Jonathan has raised a house on that hill overlooking the river. It is a fine building with two sleeping chambers off the great room and the kitchen out back. The town has had an outbreak of cholera so we are all glad to be here and safe. I pray the good Lord will continue to spare our lives as He has done so far, in spite of the conflict.
Please write and let me know how your family do. I am anxious for news of your dear self and your good man. I am sending this by the courtesy of young Joseph who is off to join the Continental Navy and will call upon you when he reaches Boston. Until we can meet again,
I remain, your affectionate sister,
Honoria
Jim set this one down as well, wondering what they were and what they were doing in Ginny’s hospital room.
Hospital room. Damn. This was his fault. If only he’d been more insistent, or more persuasive, or more something, she wouldn’t be lying here hurt, helpless.
* * *
Jim glanced up as Ginny stirred. He set down the magazine he’d been reading and watched her climb to consciousness. At this point, he was cautiously optimistic. The drugs had kept the swelling in her brain down and she had no sensory or motor deficits — nothing he’d seen, anyway. Her memory was intact, even for the accident, which was a positive sign. There was a good chance she’d escape with no permanent damage. She was going to feel like hell for a while, though. She opened her eyes and he smiled at her.
“Hello.”
She blinked at him, then sighed. “May I have some water, please?”
Jim raised the head of the bed and held the straw in place, making sure she could swallow, then let her take the cup from him. Every movement told a story. He was watching to see if her hand-eye coordination was intact, if she had muscle tremors, if her thirst matched her hydration level. Everything mattered.
She set the cup down and met his eyes. “Have you been here the whole time?”
He nodded.
“What can I do for you, Jim?”
Marry me, he thought. Send Hal away. He picked up the files he’d found on her bedside table. “Explain these to me, please.” He handed them to her.
She looked down at them. “They’re copies of primary source documents referring to Hal’s ancestry.”
Jim’s eyebrows rose. “These have something to do with Hal?”
“Yes. They tell us there was an adoption in his line during the Revolutionary War.” She indicated the physician’s log. “The attending physician discovers the pregnancy and delivers the child.”
Jim looked at the paper trail made by his Colonial counterpart. “I can’t read this.”
“I’m not surprised. The eighteenth-century fair hand wasn’t standardized. Some of the characters are very different from modern cursive.”
Jim looked at her. “But you can read it.”
“I’ve spent many years practicing. Most serious genealogists have to learn at some point.”
“What about the other one?”
“The other is a letter from one sister to another, explaining how the girl got pregnant and ended up as the second Mrs. Williams. By marrying her before the baby was born, Benjamin Williams made sure the child would be considered legitimate. Everyone knew the truth, but no one talked about it.”
Jim nodded. “Where did you find them, the documents?”
“Elaine found them under the driver’s seat in Professor Craig’s car, the one that’s been in the body shop all this time. Those are the two documents Hal’s been hunting for and that Professor Craig referred to in his article.”
“What article?”
“He was planning to publish this discovery in one of the genealogy journals. I found it on his home computer.”
Jim frowned down at the documents. Professor Craig was planning to expose a long buried secret in Hal William’s ancestry.
“So, does this help us?”
“Find Professor Craig’s murderer? No. It means Hal is not entitled to the coat of arms his family has been using for generations, which is going to be a blow to his ego, but it’s not a motive for murder.” She leaned back into the pillows and closed her eyes, putting her hand up to shade them.
Jim’s eyes narrowed as he looked at her. “Is the light bothering you?”
“Yes, and trying to read that script can give you a headache even without a concussion.”
Jim set the two documents aside, closed the shades, darkening the room as much as possible, then picked up the flashlight. He took her through the neuro exam, then checked the dressings. No changes there. He flipped his stethoscope off his neck and settled it in his ears, then leaned down, placing the diaphragm against her chest.
“Breathe for me.”
Ginny did as asked, pulling air into her lungs as he moved the instrument back and forth. He watched as her hand stole to her side, protecting the area where the cracked ribs lay.
Not too bad. She’d been getting medications designed to pull extra fluid out of her system and could be considered ‘dry’ at the moment. He’d have to keep an eye on her over the next few days, though. He put the equipment away.
“My shift’s about to start, Ginny, but I’ll come check on you through the night. Let the nurses know if you need anything.”
“I will.”
He paused at the door, looking back at her over his shoulder. She lay where he had left her, her hand pressed to her forehead, her eyes closed.
Jim felt his heart contract. Only those who had been through it knew how hard it was to look at a patient and know you couldn’t do any more for her. He slipped out and went off to see if he could do some good elsewhere.
* * *
Chapter 40
Thursday
Thursday evening passed slowly. In between treatments, Ginny lay quietly, trying not to think. She had spoken to the investigating officer again. He left her with one question ringing in her ears. “Who would have access to your skates, Ginny?”
As a rule, she kept the skates locked in the trunk of her car. At rinkside, it would be almost impossible to remove a skate, tamper with it, and return it to her bag without her missing it. She carried the bag into the building, sat down, and put her skates on. If she had to go to the bathroom, she wore them in. At the end of the session, she took the skates off, wiped them, and put them in her bag, then carried the bag out to the car and locked them in the trunk, where they stayed until she needed them again.
So, probably nothing had happened at the rink. On the other hand, lots of people had access to her car at work. She parked in the hospital garage, the same one used by the patients, the doctors, and the visitors. Ditto when shopping, or visiting friends, or at the library. Dozens of places. Anyone could have broken in. That had to be it. Some public place, probably without surveillance cameras, probably at night.
Ginny shook herself mentally. If the skates had been stolen, all of those scenarios would make sense, but they hadn’t. Someone had taken one skate, sabotaged it, then put it back in such a way that she hadn’t even noticed. That meant someone who knew her, her car, and her routines. Someone careful about details.
Steve’s words floated into her head. “Easy to get hold of, but it would take someone with a chemistry background to recognize its potential.” How many people who knew she skated fit that description?
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in.” Ginny blinked as Detective Tran slipped into the room and closed the door behind her.
“Good evening, Miss Forbes. How are you?”
“Hello, Detective. Fine, thank you.”
The detective pursed her lips. “You lie badly.”
Ginny smiled. “So my mother always told me.”
“May I talk to you for a few minutes?”
“I’ve already filed a report.”
The detective nodded. “I know. Dr. Mackenzie called me. He seems to think there may be a connection between this accident and the death of Professor Craig.”
The older woman sat down, then leaned
forward.
“I know you do not feel up to it, but I would like to hear what happened from you. Would you mind going over it again?”
Ginny frowned, thinking she minded very much, but not knowing how to get out of it. She watched the detective take notes with neat, precise little movements.
“Was there anyone at the rink who would also be at the hospital, or at the genealogy conference?”
Ginny shook her head, and immediately regretted it. “No. It’s the one area of my life where there’s no crossover.”
“No crossover?”
“What I mean is, the hospital is near where I live. Same with the church and the library. But the rink is halfway across town. When I go skating, I always go alone. None of my friends like to skate the way I do. They go once a year, maybe, and then we go to the outdoor rink, just for the fun of it. So when I go skating I see a different group of people.”
“I see. Do you ever socialize with them?”
“No. We see each other at the rink, then go our separate ways.”
“Is there any one of them who might want to put you out of action for some reason?”
“I can’t think so. I don’t compete. I just skate around and then go home. No threat to anyone. No hard feelings, no conflicts, no problems that I know of. It’s a very civilized group.”
The detective nodded. “Who among your acquaintance would understand the dangers of tampering with a skate blade?”
Ginny frowned. “Pretty nearly everyone knows a loose skate blade is dangerous. There was a national competition where one of the woman skaters quit in the middle of her program, saying she had a loose blade.”
“And did she?”
Ginny shrugged. “Who knows? They let her re-skate, but, as a result, the whole television audience got a lesson in the construction of a skate and how the blade is attached to it.”
“I see. That brings us back to the crucial question. Who had access to your skates? Think, Ginny. Someone got to them. Who could it have been?”
Ginny put her head in her hands. “No one! The blade just slipped, that’s all. Please leave me alone.”
Detective Tran nodded and rose. “I am sorry to distress you. We can finish this later. You will let me know if you think of anything that might be useful.”
Ginny closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but couldn’t turn her brain off. It kept nagging at her, telling her she had to pay attention, had to sit up and face this.
“But I don’t want to,” Ginny admitted to herself. “I don’t like the idea that anyone would deliberately try to hurt me.” She lay there, staring up at the ceiling, trying to count the dots on the acoustical tiles. They seemed to be moving, fading in and out. Was it the lighting? The drugs? The head injury?
It wasn’t the access to her skates that was the problem. Lots of people had access to her car and the police were busy fingerprinting them all. If Detective Tran was right, though, and the attack on her was related to Professor Craig’s death, it implied someone who wanted her off the case. How many of the people on her Suspects list knew she was still investigating? How many knew she skated? How many knew how to modify the blade mounting in a way that would be hard to spot?
Elaine knew she skated. Mrs. Campbell did not. Hal, of course. Mark Craig? Had she mentioned it to him or to Theresa? Not Mr. Adams. She hadn’t spoken to him at all. Someone else might have, of course. Jim? What had she said to Jim? Or Himself? In truth, any of them could have found out. It was no secret.
Assuming she could still rule out Mark Craig (on the grounds he was in Tennessee when Professor Craig was attacked), Elaine Larson, and Fiona Campbell (both on the grounds there was no evidence either had had access to the lethal virus), that left three names still on her list.
Samuel Adams was a businessman. His degrees were in business management, not science, so it was highly unlikely he had the chemistry background necessary.
Which left only two, both of whom had studied chemistry and presumably had sufficient knowledge to recognize the potential in the compound Steve had found on her skate.
Ginny curled up on her side feeling sick at her stomach. She was shaking, too, and it must have shown on the monitoring system because one of the nurses came down to check on her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Would you please call this number for me?” Ginny asked, handing her Detective Tran’s card.
“Sure.” The nurse placed the call, then handed the phone over. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“This is Detective Tran.”
Ginny swallowed hard. “Detective Tran, I may have a lead for you.” She explained what she had come up with and why.
There was a moment of silence. “I think we should put a guard on your door.”
“Yes.”
“Is there someone you trust who can sit with you until we get there?”
“No. How long will it take?”
“Twenty minutes. Stay alert and do not be afraid to make a lot of noise if you have to.”
Ginny hung up the phone, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was going to be a long twenty minutes.
The nurse came back, bearing a sedative and Ginny was forced to be firm in refusing it without explaining why.
“You should sleep.”
“I’m expecting someone and it’s rather important that I be awake.”
“Okay, but let me know if you change your mind.”
“Thank you.” The door closed behind her, the pneumatic brake easing it shut slowly, silently.
Fifteen minutes left.
A tap on the door. Ginny found her heart pounding. “Come in.”
“Good evening, Ginny.” Dr. Armstrong, coming to check on her. Ginny breathed again. He stayed for seven minutes, taking her through the neuro exam and summarizing what remained to be done before they could send her home. Ginny tried to listen. He snapped the overhead lights off as he left.
Sitting in the charged darkness, Ginny found the hair rising on her arms. Five minutes to go.
This time there was no tap on the door. Someone was pushing it slowly open, peering around the doorframe, making almost no noise. Ginny’s hand closed on the ice bucket, the only thing she could think of that might slow him down. She tensed, prepared to fight.
“Ginny?”
“Caroline! Oh, thank God!” Ginny turned the over-the-bed light on and motioned to her friend. “Come in, please.”
Caroline looked at her and frowned. “Who — what — were you expecting?”
“Never mind. I’m so glad to see you.”
“You look awful.”
“Thanks, I needed that.”
Caroline smiled and settled down in the chair. “Was that Dr. Mackenzie I saw coming down the hall?”
Ginny caught her breath. “Probably not. Dr. Armstrong was just in here.”
“Oh. Is he a blond, too?”
No. He wasn’t. Ginny made a non-committal reply and settled down to find out what had been going on while she was laid up in the hospital. Caroline was still talking when the first policeman arrived.
* * *
Chapter 41
Friday
It was Friday, almost noon. Ginny settled into her own bed and closed her eyes. She’d had no idea how hard it was to be discharged from a hospital. All she’d ever done was transfer a patient to the floor. Because she was not allowed to drive herself home, her mother had arranged a substitute teacher and come to see her safely through the process.
Ginny was glad, for the umpteenth time, she and her mother shared the house she had grown up in. They led separate lives, but they were not alone, and her mother was the sensible sort. She had provided Ginny with ice water and pulled the shades and left her to rest. Number one on her discharge instructions sheet said, “Rest for two or three days.” Ginny intended to follow that instruction.
* * *
Jim lay in bed aching in every muscle. He rubbed a hand over his face. The last time he’d actually slept was Tuesday
night. He needed to sleep, he knew that, but he couldn’t seem to let go. He glanced at the clock. It was almost noon. He’d been dozing, drifting in and out for three hours. Not enough sleep. Not nearly enough.
The literature on sleep deprivation said not to fight it. If you couldn’t sleep, you should get up and do something. Maybe the best thing for him was to get out of the house and go do a little investigating. He’d gotten the address of the ice rink from Mrs. Forbes. It might be useful to look over the scene of the crime and talk to the skate shop guy.
The rink turned out to be much larger than Jim had realized. The building looked more like a warehouse than a sports arena. Once inside he found three ice surfaces; two Olympic-sized and one smaller one, off in the corner. The large ice surfaces were equipped with stadium seating. There were scoreboards, lights, sound systems, and a sort of recess at the back that held a machine that looked like a street sweeper.
It was also three stories tall, meaning the ceilings went clear to the roof over the two big ice surfaces, but in the middle there was a ramp leading up to a viewing area. It was lined with tables and hockey puck-proof windows. From here, Jim could look down on both of the big rinks. He watched in fascination as a young skater-in-training flew through the air suspended by a rope and harness device controlled by her coach. She must be learning something dangerous as she was wearing a very solid looking helmet. Jim grimly approved.
Ramps led down to the ice surfaces, the skate rental, and locker rooms. On the entry level were the main desk, the café, and the shop. Jim stepped into the shop, weaving his way between the displays, headed for the back wall and a doorway leading to a brightly lit work area.
Jim knocked on the doorframe, looking around. He could see shelves, cabinets, and cubbyholes filled with skates and cardboard boxes; a tool chest, tools he recognized, and some he did not; a long workbench with machines on it that looked dangerous to fingers and unprotected eyes; pegboards hung with supplies; instruction manuals on the shelves; and a prominently displayed first aid kit.
The Arms of Death Page 25
