by Keene, Susan
“They’ll do a tox-screen to see if she was drugged―or drugged herself. The Medical Examiner said she was in her twenties and had never had children. I guess we’re at a standstill for now, unless something comes back from the lab tests or the autopsy. We’ll run her DNA, but we all know how long that takes. I’ll leave you folks to enjoy the rest of your day. I’ll grab the crime scene tape on my way out. However, I insist we have an unmarked car in front of the house since we don’t have a clue what all this is about.”
“Roger, save the taxpayers’ money. One of my guys will do the surveillance. I’ll have someone here twenty-four-seven,” Ryan said.
“Thanks, let me know if anything comes from the stakeout.”
Ryan stood to walk him to the door. “You’ll be the first to know.”
Nathan made the call and had a car on the way before Ryan got back to the kitchen. “Let’s go outside. The patio’s in the shade and the dogs can run around. I know you ladies well enough to know you don’t intend to let this go. I’m sure you‘ll know her real name before Roger does.”
Amy unfolded her long lanky legs from under the chair and put both dogs on the floor before she stood. “You do protection. We solve crimes. Just like it was in your nature to use your own men to watch us and the house, it’s our nature to try to figure out who she was, and what she wanted with our agency.” She glanced down over her lime green granny glasses and added, “and who killed her.”
Beautiful described Amy to a tee. She didn’t need make up. Her tight and smooth skin had the same tone, winter and summer. The blush on her cheeks accented her high cheekbones. All of her clothes were bright colors and fit her like a glove. Around her neck she wore a pair of cheaters on a cord. The glasses and chain of the day always matched some item of her clothing. Today they matched perfectly with the designs on her blouse. I know she had a pair in every color.
I went to the wine chiller and grabbed a bottle of Chardonnay and four glasses. When I came back I asked, “So you have already made up your mind its a murder?”
Nathan took the glasses out of my hand. “She looked awfully healthy for it to be anything else. Did you get a glimpse of her arm and leg muscles? Looks like she ran and lifted weights. I guess there’s nothing for us to do right now but wait.”
Ryan went inside to see what kind of snacks we had. “How did you see her? I thought she had been taken away by the time you got here.”
Nathan filled the wine glasses all around. “The ambulance drivers were standing by the door. She hadn’t been put in the back yet. We walked up like we belonged and pulled the sheet down to take a look at her.”
“Okay,” I said, “since the day didn’t go as planned, let’s make the most of it. How about lunch on the grill and we enjoy this beautiful day. It’s after one, I’m hungry.”
Ryan came by and kissed me on the top of the head. He laid an unopened potato chip bag on the table. “I knew I loved you for a reason. It’s that sharp mind of yours. Are ribeyes okay with everyone? Want me to whip up a salad?”
Ryan was a good cook and he liked the chore. He and I had been friends since college, dated for a few years, moved in together, and had been happy so far. He wanted to get married. I had been wearing his mother’s ring for almost a year. I couldn’t muster up the courage to take the final step. One day I would, I knew it.
During the entire meal, I couldn’t get my mind off Marie. Who was she? I wished Roger would call with some new information.
Like magic, my cell phone rang. “Nash here.” People asked why I answered my phone the same way every time. My standard answer was, ‘cause I’m Nash and I’m here.
“We ran the girl’s fingerprints through Codis. She showed up as a missing person in 2008, Ivy Rose Tucker. She was eleven the last time she was seen alive. She and her family were from Chicago. Her parents were doctors. Her mother, Sharon, a neurosurgeon age 37, and her father, Eric, a pediatrician age 39. She had a younger sister, Dallas, age 9 and an older brother, Maxwell, age 17. They went on an extended cruise to the Gulf of California and to explore the Mexican mainland. They arrive at their first destination. No one reported seeing or hearing from them again. Still no cause of death on Ivy.”
“Thanks. You don’t care if we dig into this, do you? After all, she had our agency card with her.”
He laughed, not a funny laugh but a resigned one. “Is there any way I could stop you? As usual, all of my resources are at your disposal. Tell Ryan not to hack any government computers this time. If I find out anything else, I’ll let you know.”
I passed the information on to the group. A chill ran up my spine. I wish I knew the cause of death. It made a big difference to me since she was found at our house.
Ryan leaned over and put his hand on mine. “I don’t know if my feelings should be hurt because you would rather investigate this murder than spend the next week as we planned. I have known you two long enough,” he smiled at Amy, “not to take it personally. Nathan and I will do all we can to help solve this. It seems to me we should wait until we have a cause of death before we form a plan of action. Right now, for all we know, she could have had a heart attack.”
CHAPTER 2
O ur curiosity, and what it would take to launch a full-blown investigation into the girl’s death, came nowhere close to each other. The four of us were intrigued but unwilling to start a new case on a beautiful, lazy Sunday afternoon. I had been busy with a case that involved my mother and sister. I had gone to bed every night since then with the realization my entire life had been a lie. It monopolized my thoughts. A new case might help me crawl out of the dark.
For the second time in the same day, I felt as if someone had a listening device in my mind. Amy asked about my sister, Sarah. “Is your sister thriving as the new boss of the De Marco Crime Family?”
I gave her my biggest smile. “They have it almost turned around, of course no matter how much good they do, someone will find out it used to be the De Marco family business. Tony has been in culinary school and is working at the Seafood Palace. Our so-called mother and Uncle Dominic are safely tucked away in a Federal Prison. I doubt they ever see the outside world again.
“I’d say Tony and Sarah are living the dream. Think of the good you could do with a hundred million dollars.”
Amy laughed. “I think of the good I could do with an extra thousand. I doubt either of us will ever get to find out.”
Nathan stood to refill Ryan’s wine glass. “The only other good thing to come out of that case was Ryan putting you into the background check business. You could never do another outside case and have more money than before.”
Amy and I looked at one another. “I find it boring,” Amy said.
I raised my glass to get attention and more wine. “Me too, but for the first time, we can work on the Ivy Tucker case and not worry about whether we have the money to pay the bills.”
Roger called one more time. “There were two other people on the Tucker boat, a Captain, Michael Mannes and his wife, Janis, who served as a cook and all-around helper. She was thirty-six, he was thirty-nine, neither of them was ever seen or heard from again.”
“Since Ivy showed up after ten years, it makes me wonder if all of the rest of them are actually dead.” I looked around the room for approval of what I was about to say. “I think we had best begin in Chicago and see who these people were. Things might not be as they seem.”
Before he hung up, Roger added, “…in murder cases they seldom are.”
Amy had both dogs next to her. “Let’s get back to background checks. I counted Friday. We have a hundred and forty in the office as we speak. EDP has sixty waiting. They want everything including which side of the bed the prospective employee sleeps on. They take almost a day a piece. Marky Mart hardly wants anything. I think they’ll hire anyone who’s breathing. We have to get them done. We’re getting spoiled with this steady income.”
Ryan sat next to me on the swing. “Tell you what. I know you wouldn’t
let me help with the money end before, but now that you wear my ring, I hope you will. My guys like to stay busy. Since we are nationwide, I sometimes have more men than work. Nathan can set your computers so the names of those being checked go straight to Jacob at the tech desk. He’ll pass them out and get them done. You can spend as much time on Ivy Tucker as you wish.”
I looked over to Amy who had a big grin on her face. “I would love that. Of course, we will give you a percentage of the money for doing the work.”
Ryan shook his head. “Did you get the part where I don’t think we have to go tit for tat on the money thing anymore? Why bother? Everything I have is half Kate’s now.”
“It is?”
“Yes, I love you more than anyone and I don’t know who else I would leave it to. If I leave large sums to charity the CEOs just get richer.”
Ryan was one of the three richest men in Missouri. One man ran a brewery, another family owned an auto rental company. Ryan owned the largest home security business in the country. Lately, he had branched out to commercial companies. He owned several restaurants, an art gallery, and a minor league basketball team, oh yes, and forty acres and a mansion a stone’s throw from Forest Park. He had turned the acreage into a public garden and the house into a museum.
If you met him on the street, he would be the last man you thought had that kind of money.
His mother and father were killed in an automobile accident when he was sixteen. I and several other friends became his family. He had mothered us for the past fifteen years. At last count, he was the Godfather to seventeen children.
I put my hand on his leg and turned to kiss his cheek. “I’m good with that. When I think of all of the cases I’ve read about and not been able to investigate because we needed to find a lost cat or a wandering husband so we could keep the bills paid.”
Nathan and Amy left about nine. It wasn’t the way I intended to spend my day, but except for the dead body on the porch, I enjoyed it.
Ryan walked toward the sliding door. “Let’s sit on the deck. I don’t know how many cool nights are in our future. Summer is coming on fast.”
Chili heard the door open and headed outside on a dead run. I laughed and followed her. “Should we be nervous a body showed up on the porch. I wonder what the chances are she was killed where she laid? And I can’t imagine where she’s been for the last ten years? Wonder why she changed her name?”
We didn’t have a chance to discuss it. Ryan’s phone rang. He hung up then told me, “Get the dog, we need to meet Nathan at the hospital. Someone attacked him and Amy as they walked up to her door.”
“Are they okay?”
“I think so. Nathan is upset he couldn’t protect his girlfriend. Amy is asking for you.”
The trip to the hospital was quiet. I didn’t have anything to say until I found out what happened. There were worry lines on Ryan’s face.
Nathan met us at the emergency room door. He had a deep cut over his right eye, and a bump the size of a golf ball on the back of his head. He didn’t give us a chance to ask a question. “I walked Amy to the door and when I turned around to leave, I heard her scream. She fell to the ground. I couldn’t see anyone yet someone hit me on the back of the head. I cut my eye when I fell.”
Ryan put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Let’s sit down. How’s Amy?”
Nathan ran both hands through his curly brown hair. “I’m not sure. She was injected with something. The emergency room doctor found a small hole behind her ear. They don’t know what it was. She’s throwing up and in and out of consciousness. When she wakes up she smiles at me but asks to see you, Kate.”
“I had better get in there,” I said.
Two doctors and a nurse stood over her. The nurse looked at me. “You must be Kate. Your friend is very sick. We have determined she was injected with a toxin of some sort. According to a preliminary blood test, we believe it was a venom.”
I walked closer to Amy, but her eyes were closed. “How will you know what to give her if you don’t know what it was?”
One of the men who had been talking with another in the corner, walked over to where I stood. “I’m Dr. Sanchez. I believe your friend was injected with the venom of a Coral Snake. The emergency room doctor called me in because I was raised on the Baja Peninsula and have seen this poisoning many times. There is no anti-venom for this type of snake bite. The companies stopped making it. In this case, I don’t think your friend received enough to kill her.
“We have given her massive doses of antihistamines which explains why she is asleep. Don’t get alarmed, but we are moving her to ICU and will put her on a ventilator, at least for tonight, maybe even tomorrow. We will see. One of the main causes of death from this snake is the person’s inability to breathe without help. Hopefully, we can stop that symptom before it begins.
“She is to go to the other unit within the next ten minutes. Give us an hour to get her situated and comfortable and you can each see her one more time tonight. After that, I suggest you go home. Your friend is not going to wake up. If there is any change, we will call you.” He ushered me out of the room.
Ryan stood in the doorway of one of the ER treatment rooms. I walked over and stood next to him. “Hi, how’s Amy?”
“They think she was injected with the venom of a Coral Snake. They are moving her to ICU.”
He hugged me. “Honey, I’m so sorry. I’ll get on the phone, find a specialist and fly him here.”
“I’m afraid. I don’t believe we need a specialist. One of her doctors is from the Baja and is familiar with the poison. He has it all under control.”
Ryan walked off, phone in hand. I took his place and watched over Nathan while they put five stitches above his eye.
He noticed me. “What did you learn?”
“The poison was from a Coral Snake. The doctor doesn’t think it was enough to kill her. They are moving her to ICU.”
I had never seen Nathan with the expression of despair on his face I saw when I gave him the news. “Can I see her?”
I repeated what Dr. Sanchez shared with me. We waited silently for Ryan.
CHAPTER 3
W hile we waited to see Amy in the ICU, I called Roger. “I thought I would let you know Amy and Nathan were mugged when he took her home tonight.”
“Do you have any idea who or why?”
What a dumb question, I thought, although I didn’t say as much. “Let’s see, a body on the porch and an attack a few hours later. I’d say they were connected, but I know how to find out for sure. Amy was injected with Coral Snake venom. Ask your medical examiner to check for the same thing in Ivy Tucker’s blood.”
“ Coral Snake venom is a little out of the ordinary isn’t it? When did this happen?”
“I think about ten. They left our house after nine.”
“How are they?”
I began to tear up. “Nathan is okay except for a knot on the back of the head and a cut over his eye. Amy is in intensive care on a respirator in case the medicine they gave her doesn’t work. They said they would put her on a breathing machine to override the effects of the poison. We were told there is no anti-venom for the coral snake. I pray they are on the right path.”
I heard Roger take a deep breath. “I’ll send a crew and a couple of officers to her house. Give me a few minutes to get dressed and make the calls and I’ll be there. Where are you?”
“St. Mary’s.”
He hung up without another word. I went back to where the men waited to see if there was any change in Amy’s condition. It had been over two hours and no one had come to talk to us again nor did we get to see her. All we did was wait and take turns pacing and looking through the small window in the door. They had the curtain drawn over the big window on our side. It was gut-wrenching. We all tried not to let our imaginations run wild, but it was a difficult task.
Fifteen minutes later Dr. Sanchez came from the nurse’s station and talked to us. I introduced him to Ryan and
Nathan. “Your friend is much better. The venom she received is unpredictable though. It can play havoc with the respiratory system. I think the safest thing to do is keep her on the ventilator. You can go in for a few minutes but then it would be best if you go home. There is nothing you can do here and she will remain sedated through tomorrow so she doesn’t pull out the breathing tube.”
Ryan stood between Nathan and me. He pulled Nathan closer to him and squeezed his shoulder. “We understand. We‘ll leave our phone numbers. If anything changes. Please call.”
The doctor stood aside and let the three of us into the room. It was cold and dark. Ryan and I stayed back to let Nathan move closer to Amy. “Can you hear me. I’m here. You‘re going to be fine. Ryan and Kate are here. They won’t let us stay but if you need us, we‘ll be right back. I love you, Amy.”
I stepped up and kissed her on the cheek, Ryan stood rooted in the same spot.
A nurse came in and told us we had to leave. Nathan kissed her lightly and we walked out into the hall.
Before we got to the waiting room Roger came in. “Amy’s house is covered. We found this.” He held up a small evidence bag with what looked to be a dart in it.
Ryan reached for the bag. “Is this how he got the venom in her?”
Roger took it from him and handed it to Nathan. “We think so. I think he loaded it full of poison and tried to stab her with it. When she screamed, he threw it down or dropped it. His only objective then was to get out of there. He was in such a hurry he walked out of one of his shoes. It’s with the crime team. I’m hoping there is DNA on the dart. I don’t believe I have ever seen a blow dart up close.”
I shook my head. “This doesn’t make sense. Why come after us? Never mind. I know why. Whoever he, or they are, they don’t know how long we knew Ivy. He doesn’t know if we’d met Ivy before and she told us a story or if when he killed her we hadn’t had a chance to talk to her yet. There’s something he doesn’t want anyone to know. He can’t take the chance that we already know whatever his secret is so he came after us.