Dying for Compassion (The Lady Doc Murders Book 2)

by Dr. Barbara Golder

  I saw the door open a crack. “I believe my next appointment is here. Please leave your information with Evelyn so that I may stay in touch. And may I pass anything along to Mr. Connor?”

  I considered his offer for a moment. Anything I wanted to say was as confidential between Eoin and me as his case was for his lawyer. “No,” I finally said. “But thank you.”

  ***

  Sadie sent off her report on the Gleason kids, short, sweet and to the point, a marvel of forensic brevity, to Lucy Cho. Tying up that loose end gave her a great deal of satisfaction. As she was closing out the file on her computer, she remembered the other case Lucy had sent along. Josie Beck. She knew Dr. Wallace was certain the child had been murdered, and she couldn’t argue. But she also knew the nurse who took care of the little girl in the Center. She was a friend and a colleague.

  Still, it was a loose end, and it bothered her. The only way to resolve it was just to ask outright what happened that day, and that’s what Sadie decided to do. She found Mavis Butler sitting on the worn sofa of the Telluride Medical Center employee lounge, finishing the last of a container of yogurt.

  “Hi, Mavis,” she said, and took a seat in one of the chairs around the small table. They were alone.

  The woman on the couch looked up and smiled. She scraped the last of some strawberry from the side of her container as she answered, “Good to see you, Sadie. What’s up?”

  “Not much. I’m just following up on the death of that kid, Josie Beck. Remember her?”

  “How could I forget? It’s not every day I get held hostage.”

  “You doing okay with that?”

  Mavis crossed the room and tossed the empty container in the trash before answering. “As well as can be expected. A little PTSD. I’m seeing someone. I think it will get better. But I’ll tell you, I’m ready to pack it in.”

  “I bet. Listen, can you tell me anything about that kid and her family? What made the dad go off like that?”

  “I know the mom pretty well. She says her husband just couldn’t deal with the kid’s illness. Kept chasing after every possible treatment, looking for a miracle. It broke them up. Bankrupted them, too.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “I know. Can you imagine? The last time I talked to her, she was almost out of her mind from it all. What bothered her most was how that kid suffered, and her husband was just oblivious to it. Couldn’t see anything but the next miracle cure. And all their religious friends — the ones who said Josie was a gift and that she would turn out to be a blessing? After the first few weeks, nobody came to help. In for the diagnosis, but not for the long haul. No wonder she snapped. I would, too; it’s been a long four years.” Mavis pulled a granola bar out of the polka-dotted lunch bag at her side. “Want some?” She proffered it to Sadie, who shook her head.

  “No, thanks. Listen, Mavis, I’ve been looking at the case, and something doesn’t fit. I’ve been over everything, all the reports, everything. I can’t find a reason for that kid to have died, even as sick as she was.”

  “Sick? She was trying to die, and her father wouldn’t let her.”

  “I suppose. That’s pretty terrible. Too bad she was so young. If she had been older, maybe we could have helped her avoid all that suffering. I think Dr. Baladin is right about that. There’s too much suffering, and medicine doesn’t do much to alleviate it.”

  “Yeah, it’s a shame, all right. No reason to let a kid hang on like that. Last time I saw her mom, all she could say was how it would be better if Josie died. She asked me if I could help, now that there’s a right-to-die law in Colorado. I told her officially, no, because the law doesn’t cover kids. But just between you and me, it’s a good thing that potassium can’t be traced.” Mavis looked at her watch and rose. “Gotta get back to work,” she said, as if it were the most normal conversation in the world.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  January 25

  After a long night of dreamless sleep, I awoke to light flooding into my room and my cell phone ringing insistently. I fumbled for the phone and caught it just as the last ring faded away. I squinted at the number. The Center. I punched redial and felt around for my glasses. Don’t ask me why, but I can’t really hold a conversation until I get my specs on. Can’t see, can’t talk.

  Tim answered on the first ring, bless him.

  “Someone called me, Tim. Not sure who. Can you find out?”

  Just about that time, a voicemail notice flashed on my screen. “Wait a sec,” I told him and pulled it up. Thankful for the translation feature the newest iteration of the smartphone software included, I added, “It was Lucy. Can you put me through?”

  “Sure thing.” There was a moment of silence — I abhor hold music — and Lucy answered.

  “Cho here.”

  “Hi, Lucy. Sorry I missed you. What’s up?”

  “We found the hemlock.”

  Good news for once. At least someone was making headway in the realm of forensic mysteries. “What was it?”

  “Turns out Grandma Elsie made wild carrot wine for coughs and colds. She delivered a bottle to the Gleason family, and she’d used some herself for her own cold. Only it wasn’t wild carrot. It was hemlock.”

  My turn to be silent. Wine from hemlock. I could only imagine how much of the coniine would leach out into the wine during the fermentation process.

  “Good work. How’d you figure it out?”

  “I didn’t. Sadie did.”

  “Sadie wasn’t supposed to be working on the case. I fired her.” I was trying hard to hold my anger in check. I thought the staff knew better than to countermand my orders.

  “I know. I hired her back as a consultant. We weren’t making any progress. I figured I would rather you be mad at me for using her as a consultant than have you be mad at all of us for not solving this.”

  My staff knew me too well.

  “How did she figure it out?”

  “She says that some old priest told her the answer was in the kid’s world of make-believe.”

  I wasn’t following this at all, and I told Lucy just that.

  “Some old guy she had lunch with. Told her that kids go from make-believe to reality all the time, and maybe the answer was in make-believe, not the real world. He was right. The mom didn’t want to use the concoction, because all the homemade stuff the grandmother brought was too nasty to take. But the older kid heard Grandma telling Mom that this was good for colds. When the little boy got sick, big sister decided to play doctor and treat him. And she took some herself to show him that it was all right to take. It was enough. The babysitter confirmed it.”

  I had to admit, I was impressed, especially because it meant that Sadie had done some one-on-one research. Good for her, even if she and Lucy had circumvented my very explicit wishes. Sometimes all it took was a different perspective to see the way clear to an answer. For now, I would take it.

  “So can I tell her she has her job back?” Lucy could never be accused of beating around the bush.

  “No.”

  “Aw, c’mon, Boss. She does great work. I mean, look at this. Even you didn’t figure this out.”

  “Lucy, this is not a subject for discussion.” I had no intention of explaining that Sadie’s good work was not the issue; it was the quality of some of her other works that worried me.

  Lucy knew when she was at least temporarily bested. “Anyway, that’s one thing off your mind,” she finished.

  “Yes it is, Lucy. Thanks.” I punched end and looked at the clock. Nearly ten. If I didn’t hurry, I wouldn’t get breakfast, and I was suddenly ravenous.

  I was about to step into the shower when my phone rang again. Father Matt.

  “Good morning, Jane,” he said.

  “Hi, Father. What’s up?” I weighed the merits of heading to breakfast unwashed, and started pulling on my jeans, my phone wedged between my shoulder and my ear.

  “Jane, I have some bad news I need to share.”

  I hated th
ose words. I sat down on the side of the tub and braced myself.

  “Monsignor Jamais died unexpectedly, just after you left.”

  Some things just have to be said straight out. My response was a reflection of my daily bread and cheese as a medical examiner. “Please tell me it wasn’t foul play. And it wasn’t suicide. Or some terrible accident.”

  I thought I heard something like a smile in his voice. “No. Not at all. A ruptured aortic aneurysm, at least that is what your friend Mike Delatorre told us. Quick and relatively painless and in his own bed, rosary beads in hand.” There was a small silence. “Thanks for giving him a place to die among friends.” Another silence, and when Father Matt broke it, his voice was small and sad. “I just wish I had been nicer to him when he arrived.”

  I knew all too well how the last days before a sudden death play over and over in the minds of the survivors. After John was murdered, I recalled every slight, every sharp word, every moment of impatience or irritation I had visited on him, and the more I remembered them, the worse they became. “Father, you took him in. You shared your home. You took care of him when he overdosed. You found him a better place to live, and I know you visited him and said Mass with him and prayed with him. That’s as much as any man could do. Nowhere is it written that you get to be perfect or that he does, either, for that matter. He was a sometimes difficult man, and you befriended him, anyway. That’s a lot. He forgave you; that is one of the blessings of dementia, at least in the early phases: no grudges. Forgive yourself.”

  “I suppose. Anyway, I thought you should know.”

  I smiled to myself. He thought I needed to know and more than that, he needed to share. Works for me. “I appreciate it. I’ll light a candle for him after Mass.” Then, as an afterthought, “Keep well, Father.”

  ***

  I opted for salmon and eggs for breakfast; to my surprise, I found soft Irish scrambled eggs to my liking. That and good Irish tea. I wondered if I would keep up my habit of tea at all hours once I got home. I sat alone with my thoughts, the last person in the brasserie, and dawdled over my food, enjoying a second pot of tea and eating every crumb of the sweet breads that were in the metal basket.

  The mystery of the children was solved; Josie’s death was no mystery and would never be remedied, and I still wasn’t sure about Eoin. I had some circumstantial evidence to suggest reasonable doubt, including at least a plausible explanation for the Black Leaf 40 in Fiona’s rooms. Her minion’s — Dee Matthews’ — visit to Rathlin Island made it at least possible for someone else to have brought the stuff. I had high hopes that, with that in mind, the investigators would find a way to connect her more concretely to the poison and thus let Eoin off the hook. But who knew for sure that would happen? The medical examiner in me wanted something more.

  By now it was after eleven. I poured the last of my tea into my cup and headed back upstairs. I suspected that the staff was used to finding odd bits of hotel china when they cleaned, as I was always bringing a cup of tea or my dessert from the table to my room. The bits magically disappeared every day, and I was reasonably certain they were not being added to my bill as recompense for lost items.

  The day was bright and clear. I showered and changed into a new pair of jeans and a sweater before sitting at the desk overlooking Victoria Street, finishing my now-cold tea and reviewing the information in my file for the umpteenth time. So much of it was agonizingly familiar and tantalizingly unsatisfying. I reviewed the toxicology report again, hoping that perhaps it magically had morphed into demonstrating some other poison, but no; it was still nicotine.

  Giving that up for the present, I flipped through the newspaper clippings; another batch had arrived from Ben last night, and the hotel had printed them out for me. They were all society articles about Fiona, except for one: a lurid tabloid article filed in the aftermath of her death, front page news. There was a huge photo of the “death suite.” Fiona, of course, was gone, but her rumpled bed was there, pillow on the floor, clothes strewn about — standard stuff in my line of work. There wouldn’t be much of real interest in the image; anything critical to the investigation would’ve been censored (at least at home it would’ve been) by the officer in charge of the scene. And this looked like a stringer’s photo taken long after the fact, probably as the result of a bribe to be admitted to the rooms before they were cleaned for the next visitor.

  I had no sooner wondered whether there might be more images than my phone pinged me a notification that I had new email. From Ben. This might be interesting.

  Mom. Attached are the rest of the photos that tabloid photographer took of Fiona’s suite. Thought you might want them, so I contacted the guy who made them. It didn’t cost too much. And I haven’t found a single thing more on Deirdre Connor. Not a thing. Let me know if you need anything else.

  Bless Ben’s heart, he read my mind. Or anticipated it. I flipped open my laptop to take a closer look at the images he had sent along. More of the same. Close-ups of the sheets, the pillows, the bathroom counter (messy even by my lax standards), and the bedside table, on which lay a book, a small, overturned dropper bottle, and an odd, rectangular gizmo encrusted with what had to be rhinestones, with what looked like a pipe stem protruding from it.

  Nothing there. Demoralized, I needed a walk to clear my head. St. Malachy’s Parish was around the corner, just a few minutes’ walk away. I checked the website; Mass was at one. As good a place and time as any to light a candle for Monsignor Jamais, and I had time to make it.

  The interior of the church was cold, something I found common to most Irish churches. But it was beautiful, lots of white marble that made the space light and welcoming. It had clearly been renovated, but whoever did it had managed to retain all the beauty of the old church while renovating it for modern practices. The old altar still stood against the wall behind the new one, and the old, ornate reredos was still in place. Above it all were huge paintings, the central one of Christ falling under the weight of the Cross. That made particular sense to me just now. I stood a long time looking at it in silence and in wordless thought.

  The renovation had even preserved a portion of the old altar rail on both sides. I stepped as quietly as I could across the mosaic floor to light a candle in one of the blue votive holders by the Mary chapel and recollect myself before Mass began.

  It hit me just as the priest elevated the Sacrament before the Our Father.

  I tend to get lost in Mass, and my mind wanders, often far afield. It’s not unusual for me to get some long-elusive insight in the course of my wool gathering, and this was no exception. It bothers me; I’m supposed to be attentive. Father Matt says it’s the only time the Holy Spirit can get a word in edgewise, so let it happen. In any case, I wasn’t prepared to argue today, because what dawned on me was that I needed to look for another source, just like for the hemlock. We’d thought it was food. It was drink. Everyone jumped to the conclusion that the nicotine in Fiona’s drink was from the Black Leaf 40 because it was there. Maybe there was another source. If I could prove that, then it might clear Eoin altogether. I couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel and check the tox report.

  Back at the hotel I thumbed through the file again until I came to it. There it was, in the graph of the gas chromatograph-mass spectrometry of the residue in the glass, not in the report of the findings. There, apart from the peak that was nicotine was another cluster, not nicotine, and I knew not what. I looked for a control GC/MS of the Black Leaf 40, and there wasn’t one. From what I knew of it, it was pure nicotine sulfate. Whatever killed Fiona wasn’t pure nicotine; there were those other peaks. I was not entirely certain it wasn’t something from the Campari, but I didn’t think so. There was more to the tox report, too, a drugs-of-abuse screen. It showed a low level of barbiturate, nothing exciting and certainly not fatal. The GC/MS was where the money was in this case: a highly accurate way of separating out the very molecules, almost like a fingerprint, specific to each compound and mixture. Someone drop
ped the ball by not running a control to make sure the preparation they suspected was the one that actually killed the victim, though it proved nicotine was the culprit. My question was: just nicotine, or nicotine and…? I kicked myself for not seeing it sooner.

  My mind went back to that bejeweled rectangle and the bottle with the dropper. Old photos showed Fiona smoking. With all the anti-smoking emphasis these days, had she switched to vaping, using those mechanized electronic cigarettes that were nothing more than a glorified device for delivering nicotine to the habituated? I couldn’t be sure.

  I considered calling Charles, but he’d never tell me even if he knew. But the voluble Paul might. I called the front desk and asked him to come up. I cast about for some plausible reason and settled on another bottle of Mal Plonk.

  It worked. He arrived with the requisite bottle of wine and put it alongside the one I had not opened, yet without so much as a raised eyebrow.

  I pulled out all my Southern Belle stops, charm and helplessness oozing from every pore. “While you’re here, Paul, can I ask you something? I found this.” I pulled up the photo of Fiona’s bedroom and put my cursor on the mysterious object. “I wonder, do you know what that is?”

  Paul didn’t even inquire why I wanted to know. “That’s the Countess’ e-ciggie. Quite the elegant one, isn’t it? And she had quite the habit. I delivered a half a dozen refills for it the day she arrived. Along with her prescriptions.”

  “Prescriptions?”

  “Two of them, both from the States. A Dr. Brownmiller. One of them a sleeping pill, one she used a lot. We’d picked it up for her before. And something else. The apothecary told me it was a pain pill.”

  God bless him, he’d never make concierge; the man was a sieve. But I swore to myself that if he ever needed a job, I’d move him to Telluride myself. Vaping fluid was a combination of nicotine and various fragrances and flavors to make it more palatable to the smoker, something that would give precisely the same sort of profile I saw once I finally registered all the details of the tox report instead of just the bottom line. And it was just as lethal as Black Leaf 40. The literature documented deaths of children and adults alike from ingestion. I’d be willing to bet that Eoin’s fingerprints weren’t on the dropper bottle, and I’d stake my life on its being the source of the nicotine. For the moment I forgot the Black Leaf 40; it wasn’t important anymore. And it explained that low level of barbiturate in her blood; I’d be willing to bet Fiona was addicted, unable to sleep without her drowsy pill. Schnockered with drink and barbs, Fiona might not notice that her drink was laced with something. Only the something was not Black Leaf 40.