She regretted having spoken up as soon as she saw the fear in Angel’s eyes.
“We’ll have to get you one of those electronic monitors,” said Angel. “An apnea monitor, or a heartrate monitor. An alarm will go off as soon as it detects an abnormal slow-down of your heartbeat or breathing.”
Eulalie touched her grandmother’s arm. “That’s the thing about the cat, Grandmère. It pulled me out of it. It seemed to sense what was happening and tapped my face until I woke up. And then… it healed me. That’s the only word I can think of.”
Angel became even more agitated. “Where is this cat? We need to find it at once. We must trap it and force it to come and live with you. It is even better than an apnea monitor.”
“I think the whole point of cats is that no one can force them to do anything. Besides, it might belong to someone. It certainly looks well-fed enough. Besides, I don’t know anything about cats. I wouldn’t know what to do with one. We never had cats when I was growing up.”
“I was allergic to them for years. It seems to be better now. I can be around them without breaking out in hives. I shall come and visit you and your cat, enfin.”
“I don’t have a cat,” said Eulalie. “I don’t even like cats. What I need now is less cat talk and more information about the Hodges.”
Angel dabbed her lips with a napkin. “The Hodges? You asked me about them once before. What do you want to know?”
“What have you heard about the son, Damien? He’s a bit of an enigma.”
“There have been whispers,” said Angel. “I never paid much attention, but since you started working on this case I have been speaking to people.”
“What sort of whispers?”
“That he might have learning difficulties. That his smooth passage through high school was oiled more by papa’s money than by his own academic abilities. Martha was forty-four when she had him, you know. She always made a big song and dance about how he was perfectly fine despite the fact that she had him at an advanced age. The whispers are that he is not in fact perfectly fine.”
“That all sounds a bit ableist and icky.”
“I agree,” said Angel. “People still seem to think it is okay to belittle someone for their intelligence. But you wanted to know about the whispers, so I am telling you. You interviewed him, didn’t you? What was your impression?”
“It crossed my mind that he might have learning difficulties,” admitted Eulalie. “But after speaking to him for a while, I decided that he was just stuck in a kind of adolescent time warp. He’s not the brightest, but I don’t think he has anything that could be classified as a challenge. He’s just a boy who has never grown up. To me, the strange thing to me is that he is the chief financial officer of Hodge Consortium. I’ve been in his office. It’s toy central in there. It looks like a teenage boy’s playroom. So, unless he’s some kind of silicone valley prodigy in jeans and a baseball cap, I can’t see how he can be making a success of the job.”
“You must remember that Damien is an only child. He was born years after John and Martha had given up hope of being able to have their own biological child. It is only natural that he should be somewhat indulged.”
“I suppose.”
“All I know is that it is of the utmost importance to John and Martha to be able to say that their only son is working in the company his great-grandfather founded. I suppose it’s natural enough.”
“I guess it is. I just wish I could get near him to ask about that night on the island when Jessica disappeared.”
“So, why don’t you?”
“They won’t let me talk to him. There’s a man called Carson Fairweather who watches his every move and makes sure that troublemakers like me can’t get close to him.”
“Do you think he is being protective or is he worried about what Damien might say to you?”
“I don’t know,” said Eulalie. “That’s what I need to find out. Chief Macgregor has been working the smuggling angle for a couple of months now. I need to collaborate with him if I’m going to have any chance of getting to the bottom of this case.”
Angel smirked. “I’m sure there are worse fates. Perhaps he should be your night-time apnea monitor.”
“Perhaps he should.” As hard as Eulalie tried, she was unable to prevent a slight blush from staining her cheeks.
When she got home later that evening, she couldn’t help looking around for any traces of the cat. There were none. It was probably tucked up nearby with its own family. And that was a good thing.
Instead of leaving her bedroom windows closed as she had been doing for the past few days, she left one of them ajar. Not to invite in the cat, she told herself, but because it was a warm night and she needed some air.
She sent a text to Chief Macgregor asking if he would have time to see her the next day. No reply came, and she concluded that he was probably asleep. A few minutes later, she had followed suit.
Chapter 22
Eulalie woke up to a cat-free bed and a message from Chief Macgregor. The message invited her to attend the autopsy of Evan Wong that morning. He promised to be available to talk to her about smuggling matters straight afterwards.
Watching autopsies was not Eulalie’s favorite way to pass the time, but she had done it before and would no doubt do it again. She wasn’t sure which she disliked more – the cutting up of human bodies or the person behind the knife. Prince William Island’s medical examiner was a woman by the name of Stephanie Autry. She was in her early thirties and regarded as one of the island’s shining stars, having trained at Harvard University.
She and Eulalie had been at school together, although Eulalie was a few years her junior. Stephanie Autry was the kind of woman who radiated perfection, from the top of her coiffured head to the tips of her pedicured toes. She was slim, beautiful, and immaculately dressed.
None of this was the reason behind Eulalie’s dislike for her. For a woman to be talented and fashionable was usually a reason for Eulalie to like her. Her dislike was based on two things – Doctor Autry’s insistence on keeping up the charade that she had never met Eulalie before, and her tendency to behave in a patronizing and belittling fashion.
The fact that the medical examiner also had her eye on Chief Macgregor was something Eulalie tried not to think about. There wasn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t feel threatened by a rival of Dr. Autry’s caliber.
But Chief Macgregor was no ordinary man. Extremely touch-averse, he had once told Eulalie that he had recognized her as the woman he was meant to be with because his skin ‘knew’ her. Did his skin ‘know’ Dr. Autry too? She had no way of telling.
Eulalie showered and dressed for the day with slightly more care than usual. She knew she wouldn’t be able to outshine Stephanie Autry sartorially – her budget didn’t run to designer outfits – but she could at least take a little trouble.
She put on a pair of black linen pants that were a step up from the stretchy jeans she usually wore. She paired them with a pale blue button-down shirt Angel had bought her for her last birthday. Like all of Angel’s choices, it was stylish and flattering.
Instead of her usual boots, she put on a pair of heels that she knew would have her feet crying for mercy by mid-morning. She took the time to blow-dry her unruly mane of black hair. Then she applied her makeup with care.
She was at the morgue at five to eight, not wanting to keep the illustrious Dr. Autry waiting. Chief Macgregor was just pulling up in his red E-Type Jaguar.
“Is that a new chrome trim around the wheels?” she asked as he got out of the car.
“I installed it last weekend,” he said, looking pleased that she had noticed. “It looks good, don’t you think?”
“Very good,” Eulalie agreed, looking at his slim-fitting black suit and crisp white shirt. “It must be nearly finished by now?”
“No, it still has a long way to go. The gearbox isn’t original. When I manage to source an original moss box, I’m going to take this one out and rep
lace it with that. It’ll be a big job.
He looked so happy at the thought of the huge job that Eulalie could only smile. She knew he had bought his beloved car years earlier in a terrible state and had been lovingly restoring it ever since. It was exactly the kind of fussy, obsessive hobby that would appeal to his orderly soul.
“This should be interesting,” he said, standing back to let Eulalie go into the building first. “Electrocution is a tricky thing to diagnose. It will be fascinating to see what Dr. Autry makes of this case. Do you know that she specialized in unexplained deaths when she was doing her last fellowship at Harvard?”
“Fascinating,” said Eulalie, knowing that the sarcasm in her tone would pass him by. “What an asset she is to the medical examiner’s office.”
“She is.” He nodded seriously. “She really is.”
They went through to a waiting room outside the medical examiner’s office. Stephanie Autry came out to meet them there.
“Chief Macgregor!” She glided towards him on heels that were at least twice as high as Eulalie’s. “Always a pleasure to have you here in our humble domain.” She gave him a lingering double cheek kiss. Then she turned towards Eulalie. “And who do we have here?”
“You must remember Eulalie Park?” Chief Macgregor sounded surprised. “I introduced you when we were working on the Lucien Faberge matter. It can’t be more than six weeks ago.”
“No…” Dr. Autry put her head to one side and scrutinized Eulalie. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure. Dr. Stephanie Autry, medical examiner.” She stretched out her manicured hand.
“Eulalie Park, private investigator.” Eulalie kept her smile firmly in place as they shook hands.
“Do come through and let’s get started straight away. I hope you won’t feel faint, Ms. Park. I’m afraid civilians often find this quite distressing.”
Eulalie knew provocation when she heard it and decided not to engage.”
Dr. Autry took out a Dictaphone and recorded her findings as she worked through the steps of the autopsy. First, she weighed and measured the body and made a note of the figures. Then she performed the Y-incision – the massive cut from collar bones to pelvis to allow the medical examiner access to the internal organs.
She took the organs out and weighed them individually, speaking her findings into the Dictaphone.
“The stomach contents are of particular interest, Stephanie,” said Chief Macgregor. We need to exclude the possibility that this man ingested something poisonous.”
“No problem, Chief.” She smiled at him. “I can have that information for you today.” She pressed a button on a wall-mounted intercom, and a lab assistant came through to take the stomach contents away for immediate analysis.
Chief Macgregor rewarded her with one of his rare smiles.
When Dr. Autry took out the circular saw to cut open Evan Wong’s skull in order to remove his brain, she kept glancing over at Eulalie to see if it was bothering her.
“Everything okay there, Miss er…? You’re looking a little pale.”
Once again, Eulalie chose not to respond.
The brain was weighed and examined and found to be normal for a man of Mr. Wong’s age. When the sample collection was finished, and another assistant had been called in to put Mr. Wong back together again, Dr. Autry turned to Chief Macgregor with her findings.
“There is certainly some redness in the axilla and groin areas, which could be indicative of electrocution. They could also be indicative of many other things, including sunburn. I can’t make a hard and fast finding that this man died after receiving an electric shock.”
“What about macroscopic hemorrhages on the floor of the fourth ventricle?” asked Eulalie.
Dr. Autry raised her eyebrows. “Looks like someone has learned how to use Google.”
“And microscopic changes to the myocardium.”
Dr. Autry took the heart out of the chest cavity again. “I didn’t notice anything…”
She pulled her magnifying glasses down over her eyes and looked more closely at the ventricle. “Okay… yes … perhaps there are some tiny hemorrhages here.”
“And the myocardium?” asked Chief Macgregor.
“Yes, fine. I’ll send that for microscopy too.” She straightened up. “It’s still not conclusive, you know. Even if there are microscopic changes to the myocardium, they could all have been caused by something else. In cases of suspected electrocution, cause of death has to be determined by a combination of circumstantial factors and findings on autopsy.”
“What’s that?” Eulalie pointed as the lab assistant turned the body on its side. “Those two little marks on his back, just below the shoulder.”
“I already made a note of those,” said Dr. Autry. “He incurred some kind of minor injury shortly before death.”
But Chief Macgregor and Eulalie weren’t listening. They were both bent almost double, with their noses practically pressed against the victim’s back.
“Is that a Taser mark?” said Chief Macgregor.
“It looks like one. See the width between the two little dots? It looks exactly like the gap between the prongs of a Taser.”
“But Tasers don’t kill people,” Chief Macgregor pointed out.
“Actually, they sometimes do,” said Dr. Autry. “Even a mild electric shock can be deadly if the current passes through the heart and the body’s resistance is low – for example if his skin is wet or broken.”
“It could have been modified to deliver an illegal charge,” said Eulalie. “Someone could have tased him and then set the scene with the electrical box standing open with a livewire stripped and exposed to make it look as though he touched it accidentally.”
“Didn’t you say his hands were wet too?”
“Yes, very. It was one of the first things I noticed. I don’t know if that was part of the scene setting, or if it was just a coincidence that might have contributed to his death. Either way, this was no accident.”
“I was going to put those little marks in my report,” said Dr. Autry.
“Of course, you were,” said Chief Macgregor. “You’re the most thorough medical examiner I’ve ever worked with.”
She looked somewhat mollified. “The point is that this man’s injuries are certainly consistent with a shock from a Taser. It just happens to be an injury I’ve not seen before. And while it is possible that a shock from a Taser could have killed him, it’s not likely. It would have had to be modified to deliver many thousands of volts. Setting the scene to look like an accidental electrocution was clever, but obviously not as clever as you are, Chief Macgregor.”
“Actually, it was Ms. Park who…”
“I think we can agree that there is a high likelihood that this man died of exposure to electricity. If you want me to sign off on that as the official cause of death, I’m willing to do so, with the usual caveats.”
“We can hold off on that for a while,” said Chief Macgregor. “We need to investigate further before we make a final determination. We will await your autopsy report with interest, Dr. Autry.”
She nodded and stripped off her gloves. “I’ll say goodbye then, Chief Macgregor. And may I say once again what a pleasure it is to work with someone of your level of professionalism. When I think of your predecessor…” She shook her head. “Well, never mind that.”
“Thank you for letting us sit in, Dr. Autry.” Chief Macgregor shook hands with her.
“Goodbye, Chief Macgregor. Goodbye, Miss… er…”
“I enjoy working with Dr. Autry,” said Chief Macgregor as he and Eulalie walked out into the parking lot.
“She’s very good at her job.”
“It’s strange that she missed those hemorrhages on the fourth ventricle, though,” he said. “She seemed to be a little off her game.”
“She was dealing with a personal irritation,” Eulalie explained. “That’s enough to put anyone off their stride.”
“What personal irritation?”
<
br /> “Me.”
“She doesn’t like you?”
“There’s some hostility, that’s all I know.”
“How did you know about the ventricular hemorrhages and the changes to the myocardium?”
“Google.” Eulalie laughed. “Just as she suspected. I spent some time researching the postmortem signs of electrocution.”
“We’re going to have to question Mr. Wong’s wife. She was the only person with the opportunity to hit him with a Taser.”
“I’ll be interested to hear what comes of that. Mrs. Wong did a good job of convincing us that she was heartbroken over her husband’s death. She kept talking about how silly he was to fiddle, and how she had known he was going to get into trouble one of these days. It was as though she had been expecting this for months.”
“Interesting. So, there was no one else in the back room at the time?”
“No one that I saw, and I ended up going just about everywhere. They don’t seem to have any assistants. It’s just the two of them who run that place alone. Or rather, it was.”
Chief Macgregor opened the door of his sports car for Eulalie. She climbed into the upright bucket seat.
“You said you needed to speak to me this morning?” said Chief Macgregor. “It wasn’t for the autopsy.”
“No, it wasn’t. I want you to come to Logan Cay with me. There’s a food and beverage manager there called George that we need to interview.”
“I’ve already spoken to him,” said the Chief. “He didn’t know much.”
“I think he was holding out on you. I’ve had a reliable tip that no one knows more about smuggling than he does. That’s not to say he is necessarily involved, but he has contacts. I think I could get him to talk.”
They were approaching Eulalie’s office now, but instead of getting out of the car she stayed put and looked at him.
“You really think smuggling is at the root of all this?” he asked.
“I’m sure of it. It might even be what killed Evan Wong. I haven’t figured that part out yet. We really need to go to Logan Cay.”
The Complete H-Series of The Eulalie Park Mysteries Page 62