Farmcall Fatality (Mandy Bell DVM Series Book 1)

by Abby Deuel

  Mandy went to her office and pulled all of the files from the week. She updated all of the medical notes. It was a task she detested so she tried to do it through the week as the cases came in. She never managed to achieve her goal of not having a stack of files at the end of the week. Luckily, her memory recall abilities enabled her to write thorough notes even weeks after she had seen a pet. She tried to purge all of that from her head by writing it down. Her head started to feel heavy with information if she didn’t relocate it to medical files.

  Even though the murder investigation and going through Anna’s house were important, she needed to keep the clinic financially viable. Her desire to honor Anna’s legacy was of great concern. It is not an everyday occurrence that a dear friend leaves their home, livelihood, and dreams to another in their will. She took this responsibility seriously. She had saved some money from previous jobs and had few bills. However, earning money was still a requirement of living in a society where bartering was no longer the norm. She was also concerned about Gillian and Hamish. They needed a steady income since Gillian was the sole bread winner. There was so much to consider in this equation.

  She needed some caffeine to keep going. She went to the kitchenette to fix some coffee. As she was deep in thought, Gillian appeared in the doorway.

  “Whatcha doing?” asked Gillian.

  “Catching up on a few things. It’s pretty boring but I have gotten a little behind,” said Mandy. “You?”

  “Hamish and I were out running a few errands so we can go home and snuggle in for the day to rest after a fun weekend. I thought I’d stop in and see if you needed anything.”

  “Thanks for that. I think we are good. I am going to treat Lyle to some fetch and then we will probably snuggle in too,” said Anna.

  “While we are here, Hamish would love to play with Lyle, if that’s ok,” said Gillian.

  “Perfect. I need some fresh air. Let’s go play. Most people can’t have a Border collie as a pet. If they don’t get adequate exercise, a predictable routine, and stimulation, they are terrible dogs. Lyle is finally starting to calm down at five years old. She still needs to play like a puppy on a daily basis, particularly if it involves kids.”

  They all headed outside to give Lyle undivided attention. Lyle was in her element. She herded them all over to the yards and proceeded to bring her the toy of her choosing to each person in a sequence. If someone tried to throw the incorrect toy out of turn, Lyle would not even fetch it. Instead, she sat with her eyes staring at the correct next person in line with the toy she had picked. Her lips puffed up in disgust at the audacity of someone throwing out of turn.

  “Wow. I have never played with a dog that takes playing fetch so seriously. This is not a game for her. She has turned it into work,” Gillian said.

  “Yep. She does nothing that she hasn’t thought out beforehand. It is entirely possible that she is smarter than me. I just happen to have thumbs,” said Mandy.

  Hamish was giggling because Lyle had found a log behind the yards. She was trying to bring it over to Hamish to throw.

  “I think that’s a little big, Lyle. How about this one?” Hamish said, holding a small stick.

  “Ok, so she has some limitations to her brilliance,” Mandy admitted, giggling as well.

  The ground was littered with all sorts of toys: balls, sticks, plush animals, frisbies, and her favorite hippo. Near the back door, there was a large water pan for her. She leaped in the water bowl and curled up. Even though her whole body was sticking out, she had made herself as small as she could to fit down in it as best she could.

  “You silly girl,” said Mandy. “That generally means she needs a break. She will literally keep playing until she gets hypoglycemic. We better stop before that happens.” Mandy went inside the RV to retrieve a snack for Lyle. “Here you go. We can play some more tomorrow.”

  Lyle scarfed down the snack and proceeded to drink what was left in the water pan. Mandy let her into the clinic to warm up. The Fall air was a tad chilly for a sopping wet, exhausted dog.

  “Thanks so much for stopping by. We needed that. She will be able to take a nice long nap this afternoon,” said Mandy.

  “Our pleasure. She is a wonderful dog. Sure you don’t need anything?” asked Gillian.

  “Yep. I’m good. I am going to bake some cookies and do some nesting today. Sundays I always try to take some time to reboot my system, so to speak. The world keeps going even if you take a break,” Mandy said.

  “Well said. See you tomorrow,” said Gillian.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “That sure was an action-packed weekend. You guys know how to throw a hoedown,” said Mandy to Gillian as they prepared the clinic for a day of appointments.

  “Indeed we do. It gets better every year. The Christmas Mingler is a good time too. Of course, you’ll see for yourself,” Gillian said as she gave Mandy a wink. “I hope you got some relaxing done as well. This week might be full on.”

  “We’ll see. Now what’s on today’s agenda?” asked Mandy. As Gillian looked at the schedule, Mandy gave Emma and Jimbo some breakfast and turned the sink faucet on for Emma to get her drink. If they didn’t turn the faucet on, Emma meowed repeatedly and with increased urgency the longer it took someone to answer to her water obsession.

  “Hmm, it looks like we have a few surgeries this morning and appointments this afternoon. We have the surgery on the missing testicles in the Boston terrier and an eye exam under sedation on one of Myrna and Merv’s setters. I’ll go get the cages ready for our surgeries,” said Gillian.

  “Sounds good to me. I don’t remember seeing Myrna and Merv’s dog. What are we exploring the eye for?”

  “It seems once a year their prize setter goes with them into the woods and comes back with one eye closed. It always seems to be a grass seed that we can’t get out from under her third eyelid without sedation. So, now they just cut straight to the chase and book her in for surgery without even trying with her awake,” said Gillian.

  “Ah, got it. Hunting dogs always seem to get into trouble like that.”

  “You oughta be here for the Coon Dog trials. People drive in from all over for that event and this clinic gets rather busy with hunting casualties.”

  “Actual deaths?”

  “No, just lacerations, eye scratches, limping, worn out. The usual.”

  “Sounds like a busy time. When is that?”

  “The next main one is next summer.”

  “Interesting. These surgeries don’t look too taxing. We should finish in good time. I think I will try to meet Gerry for lunch to compare notes,” said Mandy.

  “I didn’t hear that,” Gillian said as she left with the cage cards to go set up cages in the surgery area for their incoming patients.

  When Mandy unlocked the front door for opening time, Myrna was already walking the parking lot with her beautiful setter. When they saw the doors open, they approached the door, the setter stopping to sniff everything along the way.

  “Good to see you. Are you feeling better?” asked Mandy.

  “Yes, my headache is finally gone. Thanks so much for sitting in on the bake-off for me. I understand it went quite well,” Myrna said.

  “It was fun. Although I still feel full,” Mandy said.

  “Yep, we get lots of entries so it is a mouthful of a day. This is Llewellyn,” pointing at the setter, “she’s done something to her eye again. We took her out for a run to prepare for the hunting season coming up.”

  “I see. We’ll have a look-see today and get her back on track for you. Let’s just see what she weighs this morning. And she didn’t have breakfast, right?” Mandy asked.

  “No ma’am. No breakfast.”

  “Fifty-eight pounds. Alright, let’s put her in the cage back here and we will see you back here around three.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Bell.”

  Myrna left just as Sonya was arriving with Bubba.

  “The moment of truth has come for you, little Bu
bba,” Sonya was explaining to Bubba as he sat, snorting and wiggling his stumpy crooked tail. “We are going to find out if you have a legitimate reason for some of your unbecoming behaviors.” Bubba’s lip was caught on his tooth, making him look like he was an Elvis impersonator.

  “We sure will find out for you. Bubba didn’t get any breakfast, right?”

  “He did not. And he is rather mad about that. What is the reason for that anyway, Dr. Bell?”

  “Particularly in our little squash-faced friend, it helps to ensure that as they are going under anesthesia or coming out of it, they do not have any food in their stomachs to throw up. You can imagine how with such a small snout, there isn’t a whole lot of room in their mouths for their airway opening when they are awake. When they are asleep, everything is relaxed and floppy which means that they are even more at risk of airway blockage and aspiration issues. We take all of the proper precautions to avoid anesthetic risks.”

  “That makes sense. No one ever explained that to me. Thanks. What time shall I come back?”

  “Why don’t we give you a call. Sometimes we keep patients overnight, depending on how invasive the surgery is. It may be that we have to do an abdominal exploration if there are indeed retained testicles.”

  “Ok, just take good care of my little Bubba,” said Sonya.

  “We sure will,” said Mandy as Gillian appeared from the back to take Bubba to his suite for the day.

  As Sonya left, Mandy pulled the phonebook out to see about calling Gerry to arrange for lunch today. Unfortunately, she didn’t know his last name and didn’t want to call the chief’s office to speak with him as this would raise suspicion.

  “Do you happen to know Gerry’s number, Gillian?” Mandy asked when Gillian came back up the front.

  “Yep, I’ll get it for you. Do I want to know why you need it?”

  “Probably not,” Mandy said.

  “Here you go. That’s his cell phone number.”

  “Thanks,” said Mandy and began to dial it. “Hi Gerry, it’s me, Dr. Bell. Can you chat? Ok, good. I was wondering if you wanted to meet for lunch today to discuss, um, you know. Would one work for you? Ok, I will see you at the Inn.”

  Mandy was pleased that she could take a little time out for lunch today and try to put some more pieces of the murder puzzle together. For now, she better get focused on these surgeries. She had worked at clinics where she did thirty to forty surgeries back to back in one day before. Granted, they were high-volume, low-cost spay neuter clinics where she only had to scrub, glove, do the surgery, and then re-scrub, glove and do the next. Those were the most amazing places to work because if you had a good team, it was like a ballet. Everyone was perfectly in rhythm and knew their positions. Two little surgeries this morning would be a cinch and then she could spend some more time on her clues.

  Dr. Bell calculated out the pre-medications for her patients while Gillian took their pulse, respirations, and temperatures pre-surgery. Mandy liked to give them a little pain medication before surgery and this also acted as a slight sedative to make the anesthesia smooth.

  They injected both of the dogs and Mandy drew up the induction anesthesia for both dogs. She would likely only need a low dose for the Setter, enough to have a good look in her eye for a possible grass seed. Bubba would be fully anesthetized under the anesthesia machine that delivered isoflurane.

  Even though Gillian and Mandy had only worked together a few weeks, it was as if they had worked together much longer. This was due, in part, to the fact that Anna had trained Gillian to the standards that both Mandy and Anna had been taught in vet school. Their training was more application-based than theoretical. Mandy had worked with some of the new graduates from schools around the country and they were a completely different breed. Some of them didn’t even know how to spay a cat when they graduated. They could, however, recite loads of useless jargon that would scare clients away. Mandy was definitely a practical veterinarian, never discussing what she considered to be a little over the top with clients like kidney transplants.

  Llewellyn, the setter, was groggy first so they started with her. They gave her the induction drugs via her front leg vein. She immediately laid her head down in the drug-induced stupor. Gillian opened the eye surgery kit while Mandy put sterile gloves on. The surgery light shined nicely into the inflamed eye and Mandy used forceps to gently pull the third eyelid up. Behind it, she took a sterile Q-tip to explore for a foreign object. Sure enough, there was a nice big grass seed wedged in the corner of her eye which Mandy removed. Gillian then poured sterile eye rinse into the eye.

  To be thorough, Mandy also stained the eye with fluorescein and checked with a UV light for any scratches on the cornea. It looked like Llewellyn had sustained no injury to the cornea. She was also just starting to wake up from anesthesia so Mandy and Gillian transferred her back to her cage for recovery. Mandy went to the pharmacy and selected some take-home pain medication as well as eye drops to prevent infection and treat the inflammation.

  By this time, Bubba was sleepy enough to receive his intravenous induction. He was laid out with his legs sprawled behind him, snoring peacefully. Gillian transferred him to the surgery table and selected an appropriately sized endotracheal tube which would go down his trachea to deliver oxygen and anesthesia. Gillian used her hand to make a tourniquet on one of Bubba’s front legs so that Mandy could deliver the intravenous drugs. Once heavily sedated, Mandy placed the tube into the trachea and secured it around the back of Bubba’s head with ties. Gillian puffed the cuff that would take up any dead space between the diameter of the trachea and the tube. This would ensure that all gases were staying contained within the anesthesia circuit so that Mandy and Gillian wouldn’t breathe any in.

  Gillian started Bubba off low on the anesthesia while she hooked him up to their monitoring equipment. Meanwhile, Mandy tied Bubba’s feet to the surgery table and positioned him just how she wanted him. They shaved his abdomen and inguinal areas and scrubbed for surgery. His vitals were nice and strong so Mandy scrubbed and gloved up.

  Mandy made her incision first over the suspicious mass that she had felt in the exam room. She bluntly dissected down through the skin, muscle, and connective tissues. Low and behold, there was a very small, malformed testicle hiding in the tissue. Since there had been one retained testicle, that confirmed her suspicion that Bubba had never been neutered. She also could not find any scar on his lower regions. Therefore, she needed to find the other missing testicle.

  Unfortunately, it was not in the inguinal tissues like the first one had been. This meant that she needed to go into the abdomen to search for it. She sutured the first incision and started making a second. Gillian was adjusting the anesthesia to keep Bubba’s vitals right where she wanted them.

  “How was pajama afternoon yesterday?” asked Mandy.

  “It was lovely. We even had our first hot chocolates of the season. I use a recipe from my mom. She used real blocks of chocolate melted in milk. It’s so rich and creamy. Of course she used chocolates in New Zealand that we can’t buy here so it’s not exactly the same. We manage to thoroughly enjoy it anyway.”

  “That sounds delightful,” Mandy said, concentrating on her patient’s incision.

  “I’ll make you some one of these days.”

  “Yummers,” said Mandy.

  Mandy used a spay hook, which looks like a shepherd’s hook, but very small, to start pulling up bits of tissue from deep down in the abdomen. The theory was, if you were lucky, that you could snare the ligament that suspended the testicle and use that to find your missing organ. Otherwise, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. The object she was looking for would likely be about the size of a gumball, or smaller, and could be tucked anywhere through the abdomen. Luckily, her hook technique paid off after a number of tries. She was able to tie off the appropriate tissue and blood vessels and remove the culprit of Bubba’s unbecoming behavior.

  Normally, Mandy recommended sending of the tiss
ue if she was not confident that she removed it all during surgery. However, in some cases, she could feel quite confident that the entire male tissues were removed because they so closely resembled what they should. This was one of those cases. She sutured the incision and Gillian began the process of waking Bubba up and recovering him.

  Once transferred to the surgery recovery cages, Gillian clipped Bubba’s nails. She checked his temperature, pulse, and respiration every five minutes until it was back to normal. Since Bubba was a brachycephalic, or short-nosed dog, she wanted to be completely sure he was ready to breathe on his own before pulling the tube from his trachea.

  Mandy was confident with Gillian’s ability to watch Bubba and Llewellyn so she went up to the front to call both owners and give them the good news. Both animals would be able to go home this afternoon with their medications and instructions. Two successes, Mandy thought. “This is what makes being a vet fulfilling. I love solving problems. Now if I could just find that murderer,” Mandy said to Lyle, who was sleeping on the cool tile in the reception area.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Having finished surgeries in a timely manner and already written medical notes, Mandy was in good standing to meet Gerry for lunch. She gave Lyle a few kibbles for a snack and let Emma drink at the faucet. Although she hadn’t gotten dirty in surgery, she decided to change clothes, particularly her shoes which she only wore in the clinic.

  She gathered her notes on the murder and headed toward the Inn. It would be very useful to be able to compare notes with Gerry so she was looking forward to it. Gerry was already sitting at a quiet table in the back when Mandy arrived.

  They each ordered the special which was chicken pot pie and a slice of cherry pie.

  “So, who’s at the top of your list?”

  “I’ll tell you if you tell me,” Mandy replied.

  “You know I can’t do that,” said Gerry.

  “Consider my lips sealed then,” said Mandy, smirking. “What can you tell me?”