by Alec Peche
"The police asked me that same question and I had a hard time answering them at the time because I couldn't think much beyond the fact that Doug was dead. However I've had some time to think about the questions that the police asked me and perhaps I have a few more answers. Doug had been looking forward to the charitable golf outing all weekend. I don't play golf, but he loves the game casually. He had three friends that were making up his foursome and he was looking forward to chatting with them about the upcoming NFL draft. I don't pay much attention to football and so I'm not a good conversant about the Packers. So I would say his overall attitude was simply one of anticipation of a good day. Certainly, I saw no worry or thought on his part that it would be the last day of his life."
The last sentence reduced Michelle to tears and after passing the Kleenex box to her, they just waited in comfortable silence until she seemed ready to move on.
"I don't know that much about Doug or you, Michelle. I had a great time taking your portraits two years ago and doing the photography for your portfolio, but our paths just don't cross that much. Can you tell me about Doug and where he spent his time? Obviously the hospital was a priority and your daughters and yourself. Where else did he spend time? Did he have hobbies or was he active in any civic organizations, or perhaps our church,? Tell me about him.”
"He worked as an anesthesiologist I would guess about thirty to forty hours a week. By that I mean he was in the operating room caring for patients and essentially unreachable. Beyond those hours, he spent additional time in a variety of administrative duties as far as documentation of what he did for patients and what was going on with the entire anesthesia group. Hospital committees and recruiting would also consume another ten to fifteen hours each week. I would say he spent the bulk of his waking hours doing something related to his patients or for the hospital. He served on a variety of committees that he would tell me about in passing but I couldn't at this time remember the name of any of them. I would listen but at times he would break into speaking in acronyms that I'm sure all healthcare people speak in but I didn't always interrupt him and ask him what a particular term meant.
“He was pretty good at attending activities that the girls were involved in and he even coached their soccer team one year. He was always there for parent-teacher conferences and he was just an ever present dad in their lives.
"He didn't have much spare time after the family and work. Like I said, he liked casual golf, played a little tennis, and had a group of guys that he liked to hang out with to watch or attend Packer games.”
"So did he have any worries about his leisure activities? His golf game or his tennis game?”
"No he wasn't the type to worry about his score; he just wanted to enjoy the time spent in those leisure activities."
"Was he worried about your daughters? They have hit the teenage years so were you or Doug worried about any grief your daughters were giving you or perhaps their friends?"
"No worries about our daughters; we've always been blessed with great kids."
“So let's talk about work. When he came home at night, did he talk much about his work?"
"Not really. His operating room cases were, for the most part, steady and routine; occasionally he would mention that he had had a bad case, but it was more of an apology for a certain grave affect to his personality. He would recover in a day or so and be back to his normal happy self. I think it was his way of grieving for patients."
"How about his partners in the anesthesia group? Any concerns with them?"
"The anesthesia group is doing well and they had a really good group of guys that got along well. It wasn't always that way. And probably the first five years that they were together as a group they had turnover as doctors did not fit in with the group. For the past ten years, this group liked and respected each other. And I say ‘guys’ because that was how Doug referred to them, but there were both male and female anesthesiologists in the group."
“Doug held many leadership positions at Our Lady of Guadalupe. Did he enjoy that work? What did he think of always being tapped for various roles? Did he like everyone that he worked with? Did he come home and tell you any stories about his roles? I know I am throwing a lot of questions at you but it is just to get you thinking about Doug’s feelings or impressions from different angles.”
“Angela, I appreciate you asking the question several different ways. As you can imagine, my brains are scrambled at the moment from grief and lack of sleep and stress and my mind needs those different angles to help me think back to what Doug may have said.”
"Exactly!"
"Back to your questions, I don't recall Doug being mad at a particular person or action - that wasn't his nature. He liked to look at data and discuss anything he was truly concerned about. Sometimes he would drive you nuts because he was so patient and could wear you down with facts concerning something that you were passionate about.” With a small smile, Michelle added, “he even drove me nuts when we would have an argument about the kids, our friends, or the color of paint on the wall. He was willing to hang in there and keep a discussion going long after you cared about the answer.”
Marie chipped in, “I know exactly what you're talking about; I have a few friends that drove me nuts with those kind of discussions until I learned how to avoid getting in that situation.".”
“Maybe it's a guy thing," Jo proffered the explanation. "I've met several people that behave like that in the workplace and it drives me nuts, but I admire them for the strength of their argument."
Finally! Angela heard her friends chip in as she was beginning to be worn out by all the questions she was trying to think of to keep the interview going.
Jill's friends looked at her obviously expecting her two cents worth about the conversation so she finally spoke up, "don't look at me. I have the love of my life in Nathan,” referring to her boyfriend back in California. “He's pretty damn perfect so I don’t know what you are talking about!”
Angela looked over at Michelle and said "I do have to admit that Jill's boyfriend, Nathan, is pretty darn perfect. Michelle, do you think that very doggedness in an argument would be enough to make someone homicidal towards Doug? Was it that annoying a trait, that you observed others changing their behavior around Doug in order to avoid the endless discussion?”
“It could be a very annoying trait. I had learned in many years of marriage how to avoid getting in such a discussion with Doug. I often knew his opinion on many issues, so if I knew the issue to be one that we were polar opposites on, I would refuse to discuss it with him. I could be just as stubborn as he was though I am sure he thought I was irrationally stubborn; while he was not stubborn at all and merely pointing out facts to the uninformed. As to whether that put people off, it did sometimes. He had a close circle of friends and I was never sure if they had no arguments because they had adopted my strategy, or if they were close friends because they agreed on everything.”
Angela shifted her position and lowered her voice to say, “Pardon us for asking, but we have some personal questions for you as well. How were your finances? Did you have any worries as to how to pay the bills?”
“Oh, we had no worries there. Doug earned a good income, and my interior design business is just icing on the cake. The girls’ college accounts are well funded and our mortgage was paid off.”
Marie built on Angela’s question, “How about your marriage, was it going well? Did you have a sense that Doug was happy as well? Believe me I know that just because you have no financial problems, doesn’t mean that your marriage is still solid.”
Michelle was looking taken-aback by the questions now. She had also adjusted her position in the chair and her body language was starting to look closed off. She had her arms across her chest and was no longer sitting in a relaxed position.
“Our marriage was great. When you have been married for over fifteen years, you settle in a rhythm that works to keep it together and that was where we were.”
&n
bsp; Jill thought ‘not exactly a golden endorsement for the state of marriage’, but she could think of no follow-up questions.
Fortunately Jo had a question, “Michelle, did you and Doug have any big plans for the coming years? Like buy a second home, adopt a child, move to a different city?”
Michelle appeared to need to give the questions some thought. She seemed to be shifting through memories in her head, and then said, “No”.
Angela could sense the interiew was drawing to a close and therefore, asked her final question."Michelle, can you think of any reason that someone might want to kill Doug?”
“I have been racking my brains since I received notice of his death and I can’t think of any reason. I have thought back over conversations and he wasn’t worried about any one person and so I can’t think of any reason that someone would want him dead.” The last words ended on a sob, and then there were fresh tracks of tears running down her face.
Angela looked at her friends and saw silent agreement that the interview was finished. She then got up and went over to Michelle’s chair to place a hand on her shoulder. She looked at her wine glass and noted it was empty and asked, "Michelle, would you like a refill on your glass of wine?"
Michelle shook her head and said, “No thanks I need to get back home to the girls."
She stood and exchanged hugs with Angela, shook hands with Jill, Jo, and Marie and left the parlor.
"I really like this upstairs parlor,” Jill declared. "Why don't we get a refill on our wine and sit here and discuss the case for a while?"
There was quick agreement with that idea and they were all soon downstairs selecting their wine and briefly chatting with the tasting room attendant. It was a nice break as it had been an emotional discussion for Angela as a distant friend of Michelle's. The brief discussion with the attendant had served to cleanse their minds momentarily of the cloud of grief that had descended upon them while in Michelle's presence.
Chapter Fifteen
They returned to the parlor and settled into the comfortable chairs and sofa.
"What did everyone think of our conversation with Michelle? Were there any new nuggets or leads to follow?" asked Jill.
Jo and Marie were clearly interested in hearing what Angela had to say first. Angela reminded Jill of someone tasting a new wine. She seemed to be thinking about the tastes of the interview much like she would search for tannins, berries, and other fruit flavors in a new wine.
"She answered all of our questions with very appropriate responses. I don’t think she was hiding anything or lying in her responses. As to new clues, it seems like we found our first disagreeable personality trait in his refusing to let an argument go and wanting to shower someone with facts until they changed their opinion.”
“But? I can hear a ‘but’ in your voice.”
“Something was off. Did anyone else have a sense that she was not in love with her husband? She liked and respected him, but she didn’t love him. Who knows, maybe I am picking up a totally wrong vibe, or maybe I just don’t know her well enough.”
Jo went next in her appraisal, “I agree with you, Angela, I got the same sense as you. I don’t think she was passionate about her relationship with Doug. As for Doug's personality trait, I've known other people with that same trait and well, it's not enough to make you homicidal. This will sound like a strange comment but it felt to me that the emotion she was feeling towards Doug was much like you might feel toward the loss of a longtime friend, but not the loss of someone you were deeply in love with. As to new clues, I didn't pick any up other than perhaps someone could have had reason to be jealous of their financial security. But frankly, if you feel that way, there will be a lot of people to kill in this town for that motive."
Marie added, "I agree with what Angela and Jo said about Michelle. I can't think of anything else to add. How about you, Jill? What did you hear that might possibly be a new clue?"
"I think the same thing that is concerning the three of you, concerns me. The emotion didn't seem right coming from Michelle, but who am I to judge? I've never had a husband murdered, then again I've never had a husband."
They all smiled at that comment and sat in silence a while longer sipping their wine.
Jill decided to put words to the white elephant in the room.
“Do you think that Michelle had anything to do with Doug's murder?"
There it was, the unspoken question that each of them was asking herself. Again silence reigned while each of them thought about the answer.
"Might be another one of those long-shot clues,” said Maria slowly as if exploring the words. “She clearly was not the shooter. She's not tall enough and she has a solid alibi at the time of his murder. So did she conspire with the killer because she wanted him dead, or is there a second person out there that paired up with her to want Doug dead?”
“If we assume she had a role,” Jo speculated, “what would we do differently in this investigation? By the way, if she had a role, why did she hire us?”
"Did you notice that although you said there were not many clues in the investigation, she showed no curiosity as to the few clues that we have,” Jill noted. “I don't think we told her about the satellite pictures we have of the killer. I wonder if the police told her about the pictures? As to why she hired us if she has a role in this killing? Either she thinks we're lousy detectives or that she is smarter than us and all evidence is covered up; or if she has a partner in this crime, the partner advised her to hire us so he or she could stay close to the investigation.
“As to your question on what we would do differently, I guess we should ask ourselves why would Michelle be interested in having her husband dead? Two common reasons that wives kill husbands are for money, like insurance policies, or in self-defense as a victim of abuse. Neither of those reasons seemed to be the basis for this case. I might suggest another reason - is she having an affair? If that's the case, then we need to ask ourselves, why couldn't she just continue to have the affair; why did she need him completely out of the picture?"
The tasting room attendant walked up the steps into the parlor and announced they would be closing in ten minutes. The announcement caused them to examine the contents in their glasses and increase the speed with which they were imbibing; no one wanted to let a drop of wine go to waste. A short time later they were outside and piling into Marie’s car.
“Let’s call it a night,” Jo suggested. “We can re-group tomorrow at Marie’s for breakfast. I’ll stop at Not by Bread Alone and grab some breakfast stuff."
“Jo, you know I love breakfast and I know that you’re not a morning person,” Jill said envisioning her breakfast arriving at lunch. “We’re running out of time to solve this mystery. Do you think you could start the day early and be at Marie’s house by eight?
Jo swallowed hard, straightened her shoulders then said ‘yes’.
Jill still doubted that Jo would be on time but at least she wouldn’t wait hours for her breakfast, which was her favorite meal of the day.
They reached Marie’s house and Jo went to her car while Jill and Angela headed to Angela's car. Jill often stayed with Angela when she was in-town visiting. Jill was glad she was staying at Angela’s house as she wanted to see if they had any new information from Nick. She would really like to understand what if any was the problem with Dr. Lewis medical staff file.
Soon after arriving at Angela's house, they had both changed into their pajamas and were contemplating contacting Nick. Really, it was 3am in Amsterdam and it was outright rude to call Nick without an invitation.
So they didn’t. He deserved to sleep since he was hacking illegally on behalf of their case.
Chapter Sixteen
The next morning they all met at Marie’s house early. There was a sense of urgency to get to the bottom of the case as Jill was scheduled to leave for California late the next day, and Angela, Jo, and Marie were returning to work the following day.
"Let's look at the e-mai
l from Nick first. It's midday in Amsterdam so if we need more research from him, we've got time to call him," Jill noted. "I'm really curious to see if he found anything. We have a lot of disparate clues, but nothing that connects Dr. Lewis in any way to the actual murder of Doug Easley."
Angela opened the e-mail from Nick chuckled to herself that his message and begin downloading his attachments. He had labeled them simply as attachments one through six so Jill had no clue as to what each attachment contained.
"Oh well we'll start at the beginning with attachment one," Jill observed. "It looks like it's a fairly large file."
Jill took a few moments to examine the contents of the file before determining it was of little use.
“This is a record of routine tests Dr. Lewis has to have done as a member of the medical staff. He's tested negative to tuberculosis for a long time, he's been a regular at getting a flu shot, and he has a positive titer for rubella which means he had measles some time in his life. What this all says is that he's cooperative with hospital regulations and policies. In the medical staff rules and regulations, they called it good citizenship. Let's move on to attachment two.
“This attachment is more interesting. It's a report on the use of antibiotics by his patients."
“Why is that interesting?" Marie asked. "Why the focus on antibiotics?"
"Good questions. So I explained a little earlier how difficult it is to measure quality. Despite it being difficult, there are a few measures that are collected by the federal government and reported on by individual hospitals. One of those measures concerns the use of antibiotics. They are used to prevent infection and there are many professional organizations that recommend the use of antibiotics prior to surgery. That makes sense, doesn't it? Infection is the number one complication that doctors worry about with surgery patients. They discovered through research that in order for antibiotics to do their best to fight infection, they need to be started one hour prior to the first slice of the scalpel. The reason for the hour is they want the antibiotic to reach all the tissue of the body. You could start antibiotics two hours before cut time and that is fine, it's just the patient is sitting there an extra hour in the pre-op area. So what happens if there are problems and for some reason antibiotics are started just as the patient is being wheeled into the operating room – so maybe fifteen minutes before cut time? It's an inexact science. Some patient's tissues will be saturated with antibiotics in fifteen minutes and they're fine. When antibiotics actually get started are rarely under the surgeon’s direct control. Part of it has to do with when the patient arrives at the hospital for surgery and sometimes it's about when in the flow of things to be done for the patient, that nurses hang the antibiotics to start the infusion. So the measurement is really a reflection of operating room efficiency not of surgeon skill.
