by J C Fuller
Doctor Hadley, on the verge of retirement, was the island’s only medical doctor. Though Seattle was a ferry ride away, most of the islanders and their children were his patients. And for the most part, though the doctor had a brisk, no nonsense approach to medicine and was usually short on bedside manner, the white-haired doctor was adored and revered amongst the small population. Especially since he still made house calls, even on football Sundays.
“Hi, Doc! Is everyth—”
“Park the truck and come inside.” Doctor Hadley didn’t wait for Philip’s answer before heading back across the street towards his office.
Surprised at the invitation, but not by the way it was requested, Philip swung the pickup into the first parking spot and hopped out, quickly making his way into the small building.
“Have a seat.” Doctor Hadley addressed Philip when he walked through the door, giving him a general wave towards the waiting room. He’d said it casually as if Philip were there for a scheduled check-up.
Obediently sitting down in one of the well-worn waiting room chairs, Philip watched as the elderly doctor made his way over to a wooden coat rack standing in the corner.
“I heard about Brent Allister.” The doctor started to shrug out of his white coat. “You saw it happen?”
Philip nodded his head slowly, his face sullen. “It was terrible to watch.”
“He had an expired EpiPen? At least, that’s what our local gossipmonger Mrs. Barnes is saying.”
“Yes, sir.” Philip sat back in the chair, his arms on the armrests. “It’s a shame. Expiration was two years past. Liquid was discolored inside.”
“Hmmm, that’s very interesting.” Doctor Hadley hooked the coat onto the wooden rack and added the stethoscope to the next rung before turning around to face Philip with a tired smile.
“What are you doing in your office on a Sunday?” Philip suddenly looked around, noticing there was no one else in the building. “Returning from a house call?”
“Ohhhhh,” The elderly doctor sighed heavily, settling himself down painfully next to Philip, his knees stiff. “Checking my records.” He took off his glasses, giving them a quick huff, before using the end of his tie to buff the lens. “It’s habit for me to put the coat and stethoscope on when I’m in the office.” he chuckled lightly, and then suddenly put on a serious face. “Back to this EpiPen business, Phil. If I tell you something, will you pass it along to that pretty little new sheriff?”
“Yes, sir.” Philip smiled, knowing Lane would have bristled at the description.
“Brent’s EpiPen couldn’t have been expired.” The doctor tapped Philip’s knee hard, punctuating every other word.
“But it was, sir.” Philip turned in his chair. “I checked it myself.”
“I’m not saying the EpiPen Brent had on his person wasn’t expired. I’m saying the EpiPen I prescribed to Brent wasn’t.” The doctor gave Philip a severe nod.
“How do you know?” Philip felt strange questioning the doctor.
“I checked.”
By the blank stare on Philips face, Doctor Hadley saw his brisk answer wasn’t enough and continued, “It’s not commonly known. But adults can develop allergies later on in life. Granted, most allergies form while in childhood, but now and then…an adult, who wasn’t allergic to something can suddenly become deathly allergic.”
“Huh.” Philip raised his eyebrows, his bottom lip stuck out, impressed by the little-known fact.
“In Brent’s case, he was always allergic to bee stings. It wasn’t until he hit his early-twenties, when I sent him in for an allergy test after he complained about a plant rash, that we discovered he had become deathly allergic to tree nuts as well.” The doctor held his glasses above his head, squinting through the lens, checking for smudges before putting them back on. “I tell you this, because I only prescribed Brent the EpiPen eleven months ago.”
“Eleven months ago?” Philip’s eyebrows almost met in the middle he frowned so hard. “But if he was always allergic to bee stings?”
“Allergic.” Doctor Hadley suddenly held his index finger up as if pointing at the ceiling. “If he ever got stung.” He then tapped lightly on Philip’s knee. “Bees are pretty easy to avoid, unless you go looking for them.” The old doctor smiled wisely, “It was just a childhood condition he lived with. It wasn’t until the beginning of this gluten-free craze and his daily trips up The Mole Hill, I began to insist he start packing around the EpiPen.”
“Makes sense. You didn’t like the idea of him being so far away from medical assistance. Especially if he was out in the park.” Philip could understand the doctor’s worry. Working out there himself, it was always a concern if something were to happen to him or Kody on the job, medical assistance might not make it in time.
“Nope. Not one bit.” He gave Philip a grave smile, “So, you can see my concern.”
“Maybe he bought it off Ebay or something?” Philip shrugged, figuring there was a logical explanation.
“Illegal. It’s only available by prescription,” the old doctor said, gruffly.
“Could the pharmacy have given him an expired one by accident and not have noticed?” Philip thought it unlikely, but stranger things had happened.
“Practically impossible. Those things are double and triple checked.”
“Maybe it accidentally got switched with a friend’s or a stranger’s?” Philip felt like he was reaching.
“Doubtful. You don’t swap them like baseball cards.”
“Well…” Philip shook his head, out of ideas. “What do you think happened?”
“Don’t know.” Doctor Hadley gave a huff of irritation. “Spent the last half hour looking back through my records, making sure the blame didn’t fall at my feet. Couldn’t live with that.”
“But you think it’s something the sheriff needs to know about?”
“Best to have all the facts. If she thinks it’s something worth looking into, send her to me.”
Chapter 35
Coroner Ames, wearing his heavily padded winter jacket, was furiously digging through his metal filing cabinets, apparently on the hunt. Bouncing from tower to tower, his fingers dexterously flew through the tabbed vanilla folders, yanking and pulling at will. Upon finding what he was looking for, he’d give a triumphant yelp before tossing a file to the carpeted floor and progressing to the next drawer.
He was obviously busy.
Lane brought her hand up, hesitating to interrupt. He wasn’t exactly expecting her.
“Mind if I come in?” Lane asked lightly, knocking on his door. To her surprise, the little coroner didn’t bother to look up. He simply waved her in with one hand and yanked another drawer open with the other.
“Glad you’re here, Sheriff Lane.” He plopped another file on top of the growing stack and kept digging. “Thought about calling you at home yesterday, but then they added Allister to my roster. Figured I’d be seeing you soon enough. And here you are!” He glanced up at the clock hanging on the wall above his door. “A few hours earlier than I expected though.”
“I’m afraid your secretary is learning I don’t take no for an answer,” Lane admitted, with little to no guilt, walking over to his desk. “What did you find out that deserved a phone call?”
“Fingerprints.” The coroner turned to her with a sly smile, his jacket’s fur hood circling his gaunt face. “Or rather, a lack of fingerprints.”
“I’m not following? On the granola bar wrappers?” Lane questioned, slowly lowering herself into one of the two waiting chairs.
The coroner shook his head, pulling his hood back.
“The spiral notebook you brought in for fingerprinting? The one found in her apartment? It had Janie’s fingerprints all over it.” He pulled his jacket back from his waist to avoid snagging it on the file drawer. “Alllll over it,” he repeated again, more to himself than Lane.
“Naturally. She probably was the one who bought the notebook. After all, it was found on top of her writing d
esk,” Lane said casually, watching him pull another file and then with some difficulty, heave the old metal drawer shut with a loud bang.
“No, what I’m saying is, they found ONLY Janie’s finger and palm prints. They’d attempted to rule out her prints to focus on anyone else’s…but there was only hers.” He walked behind his desk and plopped the file down on top. Lane leaned over and read his hand written note below the file case number. It read, “The Push.” Remembering the coroner’s habit of labeling his cases with his own thoughts or comments, he’d apparently taken Lane’s theory to heart.
“So, they wore gloves when trying to mimic her signature?” Lane sat back, still not seeing what he was excited about. To her, it sounded like another dead end.
“No, you’re still not understanding, Sheriff. The victim was the ONLY person writing on that piece of paper.”
Lane frowned, a deep wrinkle set between her brows as she shook her head, trying to make sense of what he was saying. She was still clearly confused.
“You see, the position of the palm matches the signature placement.” Coroner Ames pointed to the plate of homemade cookies Lane had put on his desk and gave her a questioning look. “You made these?”
Lane curtly nodded her head, wanting to keep his attention focused. “So, you’re telling me that—”
“That just Janie’s palm print and fingerprints matched up with the writing.” The coroner slowly nodded his head up and down, pleased to see she was following along.
“Are you sure? Because…” Lane stood up, walking over to the file cabinets, pacing her thoughts out. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why would she be practicing her own signature? And using an apartment application to copy…” Lane quickly returned to the chair, a bright light in her eyes. “Twins share the same DNA, right?”
“Yes. They’re split from the same egg,” the coroner answered automatically, pulling the plastic cling wrap from the plate of homemade goodies.
“So, basically duplicates of each other. Same eye color, same hair color, same height.”
“That’s the idea when it comes to identical twins,” he said blandly, and then smiled brightly, “Are these chocolate chip or raisin?”
“Chocolate chip.” Lane waved his question away as if it was a fly. “What about fingerprints?” Lane was mentally searching her mind, feeling as if she’d been taught the answer at some point in time. However, running into murdered twins didn’t happen every day and it most likely was stuffed into the “useless information” file located in the back of her brain.
“Those are NOT identical. Each twin has their own, separate fingerprint. In fact, it’s little know—”
“Can you pull Danie’s file? You took her fingerprints as well, correct?” Lane had pulled out her cell phone and was searching her call history.
“Yes, and of course.” The coroner got up from his desk, walking over to the last filing cabinet while Lane made a phone call.
“Hello, is Wanda available? Yes, I’ll hold.” Lane impatiently tapped her foot, waiting for the line to pick up. “Yes, Wanda? Hi, this is Sheriff Lane. We spoke the other day in regards to the Engles sisters?” Lane paused impatiently. “Yes, I’m fine, thank you. I was wondering, when the girls opened their banking accounts and lockboxes, did you take their fingerprints? Or even just their thumb print?” Lane nodded, receiving the answer. “Great, great. I need you to fax a copy of those records to this number.” She put her hand over the phone. “What’s your fax number?”
The coroner pointed to an ancient fax machine sitting behind his desk where someone had labeled the number onto the machine’s phone handset. Lane read off the number and thanked her lucky stars Wanda wasn’t asking for a warrant before faxing the information over.
“Thank you, Wanda. You’ve been a great help!” Lane said, as the fax machine started to spit out paper at a snail’s speed. She snatched up the faxed pages, handing them to the coroner. “We need to compare these fingerprints and see if they indeed match the same girl.”
The coroner took the papers gingerly, looking at Lane questioning.
“What will that prove?”
“That Janie wasn’t actually Janie. I think Danie was masquerading as her dead sister and it was Janie who drowned all along! Can you compare the prints?”
“I’ll get an ID tech over here. Hold on.” Coroner Ames made a quick phone call, mumbling his request through a mouth full of cookies. “I’ve got someone on their way,” he said, hanging up the phone and sitting back in his chair. “I suppose now, you’ll want to go through Danie’s file while we wait for the ID tech?” He gave a knowing smile before tossing her a new file. It was titled in his handwriting “Shallow Point diving club member.” Lane assumed the girl hadn’t been the first one to ignore the “No Diving” signs to their detriment.
“I ruled it an accidental drowning since there was no reason to believe foul play had taken place and there were witnesses, so to speak. The girl had told her friends she was going swimming and its common practice to ignore the no swimming signs. However, as you read my notes, you’ll see I theorized she didn’t actually dive off the point. She still had a flip flop on one of her feet. I made the assumption she may have dropped something over the edge or saw something which struck her interest and, in an attempt to reach it or see it better, leaned over too far and lost her balance.”
Lane was analyzing the injuries listed, reviewing the drawn outline of a female body. There was a mark at the top of the head and another mark by the base of the neck.
“So, she had a head injury on top of drowning?” Lane held out the body outline sheet.
The coroner grabbed another cookie before taking the paper from Lane’s hand, giving it a once over.
“Yes, she had an open wound on the back of her head and bruises around her neck and upper chest. I deduced the head injury was from hitting a rock when she fell. The bruises around her neck and chest area, from when the young men hauled her back to shore and the CPR attempts.” He handed the sheet back and Lane took it, reading his small notes in the margins.
“The wounds on her upper chest and neck. Could those also be consistent with someone maybe… holding her down?” Lane asked cautiously, not wanting to offend.
The coroner, about to take a bite, paused in thought. “Possibly. In light of new findings, I wouldn’t disregard it.”
“Excuse me? You requested an ID tech?” A young woman stood at the door, a questioning smile on her face.
“Yes, yes! Come on in, have a seat,” Coroner Ames directed her to his chair. “I want you to compare these prints.” He pulled a fingerprint sheet from Janie’s file, “With these prints.” He handed her the faxed copy of Danie’s lockbox application. “I apologize, it’s not the best image to work with.”
“Can you tell us, if they match?” Lane scooted to the edge of her chair, her stomach in knots.
The young ID tech took out a small tripoded magnifying glass and laid it over Janie’s prints, before folding the fax machine copy of Danie’s prints and aligning them next to each other. She then bent over the desk and put her eye to the magnifying glass.
“I can. They match perfectly.” The ID tech smiled brightly, hoping it was the answer they wanted to hear.
“Can you...” Lane snatched the prints out of Danie’s file and then the other faxed page. “Can you see if these two…if they match as well?” She gave the little coroner a quick shrug, “Just double checking.”
The ID tech took the pages and carefully placed the first two sheets aside.
“Sure.”
“Well?” Lane bit her lip.
“Looks as if these prints match with each other as well. They are distinctly different from the first set you handed me.”
The confirmation hit Lane like a ton of bricks and everything clicked into place. The reason why Janie had avoided the island and kept her distance from friends and family, why she turned down the photography assignments, why she had so much yellow in her closet and why she wa
s wearing a beaded bracelet with a letter D carved in the bead.
“It’s never been about Janie.” Lane looked up at the coroner, her eyes wide. “It’s always been about Danie.” She stood up, shaking her head, holding Danie’s case file to her chest. “They thought they had killed Danie and Danie knew it. She’s been in hiding, posing as her dead sister.”
Chapter 36
Lane briskly walked into Hattie’s General looking for Amy Holmes, the golden bell above the door declaring her arrival.
“Sheriff Lane! Come take a look!” Harry’s disembodied voice carried from somewhere by the register. Most likely, originating from behind the towering, triple-tiered, shiny bowling trophy sitting on the front counter.
“Isn’t it a beaut?” Harry asked gleefully, having to lean way to the side before she could see him.
With an eager wave, he beckoned the sheriff over, giving the golden little bowler on top a quick buff with his cleaning rag.
“Well, what do you think?” He stepped back so she could admire it properly.
“Wow. Pretty nice trophy, Harry. Way nicer than the first one.” Lane marveled at its height and grandeur.
“Sure, is!” Harry’s chest puffed with pride.
“It’s so…so tall and so much BIGGER than your last one.”
“I know!” Harry turned the trophy so Lane could see all sides. “Trophy store called this morning. Said Phil told them I could have the pick of the litter. Reckoned he’d want me to have the best. Right, Sheriff?” He looked to Lane, eyebrows raised as he nodded his head up and down, seeking approval.
Lane found herself nodding with him, glad to see Philip had finally come through. Apparently witnessing Gabe failing to save his best friend had prompted him to make the first move of reconciliation with Harry.
“Did you call him to say thank you?” Lane asked, reading the tiny plaque on the front of the trophy.
“I did, but he didn’t answer. I left a message. Told him beers were on me tonight over at the bowling alley.” Harry’s smile widened, “Hey! You should come down, play the lanes with us!”