it and nodded after she recited the phone number. “Yes, that’s his number,” she confirmed.

  “I really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome.” Francine stood up. “I hope you find everything you’re looking for.”

  56

  As Kenzie left Francine’s apartment, her phone buzzed. She looked down at it to see if she had received a text message and saw a calendar reminder that she was supposed to be at couples therapy with Zachary. She swore and double-checked the time. She had completely forgotten that they had an appointment. And Zachary had, she thought, carefully avoided mentioning it or reminding her, maybe testing to see if she would show up this time without any pressure from his end. But it was a thirty-minute warning reminder, which meant she still had time to get there.

  She climbed into the car and headed toward Dr. Boyle’s office. On the way, she hit her Bluetooth button and called Dr. Wiltshire.

  “Kenzie.”

  “Hi. Uh—I forgot that today is my early day so I can get to therapy with Zachary. I’m sorry. I’ve left a bunch of stuff up in the air there that I planned to get back to after I talked to Lola’s owner.”

  “I should have remembered this was your usual day.”

  “Well, so should I,” Kenzie said in embarrassment. “If you’ll just leave everything where it is, I’ll pop back over after I’m done the session and finish up. Is that okay?”

  “I can just put your files away and you can pick it up again tomorrow.”

  “I know, but I really do need to get some of it done today. It’s not very good planning on my part.”

  “We all forget things sometimes. Things have been a little disrupted lately. I’m sure that your files can wait until tomorrow.”

  “I still prefer to come back in. So just leave them; I’ll get them put away tonight.”

  “Okay,” Dr. Wiltshire agreed with a chuckle. “I won’t touch anything.”

  Kenzie checked the time after she parked. It was still ten minutes until the appointment with Dr. Boyle, so she didn’t need to rush in, looking all disheveled and apologizing for having forgotten about the appointment. As far as anyone other than Dr. Wiltshire knew, she had remembered all along that she had an appointment. She was a responsible adult. Missing one session didn’t make her irresponsible. Just a busy person who sometimes got caught up in things.

  She locked the car and walked into Dr. Boyle’s waiting room calmly. Zachary was sitting in one of the chairs, elbows on knees, face cradled in his hands. He looked up when he heard Kenzie enter and a smile blossomed on his face.

  “Kenzie!”

  “Hi.” Kenzie made a show of checking the time. “I’m not late, am I?”

  “No. Still five minutes to. I’m just... glad you made it.”

  “Of course. I know I missed the last session, but that’s not going to be a regular occurrence. It was just one mistake.”

  He nodded agreeably. “Of course. You don’t forget things like that.”

  Kenzie let out a breath. No. Of course not. She wouldn’t just get busy with something else and forget all about their appointment. Again.

  When the session was over, Kenzie was tired and emotionally wrung out, but she had promised Dr. Wiltshire that she would be back to the office, so she explained to Zachary that she needed to spend another hour or two there and then would be home.

  “We can have our ice cream today after supper if that’s okay with you?”

  They had instituted a reward of ice cream following couples therapy to reward themselves for going and doing something that was difficult for both of them. A reward that had been Kenzie’s idea. Although Zachary seemed to have taken to it without any difficulty.

  “Oh.” Zachary looked disappointed, lowering his eyes and fiddling with his key as they prepared to get into their separate vehicles. “Yeah, that would be fine.”

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to screw up the routine. But I really do need to spend some more time at the office today, make sure everything is in order.”

  “Yeah, of course. Work is important.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s more important than you or our relationship. It just means I need to spend a bit more time there before we can relax.”

  He nodded.

  “I made it here,” Kenzie pointed out. “I didn’t just work through. That wouldn’t have been fair to you, and I’ve made a commitment to go to these sessions. I’m glad we’re doing them.”

  “Yeah. Well, I’ll see you later, then. After work.”

  Kenzie nodded and suppressed the impulse to apologize to him again. She had explained. He had accepted. She needed to just move on. She w
ould see him again once she was done, and then she could give him her full attention.

  The morgue was as silent as... well... a morgue. Kenzie worked through the files she had left on her desk, checked quickly through her email to see what else was awaiting her attention, and decided to tidy up and get on her way. She stowed away the files she hadn’t worked on yet and took the ones she had completed into Dr. Wiltshire’s office for his review and approval the next day.

  His office was in disarray. Dr. Wiltshire was usually pretty tidy, so Kenzie was surprised to see papers on his desk, books and ornaments out of place on his shelf, and his computer screen turned at a different angle from usual, as if he had been displaying it to someone else in the office with him. And maybe he had. She didn’t remember him setting up any appointments for the afternoon, but since she hadn’t remembered her own appointment, she couldn’t rely on her memory.

  She spent a few minutes straightening everything back to the way Dr. Wiltshire liked them and looked through the papers and files on his desk. It was going to take longer than she had expected to get out of the office and home. Still, she would rather know she was going back to an environment where everything was tidy and sorted for her and Dr. Wiltshire’s arrival than to think about how much work she was going to have to do as soon as she got there in the morning to put things shipshape.

  It took half an hour to get his desk put back to rights. Kenzie sighed and turned off his light, then moved on to the autopsy room and cold storage to make sure that if any new remains had been signed in, all the paperwork was in order and she was aware of who their most recent guests were.

  As she opened the door, she heard the clatter of sample jars. The sudden, unexpected noise made her jump. Apparently, she wasn’t as alone as she had thought.

  “Hello?” Kenzie called out, walking into the autopsy room. “Who’s here?”

  Something was wrong. Surgical tools had been knocked to the floor and not picked back up. There was no body on the table, but there were evidence bins on the counter. Kenzie hadn’t left them there, and Dr. Wiltshire would not leave them there when he went home. Only while he was in the process of conducting an autopsy.

  “Doctor?”

  There was no answer, but there was more banging and movement from the evidence room and the cold storage. Who was there? The night shift could be bringing in some remains, but she hadn’t seen or heard anything while she was at her computer to indicate another body being brought in. No texts or messages, nothing in her email. Something could have happened while she was working in Dr. Wiltshire’s office, but if a call-out had just been made, they wouldn’t be bringing the remains in already.

  “Carlos?”

  Something was wrong. The space didn’t feel right. It didn’t smell right, like someone had walked through it carrying their lunch or cut flowers and had left their imprint on the air behind. Kenzie walked across autopsy and opened the door to the cold storage room.

  A black shape hurtled toward her and they collided. Strong hands grasped her wrist and shoulder and threw her to the floor. Kenzie tried to catch herself with her hands, but it happened too quickly and she landed on her shoulders and the back of her head, a blow that sent yellow lightning racing through her brain.

  “Hey!” Kenzie protested. She tried to get up, but the figure that had hit her was receding, hurrying away from her now. There were shouts, but she couldn’t sort out the words. “Stop! Hey!” She couldn’t seem to come up with anything more coherent than that. Her knees were wobbly and getting to her feet did not seem possible. If she had a chair, maybe she could use that to get herself up. She felt around herself, disoriented, not sure what might be within reach. Could she reach the counter to pull herself up?

  Her fingers encountered a twisted plastic cord, and when Kenzie pulled on it, something came clattering down on her head. A phone. Kenzie tried to orient the phone in the proper position and to focus on it. How many times had she used it to call out to someone in the building? She wasn’t sure which end was up, couldn’t bring her eyes into focus on the numbers on the buttons. She pushed several buttons in a row, trying to remember where the zero and the nine were on the keypad. There was a tiny voice from the receiver. Kenzie held it up to her ear.

  “Trouble in autopsy,” she managed to get out a half-ways coherent sentence. “Help. Now.”

  57

  Kenzie was still sitting on the floor, but was upright, with the cabinets behind her back, while she applied ice to the back of her head and tried to sound normal and unflustered as she spoke to Detective Cameron, who crouched beside her.

  “Did you get a good look at their faces?” Cameron asked. “Was it anyone you recognized?”

  “No. I didn’t see anything. Heard noises. Called out. Went to see what was going on. But the one I saw—it was just a shape; I have no idea... no idea who it was or what he looked like.”

  “That’s okay. Perfectly understandable. But this is a secure building. You can’t get in without identification, without going through security checkpoints.”

  “I don’t know. Don’t know what happened, how they got here. When they got here.” Kenzie continued to shake her head, even though it was making her a bit giddy. “I was working late...”

  “Were they here when you got in?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Everything was quiet... I decided to close up and get home. Went to Dr. Wiltshire’s office. It was a mess.”

  “Dr. Wiltshire’s office had been tossed?”

  Kenzie thought about that. It had been disorderly, but not like on TV when there were slash marks in all the upholstery where they had searched for hidden evidence. But Dr. Wiltshire had never left his room in disarray like that before.

  “Files and papers that should have been put away were out. Things had been moved on his shelves... things he wouldn’t normally even touch during the day. You know, medical texts, ornaments. He might take out one text at a time and then put it away when he was done, but with so much being available online now, there wasn’t really even much need for him to look something up on paper.”

  “Did you call anyone when you saw it had been left in a mess?”

  “No. I didn’t think... that there was an intruder. I just thought that he’d been... upset or in a state when he left. Something upset him, or he got a call-out. I don’t know. He seemed worried this morning, and I just thought... it was a continuation.”

  “So what did you do?”

  Kenzie raised her brows and looked Cameron in the eye. “I tidied up.”

  He laughed.

  Kenzie couldn’t say she was sure what there was to laugh about, but she was glad he saw the humor in the situation.

  “Of course.”

  “That’s my job.”

  “You’re medical staff, not cleaners.” It was half a statement, half a question.

  “Yes... but I’m his admin as well. So it’s normal for me to file stuff at the end of the day. Make sure that everything has been checked in or out correctly. Just generally... make sure everyone keeps their rooms clean.”

  Cameron nodded, still smiling. Kenzie shifted the ice pack to find a colder spot. The lump on the back of her head was beginning to throb. She winced and waited for it to settle down again.

  “So what did you do after cleaning up the doctor’s office?”

  “I went to check things out in storage and check-in, make sure all of the tests that were supposed to go out had gone, see if we got any other remains while I was gone, that kind of thing.”

  “While you were gone?”

  “I was out. I had a... personal medical appointment.”

  “Would anyone have known that?”

  “Well... a few people, I guess. Julie covers my desk sometimes, so she knows that some Wednesday afternoons, I have an appointment. Dr. Wiltshire knew; I talked to him on the phone earlier to confirm that. Uh... I don’t know. Anyone who works closely with the office probably knows that I am away some Wednesday afternoons.”


  “What time do you usually get back from that appointment?”

  “Usually, I don’t. I just go home from the doctor’s office. But today, I had some other things I needed to clear up before I could go home.”

  “So normally, at this time, the suite would have been empty.”

  “Yes.”

  “And people know that.”

  “I guess. Not a lot, but yeah... people do know.”

  It would make sense that if someone wanted to mess with things at the Medical Examiner’s Office, they would pick a time when Kenzie wasn’t supposed to be there. When it should have been empty and silent.

  Kenzie shifted the ice pack again. “Did they get anything? Take anything away?”

  “You’ll need to check against your inventory. Things have been rifled. Broken. I don’t know if anything has been taken.”

  “I’d better look.” Kenzie moved to stand up.

  “Are you sure you should be getting up?” Cameron held out his hand as if to grab her or to steady her. “You should sit until you’re sure...”

  Kenzie leaned against the counter and waited for the head rush to subside. He was probably right. She should wait for a while longer until she was absolutely sure she was okay and that she was steady on her feet. But once the blobs of color stopped flashing before her eyes, she looked around, scanning to see what was out on the counter and what might be missing from the bins.

  She had a growing feeling of dread as she looked at the labels on the sample bottles. The glass was cold against her hands.

  “We should probably put these things back in the fridge.”

  “Can you tell what’s missing?” Cameron asked. “Is there anything?”

  “Yeah.” Kenzie shook her head. “All of the Cartwright samples. And Sexton’s.” She rubbed her forehead. “Uh... the John Doe. Or former John Doe. And the new one, no identity yet.”