She was Dying Anyway

by P. D. Workman

  She put the vitamin C down on the counter and examined the other bottle. “What’s in this? Are you sure it’s safe for you?”

  “No, I haven’t checked yet. But I will before I take any.”

  “You know you have to be careful. There could be contraindications with your meds. They could cause a reaction or make something you’re taking stop working.”

  “I know.”

  She put the second bottle down on the counter. “That’s good,” she approved, forcing a smile. “I’m glad you’re trying to take care of yourself. Good for you for thinking ahead.”

  She fished the hand sanitizer out of the bag and put it on the counter with the supplements. Crumpling up the bag, she opened the cupboard under his sink, and frowned.

  “You don’t have a recycling container?”

  “Not yet. I’ll get one when I’m at the grocery store.”

  With a scowl, she stuffed the bag beside the garbage can. “I’ll just put it here for now, then. Instead of mixing it with the trash.” She closed the cupboard door and looked at her watch. “You should have something to eat.” She opened the fridge to survey the contents.

  “Uh… you don’t need to do that, Bridge. I can feed myself. Are you hungry? Can I get you something?”

  Her expression as she looked at the food that had been sitting in the fridge for almost a week told him that she was not impressed.

  “I don’t have a lot of time to prepare anything,” Zachary said. “I’ve been busy with this case. There’s frozen meals in the freezer. I did go to the grocery store.”

  She didn’t trust his word, but opened the freezer door to check. Lips pressed tightly together, she closed it again. “So… I gather you had something to tell me about the case?”

  “I was at the hospital most of the day today,” Zachary said. He hadn’t prepared for what he was going to say to her, in spite of the fact that he’d had an hour to wait for her. He should have thought through what he wanted to say while he was waiting. “I talked a bit more to the hospital staff. Some of the patients. Just spent the time going over Robin’s last few days, her mood, how she interacted, who was there to visit her…”

  Bridget nodded and sat down at the table. “That sounds good. Find out anything interesting?”

  “The police were over there today too. They’ve started in on their investigation. Looks like Joshua Campbell is supervising the evidence-gathering at the hospital.”

  “Joshua was always nice,” Bridget approved. “He wasn’t automatically prejudiced against private investigators like some of the police.”

  Bridget seemed to be able to make friends with everyone, and she and Zachary hadn’t been together long before everyone Zachary knew seemed to be friends with her. People he had known for years were suddenly best friends with Bridget, without Zachary ever being sure how they had happened to get to know each other so well.

  “Yeah. He was pretty good. Called off the dogs when they wanted to arrest me today…” Zachary grinned.

  “To arrest you?” Bridget repeated. “Why would they want to arrest you? Because you were getting in the way when they were trying to investigate Robin’s case?”

  “No, actually. Campbell headed them off there. Told me not to step on their toes, and they wouldn’t step on mine. They were more interested in arresting me for kidnapping.”

  “Kidnapping?” Bridget’s voice shot higher.

  Zachary related his chance meeting with Ruth and spending time with her. He kept it light, but Bridget was still frowning, little lines appearing on the bridge of her nose.

  “That was very kind of you,” she admitted. “You’ve always been very concerned about other people. The champion of the underdog. That’s why I knew you would want to find out what really happened to Robin.”

  “But…?”

  “Nothing. Just that. It was very kind.”

  “You think I was neglecting Robin’s case? Because I wasn’t. The whole thing didn’t take more than an hour. Even with the police take-down.”

  “No. I didn’t say there was any problem with it.”

  But her voice certainly did. She definitely had something more to say. Zachary shrugged and waited. Push her, and she would just push back and get angry and defensive.

  “I don’t know this Ruth, but she sounds very nice.”

  Zachary nodded again. “She was. She was having a pretty rough time of it.”

  Bridget’s eyes grew distant. She didn’t talk a lot about her time at the hospital. She’d rarely said anything to him about her treatments there, what kind of torture she had gone through to kill the cancer and still survive. Zachary knew the doctors pushed as close to the edge as they could. Kill the cancer but not the patient. Kill it so that it would never come back. Zachary lived in dread that it would reoccur. That in a few more weeks or months, Bridget would mention that she was having symptoms. Or she would go to the doctor for her regular scans and they would tell her the cancer was back, and twice as bad. Eventually, Gordon would call Zachary to tell him that Bridget had fought the good fight, but was gone.

  “It must have been hard for you too,” Zachary offered.

  “Of course it was. I wouldn’t want to put my worst enemy through what I had to go through. It was horrible. I was so sick. So tired I could barely move or speak. I begged them to stop the treatment and just let me die. But they always talked me back into it. Just two more cycles. Just one more. Another one just to be sure.”

  Zachary shook his head. “I wish… I’d been able to be there for you.”

  “I couldn’t manage it. I couldn’t deal with anybody else while I was going through that. I just needed to take care of myself.”

  “Of course. I know. I’m just saying. I wish… things had been different.”

  “I needed all my strength and focus to get through it. There wasn’t anything left for anyone else. That’s just the way it is. It was the same for Robin.”

  Zachary thought about Robin and the way she had dumped Lawrence, the same as Bridget had dumped him.

  “Was there anything else? What other problems were taking Robin’s mind off of her recovery?”

  Bridget’s eyes wandered around the kitchen as she considered her answer.

  “She had some family issues. I told her she should try to resolve them. Get them out of her life so that they weren’t pulling her mental energy.”

  “Resolve them.”

  “Yes,” Bridget said evenly. “If you have all of these toxic people pulling away the energy you need for healing and recovery, you have to cut them off.”

  “You told her to cut off her family?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “I’m asking. It’s important to the investigation, Bridget. Did you tell her to cut off her sister and mother? Because if she did, they would be suspects too.”

  “She said her family was too important to her.” Bridget’s face was stony. “That was her business, not mine. If she thought she was getting what she needed out of the relationships, then that was fine. If they were giving her more benefits than deficits, then maybe she should keep them around her. But… I didn’t see her getting a lot out of it. I don’t think they were helping her healing.” Bridget sighed. She got up and got herself a glass of water. Leaning against the counter to drink it, she added, “Maybe that’s why she died.”

  “You think one of them had something to do with her death.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way. I just think the cancer grew and spread because there was so much negativity in her life. If she had gotten rid of those toxic relationships and only fostered positive, beneficial ones… maybe she could have beaten it.”

  Zachary nodded. His mouth was dry too. “So… I gather you didn’t think much of her family.”

  “Everybody has good and bad traits.”

  “Her mother seemed quite nice to me. You didn’t think so?”

  “I think she was one of the people sucking all of Robin’s energy away. She spent all of her
time mourning her husband and making sure that everyone around her did too. He died ten years ago, and she still walks around making sure that everyone knows that he died. Her poor murdered husband. Her poor family, losing him like that for no reason. Her poor, damaged grandson. Some people always carry a cloud around with them. The negativity clings to them. You can’t be around them without feeling worried and depressed.”

  Zachary figured that was pretty much how Bridget saw him. Now that she was getting her health back, she could afford to put a little energy into being decent to him. But she still saw him just the same way. As someone who always needed support and extra time and energy. Someone hopelessly negative and toxic. If he was going to win her back, he needed to show her he could change. He could be upbeat and give her back positivity instead of negativity.

  “And her sister…” Zachary said, moving through the people in Robin’s family, “…I got the feeling she was pretty stubborn and single-minded. She and Robin were probably always competing and butting heads.”

  Bridget nodded. “Good guess. Yes, they always seemed like they were on opposite sides of everything. If one of them said the sky was blue…”

  “Yeah. And from what Vera said, I gather Gloria hasn’t always been there. They raised Rhys, rather than Gloria having full-time custody of him.”

  “Robin always talked about Gloria like she was the bratty baby sister. The one who always wanted to take the spotlight and got away with whatever she wanted to because she was the baby in the family. Robin said that if she’d been the one who had gotten pregnant, she would have been out on the street. But instead of kicking Gloria out, they took her back in. Coddled her and took care of the baby and let Gloria get away with leaving him there all the time and going out to party or do drugs.”

  “I would think that was better for the baby than letting Gloria try to take care of him on her own.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe that would have forced Gloria to take some responsibility for her actions and grow up.”

  “Seems like she did, eventually.”

  “Not until it was too late. Not until after their father was killed and Rhys was in an institution.”

  Zachary closed his eyes, fighting back images of his own institutional stays. How many times had he daydreamed about his mother changing her mind and coming to get him and put their family back together again? But it had been too late for his family. There was no going home.

  “Zachary.”

  Her fleeting touch on his hand, so familiar and comforting, and then it was gone. Zachary forced himself to breathe, drawing air in and pushing it out. He opened his eyes, swimming through the memories and emotions to get back to her.

  “Sorry. So…” He cleared his throat and tried to get back on track. “Was there more bad blood between Robin and Gloria, or just some leftover sibling resentment?”

  “I think they were pretty good. They didn’t generally fight when Gloria came by. I didn’t hear a lot of sniping between them. But then… I always left when the family arrived, too. Sometimes I’d stay for a few minutes, if Robin asked me to, but not any significant length of time.”

  “Did Robin resent her mother? Because of the way Gloria was favored? Because she spent more energy mourning her dead husband than she gave to Robin?”

  “Robin kind of did, yeah. But that’s pretty normal.” Bridget spoke in a light tone. “Relationships get strained when you’re sick like that. Some people get closer to each other, but if there are problems with the relationship, a stressor like cancer, it magnifies them. Splits people apart.”

  Zachary nodded. He didn’t need to draw a line to connect Robin’s issues with her family to Bridget booting Zachary out of her life.

  “I’d like to talk to them more in depth. But I think that’s going to be harder now that the police investigation has started up. Do you think you could talk to them and get them to meet with me?”

  “I don’t know. I can try, I guess. What do you want to talk to them about?”

  Zachary tapped the pads of his fingers on the table, working through what he knew so far and what his next step should be.

  “I don’t want to wait until we get the results of the autopsy back. Who knows how long all of the lab work will take and if it will show anything significant. I feel like we’re already behind. If we wait until we know whether it was cancer or an accident or euthanasia, it might be too late to find anything out. Especially if the police scare everyone into being quiet. I want to get a better feel for the family and to find out if anything important happened the last couple of days of Robin’s life.”

  “Are you saying they’re suspects?”

  “I’m not saying that they’re not…” Zachary scratched the back of his head. “Just tell them… I need background, Robin’s history, to talk to them about anything that happened at the treatment center.”

  “They’re not going to like it.”

  “Tell them… that I think it was just the natural course of Robin’s illness, and I won’t believe you that it might have been medical error.”

  “Make it look like I’m the bad guy and you’re on their side,” Bridget said baldly.

  “Uh… yes. They’re more likely to let me talk to them if they think I’m trying to prove their case rather than yours.”

  Her eyes snapped. “You are on my side, though, aren’t you?” she demanded.

  “Yes.” Zachary nodded. “I’m completely on your side.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  L

  ate in the evening, there was a sharp rap on Zachary’s apartment door that had him jumping to his feet, heart thumping, before he even thought about it. He tried to slow his breathing to get the wild thundering of his heart under control, and went to the door.

  No one had his address. Only Bowman and Bridget. And Kenzie. Maybe a few other people who needed to know where to direct his mail or new furniture. And the landlord. Maybe he wanted to discuss the damage to the wall and doorframe the movers had caused and when it was going to be fixed.

  He applied his eye to the peephole and looked out. The lighting in the hall wasn’t great. Something he would have to address with the landlord to ensure that he knew whether it was safe to open his door to visitors. Maybe Zachary would install a discreet surveillance cam in the hallway so he could get a proper look at anyone at his door. But as it was, he didn’t need much more than a glance at the shadowy figure in the hall to tell that it was a police officer or security guard.

  He opened the door even as his brain rang alarm bells that anyone could get a security guard uniform and it didn’t mean that his visitor was someone who could be trusted. But the door was open and it was too late to change his mind.

  “Zachary,” Campbell greeted with a booming voice. “Glad you’re still up.”

  As if Zachary could have slept through the loud knocking on the door.

  “Hey. Come on in.”

  Zachary ushered Campbell into the apartment and shut and locked the door behind him. They went to the living room, where there were at least two places to sit even if there was still an empty hole where the couch should have been. He was going to have to find something sooner or later that would actually fit through the door without being cut into pieces. They each selected an easy chair and sat down.

  That eased Zachary’s mind a little. He had been sure that Campbell was going to tell him he was off the case and to stay out of the way. He’d been warned away from too many police investigations in the past; he knew that was how such things were handled. If Campbell wanted to warn and threaten him, he wouldn’t have sat down. He would have wanted to stay in a position of power over Zachary, using his greater height and heft to intimidate.

  “Nice place,” Campbell said without sincerity. “I gather you’ve just moved in?”

  “Yeah.” There were still a few moving boxes around, so even if Campbell hadn’t heard that already, it wouldn’t have taken a genius to figure it out. “You probably heard the last place got burned down…”<
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  “Yeah, seems to me something like that might have come across the desk at some point.” Campbell’s smile made it obvious this was a joke. He settled into the chair with a tired sigh. “Don’t happen to have any beer, do you?”

  “Uh… no, sorry. A glass of water…?”

  “No, I’ll get something when I get home. Just on my way there now, but I thought I’d give you a little heads-up on the case.”

  “You found something already?”

  “No, no evidence that points to any medical malpractice or foul play. Just… background.”

  Zachary leaned forward. It was rare for the police to be so forthcoming. They had privacy policies that prevented them from telling certain things to members of the public.

  “I heard today that Robin’s father was murdered ten years ago,” Zachary said. “Is it something to do with that?”

  Campbell nodded. “That was one of the things that came up,” he agreed. “An interesting coincidence, but it doesn’t appear, on the surface, to be related.”

  “Did they ever catch the murderer? What exactly happened?”

  “The man was attacked in his home. Appeared to be a burglary gone wrong. The thief thought the house was empty, or maybe they had the address wrong and were looking for something else. He was shot. Killed instantly. Turns out there was a child in the house as well, the grandson. But he was unable to testify as to what he had seen.”

  “Rhys. Yeah, I heard about that.”

  “They never found the perp and the case went cold. I’m having the boys review the details just in case there is any connection, but I don’t think there’s anything there.”

  “Any chance I could see the file?”

  “Go through normal channels. I won’t block any request.”

  “Is that it, or was there something else?”

  Campbell grinned. “You haven’t done a full background, then.”

  “Uh… no. Just some interviews. Checking to see whether there was anything to the claim that Robin’s death might not have been natural causes. What did I miss? One of the hospital employees? Lawrence Long?”