The other vet tech, Jamilla, was a heavyset black woman in her late twenties. She took X-rays and helped Dr. Horz with minor surgical procedures. I assumed she was trained in the use of medications, and would know the effects of potassium.
Neither of them seemed like great suspects. Rochester liked Elysia, and I trusted his judgment. We’d first met Jamilla when Rochester had an intestinal bug, and she gave him a shot. Since then, we’d seen her a couple of times at the vet’s office and while he wasn’t as friendly with her he didn’t seem to dislike her.
There was also a veterinary assistant, a quiet guy named Hugh who appeared to be somewhere on the autism scale. From what I’d seen, he helped out by restraining animals for procedures, cleaned up the premises and kept all the equipment clean and in good repair. He rarely spoke to patients and liked his routines. But he was very good with dogs, and Rochester had cozied up to him several times.
The office manager, Minna, was an Israeli woman with a heavy accent, blonde hair pulled up into a knot, and lots of eye makeup. She was often the one who checked us out, and I assumed she also handled billing and other administrative matters. I wondered how much medical background she had.
Sahima, the receptionist, was a new employee. Rochester hadn’t had much contact with her or Minna, so I couldn’t rely on his impressions. Suppose Sahima had taken the job for the access to various medications? I’d have to so some snooping to determine if she could be a suspect. And as long as I kept my investigation legal, I wouldn’t get into trouble.
When I heard Lili’s car pull into the driveway, I shut down the laptop. I grabbed my parka and went out to help her carry bags and bags of groceries inside. I was always amazed at how much food we went through. When I lived on my own, I ate frozen dinners and takeout food, but Lili cooked real meals for us every day.
The dogs remained behind the courtyard gate, barking, and darted around our feet as we struggled inside. I closed the front door behind us, happy to shut out the cold for a while. After we unloaded the groceries, Lili put a brisket in the oven, and we spent the afternoon on the sofa together, reading, with the dogs on the floor beside us.
Every now and then, one of them would get up and kneel down on his front paws, in the classic play posture. The other would jump up, and they would wrestle, or tug a rope between them, and then, almost as mysteriously, they would quit playing and sprawl on the floor again.
Through the sliding glass doors onto the courtyard, I could see the snow beginning to pile up, pristine and white. Around five, my cell rang with Rick’s Hawaii Five-O tone. I picked it up and said, “This is Steve. I can’t take your call right now, but leave a message and I’ll think about getting back to you.”
“Big comedian,” he said. “Hey, can you do me a favor?”
I was sure he wanted help with the mysterious theft from the veterinarian’s office, so I agreed.
“Great! I’m going to Tamsen’s tomorrow for Christmas dinner, and she’s got a houseful of guests coming – her sister Hannah and her family, and lots of cousins and random Quakers without anyplace else to go. Rascal doesn’t cope well with so many strangers in one place. Can I drop him off with you for a few hours?”
Oh. Dog care, not investigative advice. “Hey, what’s one more dog when you’ve already got two?” I looked over at Lili. “You don’t mind if Rascal comes over for a visit tomorrow, do you?”
“The more the merrier,” she said, her lip curling up in half a smile. “Rascal can keep these two wild creatures in line.”
As the snow continued to fall, we took the dogs out together earlier than usual. “Be careful of that white puppy,” I said. The plows hadn’t come through yet, and passing cars had pushed up drifts along Sarajevo Court. “We could lose him in the snow.”
“I’m sure he’d wiggle out eventually,” Lili said.
I put my gloved hand in hers. “Joey and Mark are in Belize today,” I said. “Probably snorkeling and sunning.”
“And we’re in Pennsylvania, freezing.” She smiled. “But I wouldn’t be anywhere else but with you.”
“Me too, sweetheart.” I leaned forward and our cold lips met, warming each other from the inside out. Back home, we fed the dogs and ate the delicious brisket in the growing glow of the Hanukkah candles. I was glad that Lili’s frustration with Brody had eased. There was a lot less stress when neither of us had more to do than relax, read and play.
Lili went to bed early, and the dogs followed her. I hadn’t felt the need to log in to my hacker support group for a few weeks. But talking to Felix, I realized that an important part of my rehabilitation had to be helping others. It wasn’t just that I was a teacher at heart; seeing what others were going through was a reminder to me to stay out of trouble.
Brewski_Bubba had posted recently about how the holidays reminded him of the time he’d hacked into local store’s database and stolen credit card numbers, and then used those to shop online for extravagant presents for his family and friends. He hadn’t counted on the cops showing up at his father’s house, tracking the purchaser of the big-screen TV.
Stinger23 was a regular on the site. He had a hair-trigger temper, and almost anything seemed to set him off. He had written a long rant about Christmas and how all the empty time for a single guy around the holidays was a big temptation to mess around online. I wrote back, under my online ID of CrossedWires – a reference not only to Stewart’s Crossing, but to the idea that all of us had some wires crossed in our brains that caused our addictions. Only half in jest, I suggested he get a dog.
“Mine keeps me out of trouble,” I wrote. “Anytime I’m tempted to play around on my computer, I play with the dog instead.”
Female hackers were relatively rare. I wasn’t sure if that was because girls had historically shied away from technical studies like computer programming, or because the female brain was wired differently from the male in some crucial way. We had one regular poster, though, MamaHack, and she wrote about how much pressure the holidays brought for wives and mothers like her. “Sometimes I feel like I’m putting on a face for everyone around me, while underneath I’m falling apart.”
Most people used the site as a release valve, and there wasn’t the kind of artificially induced bonhomie that characterized a lot of twelve-step programs. So it was sweet to see how so many of the group members had chimed in with messages of support.
I added my own. “My girlfriend and my best friend staged an intervention a couple of months ago,” I wrote. “That triggered my joining this group. And I did feel that the pressure was lowered once I had someone to share with. I hope you have supportive people around you who can help you in the same way.”
I logged off and pushed back from the computer, then climbed the stairs to the bedroom. Rochester was on the floor by Lili’s side, and Brody was curled beside her on the bed. I got undressed, shoved the little dog out of my parking space, and cuddled up beside Lili, grateful for all the gifts in my life.
The snowplows came through while we slept, and when we awoke on Christmas morning Sarajevo Court was clear, and the lawns, houses and trees had a full coat of thick white snow. It was a real shame to have the dogs stain it yellow. Brody assumed his regular pose – tail up, head forward, legs at a slight angle. “Man, you’ve got a lot of pee in you for such a little dog,” I said.
He looked up at me, those brown tracks staining his cheeks, as if to apologize, and I praised him copiously when he finished.
Rick arrived around eleven with Rascal. He parked in front of the townhouse and walked up the driveway carrying shopping bags from the pet superstore out on US 1. The Aussie shepherd had his nose up proudly, his tail erect, as if he knew he was on his way to work herding rambunctious dogs.
Rochester and Brody erupted into welcoming barks, which caused Rascal to emit a series of sharp yips. The dogs took off into the house, and Rick followed us to the living room. “Consider these a bribe for keeping Rascal.” He handed one glossy red bag with a black lab in a San
ta hat on it to Lili. “These are for you and Steve.”
He handed the other to me. “This is all for Rochester. Luckily, the high school pep club was wrapping gifts yesterday for donations. Otherwise you’d be getting these naked.”
I laughed and he blushed. “You know what I mean.”
He’d gotten me a burnished metal picture frame in the shape of a doghouse, with a white ceramic bone glued to the front. Lili’s gift was a key chain that looked like a charm bracelet, with a metal golden retriever at one end, and a tiny food bowl, heart, enamel bone, and other dog-related charms.
The real bonanza was reserved for Rochester – a rawhide bone, a red vinyl octopus squeaky toy with a nubby head, a rubber tire complete with treads, and a small bag of organic training treats.
“You really went to town,” I said.
“I did get carried away. Bought way too much for Rascal, too.” He shrugged. “But hey, it’s Christmas.”
“I had a feeling you were a secret shopper,” Lili said. She walked into the kitchen and returned with a wrapped package she handed to him.
“You didn’t have to,” he said.
I didn’t know she had. I watched as he tore open the Hanukkah paper to reveal a T-shirt with a picture of a cartoon dog sitting in a canoe, with a raised oar in one paw. The words beneath it read “Dog Paddle.”
“I love it!” he said. He leaned over and kissed Lili’s cheek. “Thank you. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah.”
It wasn’t until he’d left that I asked, “How did you know he’d be bringing us gifts?”
“I didn’t. That was for you.”
I laughed. “I love a woman who can think on her feet.”
We kissed, and then Lili said, “This woman needs to get into the kitchen and start cooking. My mother’s roast chicken with apricots and prunes takes a couple of hours.”
I joined her in the kitchen and began preparing my mother’s noodle kugel, one of the few dishes she had learned from her own mother and passed down to me. Lili and I worked companionably together, with all three dogs sprawled on the floor around us. It was awkward to have to step around them, but we managed.
We ate dinner, fed the dogs, and then walked them in the last light of the winter afternoon. “I wouldn’t mind a house with a fireplace,” I said, as we walked back inside. “Someday.”
“Or a house in a place where you don’t need a fireplace,” Lili said. “Where are Joey and Mark today?”
I looked at the schedule I’d posted on the refrigerator. “Isla Roatan,” I said. “What country is that?”
“Honduras,” Lili said. “Off the northern coast. There’s a huge reef there, second largest in the world, I think, so it’s a big diving spot. Van has been there a couple of times for vacation.”
Van Dryver was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. He and Lili had worked together on a number of assignments, and had a brief fling in there somewhere. I thought he was a pompous prick, but I was still jealous of him.
I was saved from irritating thoughts of Van by Rick’s return. “Man, those Quaker girls can cook,” he said, pretending to stagger inside. “Between Hannah and Tamsen there was a mountain of food.”
“Which you conquered, I’m sure,” I said.
“I had to be a good guest.” Rascal rushed over to him and began sniffing and licking him. “There are some leftovers for you in the car,” he said to the dog as he ruffled his ears.
“Nothing for us?” I asked.
“I’m sure Jewish girls cook as well as Quaker ones,” Rick said.
I knew my cue. “Probably better,” I said.
13 – Suspect List
Seeing Rick reminded me that the question of the missing potassium was still unanswered, and I went upstairs to the computer in the office to do some more research on the mineral and its uses. Potassium was the third most abundant mineral in the body, and as an electrolyte very important to its functions.
I read about an elderly woman in Missouri whose autopsy revealed hyperkalemia – potassium overload – and how her daughter had admitted fiddling with her mother’s pills in order to inherit more quickly. The case had only come to police attention because the mother had voiced some fears about her daughter to a neighbor, who had reported them to the police after the woman’s death.
A doctor interviewed by the newspaper had indicated that since the woman was elderly and died of a heart attack, no one would have thought twice about an autopsy if it hadn’t been for the neighbor’s comments.
I sat back and wondered how many other vulnerable people had been killed in a similar way. Could you buy a big bottle of potassium tablets and slip them in with the pills you were giving to a patient who was either too trusting, or too out of it, to notice? And if so, why go to the trouble of stealing it in liquid form?
By the time I finished, I’d learned a lot about potential poisoning, and I was proud of myself for figuring out how to find the information I wanted without illegal means. That night, for the first time, Brody slept on the floor beside Rochester instead of in bed with Lili and me. I felt like I was making progress on multiple fronts.
Friday morning Lili was downstairs and I was up in the bedroom. Rochester and Brody were rampaging through the downstairs despite Lili’s pleas to them to calm down. Then I heard a crash.
“Brody!” Lili yelled. I jumped up and ran downstairs. She was standing over a pile of broken glass. “Stay away from here, you rotten dogs!”
“What happened?”
“Brody knocked down that photograph of us at Bowman’s Tower and the glass shattered,” she said. “Don’t just stand there. Get a broom and a dustpan while I keep the dogs away.”
I hurried to the garage. “How did he get up there?” I asked. “I thought that shelf was too high.”
“Well, you thought wrong.”
I knew it wasn’t Brody’s fault, and that he was pretty well-behaved for a puppy. But he was eight months old, and he loved to put his furry white paws up on any table he could reach, sniffing for food and chewables. He jumped on Rochester when my dog wanted to sleep. His sharp toenails dug in as he climbed over us when we were between him and something he wanted. I was looking forward to his going home something fierce.
I could tell that Lili felt the same way. She herded the two dogs out of the living room and I swept up the glass, then ran the vacuum cleaner to pick up any loose fragments. By the time I was done, Lili looked frazzled. “I need a break,” she said. “I’m going to take my camera and go for a drive.”
“And leave me with the crazy dogs.”
“You’re the one who wanted to take Brody in,” she said. We began to argue about who was responsible for the disasters of the week, and Rochester ran up to the staircase landing and Brody hid under the dining room table.
We both stopped at the same time. “I don’t want to argue,” I said. “I’m sorry the dogs are going wild. I’ll try and tire them out while you’re gone.”
“I shouldn’t have yelled,” she said. “I was looking forward to a quiet holiday and a chance to chill after the end of the semester.”
“I know. Things will be back to normal as soon as Brody goes home.”
I felt like putting up a chart on the refrigerator, tracking the number of hours until Joey returned to take Brody off our hands. Though we were both kind to the little dog, petting him and telling him he was a good boy, he was still a handful.
Lili came back downstairs with her parka and her camera bag and I looked around for the dogs. Rochester was by my feet, but Brody was nowhere in sight. “Where’s the puppy, Rochester?” I raised my voice and called “Brody!”
He came trotting out of the kitchen, his toenails clicking on the tile floor. He had the end of a banana in his mouth, holding it like a drooping cigar.
“Brody!” I said. “Dogs don’t eat bananas.” I reached down and took it from him, and he wagged his tail eagerly.
“Bananas are a good source of potassium. Maybe he’s the one who stole t
hose vials from Dr. Horz’s office,” Lili said, laughing. “You should see if Joey has had him at the vet’s recently.”
Could people who’d brought their dogs in for treatment have access to that storage cabinet? I knew it was in the vet’s work room, as I’d passed the open door a few times on my own visits to the clinic. It seemed awfully risky, though, because what if one of the staff found you there? And you’d have to have a science background in order to recognize the right drug quickly.
By then Brody had curled up beside Rochester, resting his head on my dog’s golden flanks. He looked like such an angel that I had to smile.
Lili left, and I played with both dogs for a while, tossing balls and tugging ropes. Then they slept. Watching them, I thought, if only Dr. Horz could give us something so Brody would sleep until Sunday afternoon, we’d be fine.
That reminded me that I didn’t know most of the last names of the staff at Dr. Horz’s clinic. The old Steve would have immediately turned to hacking – breaking into the vet’s online billing system, for example. But the new Steve was trying to change those bad habits.
Instead, I began with the basics – at the website for The Animal House of Stewart’s Crossing. Unfortunately, it was very basic, and didn’t list the names of staff members. So I turned to Facebook. I typed the name of the practice into the search box and hit the enter key, hoping that at least one of the staff had a page there.
The first few entries were from fans of the 1970s movie with John Belushi and Kevin Bacon, but then I got a hit with Jamilla McCarthy, the surgical vet tech. I learned that she lived in Levittown, and had graduated from Pennsbury High, and then a vet tech program. She was single, had lots of friends, and had most recently been photographed at a restaurant in Bristol with a group of women her own age. The caption read “celebrating Omari Jefferson’s release from the hospital.”
When I hovered over the picture, I saw that Omari was a skinny girl in a wheelchair, with oxygen tubes in her nose and a colored bandana wrapped around her bald head. My first reaction was one of pity – the poor young woman, who looked like a cancer victim. Then I thought, at least she has friends who have stuck by her.
Dog Have Mercy Page 10
