by Dawn Eastman
Katie put her hand up, but Beth kept talking.
“I know you’re going to say that a lot of people don’t leave notes. But my mom left a note if she was running out to the grocery store. She put notes in my lunchbox when I was in elementary school. She left notes around the house for herself and for me. I used to tease her that she couldn’t think unless she had a pen in her hand. There is no way that she would kill herself without leaving a note.”
“Okay, I can understand that,” Katie said. “Could she have left a note on a computer or on her phone?”
Beth’s face fell. “I didn’t think of that. She did have a laptop.” Beth leaned forward and put her head in her hands. Her voice was muffled when she said, “I’ll have to find the laptop and check, but I doubt she would have done that. She thought computers were for research and shopping. Maybe e-mail.”
“It would help to take a look,” Katie said. “Maybe there will be some reference to what your mom was working on before she died.”
“Yes, you’re right. I didn’t think of it because I got the impression she had been researching things the old-fashioned way. But she may have left some notes on her computer.”
Beth sat up and flipped open her notebook. “Besides the lack of a note, she hated taking medicine. She would have needed to swallow a lot of pills to overdose on diazepam, and not only can I not imagine her taking one of them, but she would never take a whole bottle.”
Katie sat quietly, not wanting to argue every point with this grieving daughter. She agreed with Beth that things didn’t add up.
“Also, she was really happy,” Beth continued. “She was thrilled when Todd and I got engaged. She was helping me plan the wedding . . .” Beth stopped. “I just realized she won’t be at the wedding.” Beth picked up her mug of coffee and held it tight with both hands. She took a big sip and swallowed. Katie watched her regain control of her emotions.
Katie agreed with all of Beth’s points. If she promised to help her, it would mean she was in this 100 percent, regardless of what they discovered. She took a deep breath.
“I believe you,” Katie said. “I think there are too many things that don’t make sense.”
Beth smiled at Katie and dabbed her eyes with a napkin. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”
Katie took a fortifying swig of tea. She hoped the answers they discovered wouldn’t make things worse.
“Okay, let’s make a plan. I don’t think the police will appreciate us mucking around in their investigation, so we need to keep this relatively quiet for now.”
Beth nodded. “I know. But they don’t seem to be taking it seriously. They’re all quite comfortable with the idea of suicide.”
“Chief Carlson told me he’s looking into it.” Katie didn’t think she should talk about the prescription until she knew more. She didn’t want to get Beth’s hopes up. “Why don’t you find the laptop and check it out? We can meet up again in a day or two.”
“I’d like that,” Beth said. “It’s nice to have someone to talk to about this.”
“I think we need to be very clear that if we don’t believe this was suicide or an accident, the only conclusion is that someone murdered your mother.”
Beth nodded solemnly and blinked back tears.
* * *
That evening Caleb bounded into the living room with all the pent-up energy of someone with big news. Since Caleb was usually secretive about most things, Katie knew there was more than a bit of drama in play.
“Guess what I did today?” He bounced on his toes like a kid.
“Hacked into the NSA?” Katie asked. “Are they coming to get you?”
Caleb’s face fell. “How did you know? And no, they aren’t coming to get me, because if I did that, they’d never know.”
“Okay, what did you do?” She closed her notebook. She’d been working on her list of things to do for her unofficial investigation.
“I found your pharmacy.”
“What pharmacy?”
“The one where Ellen Riley filled her prescription.” Caleb flopped onto the armchair and feigned boredom.
“What? How?” Katie leaned forward, all thoughts of her list gone.
Caleb tapped his temple. “I’m not just a pretty face.”
“But I couldn’t even find out which pharmacy it was from. How did you track it down?”
“I started thinking that if you didn’t write it, then maybe someone was trying to fill a fake prescription. If they used any pharmacy nearby, it’s likely they would be recognized. So I looked at small pharmacies, ones that aren’t part of a chain, that are more than ten miles outside of Baxter. I narrowed it down to five.” He held up five fingers.
“That is clever.”
“I know!” Caleb couldn’t have been more pleased with himself.
“What did you find out?”
“Well, it took some doing.” Caleb leaned forward, the excitement of his narrative taking over. “The owner of one pharmacy refused to give me any info. I went back after striking out at all the other places, and fortunately, the owner’s daughter was working today. She was more forthcoming.”
“So you charmed an unsuspecting girl. And?”
“She remembered filling a prescription for diazepam last Monday. She looked it up, and it was made out to Ellen Riley. It was picked up by a woman, and she paid cash.” He handed her a piece of paper with the pharmacy name and address on it.
“So it could have been Ellen. Maybe she called in her own script and picked it up.”
Caleb shook his head. “I showed her a picture of Ellen. She didn’t recognize her.”
“Strange. Maybe she had someone pick it up for her?”
“Or someone filled it without her knowledge.”
“Where is this place?” Katie held the paper with the address up.
“About fifteen minutes west of here. It’s a tiny private pharmacy. They don’t have anything computerized. It’s all logged in a big book by hand. Whoever chose it was very clever.”
“I didn’t think anyone still did things that way.”
Caleb shrugged. He thought everything should be computerized.
“Thank you for doing this, Caleb. Although now I don’t know what to think.”
“You’re welcome. I figured you needed some answers, but now I think there are more questions.”
Katie looked at him. “You’re right; there are more questions. I was hoping my idea that Ellen was murdered would be proven wrong, but the more I learn, the more likely it seems.”
Katie felt a whoosh of relief when she said the words. She hadn’t even realized how much she’d been hoping for this to be an accident—or even murder. She just couldn’t accept that she had missed all the signs of suicidal ideation. And she didn’t want to think she was responsible.
“I think you need to get your buddy Carlson to open a real investigation.”
“He already has. I’ll let him know about the pharmacy tomorrow. He didn’t seem nearly as concerned about where the prescription came from as I was.”
Caleb sat back and put his feet on the ottoman. “Maybe I can charge him a consultant’s fee.”
“I think the less he knows about your involvement, the better,” Katie said. “I don’t think he’s the type of guy who would want help from civilians.”
12
Katie was glad that on Mondays she only had an afternoon clinic and was in charge of rounds with the hospital patients in the morning. It freed her up to focus on Ellen’s death.
Katie planned to see her patients and then go find John Carlson and figure out a way to steer him in the direction of the pharmacy Caleb had found.
She didn’t have to look far. She’d just shut her front door on her way out, heading to the hospital, when his police cruiser pulled into the drive.
“Hey, Doc, do you have a minute?” His face was grim, and Katie felt her mouth go dry. Had he discovered what Caleb had been doing? What was the penalty for weaseling informati
on out of a pharmacist?
“Sure, come in.” Katie unlocked the door and gestured him inside. She took deep breaths to steady herself and followed.
John Carlson stood in the entryway looking around like a prospective buyer. “This is nice. I haven’t been inside here. It seems like over the years I’ve been in just about every house in Baxter, but not this one.”
“Thank you.” Katie showed him into the sparse living room. “Can I get you anything?” She was stalling and trying to sense whether this was a social or business call.
“No, thanks. I have to be on my way soon.” John sat on the small loveseat, and Katie took the only other chair in the room.
“What can I do for you?”
“There’s been a development in the Ellen Riley case, and I wanted you to hear it from me.”
Katie let out a breath. He wasn’t here for Caleb. She nodded to encourage him.
“The labs came back, and there was only a low level of diazepam in her system. She didn’t kill herself with those pills because she didn’t take enough to do any harm.”
Again, Katie felt relief, but this time it was followed quickly by questions.
“Then . . . what?”
“The labs showed a high level of Demerol.”
“Why would she have—?” Katie stopped. Was there also a prescription for Demerol with her name on it? Then her mind flashed on the note in Emmett’s office—“missing: 1 v. Dem and 1 v. Fent.” Had the drug come from her own clinic?
“The medical examiner thinks it was injected. And there were no needles or syringes with her when she was found. We’re treating it as a homicide.”
Her stomach dropped as the reality of what he said sank in. Even though she’d been hoping Ellen hadn’t killed herself, the firm knowledge that it was murder was almost worse.
Katie put a shaky hand up to her mouth. “But who would want to hurt her?”
Chief Carlson shook his head. “We’ll have to start over with the investigation. The scene was photographed, but there’s nothing there. We collected a few things from the scene, but I’ll have to go back over the evidence and see if we missed anything. I doubt we’ll find anything useful, and the room has likely been cleaned by now. It already feels like a cold case even though it happened less than a week ago.”
“I’m so sorry for her family. Can I do anything to help?”
“I don’t think so. I only wanted to let you know before you hear any gossip.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
Katie and Chief Carlson walked to the door. “If you think of anything I should know, give me a call,” he said.
“John, wait,” Katie said. She went into her room and came out with the piece of paper with the pharmacy address on it. “I think this is where the prescription for diazepam came from.”
Carlson took it and glanced at the address. “This is way out of town. How did you find it?”
“Just a bit of minor sleuthing. I don’t suppose it matters now.”
“Maybe not, but we’ll look into it.” He tucked the paper into his shirt pocket. “Let us take it from here, Doc.”
Katie nodded and shut the door behind him. She would go to the hospital later. Right now she needed to talk to Caleb.
* * *
Caleb and Katie had never kept normal hours. After their mom died and their dad disappeared into work and a vodka bottle, they had mostly raised themselves. She had hated to leave him when she went off to college, but the bonds of childhood never weakened: Caleb enrolled at a community college near Katie’s medical school, and they had shared an apartment ever since. This was their first house. Technically it was Katie’s, but she hoped Caleb would stay for a long time.
It wasn’t unusual for either one of them to be awake for the entire night. Katie often kept irregular hours during residency, and Caleb did likewise while working on a coding problem or brainstorming with his fellow computer geeks. They had an unwritten rule to only wake the other person in case of emergency. Surely this was an emergency.
She quietly opened his door and checked to see if he was still asleep. Caleb had installed blackout shades that allowed only a dim gray light into the room. The large lump under the blankets indicated he was in residence.
Katie went to the window and pulled the shade up, hoping that the bright sunlight would wake him, and she wouldn’t have to do any more. He didn’t even flinch. Katie hesitated. She knew how uncomfortable it was to be awakened from a deep sleep. Maybe she should just leave the shade open and write a note asking him to call her.
She turned to his desk and rummaged for a pen and paper. Both items flew from her hands when a voice emanated from the bed.
“If you’re going to search my room, at least wait until I’m out.”
She spun toward him. “I’m not searching your room. I’m trying to wake you up.”
“By tiptoeing around?” He stayed buried under his blankets and talked into his pillow.
“I felt bad waking you up.”
“Not bad enough, apparently.” Caleb sat up and rubbed his face. “What time is it?”
“Almost ten.”
He swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Okay, six hours is pretty good. I assume you need me?”
Katie nodded and sat in his desk chair.
“Ellen Riley was murdered.”
“What? Well, that’s great!” He put his hand up. “Not great that she was killed, but at least you’re off the hook. Whatever hook you had yourself on, that is. You didn’t miss any signs, and you didn’t prescribe the murder weapon, and no one in your office prescribed the murder weapon.” He ticked the items off on his fingers.
“You’re right.” She did feel a huge sense of relief and felt guilty about that as well. What kind of a person is glad to hear that a murder was committed? A crazy, sick, selfish kind of person, that’s what kind.
“And you shouldn’t feel bad that you’re a little bit glad it was murder,” Caleb said. “You can find a way to feel guilty about almost anything.”
She smiled then. Having someone in your life who knew you well enough to call you out on your self-destructive thoughts was a priceless gift.
“Right again, Dr. Freud.”
Caleb stood and pulled a sweat shirt over the T-shirt and sweats he’d slept in. “Come on. You can make me some pancakes while we talk.” He headed toward the door.
She grabbed a pillow from the bed and threw it at his retreating back.
When she got to the kitchen, Caleb was already ensconced at the table and tapping away at his keyboard.
She whisked the eggs, oil, and pancake mix together with milk in her plastic pancake bowl. Caleb knew it was the pancake bowl and so she often found popcorn kernels or potato chip crumbs in it. It was his way of teasing her and pointing out her type A tendencies. Brothers.
“What will you do now?” He flipped his laptop shut and turned to face her.
The pan sizzled when Katie flicked water onto it. She scooped out some batter with a measuring cup and poured it onto the pan.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I still don’t understand how my name got onto that prescription bottle or how Ellen got the prescription in the first place.” She waited a minute and checked the pancakes—perfect. She flipped them and waited again.
“It seems strange that someone would go to the trouble of faking a prescription and then use something else entirely to actually kill her,” Caleb said.
“We’re assuming that the killer is the one who put the prescription there,” Katie said. “For all we know, Ellen sent someone to get the diazepam. Maybe she was more stressed than I realized, and she decided to take matters into her own hands. She would certainly know how to write a prescription with her career as a therapist.”
Katie put a plate of pancakes in front of Caleb. He dumped syrup on them and dug in.
“I s’pose you’re right,” he said around a mouthful.
Katie poured more batter. She couldn’t resist the smell
of syrup and pancakes, even though it would be her second breakfast.
“But if she didn’t have much diazepam in her bloodstream, where did all the other pills go?”
“The whole situation is sketchy,” Caleb said.
“I still want to know how it happened. It makes me nervous to think that someone could be out there using my name to write prescriptions.” Katie flipped the pancakes and stood watching them brown.
She turned toward Caleb. “What if it wasn’t her? What if she purchased them from someone on my staff?”
“I can go back to the pharmacy with pictures of more people,” Caleb offered, “but we don’t know whether the prescription bottle had anything to do with the murder.”
Katie sat across from him and poured syrup on her stack. “What if the killer did leave the bottle there? That means the killer used my name to obtain the decoy drug. I probably know that person.”
Caleb looked up from his food. “In a town this size, it’s almost certain that you know the killer. The question is, how well?”
Katie put her fork down and pushed the plate away. The pancakes sat like a hard lump in her stomach. Caleb was right.
“I guess I’d better figure that out.”
13
Katie finished rounding at twelve thirty. She hadn’t even started until almost noon because of her impromptu pancakes and planning session with Caleb. She was lucky that she knew all three patients and they were all stable.
Her afternoon clinic started at one, and she was too full to think about lunch. So with a half hour to spare, she decided to take a walk through the woods surrounding the hospital. There was a pathway through the grounds with a small garden not far from the back door. A family who’d lost their father after a long battle with heart failure had donated the benches and paid for the landscaping.
Katie wandered the familiar path, lost in thought. She loved walking in these woods, especially in the fall when the leaves were just starting to turn. During her residency rotation at Baxter Community Hospital, every time she got a chance to escape the hospital even for ten minutes, it had been like a minivacation. Most of her rotations had been at University Hospital in Ann Arbor, but she had managed to schedule a few here. Just being outside away from the noises and smells and sounds of the hospital had saved her mental health.
