Owl Be Home for Christmas

by Donna Andrews

  “What is—” I whispered to Horace.

  “Viagra,” he said. “Sildenafil is Viagra.”

  “Eww,” I said.

  Apparently, I said it a little too loudly. Dr. Lanville burst out laughing.

  “Eww is right,” he said. “And I normally like the silver fox look. But the idea of Oliver … well, you never know. There’s someone for everyone, they say.”

  “I just have a hard time imagining any of his someones would be here at the conference,” I said. “He doesn’t have a lot of fans in the ornithological community.”

  “Let’s face it—he was easy to dislike,” Dr. Lanville said. “Whenever he came in, my nurses would draw straws, and the loser had to do his vitals. But on a serious note—I’m not liking the way this sounds. First nitro and then Viagra.”

  “Exactly,” Dad said. “The two of them in combination—”

  “Would be a bad thing?” I asked.

  “Nitroglycerin’s a vasodilator, as we said.” Dad was in full teaching mode. “Which means it causes the blood vessels to relax and dilate. If you’re having an angina attack, in which the blood vessels leading to the heart aren’t getting enough blood, a vasodilator increases the blood flow, thus providing symptomatic relief. People who are prone to angina sometimes even take it prophylactically when they’re about to experience something they know could bring on an attack—like stress, or exercise.”

  “But you have to be careful with the dosage,” Dr. Lanville chimed in. “Because along with increasing the blood flow it also lowers blood pressure. Lower it too much and you’re dead.”

  “And Viagra does much the same thing,” Dad continued. “Increases blood flow. Only … um … in a more localized way.”

  “And if you combine Viagra with nitroglycerin, it amplifies the risk of a dangerous drop in blood pressure,” Dr. Lanville said. “That’s the first thing they say on all the warning labels.”

  “And on the TV commercials,” Horace put in.

  “And that’s one thing about hypochondriacs,” Dr. Lanville put in. “They love reading the warning labels. Gives them more scope for working up symptoms. So even if Oliver was taking some kind of medication without telling me, I can’t imagine that he’d do so without studying the warning labels.”

  “The Viagra doesn’t have to have been his, does it?” I asked. “Any more than the nitroglycerin spray.”

  “Viagra’s definitely available on the black market,” Dr. Lanville said. “And a whole lot more in demand there than nitro. Some idiots use it as a recreational drug. And it’s over the counter in England. So just because I never wrote him a prescription for it doesn’t mean he couldn’t have gotten his hands on it.”

  “And just because it was found in his room doesn’t mean he brought it there,” I said. “Say I’m someone who wants to knock off Dr. Frogmore.”

  “You’d probably have a lot of company,” Dr. Lanville said.

  “And I’m someone who knows about the danger of combining Viagra and nitroglycerin. I spray a lethal dose of nitroglycerin on something I know he’s going to eat, and maybe add in a little ground-up Viagra for good measure. And I discard the spray bottle under the table and hide a few of the pills in his belongings, and hope the police say, ‘Oh, well—combining Viagra and heart meds. Sad but not unexpected.’ And bingo! Someone gets away with murder.”

  “I’m glad you don’t have it in for me.” Dr. Lanville chuckled.

  “His face was very flushed when he stood up to make his toast,” Dad said.

  “Red as a lobster,” I said.

  “Textbook,” Lanville said.

  “And when he was insulting Dr. Hirano, he seemed to be squinting and peering, as if having trouble seeing him,” Dad added.

  “Blurred vision—yes, that would be another symptom.” I could hear Lanville turning pages. One of his medical reference books, no doubt. I suspected Dad was itching at being parted from his own collection.

  “The slurring and vision problems could have been the alcohol,” I pointed out. “He’d had a few drinks.”

  “Very bad idea to drink when taking either of those medications.” Dad shook his head. “And I noticed him taking some kind of medication during the meal. I didn’t see what. I was going to check on him after the banquet—see if he was okay. Never got a chance.”

  “I was sitting closer,” I said. “I heard him ask Dr. Czerny if he had anything for a headache. So probably aspirin or acetaminophen.”

  “So someone gave him pills during the dinner,” Horace said. “Could that be how he got the Viagra?”

  “I think he’d know the difference,” Dr. Lanville said.

  “You doctors might,” Horace said. “Would he?”

  “He might not know what they were,” I said. “But if you asked for aspirin and someone handed you a couple of bright-blue diamond-shaped pills, wouldn’t you at least ask what the heck they were?”

  “Remember, generic sildenafil isn’t bright blue or diamond shaped,” Dr. Lanville said. “I’m looking at some pictures on the web. Only the ones Pfizer sells under the Viagra trademark come in the blue diamond shape. The generic comes in a variety of shapes, one of which is round and white and not unlike aspirin.”

  “But the ones Horace found were the classic Viagra,” Dad said. “So while that doesn’t rule out that someone slipped him something other than aspirin—”

  “Point taken,” Dr. Lanville said. “And he could very easily have had a headache—it’s a classic vasodilator side effect. Of course, we won’t know for sure till the autopsy, but I think you’ve pegged it.”

  “We’ve pegged it,” Dad said graciously. I was sure if they’d been in the same room together they’d be beaming at each other with professional pride.

  “If you like, I can do a little digging here,” Dr. Lanville said. “See if I can find any suggestion that he’s been two-timing me, professionally speaking.”

  “That would be very useful,” Dad said. “And we need to start talking to some of the people at Dr. Frogmore’s table. They were closer than any of us were, and might have seen something that would be useful.”

  To say nothing of the fact that if either the nitroglycerin or the Viagra tablets turned out to have contributed to Frogmore’s death, they’d be prime suspects.

  “Do we know who they were?” Dad turned to me.

  “Czerny, Green, Lindquist, and three very quiet young men who clearly wished they were at some other table,” I said. “I’ll see if I can find out their names.”

  “Dr. Lanville, while I have you, I wanted to ask about one more thing,” Dad said. “If you don’t mind hanging on until I walk over to where we’ve put Frogmore’s body.”

  “No problem. So how long have you been a medical examiner?”

  “Only the last few years.” Dad stood up and slowly strolled out, still talking. From the sound of it I could tell that Dad and Dr. Lanville, having bonded over their theory on how Frogmore had died, were moving into one of those congenial far-ranging medical discussions of their weirdest cases and most brilliant diagnoses.

  Chapter 15

  I wondered if I should follow Dad or go look for Lindquist and Green, who might have some idea who the other occupants of Frogmore’s table had been.

  I glanced over to see Horace writing up some kind of form.

  “Paperwork for when we submit all this to the Crime Lab,” he said, when he saw my gaze. “And I want to make damn sure every bit of it’s perfect when I submit those.” He nodded at the laundry bin full of gold-embossed lunch bags. “Not that we’ll have a chance anytime soon, but it’s always a mistake to get too behind on the paperwork. And it’s something to do while I’m figuring out what to do next. Or until the chief figures it out.”

  Ekaterina bustled in.

  “Would you mind if I printed out something? Since it is for you, it would be more convenient to do so here.”

  “Sure.” Horace stood up and yielded the desk chair. “You don’t have Internet, d
o you?”

  “No,” she said. “This is on our internal network. The Internet went out almost with the first flake, as usual. There’s another satellite phone if you need one.” She pointed to where it sat charging atop a file cabinet.

  “Thanks,” Horace said, “Dr. Langslow is still talking to Dr. Lanville on the other one.”

  “What I am printing out is a list of all the guests with their room numbers.” She typed a few commands and the printer in the corner began warming up. “Obviously you will want to begin searching all the rooms. Just let me know where you want to begin.”

  “Unfortunately, we probably have to begin with getting a search warrant,” Horace said.

  “But I am the manager, and I give you permission.” Ekaterina looked slightly offended. “If that is not sufficient, I can contact the owners to get their permission. I can use the satellite phone, so is no problem.”

  “I appreciate your support,” Horace said. “Unfortunately, some courts have decided that when people stay in a hotel room they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. That means we don’t dare go in without a search warrant unless we have the occupant’s permission. Not if we want the results of the search to be admissible in court.”

  “That seems silly.” She shook her head. “What if you told me what you were looking for and I had my staff search the rooms?”

  “Then you’d be acting as agents of the police and the results still wouldn’t be admissible,” Horace said. “I do want to interview your staff to see if they’ve noticed anything of interest in the past. But I have to be careful not to even appear to suggest that they go searching for evidence—and you should, too.” He had taken the spare satellite phone and was dialing. Planning to bring the chief up to speed, no doubt.

  “Curious,” Ekaterina said. “I can see the point of giving the bad guys a sporting chance. But this appears to give them the upper hand.”

  “It’s intended to protect the unjustly accused,” I said.

  “If you say so.” She shrugged. “Well, I stand by in readiness to open the rooms once you get your search warrant. Although I suppose that won’t happen till the roads are open. There would be no way to deliver a search warrant here tonight.”

  “We don’t have to deliver the search warrant to the hotel.” We all jumped slightly when the chief spoke up over the satellite phone—evidently Horace had reached him and put the phone on speaker. “The warrant just has to exist. Signed by a judge, of course. And Deputy Vern Shiffley is staying out with his aunt, Judge Jane, to help her get through the storm. So if we can figure out grounds for the search that the judge will find acceptable, I can dictate it to Vern over the radio and he can type it up and get her to sign it.”

  “Of course, first we have to come up with a list of suspects whose rooms we want to search,” I said.

  “And the grounds for suspecting them,” the chief added.

  “And there are two hundred of them,” Horace moaned.

  “We only need to worry about the ones who had some reason for conflict with the deceased,” the chief said.

  “That cuts it down to a hundred and ninety-nine,” I said.

  “They can’t all have had it in for him,” the chief exclaimed.

  “You didn’t meet him,” I said.

  “I suppose I should be glad about that,” the chief said. “But we have to start somewhere. And I doubt if Judge Jane will issue a blanket warrant for us to search the whole hotel, although I can have Vern ask. So if you had to make a shortlist, who would be on it?”

  I sighed. Horace held his pen poised over his notebook.

  “Dr. Vera Craine,” I said. “Frogmore tried to torpedo her career. She bounced back with Grandfather’s help, but she has reason to hate him.”

  Horace nodded, scribbled, then looked up as if to say “next.”

  “Melissa McKendrick. Caerphilly graduate student. She blames Frogmore for keeping her out of Buckthorn’s graduate school, which was her first choice. Dr. Benjamin Green. Thinks Frogmore is a heartless savage for wanting to kill thousands of barred owls to protect the endangered spotted owl. Dr. Nils Lindquist. Not sure why he’s down on Frogmore, since they’re both on the same side when it comes to what to do about the barred owls, but maybe fighting on the same side he’s seen more of Frogmore than he can take—I know yesterday he stormed out of Frogmore’s panel in a dudgeon. And yeah, we should include Dr. Edward Czerny. Frogmore’s minion. On the face of it, the only person who’s genuinely upset about Frogmore’s death, but who knows—maybe he’s secretly resented Frogmore all these years and hopes knocking the old guy off will clear the path for his own plot to take over the department. Stranger things have happened. Of course, those’re only the ones I’ve talked to who had a grudge against him. There could be others with similar motives. They know a lot more about each other than I know about any of them. I bet if you talked to those five, they’d be able to tell you who else to suspect.”

  “Then let’s begin by talking to those five,” the chief said. “At least the ones who haven’t yet gone to bed. Although if we get a search warrant, we might be waking them up. Meg—since you know them—”

  “Not very well,” I said.

  “I don’t even know what they look like,” Horace said.

  “Meg does.” If the chief had been in the room, he’d have been looking over his glasses at me. “So you can find them, right?”

  “I can try,” I said. “And it’s not as if any of them can have gone far in this storm. Which do you want first?”

  “Whichever you can find.”

  I stopped in the doorway and turned back to them. Well, to Horace and the satellite phone.

  “Someone on the outside would probably include Grandfather in their suspect list,” I said. “Dr. Frogmore has certainly given him a hard time all weekend. But Grandfather wouldn’t poison him. He’d just haul off and punch him in the nose.”

  “We should talk to your grandfather.” From his voice I could tell he was smiling. “As conference organizer. Though I tend to agree with your notion of how he’d deal with someone he had a bone to pick with.”

  I went out into the lobby and looked around. Sami had ventured out into the storm long enough to affix a thermometer outside the wall of glass. If the Weather Channel was looking for new recruits to follow in the footsteps of Jim Cantore and its other demented and intrepid storm chasers, I could certainly recommend him. Several attendees were staring out at the driving snow and exclaiming that the temperature had dropped into single digits, but I didn’t see any of the people I was looking for.

  The Mount Vernon Grill. I decided to try there. I didn’t see any of the three unidentified young men, but I did find two other prime suspects: Dr. Lindquist and Dr. Green. For people on opposite sides of the highly volatile barred owl issue they seemed to be getting along rather well. Was it just my imagination or did Dr. Green seem disappointed not to see Rose Noire following me?

  “Come and join us,” Dr. Lindquist called, waving a beer mug at me.

  “Thanks, but I have a bunch of people to round up for Horace,” I said. “People who might be able to give the police more information about Dr. Frogmore. Like you two.”

  “Suspects,” Dr. Lindquist said. “We’re suspects.” He sounded a lot like Dad, who was never happier than when suspicion lighted on him in a murder case. I wondered if Dr. Lindquist was also an avid reader of mystery books.

  “You make this sound like a good thing.” Dr. Green clutched his beer with both hands and looked anxious. “Does this mean they’ve decided he was murdered?”

  “That’s still undecided,” I said. “They may not know for sure until the autopsy. But in the meantime, they want to learn everything they can about what happened during dinner. And about him.”

  “They want to know who had motive, means, and opportunity.” Dr. Lindquist nodded.

  “And also whether he’d complained about feeling unwell at any time during the day,” I said. “Or whether anyone had
been seen messing with his food.”

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” Dr. Green said. “I did my best to avoid him. I didn’t even like sitting in the same room with him. You could feel the anger coming off him in almost visible waves.”

  “The police might like to know that,” Dr. Lindquist said. “Come, let’s go and help them with their inquiries.” He gulped the last of his beer and stood.

  Dr. Green winced but he followed Dr. Lindquist’s example.

  “Across the lobby, door marked ‘Hotel Office,’” I said. “By the way, have you seen Dr. Craine or Dr. Czerny lately?”

  “Vera just left,” Dr. Green said. “I assume she was going up to her room.”

  “Czerny’s probably off somewhere performing seppuku,” Dr. Lindquist said. “Or would that be suttee?”

  “Not really—he’s fine.” Dr. Green looked disappointed by his colleague’s facetiousness. “We were trying to keep him company, but we gathered he really wanted to be by himself.”

  “Told us to stop pretending we weren’t thrilled at Frogmore’s death and get lost, actually,” Dr. Lindquist elaborated. “Come on, Ben. Let’s face the music.”

  They left the bar, and I watched as they disappeared into the office.

  Ekaterina appeared.

  “Horace thought you might also find a copy of this useful,” she said, a little stiffly. “The list of our guests, with room numbers. Evidently they will not be able to use it for the search for the time being, but it will still come in handy if you are looking for witnesses to invite to the Command Post.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “It’s just what I need. If you see Dr. Czerny—the one who was so upset by Dr. Frogmore’s death—could you let Horace and the chief know? Or better yet, just lead him to them.”

  “Of course.” As I expected, the idea of having something to contribute to the investigation seemed to improve her mood.