Treating Murder: Book One of the Veronica Lane, M.D. series (medical thriller)

by Gabrielle Black

  “Yes, Mr. Jones, go,” the prosecutor said through gritted teeth.

  Dormand handed Jamie copies of his discovery documents. The men said their goodbyes and followed Dylan out without further discussion.

  When he arrived back at his office, Jamie met with Hal Keats and recounted what they had learned at the deposition. “We know there was a break-in and that the gold was taken then.”

  “This guy may not have seen anything,” said Keats. “He doesn’t even know when he figured out that it was a burglary. This happened in his neighborhood, and he wants to be a part of it. If he knew anything, he would have more details.”

  Jamie disagreed, “Wait a minute. If he didn’t know anything, he could make up all kinds of colorful details. He wouldn’t have had to stick to a few tiny observations.”

  “Then he could have been caught in his own lie.”

  “He’s not that bright. I think that he saw it,” Jamie disagreed. “It strengthens our case for an outside perpetrator.

  “Okay, Jamie, then answer this,” said Keats. “Why was there no transportation?”

  “Because a car is easily identified. It was hidden somewhere else.”

  “Okay, I’ll buy that. And why would it be in the middle of broad daylight, so that this kid could see?”

  “Because the middle of the day is when people are at work. At night everyone, including Veronica Lane, would be home,” reasoned Jamie.

  Jamie pulled a stack of papers from his satchel. Dormand had given him the prosecution findings so far at the deposition. He read aloud for Keats benefit. “List findings included a brooch with the initials VL inside, a tea set, fingerprints of the victim, and one partial print which they had not yet run for comparison.”

  “What’s this about the tea set?” Keats asked.

  Jamie had already flipped to the next page. “The woman next door gave a statement about a woman with her head covered coming in to visit for tea. They’re going to run it for signs of arsenic." Jamie read on, "She also stated that Veronica came by and tried to get into the house.”

  Keats looked up in surprise. “She did?”

  “I’m sure that she was trying to find out what had happened.”

  “It could look like she was over there trying to clean up her mess,” said Hal.

  Jamie nodded tightly and got up to leave. “Excuse me; I have a long afternoon ahead.”

  “Of course,” said Hal. “We can discuss the ramifications a bit more in the morning conference.”

  Jamie strode out to his car and drove straight to Veronica’s house. He pounded his fist on the steering wheel as he drove, this girl could walk into more trouble than he could straighten out for her. It wasn’t his job to decide whether she was guilty or innocent, but, dammit, she had to be innocent. When he pulled up to Veronica’s house, he jumped out and beat on the door.

  When Veronica opened it, she was met by a torrent. “I thought that you weren’t going to interfere with the investigation of this case,” stormed Jamie.

  “What are you talking about?” said Veronica. “I haven’t been home so much in years. I’ve rearranged all of the furniture and finished the spare room upstairs, which hasn’t been touched since we moved here. Yesterday, I sewed a pair of freaking curtains!”

  “Don’t lie to me! Detective Chapman wrote that Summers’ neighbor saw you trying to get into the house. A case could be made that you were trying to remove evidence. If I’m going to be able to represent you, then you are going to have to be totally honest with me and you are also going to have to follow instructions. If you can’t do those two things, then you need another attorney.” He paused to catch his breath, and was conscious of how vicious his attack had been. Immediately, he saw the hurt in her eyes and wished his words back. Veronica kept her face composed, but the strain was apparent in the line of her mouth. How could he have threatened to abandon her?

  She protested, “That was before I even met you, before I came under suspicion. I was searching for clues to explain what happened, and I found one. Sarah had a visitor who came by every week or so. She wore a scarf over her head and loud lipstick. I thought that I told you about that visit when you first came by the jail cell. I told Detective Chapman that day, and I told Jacqueline.”

  “No. I hadn’t heard about that before today,” Jamie said more quietly.

  “I’m sorry. I wanted to find out what happened to my patient.”

  “It hasn’t worked in our favor.” Jamie clenched his jaw in an effort to appear calm and reasonable. He was over-reacting, and he knew it. He was beginning to take this too personally. “So, you admitted to Detective Chapman that you were there?”

  “I didn’t ‘admit’ it to him. I gave him a long description of my suspicions, and that was part of the basis for them. He ignored them. He said that I had no proof, and apparently he wasn’t willing to go check himself.”

  “So what are your suspicions? I think it’s time I know.” Jamie made a slight motion toward the door, and Veronica stood back to invite him in. They retreated to the living room to sit down.

  “Like I told you when we went to the morgue, I think that I know who the woman was. It was Fiona Crawford.” Veronica answered when they were seated.

  “She’s dead.”

  “I know, but she drove a convertible and her makeup was always loud,” she replied. “She fit the description.”

  “Why was she coming to tell us about the murder, if she had already gotten away with it?”

  “I think someone put her up to it. She couldn’t live with it.”

  “She certainly didn’t.” Jamie quipped.

  Veronica looked up surprised. She was used to that sort of sick humor used by doctors to distance themselves from things that would make them crazy if they didn’t distance themselves. She hadn’t known that lawyers did the same thing. “Jamie, I think that Reid White put her up to it, and he sent her out of the country. He told me himself that he was planning to follow her abroad.”

  “Why would Fiona and Reid do such a thing?” asked Jamie.

  “Because Sarah was costing them tens of thousands of dollars.”

  “Veronica, that’s a huge conglomerate. They take losses. Do you really think that this one case involved enough money to kill this poor woman for?”

  “She’s dead. Somebody did it, and it wasn’t me.” Veronica leaned back on the couch and rubbed her forehead.

  “Okay, so…They found a brooch with your initials on it at her house when they searched it. Was it one of yours?”

  “My initials?” she gasped, surprised.

  “Yes, engraved on the back.”

  “It could be one of my pieces, but I never give my patients jewelry. I suppose she could have bought it,” she said.

  “Could you have left it at her house?” asked Jamie.

  “I’ve never visited her at her home. I don’t make house-calls.”

  “You say that she could have bought it?”

  “Yes, when I make jewelry, what I don’t keep, I give to friends or relatives for birthdays and so on. Sometimes I'll sell pieces at the museum store to recoup some of my supply expenses. Not usually things that I’ve engraved with my initials, however.”

  “She could have gotten it from anyone you know, as well. Right?” he asked.

  “I suppose so, but she doesn’t know anyone... She could have gotten it from my ex-husband, Steve."

  “He’d give another woman…” Jamie trailed off. “Right, okay. I’ll mention all of this to Detective Chapman. We need evidence before we can use this in your defense.

  “Detective Chapman knows my suspicions. He doesn’t think they’re valid.”

  “That’s because there is no concrete evidence of any sort in this case, and you would have stronger motive than a corporation.”

  Veronica closed her eyes and shook her head slowly, as if to clear it. “So, what is my defense strategy?” she asked bravely.

  “Do you really want to know?” Once again he found
himself awed by her powers of self-control. This woman could keep calm in a hurricane. The women he knew usually cracked at the first sign of adversity, and they would blubber to him until he had to sort out their mess for them. This woman was a different breed altogether. Totally feminine, beautiful in fact, but in control of herself and her surroundings. He knew what she must be feeling inside, and the helplessness of her situation, but she was rational at every turn.

  “I think that I have a right to know,” she said.

  “You may not like it.” He hedged, focused now on her rich black-brown hair where it grazed her face.

  “Why not?” The hair fell back as she raised her chin, pale blue eyes sparking defiance.

  “It doesn’t clear you, but it may be enough to talk the prosecution out of pursuing this trial.” He tried to concentrate on her case.

  “So Jamie, what is it?”

  “Well, it’s triple pronged. First, we show your standing professionally and in the community, and the fact that you have been quite an asset. That shows that you do not have a pattern of anti-social behavior.

  “Second, we state that you were at work on the day of the murder, and at the time of the murder, and that the time required for you to get to the hospital and to records was too long to allow you to have slipped upstairs to your patient’s room. Also, the nurses’ station is crowded at that time of day, and there are no witnesses who saw you there until after the death.

  “Third, and most important, we must show how easy it would have been for your ex-husband to slip up there anonymously, and how he has already established himself to be a not entirely trustworthy person by virtue of his confessed affair.

  “We show that he was more likely to have committed the crime than you, and, not only that, but we will show that without further evidence that it will never be possible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you committed the crime.”

  “And how would he slip up there anonymously, but not me?” she asked skeptically.

  “You’re well known to the staff. They would know when they saw you. Strangers pass them all the time without any notice unless they do something to draw attention to themselves.”

  Veronica frowned. “Jacqueline’s defense. So, we say that Steve did it?”

  “No, we’re not actually alleging that he did it. We are merely showing that the available facts do not necessarily incriminate you. The prosecution must believe that they will never get beyond a shadow of a doubt and drop your case.”

  “I’m not really happy dragging Steve into this.”

  “We don’t know that he didn’t do it,” said Jamie reasonably. It’s the most logical defense at this point. A prosecutor would know that as well. Their only hope is to come up with something concrete to tie you to the murder. Of course, our best defense would be to show something that tied someone else to the case, but we don’t have that.”

  “There will still be a shadow over me. People in town will still think that I did it.”

  “That’s possible. That’s why we have to be aggressive with an alternative. People have to have someone to blame,” Jamie said.

  “What about the insurance company, and Fiona Crawford?”

  “We don’t have time now for that question to be solved. We simply have to introduce enough doubt to discourage them from pursuing you as a suspect any longer. Should we fail to get your case thrown out at the hearing, perhaps we could find out something about her before the trial. I don’t want it to come to that though, and the most plausible source of doubt is your ex-husband,” he answered.

  “I know that he didn’t do it. Besides, who would the woman have been?” I asked.

  “Does he know Crawford?” asked Jamie.

  “I guess so. He knows Reid.” Veronica replied.

  “Perhaps she was working for him rather than the company?”

  “Maybe,” she’d never thought of that possibility. “Why haven’t you given that theory to the cops?”

  “I can mention it in the preliminary hearing if there are questions about a woman’s presence, but it’s really pretty flimsy.” Jamie paused and looked at her without knowing what else to say. He stood, readying himself to leave.

  She looked up from her seat. “Jamie. You do believe that I am innocent?”

  “Yes.” He wondered if he really should allow himself to believe that, but he believed it anyway.

  Jamie walked back to his car with his hands in his pockets. The pieces of this case didn’t fit together well. He needed a deposition from Steve Lane. There was something else going on that he couldn’t put his finger on. Perhaps Louise could get Steve into the office in the morning.

  ***

  As Jamie’s car pulled away, Missy appeared at the door next to me. She was wearing a denim shirt of mine that completely covered her mini-skirt.

  “What a hunk,” said Missy for the second time after seeing him. “I’ve never had a cute lawyer like that.”

  Privately I agreed with her, but I said, “Missy, you should be thinking about what guy in your tenth grade class is cute.”

  Missy’s face hardened. “They threw me out of school when I got pregnant.” She threw up her hands. “I’m in the wrong place. I gotta go back where I belong.”

  “No, Missy. I’m sorry.” I looked at the young, frightened face behind all of the makeup. I had no idea what horrors the girl had lived through, or what thoughts went through her adolescent head. I had to be careful not to alienate the girl, because I had the feeling that I was Missy’s last hope. Of course that hadn’t been enough for Sarah, I thought with an internal groan. “You came here because the streets aren’t where you belong.”

  “I gotta go.” Missy pulled the denim shirt over her head and dropped it in my hand. Without another glance, she began walking back up the street in her wobbly, red shoes.

  “Missy! Missy!” I called. I wadded up the shirt in my hands and watched from the doorway. I started across the lawn to catch up, but stopped. If I made Missy feel like she was being forced to stay, then she would never do it. I prayed that the girl would come back on her own. With a frustrated sigh, I walked back in the house and dropped the crumpled shirt on the kitchen floor.

  Chapter 17

  The phone rang on Detective Chapman’s desk. “Yeah,” he muttered. He was in a worse mood than usual. He hated paperwork, and the chief had told him his records were three months overdue in some case. He was restricted to his desk until they were finished.

  It was Benny, calling from the basement where a small forensics lab operated. “We’ve just finished running that print from the Summers house, on the computer. It isn’t the doctor’s.”

  “Damn.” That would have been the concrete that he needed. Certainly nothing conclusive had shown up on the fiber samples they had taken from the house. The old woman’s prints and her dog’s dander were all over everything. There wasn’t much usable evidence.

  “We haven’t run them on the feds computer yet, but I don’t think this was an interstate felon. They aren’t likely to have any matches either.”

  “Try ‘em anyway.”

  “Okay.”

  “Anything else showing up?” asked Chapman.

  “There are traces of arsenic on the cups.”

  “Any way to identify its source?”

  “It’s inorganic,” answered Benny.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Organic arsenic is a contaminant in foods like shrimp or seafood. A lot can build up in the creature’s system, and then in the person who has ingested it and it will show up positive on screening tests, but it’s inert.”

  “So?”

  “It isn’t very toxic. So the arsenic that showed up in her system was the real thing. That’s what she died of.”

  “I know that,” hissed Chapman.

  “You didn’t know it conclusively until now. Also, the arsenic could very well have come from these cups, because now we know that it is inorganic as well.”

  “I knew all that.”


  “You couldn’t prove all of that,” replied Benny,

  The veins stood out on Chapman’s forehead. “Is there anything there to help me pin this?”

  “No. In fact it weakens the case on the doc since this is the source, and she never touched it.”

  “She could have touched it and wiped her prints off, or just worn gloves. Find out whose prints those are,” he slammed the phone down. Chapman stewed at his desk staring at the eternal pile of papers. Then he got up for more coffee.

  Downstairs, Benny faxed his most recent results to the district attorney’s office.

  ***

  True to her word the afternoon before, Louise had managed to get Steve into the office for an interview. He was sitting in the waiting room when Jamie came in at 8:45. Jamie hung up his coat and grabbed a cup of coffee, then sent Louise out to the waiting room to let Mr. Lane know that they were ready for him.

  Jamie stood as Lane entered and shook his hand. “Hello, I’m James Stone. I’m glad to have you here today. This isn’t an official deposition but I wanted to get some information from you about this murder.”

  Steve sat down and looked around at the Chinese silk screens on the wall. “Pretty nice place. Where does all of the money for this come from?”

  Jamie bristled at the implication of greed. “I didn’t buy this stuff. It was in the office when I came to the firm.”

  “Oh. How long ago was that?”

  “Years.” Jamie answered curtly, surprising even himself by his rudeness. He didn’t usually react this way to people. He clenched his hands and then consciously relaxed them. He just didn’t like the guy. What he couldn’t answer for himself was whether it was something about the guy that rubbed him the wrong way, or the fact that he felt some irrational competition with him for Veronica. “Tell me about your relationship with Ms. Summers.” He had meant to segue into that question, but Lane had put him off balance. He silently cursed himself. He had been trained at one of the best law schools in the country, and now worked at the best law firm in the city. He knew better than to ever be caught off guard.

  It was Steve’s turn to bristle. “Did you drag me in here to get a confession for my wife?”