“Eating breakfast. You’re welcome to come over and join me if you want. Dom made his blueberry pancakes.”
“Thanks, but I think I’m going to have to pass. Maybe another time. It was a very late night last night and my stomach isn’t awake yet.”
This is only a half-truth, because whatever was bothering my stomach yesterday is still lingering this morning and the thought of breakfast isn’t very appealing, but I’m also trying to avoid any relaxed, friendly time with Izzy. I’m afraid he’ll sense the truth about me and Hurley, somehow. For now, the less time I spend with him the better.
“No problem,” Izzy says. “That’s all the more pancakes for me. What’s on your agenda for the day?”
“I have to meet up with Hurley in a little while and head back to the Twilight Home so we can talk with the administrative group and the lawyers at ten o’clock.”
“They won’t want to give you anything.”
“Oh, I know. They’ve made their lack of cooperation quite clear already.”
“Well, don’t let them bamboozle you. Our office has the right to review any of the records of those patients who have died recently if we suspect anything out of the ordinary, and given what you’ve told me about the rumor surrounding Chase, I’d say we have cause. If you need me to come over there and throw my weight around, let me know.”
“I think I’ve got enough weight on my own even without the pancakes,” I say, and we both chuckle. Weight issues, along with a fondness for men, are two things Izzy and I have in common.
Izzy says, “Arnie is going to go into the office first thing to check on some of the test results I ran last night before he goes back out to the nursing home.”
“I’ll meet him there. Do you know when he’s going in?”
“He said between eight and eight-thirty.”
I look over at the clock on my kitchen wall. It’s a little before seven-thirty so I’ve got some time.
“I’ll probably be there around the same time,” Izzy says. “I’ll take a second, closer look at Bernard’s body to see if I can find any puncture or injection sites.”
“I’ll meet you there and give you a hand before I go to the police station.”
We arrange to hook up around eight-thirty and no sooner have I disconnected the call when my phone rings again.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mattie, it’s Desi.”
“Hey, Des, is everything okay?”
“Yeah, we’re fine, at least mostly. That’s why I’m calling. I’ve been thinking that with all the money problems I’ve had, and with everything that’s been going on between me and Lucien, the kids have been under a lot of stress. Thanks to your loan, the money issues have eased up a little and while I know it’s kind of a splurge, I was thinking of taking the kids to the Dells and spending the day at an indoor water park. They could use some fun, and frankly, so could I. I was hoping you might come along?”
“I’d love to,” I lie. I’d rather be quartered and drawn than spend a day feeling self-conscious in a bathing suit. “But I’ve got a ton of work to do with this nursing home case. Can I take a rain check?”
“Of course, you can. I promise I’ll spend the rest of the money wisely. I just feel like the kids need something fun in their lives right now, at least one day to forget all the crap.”
“I think it’s a great idea. And the money is a gift, Desi. Spend it however you want. I’m glad I’m able to help.”
“You have, and I can’t thank you enough, although Mom says we’re both going to end up in the poorhouse if we don’t stop throwing away perfectly good, financially stable husbands.”
“That sounds like classic Mom.”
“Yes, it does,” Desi says with a chuckle, and it does my heart good to hear a little happiness in her tone. “Listen, there’s another reason I called. Erika wanted me to see if Emily might like to go with us for the day. I thought about calling Hurley and asking him, but I don’t have his number.”
“Let me check with her and Hurley and I’ll call you right back.” I hang up and dial Hurley’s number.
He answers before the first ring is done.
“Wow, you must be up and at it already,” I say.
“Technically I never went to bed. I slept on the couch and I’ve been awake since five o’clock, trying to get hold of Kate.”
“Still no luck?”
“No. I was just about to call the Cincinnati PD.”
“Kate was pretty adamant that she didn’t want you to do that.”
“I know, but if she’s not answering my calls all bets are off. How do I know she’s not in trouble?”
“Maybe she’s outside a service area.” I’m mentally cursing Kate for doing whatever it is she’s doing. Her actions are distracting Hurley and he’s got too much on his mind already between our current case and caring for Emily. “Give it a little more time,” I tell him. To get his mind running along a different track I ask, “What are you going to do with Emily today?”
“She’s going to stay here. I can have an officer drive by every hour or so and she can use the house phone to call me on my cell if she needs anything. My place isn’t as isolated as yours so I’m not too worried about someone trying to spy on her during the day. How was your night?”
“Slept like a baby.” This is true if I only consider the four or so hours I actually slept. “If anyone was peeping in my windows, I wasn’t aware of it. I might have a better idea for Emily.” I tell him about Desi’s invitation.
“That would be a huge load off my mind. Hold on while I ask her if she wants to go. I just heard her come out of the bathroom so I know she’s awake, but she hasn’t come downstairs yet.”
I listen as he walks upstairs and knocks on a door. I can hear him offer her the trip and then I hear Emily’s, “Yeah that sounds like fun . . . except I don’t have a bathing suit.”
Several phone calls later, we’ve arranged for Hurley to drop Emily off at Desi’s and for Erika to loan Emily a bathing suit. With that out of the way, I get dressed, throw on a little makeup, and try to fix my hair. As I look at my roots and shaggy ends, I realize Irene is right. I’m long overdue for a trip to Barbara, my stylist for eternity. I make a mental note to call and set up an appointment tomorrow, and then I head out.
When I arrive at the office, I head upstairs to Arnie’s lab area first. I find him standing in front of some machine that’s spitting out paper.
“Good morning, Arnie. Got any news for me?”
He gives me a disappointed look. “Normally, they say no news is good news, but in this case I don’t think that’s true.”
“Let me guess, nothing showed up on the tox screen?”
“You got it. We tested for opiates, benzos, tricyclics, and your basic street drugs like cocaine, marijuana, and meth. I also did a rapid test for cyanide. All of them came back negative. His blood alcohol was zero. The microscopic tissue slides didn’t reveal anything helpful, either.”
I frown at this news, knowing it’s not going to make anyone happy. “How long before we get results back from Madison?”
“A few days, maybe a week,” he says with a shrug.
I tell him about Frank Dudley and the insulin suspicion.
“Do you think this Dudley guy did it?” he asks.
I think about it seriously for a moment. “No,” I admit. “I don’t. An overdose of insulin fits with Bernie’s behavior before he died, but insulin has to be injected. You can’t take it orally because the stomach enzymes destroy it. And that whole thing with the coffee cup would seem to suggest something and someone else.”
“Speaking of which, I see you were busy last night.” He gestures toward the boxes of evidence I left stacked in one corner. “Are you going back out there today?”
“Yeah, we’re supposed to meet with the board members and lawyers at ten this morning. But after that I know there are some people outside the home we need to talk to, including the cuckolded husband of one of the staff members
who was sleeping with the victim, and the sons of one of the nursing home patients.”
“The lawyers are here?” Arnie says, making a face.
“They’re not only here, they’re already making life difficult.”
“You and Hurley can handle them,” Arnie says with a dismissive wave. “You guys make a great team.”
This comment makes my heart squeeze.
“I’ll come by and finish dusting for prints and help with whatever other evidence collection we need to do as soon as I’m done processing this stuff,” he adds.
“Okay, see you there.” I head downstairs and poke my head into Izzy’s office, but it’s empty so I head for the autopsy suite. He’s there, with Bernie’s body on the table. He has on a headpiece with magnifying lenses in it and he’s bent down close to Bernie’s left arm, studying it.
“Hey, Izzy,” I say.
He looks up at me and I have to bite back a smile. His eyes appear huge behind the lenses; he looks like a bug, or Mr. Magoo.
“Good morning,” he greets as I approach the table. He picks up Bernie’s arm and scrutinizes the back side of it. “You’re just in time,” he says, setting the arm back down when he’s done. “I need to turn Bernie over so I can examine his backside. Can you give me a hand?”
“Sure.” I don a pair of gloves and then help him flip Bernie’s body up onto its side. It’s quite stiff, making the process easy. As Izzy gets up close and personal with Bernie’s backside with his magnifying glasses, I say, “I take it you haven’t found anything yet?”
“Not so far. There are no puncture or injection sites in the front side of his limbs or torso that I can find. I suppose the scalp is a potential site, but I’ve looked pretty closely there and while it might be easy to hide a puncture site, as vascular as the scalp is, I would expect to find some signs of hemorrhage, or at least some minor bruising. There’s nothing there.” After fifteen minutes of intense inspection, Izzy determines that there are no injection sites on the backside of Bernie’s body, either.
“I’m sorry, Mattie,” he says, taking off his magnifiers. “The whole insulin theory isn’t holding up very well. We’ll wait and see what the blood analysis shows, but I doubt that insulin was the cause of death unless the perpetrator figured out a unique way to deliver the drug.”
“To be honest, I think we’re leaning in a different direction now, anyway.” I fill him in on the mystery of the missing coffee in the cup that was on Bernard’s desk.
“Well,” Izzy says, nodding his head thoughtfully, “that certainly is suspicious. Who had access to that area during the time that it wasn’t being guarded?”
“That’s the problem. Pretty much anybody in the facility had access between when Hurley and I left and the police officer returned. We’re not even sure exactly how much time there was.”
Izzy’s expression brightens. “Well, there was coffee in Bernard’s stomach contents, so that gives us something more specific to focus on. I’ll run a couple tests on it myself today since Arnie is going to be at the nursing home most of the day working on evidence collection. I’ll also give the Madison lab a heads-up so they can broaden their testing and focus more on the gastric contents. Any more news on last night’s Peeping Tom?”
“No, and Hurley hasn’t been able to reach Emily’s mother yet, either. He’s quite worried.”
“I can’t blame him.” Izzy scrunches his face in thought. “It has to be distracting for him. You should probably stick close and keep an eye on him through this investigation at least until Kate returns.”
If Izzy had any idea just how close I’ve been to Hurley so far, I doubt he would say that. But since he has, I can’t help but flush with guilt. I turn away quickly so he won’t see it; Izzy has an uncanny ability to read me. “I’ll keep an eye on him,” I say, heading for the door. “And I’ll check back with you later to see if you turn up anything with the gastric contents, or to let you know if we find out anything else.”
I manage to escape without any probing questions from Izzy and I make my way to the police station. Hurley isn’t in yet, but I find Junior Feller sitting in the conference/interrogation room. He looks like I feel—tired and a little logy.
“Hi, Mattie,” Junior says when he sees me. “There’s coffee in the break room.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.” Police station coffee is notoriously bad. In fact, rumor has it it’s often used during interrogations as a form of torture.
“I have addresses for Regan Simmons’s husband and for the Waldheim boys,” Junior tells me. “I didn’t call them to tell them we’re coming. I’ll leave that decision up to Hurley but if you ask me, I think it’s better to surprise them, especially the Waldheim boys. They’re not likely to be friendly and I doubt they’re bright enough to come up with any good lies on short notice, so why give them a chance to develop one.”
“Sounds good to me,” I say.
Hurley walks in then. “What sounds good to you?” He is carrying a stack of folders stuffed with papers. He, too, looks weary and like he’s aged ten years overnight.
I have a nearly irresistible urge to walk over and hug him.
Junior repeats his theory about the Waldheim boys.
“I agree,” Hurley says, “though to be honest I’m not nearly as concerned about them as I am these damned lawyers at the Twilight Home.” He drops his stack of folders on the conference room table and sets a hand on top of the pile. “These are all the notes and findings from yesterday’s searches and interviews. Aside from our Mr. Dudley, no one seemed to think there was anything significant in here.”
“I think we can rule out Mr. Dudley at this point.” I share with them Izzy’s findings from this morning, or rather his lack of findings. I also explain to them how the missing coffee from the coffee cup pretty much rules out insulin as a poison. “There is some good news though,” I add. “Given that someone made an effort to dispose of that coffee, I think it’s safe to say that whatever did Bernie in was in that coffee. Izzy said there was coffee in his gastric contents, so that will give us a better focus in looking for a poison. It will also make it easier to test for substances because most of the poisons or drugs he might have ingested will be more concentrated and in their original form if they are still in the stomach, whereas by the time most of them hit the bloodstream they’ve been filtered by the liver and broken down. That can make it difficult to identify them or detect significant amounts. In a way, it’s a good thing. The bad news is that the tox screen we ran on Bernard’s blood and gastric contents came back negative. That means the most common drugs and poisons are ruled out, so we’re still going to end up on a bit of a hunting expedition.”
“I think that missing coffee helps us in another way,” Hurley says. “I was thinking about it last night when I got home, and anyone who has an alibi for the period of time when the coffee went missing basically has an alibi for the murder. Under the circumstances, I can’t imagine anyone dumping the coffee for someone else because everyone there knew it was a crime scene. Going after that coffee was a risky, desperate move, so I’m thinking whoever did it is most likely our killer. Unfortunately, that doesn’t bode well for anyone who was at the nursing home at the time.”
“So where do we go from here?” I ask.
“For now, we continue with the staff interviews at the nursing home, including the board members. I don’t plan on spending a ton of time with them because I haven’t found a motive amongst any of them yet. We do, however, have plenty of potential motives with Mr. Simmons and the Waldheim boys.”
Junior gives Hurley a wary look. “Those Waldheim boys may have motive, but from what I know of them I rather doubt they have enough sense between the three of them to coordinate something this sophisticated.”
“I have my money on Regan Simmons or her husband,” I say. An instant later, I mentally wince at my use of yet another gambling term.
“And though my gut doesn’t like her for it, there is still Vonda,” Hurley a
dds. “We can’t rule her out.” He looks over at Junior. “Did Monica give you any information?”
“She did,” he says.
Junior’s girlfriend Monica works at a local bank. In addition to being a bank officer, she’s also a badge bunny who has previously dated at least three other cops in town. So far, things seem to be working out with her and Junior, but time will tell.
“She said Bernie and Vonda bank where she works and both have plenty of money of their own. Vonda does quite well with her art sales and she’s financially independent, whereas Bernie comes from family money and plenty of it. There doesn’t appear to be any strong financial motive on the wife’s part. That’s all unofficial, of course.”
“Of course,” Hurley says with a nod. He pats the stack of files on the table. “If we don’t uncover something today to point us in any one direction, we should come back to these notes and go through them. Maybe there’s something in here we missed. Or maybe there’s something in here that’s significant and we just don’t know it yet.” He pauses and stares at the files with a frown.
“What is it?” I ask him.
“There’s something about this whole scene that still bothers me.”
“How so?”
“That powder that ended up in Bernie’s mouth. Bjorn said he dropped the bottle and then ran out of the bathroom because Bernie was clawing at him. Yet that stuff ended up inside Bernie’s mouth as if someone poured it in there. And you said you found the empty container under Bernie’s leg, right?”
I nod.
“That container was completely empty. If Bjorn had simply dropped the bottle the way he described, I’d think some of the powder would still be in it.”
I suddenly see where Hurley’s thoughts are headed. “You think someone else entered that bathroom in between the time that Bjorn left and Irene appeared, don’t you?”
Hurley nods. He has a far-off look in his eyes and I can tell he’s visualizing a scene in his mind. “Maybe there was someone with Bernard in his office, someone who had a reason to want him dead. Maybe they struggled and Bernard was able to get away. But then the person caught up to him in the bathroom, saw that powder, and used it.”
Board Stiff (Mattie Winston Mysteries) Page 20
