by Dawn Eastman
“Even client files?” Katie knew how easy it was to get into trouble with privacy laws. Maybe Ellen had been extra careful.
“It’s possible, but everything is locked.”
“Don’t you think you should turn it over to the police?” Katie asked.
“Maybe, but then it will sit in some stranger’s in-box,” Beth said. “I feel weird turning over my mom’s personal computer when we don’t even know what’s on it.”
“If you feel comfortable letting me take the computer, I know someone who can probably get into the password-protected files.”
Beth’s face lit up. “You do? That would be great. I didn’t want to take it to one of those computer repair places. Not knowing what’s in there makes me nervous. Your person will keep it confidential?”
Katie nodded. “I’d trust him with my life.”
Beth slid the laptop across the table.
18
Katie argued with herself all the way home. She took privacy and confidentiality seriously. Not only because it was drilled into her in training but because she walked around every day holding the secrets of innumerable individuals and families locked in a compartment in her brain. There was no way to hack into that.
She glanced at the laptop sitting like a ticking bomb on her passenger seat.
She sighed and turned onto her street. The cool evening air flowed in through the open windows, and she remembered just a week ago when her biggest worry had been whether to paint the dining room gray or red. She pulled into her driveway and parked. She pushed the button to roll up the windows and turned the key to shut off the engine.
She grabbed the laptop, climbed out, and locked the car. All the way to the house, she told herself that she didn’t have to give the computer to Caleb. She could sleep on it and decide in the morning. It was like a Pandora’s box, and she knew that once she gave it to him, there was no stopping what would happen next. On the other hand, Ellen Riley deserved justice, and if she had to go through her personal files to get it, then who was to say it wasn’t the right thing to do? Katie supposed Chief Carlson would say it wasn’t the right thing to do, but she’d have to deal with that problem later.
Caleb was at the dining room table working on his computer. It looked like actual work since he didn’t have his headset on and wasn’t shouting orders at unseen partners in gaming.
“How was the memorial?”
“About as you’d expect,” Katie said. She gripped the computer tightly in her arms, struggling with herself.
“What’ve you got there?” He tilted his head at the computer. “It looks like you’re trying to snap it in half.”
Katie stepped forward and quickly set it on the table. She stepped back to control her urge to snatch it back again. This was the right thing to do. “It’s Ellen Riley’s computer, and there are encrypted files. I was hoping you could open them for me.”
Caleb sat back in his chair. He made no move toward the computer, although Katie knew that wouldn’t last. He couldn’t resist the challenge.
“Where did you get it?”
“Beth, Ellen’s daughter, gave it to me.” Katie sat at the far end of the table and leaned her head on her hand.
“And you want to get into her computer because . . .”
“Beth thinks her mother was working on something that might have gotten her killed.” Katie told him about the arguments with Christopher and the strange questions she’d been asking. “Beth was able to look at her browser history, and the only thing that stood out to her was that her mother had been looking up color-blindness and genetics.”
“Why is that interesting? I can’t imagine anyone would want to kill someone for discovering they were color-blind. Unless . . .” Caleb raised one finger as if an idea had just occurred to him. “Maybe it was a clothing designer who was stealing his ideas from one of his students, and if people found out he was color-blind, then they would know he was a fake!”
“Yes, that’s one possibility,” Katie said dryly. “Todd Talbot is color-blind.”
“The restaurant guy? Who cares?”
“I don’t think it matters that he’s color-blind, just that Ellen was looking into it. Beth and Todd are engaged.”
“Hmm. Seems weak.” Caleb pulled the computer toward him and opened it. “Let me take a look at the files and see if I can get into them.”
Katie nodded and stood up. “Let me know if you find anything.” She turned to go and stopped. “Caleb, you know there might be confidential information in there. She used to be a psychologist, and I think she still did some counseling.”
Caleb nodded. “You have no idea the secrets I have hidden up here, Sis.” He tapped his temple and winked.
19
Wednesday morning, Katie woke with the sense that something was wrong. Had she forgotten something? She’d stayed up late thinking about Ellen’s memorial and hoping Caleb would come up with some information quickly. She’d finally heard him go to bed around two. She was overtired and stressed. That was probably where the general anxiety came from.
The sunlight peeking through the blinds promised another beautiful fall day. Katie would be stuck inside for most of it, as Wednesday was her busiest clinic day. Both Nick and Emmett had half days, so she was the one who picked up all the urgent cases.
She sighed and threw off the comforter. She padded to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, sighing at the dark circles under her eyes. She opened her concealer and got to work.
After a quick breakfast and more coffee than was advisable, she grabbed her messenger bag and slipped out the side door.
She didn’t notice it right away. She was busy pawing through receipts, notes, a reflex hammer, and spare change that littered the bottom of her bag where her car keys could usually be found. She finally found them and looked up to put the key in the lock.
The driver’s window was smashed, and glass shards sparkled on the driver’s seat. There was a folded piece of paper on the dash.
Katie hesitated, wondering if she should call the police before touching anything, but her curiosity got the better of her.
She reached in through the shattered window and picked up the paper by the corner. She let it fall open.
In large block letters, the note read, “MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.”
Katie looked around her neighborhood. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. Was someone watching her, right now? How had she slept through the window breaking? How had the neighbors slept through it?
She pulled her cell phone out of her jacket pocket and pressed John Carlson’s number. He’d given her his cell number after her “heroic” rescue of Bubba. She’d never had cause to use it before.
“Carlson.”
“Hi, John, it’s Katie LeClair.” She blinked back tears as the reality of the threat hit her. “Can you come to my house, please? There’s been an incident.”
“I’ll be right there.”
He didn’t even ask what the problem was.
Katie’s eyes were dry, but her hands still shook when John’s car pulled in the driveway ten minutes later.
Caleb stood on the porch with her, wearing sweat pants and the T-shirt he had slept in. His hair stood up in spikes, and he looked just as tired as she felt.
He’d told her to put the note back exactly as she’d found it, so the chief could see what the scene had looked like.
Carlson opened his door and looked up at them. The sun glinted off his aviators, and his mouth was set in a grim line.
“What happened, Doc?”
Katie and Caleb stepped off the porch, and Katie motioned for him to follow them farther down the driveway toward the back of the house.
“I was heading in to work, and I found this.” Katie held out her hand toward the driver’s side door.
Carlson stepped closer and leaned in to get a better look.
“Anything missing?”
Katie shook her head. “I don’t leave anything of value in there. And it doesn
’t look like anything has been disturbed, other than the window, obviously.”
Carlson picked up the paper by the corner and let it fall open just as Katie had done. She saw his jaw tense as he read it. He put the note in a paper bag and shined a penlight around the inside of the car.
“I’ll call the station and have the guys come check for fingerprints, but I doubt we’ll find anything. It doesn’t look like anyone even went inside the car, just smashed the window and left the note.”
“Okay, what . . . what do I do now?”
Caleb put his arm across her shoulders. She leaned into him, grateful for his presence.
Carlson stood up from his examination of the car.
“You can come to the station and file a report.” He shrugged. “It’s not much, but it’s a place to start. Do you know who might have left this or what the note refers to?”
Caleb and Katie exchanged a guilty look.
“No, not really. I suppose it could be anyone who didn’t care for my medical advice. Sometimes I have to recommend quitting smoking, or losing weight, or any of a number of things that might get someone annoyed.”
Even Caleb looked at her in surprise.
Carlson said, “You think this is a disgruntled patient?”
“Not really.” Katie crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t know who would have done this.”
“What other things have you been doing that might have upset someone?”
Katie sighed and looked up to the sky. She didn’t want to tell him about the computer because he’d likely take it away, and they wouldn’t ever find out what was on it. Plus, she didn’t want to get Caleb in trouble. She figured the less the chief knew about Caleb’s talents with a computer, the better.
She held her hands out, palms up. “The only thing I can think of is that Beth Wixom asked me to help her look into her mother’s death.”
Carlson stood taller and put his hands on his hips. Katie couldn’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses, but she felt his glare. “This again? I told Beth I was looking into it. If this note is from someone who wants you to stop investigating a death, one that at this point is being considered suspicious, I think you should listen. With that in mind, we need to treat this like a threat, not just malicious vandalism.”
Carlson looked at both of them and held their gazes. “I’m not kidding around now. You need to stop whatever you’re doing and let us handle this.”
Katie nodded agreement but wouldn’t meet his eyes. Caleb studied the ground and kept very still.
“Let’s see if anything shows up when they check for fingerprints, and we’ll go from there. In the meantime, go to work like normal and keep your head down.”
Katie nodded again. “Thanks for coming over so quickly.”
His tone softened. “Do you need a ride to the clinic?”
“I can take her,” Caleb said. Katie was grateful; she didn’t want to be stuck in a car with Carlson and his lectures.
“You can vacuum it and take it to be repaired as soon as the fingerprinting is done. If you want to call Rob Kendrick, he’ll do a good job for you. Just tell him I sent you.” He handed Katie a card with a phone number on it.
Katie thanked him, and she and Caleb watched him pull out of the driveway.
Caleb turned to her with a mixture of concern and excitement in his eyes. “What have we gotten into?”
20
Katie still felt shaky midway through her clinic. Fortunately, the problems had been routine, and she was moving along much more quickly than she had thought she would. A nasty virus was making its way through the preschool set. Katie’s biggest problem was convincing the parents that the kids would get better on their own—without antibiotics.
After three vomiters, a hypertension patient, and a yearly physical, Katie saw a break in her schedule and hurried to her office. She shut the door behind her and slumped into her desk chair. Even though clinic had been easy so far, she wasn’t sure she would get through a whole day of it. Her brain was so focused on Ellen’s murder that the rest of what she did was on autopilot.
She paged through the notes on her desk to see if anything was urgent. Debra and the nurses wrote phone messages on old-fashioned pink slips of paper and attached them to the patient’s chart. Katie identified several that Angie could deal with, but stuck in the middle of the stack was a loose sheet with no chart attached.
“Beth Wixom called, said to call as soon as you can.”
Katie fished her cell phone out of her bag and clicked on Beth’s name.
Beth answered on the first ring. “Dr. LeClair, thanks for calling back. Have you found anything on the computer yet?”
“No, nothing we didn’t already know. It might take a little while.”
“Can I come see you sometime today?” Beth asked. “I have something I need to show you.”
Katie glanced at her schedule for the day. Her eleven thirty had canceled, so she would have a little time around noon.
“I have some time around lunch. Want to meet me here?”
“Sure. I’ll bring sandwiches from Riley’s,” Beth said. “But is there a place nearby we can go that’s private?”
Katie flashed back to the meeting with Matt in the gardens. If that didn’t work, they could always go to Katie’s house.
“Meet me here at eleven forty-five, and we can walk to the hospital gardens. Hopefully, they’ll be deserted as usual.”
Just before noon, the women shut the back door of the clinic and found the path around the hospital. Katie was relieved to see that the garden was empty, and they sat on one of the benches facing the pathway.
Beth handed Katie a white bag with a turkey Reuben inside and rummaged in her large tote bag. She pulled out a beat-up spiral notebook and set it on her lap. She sat for a moment with her hands on the cover as if she was protecting it.
“I was going through my mom’s things last night. Along with her computer, she had some file folders and this notebook. The file folders weren’t very useful—they were mostly clippings from psychology journals. There was no unifying theme, and I think they were just general research she was doing for her business.” Beth tapped the notebook. “This was different.”
“Different?”
Beth looked down at the notebook. “She had notes about color-blindness, similar to the information we found with her computer searches. She has a hand-drawn chart that I think is a family tree with circles and squares, Xs and Ys. And a to-do list of people she wanted to talk to. Emmett Hawkins was one, and Chief Carlson’s wife.”
“Carlson’s wife?” Katie asked. “Why?”
“She’s been the editor of the weekly Baxter newspaper for years,” said Beth. “I think my mom wanted to ask her about the town’s history. She has some notes about it here.” Beth flipped a page and pointed to printed questions about Baxter and the families that had been living here for more than a generation.
“And you said she had a number for the historical society in her datebook,” Katie said. “There must be something from the past she was interested in.”
“I can’t see what could be dangerous about the past,” Beth said. “I mean, it’s over, right?”
“Was she looking into Christopher’s family?”
Beth raised her shoulders. “I can’t tell. Her notes are kind of cryptic. My mom could be like that. If she didn’t want anyone to be able to read her notes, she used her own form of shorthand. The problem was, she said sometimes even she couldn’t figure out what she meant.”
“I hope the computer files are more straightforward if we ever get into them.”
Beth flipped to the back of the notebook. “Then I found this tucked in the middle.”
She pulled out a folded piece of white paper and handed it to Katie.
Katie took it and unfolded it. It wasn’t a surprise, not really, but still she sucked in air when she saw what was written there in block letters: “MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.”
“I got one of these
this morning,” Katie said in a shaky voice.
“What?” Beth took the note and shoved it back between the pages as if that would keep it from harming them. “How? Why?”
Katie shook her head. “I don’t know why, but I can only assume that someone knows we’re looking into what your mom was doing, and they don’t like it. The notes are identical. They broke my car window and left it on the dashboard.”
“Where is it now? You’re sure it’s the same writing?”
“It looked the same to me. I called Chief Carlson, and he took it away to examine it.”
“I wish my mom had done that.” Beth’s eyes filled with tears. “Maybe she would still be alive.”
Katie put her hand over Beth’s, which was gripping the notebook with white knuckles.
“She must have thought it had to do with one of her clients and didn’t want to involve the police,” Beth said. “She was militant about privacy. And knowing my mom, she would have seen it as more of a cry for help than a threat.”
Katie nodded. “I can appreciate that. It’s not explicitly threatening, depending on how she received it. Breaking my window and leaving it among shards of glass felt a little more dangerous than if it had been left on the doorstep.”
“Dr. LeClair, I think you should stop helping me.” Beth turned on the bench to face Katie. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. I haven’t received any notes, so maybe they don’t know what I’m doing. But you should lay low for a while. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
“No.” Katie shook her head. “I don’t like bullies, and I’m not going to just sit back and let this person get away with murder.”
Beth smiled and let out a breath. “I’m so glad you said that. I really don’t want to do this alone.”
Beth stood then and said she was going to be late for her appointment with the lawyer. They agreed to talk later, and Beth walked down the path that led to Katie’s office. Katie stayed behind in the pleasant garden to think and grab a few minutes alone before her afternoon clinic.
She was less shaky now than angry. Angry that someone would kill Ellen Riley, a woman who only wanted to help others. And angry that she had doubted herself. She’d ruminated over whether she had written that prescription and questioned her own judgment about Ellen’s mental state.
