Doctor and Protector

by Meredith Webber

  McCall smiled at her, and suddenly putting himself at risk became even more ridiculous.

  ‘I wouldn’t like anything to happen to you,’ she said softly.

  He lifted his hand and cupped it around her cheek and chin.

  ‘I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.’

  ‘But what could you do in a situation like today’s?’ Cassie demanded. ‘The car goes out of control—into the dam or over the other side. We could both have been dead.’

  ‘But we aren’t,’ McCall reminded her, perching on the edge of her desk so he could reach her and soothe her with his hands—running them over her damp and probably gritty hair, squeezing her shoulders. Reassuring touches, that was all they were, but they felt so good Cassie hoped he’d go right on reassuring her. ‘And I’m willing to bet whoever is doing this had that particular “accident” planned for you. The plan misfired, and he’s going to have to think again. It takes time to plan “accidents”, Cassie. I know it was a frightening ordeal for the Ward family, but they’ve bought us some time.’

  Nausea rose in Cassie’s stomach at the thought of someone cold-bloodedly planning to kill anyone in such a way, then she thought of the two small children whose lives could easily have been lost, and anger replaced the sick feeling.

  ‘You’re right,’ she told McCall, straightening in the chair so abruptly his hands fell away. Which was a good thing as she needed to think, and his touch was numbing too many of her brain cells. ‘So, let’s get after this person. Let’s stop dithering around and catch him. Or her.’

  The thought of a female antagonist pulled her up short.

  ‘You talk of him and he, and want me to make a list of males between certain ages. What makes you so sure it’s a man?’

  She looked up at McCall and saw his face tighten as if his thoughts brought him more worries than he needed. Then it cleared, and he leaned forward again, and this time took her hands in his.

  ‘Mrs Ambrose’s car accident,’ he said, while Cassie told herself the hand-holding meant nothing. He was a touchy-feely sort of guy. Rare, but such guys did exist. ‘Modern cars have two braking systems, one for the rear wheels and one for the front. Both systems work on fluid being pushed through pipes or hoses to build up pressure, but with the back brakes the fluid passes through metal tubes. Fortunately, Mrs Ambrose’s car, because it was involved in a fatal accident, was brought to the police yard, and it was still there when Mrs Ambrose’s daughter brought in the letters. The car was checked out, and the metal tubes had been squeezed together, stopping the flow of brake fluid, so her back brakes might not have been working for some time.’

  ‘And she didn’t notice?’

  McCall shook his head.

  ‘She wouldn’t have. She might have thought the brakes were a bit spongy, and considered getting them checked next time she had the car serviced, but the front brakes were working so she probably didn’t notice. Especially not while driving around the town itself—which is as flat as a billiard table.’

  ‘But if the front brakes were working, how did she have the accident?’

  A knock on the door heralded the arrival of coffee, so it was a minute or so later that McCall finished his explanation.

  ‘The hoses to the front brakes are rubber, and by nicking both of these—a small nick is all it would take—the fluid would leak out slowly. But if she needed to brake hard—’

  ‘Like when she was going down the steep drive to her garage,’ Cassie interrupted.

  ‘Exactly,’ McCall said. ‘She puts on the brakes, the back ones aren’t working, and the pressure she’s using on the front ones forces what fluid’s left to spurt out rather than leak, and suddenly there’s no vacuum so no brakes.’

  Cassie shivered.

  ‘How terrible—to know what’s going to happen. She wasn’t the most popular teacher Wakefield High ever had, but no one deserves to die like that.’

  She thought for a minute, then asked, ‘Did Dave find that’s what happened? Had the front hoses been nicked?’

  McCall, who was pouring coffee as if it was his office, not hers, glanced her way.

  Gauging her response to what he was going to say?

  ‘It was impossible to tell. There was so much damage to the front of the car, all the rubber hoses in the engine were cut or shredded into pieces.’

  It was Cassie’s turn to nod. She had been the one who’d examined Mrs Ambrose’s broken body, and taken blood and tissue samples to check the elderly woman hadn’t been drinking or under the influence of drugs—standard procedure in fatal accidents, standard procedures she’d carried out too often lately.

  She was shivering again, and McCall pressed a cup of coffee into her hands.

  ‘Drink this then have a shower. There’s no time to look back, Cassie. We need to move forward on this.’

  She sipped at the coffee, then lifted her head and looked at him.

  ‘I know that. I don’t think I could bear someone else getting hurt.’

  McCall stood up and walked to the window as he had the first time he’d entered her office. Was it only yesterday?

  ‘I don’t think I could either,’ he said quietly, and something in the timbre of the words told her they’d come from the hurting place he carried deep within him.

  Dismayed by the rush of sympathy she felt for him, she finished her coffee, stood up then headed for the filing cabinet. The bottom drawer held not files but neatly folded clothes—the spares she all too often needed after a hectic session in A and E or after attending a vehicle or farm accident. She lifted out a clean T-shirt, jeans and underwear, then made her way to the old nurses’ quarters, used now for occasional visitors.

  When she returned, McCall was sitting in her chair on the far side of the desk, writing on a pad he must have got from Suzy.

  ‘Dave had someone fax through the lists of contacts he made up for the other women. I’ve been writing down the ones that are common to all three lists.’

  ‘Which would be about half the town,’ Cassie told him.

  He looked up and smiled at her.

  ‘Not quite—remember we’ve age limits going for us here. I’ve faxed my list back to town for details like married, single, divorced, living alone or with someone, that kind of information.’

  ‘Because this person will likely be…?’ Cassie asked.

  But before McCall could reply, her phone rang. She reached across the desk to lift the receiver.

  ‘You’re supposed to be at the regional meeting,’ Suzy reminded her. ‘I’m taking the minutes, but Don sent me out to remind you. He’s going spare.’

  Cassie glanced across the table at McCall, who had his blank look back in place.

  So the decision was up to her.

  ‘Tell him I can’t make it,’ she said decisively to Suzy. ‘Make it sound as if I’m feeling the after-effects of the accident this morning and I’m taking a few hours off. Mike can be pulled out of the meeting to handle any emergencies.’ She was about to hang up when the word made her think of something else. ‘Has Don been in the hospital all morning?’

  ‘Not only in it, but insisting I take dictation,’ Suzy said. ‘I’ll tell him you must have swallowed some of the water and are feeling nauseous. The kids are gone, by the way. Their father finally remembered he owned them and came back for them. The garage has lent him a car to get about in, and no doubt someone at the motel he’s booked into has offered to help with the children.’

  ‘Good luck to him,’ Cassie said, then she thanked Suzy for everything she’d done and hung up.

  ‘Is this regional manager of yours a local?’ McCall asked.

  ‘No,’ Cassie admitted. ‘He didn’t grow up in the district, nor does he live in town, and much as I’d have liked it to be him, I really knew it wasn’t. Whoever did it must have known all the victims, to plan the “accidents”, but would he have to have hated them? You said he doesn’t need a motive, but he might target people who’d done something to offend him in some wa
y. Is that right?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ McCall told her. He’d pushed her chair away from the desk and was leaning back in it, his hands tucked behind his head. As he obviously had no intention of moving, she sank down into one of the chairs opposite him, determined to concentrate on whatever he could tell her. ‘He might imagine some offence, or magnify some slight into a deliberate action or vendetta, to justify to himself he’s doing the right thing, but I think he’s more likely on a power kick. It makes him feel powerful to be able to kill people—even more powerful to fool the authorities which, I think, is why he’s chosen people he’s reasonably certain he can kill by “accident”.’

  ‘Lisa always went to the Australia Day barbeque out at the dam, and she always stayed late, and she always joined in the midnight swim.’

  ‘And, according to Dave, she usually had too much to drink.’

  ‘Up until this year,’ Cassie corrected him. ‘We can assume it was someone who knew all that, but didn’t know her well enough to know about the diabetes I diagnosed just before Christmas—or that she’d stopped drinking alcohol because it played hell with her blood sugar.’

  ‘I didn’t realise she’d stopped drinking altogether. You’re sure of this?’

  McCall had straightened in his chair—her chair—and was leaning across the desk as if this information was important.

  ‘Of course I’m sure. When she was first diagnosed, she didn’t believe how dangerous alcohol could be for her, and tested herself out on New Year’s Eve. She had a really bad reaction, which was enough to put her off alcohol for life.’

  ‘Yet according to the autopsy report, her blood test showed a high level of alcohol in her blood.’

  ‘Which is what made me suspicious about her death even before I received my first letter and connected it to the ones she’d mentioned. Oh, I know she could have gone off the wagon that particular night, but it just wasn’t likely.’

  ‘If that’s the case then someone spiked whatever she was drinking. Just to make sure she was really inebriated when she went into the water? I imagine at a picnic like that, there’s a fair amount of pairing off—people going off into the darkness for some privacy. If she was tipsy, a person masquerading as a friend could have put his arm around her—led her to the edge of the water—held her down without too much trouble. What did she drink—before the diabetes?’

  ‘Vodka and orange. She had some particular brand of fresh orange juice she insisted was the best and always carried her own. I can’t remember the brand name but I’d recognise the bottle in the supermarket. Since she was diagnosed, she stuck with straight OJ, and because she had to be consistent in how much of it she drank, she still carried her own bottle.’

  ‘And our man saw it, assumed it had vodka in it, and added more to make sure she was tipsy enough for him to handle. She’d been drinking vodka and orange for so long, she probably didn’t notice the change in taste.’

  Cassie imagined the scenario, then shook her head.

  ‘I think he’d have brought his own bottle of juice with the vodka already mixed in. Then all he had to do was wait until she set her bottle down to get her plate of food, or for some other reason, tip out enough from his to make the liquid levels much the same, and swap. So much easier and far less risky than pouring something into hers. And if someone saw him swapping, he could claim it was an accident.’

  ‘“Silly me” type of thing,’ McCall agreed. ‘It was almost too easy for him.’

  ‘Like Mrs Ambrose having to brake as she went down her drive, or me answering a call to go out to Four Seasons,’ Cassie said. She thought for a moment, studying the face of the man across the desk. She’d not known he’d existed twenty-four hours ago, yet now he seemed like a…partner?

  Only in crime, she told herself, hauling her mind back to the subject.

  He couldn’t possibly be anything else! He was here on a short-term project, then would be gone from her life for ever. What was there in Wakefield for a bodyguard-slash-criminology student?

  ‘But Judy was different,’ she said, determined to concentrate on the subject, if only to distract her mind from wayward thoughts. ‘Wasn’t there more element of risk there? A hit and run? How could he be sure he’d hit her? Or even if he did, she might not have died. I know Judy’s the only one who reported to Dave that she was getting letters so she has to be a victim, but her “accident” doesn’t seem to fit the precision of the other two deaths.’

  ‘Mrs Ambrose might not have died,’ McCall reminded her. ‘And if you look at Judy’s day-to-day life, like the other two, she was predictable.’

  Cassie had to agree. ‘Mrs Ambrose always shopping on a Thursday, Lisa always drinking the same brand of orange juice, and Judy always working the same shift at the radio station, always walking home at the same time every night.’ A cold hand seemed to reach into Cassie’s chest and grasp her heart. ‘They all made it easy for him, didn’t they?’

  McCall must have sensed her sudden fear, for he left his place behind the desk and came around to where she was slumped dejectedly in one of the visitor’s chairs.

  He propped himself against the desk again.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘don’t give up on me now. I’m going to read out the list of people common to all three of the victims, and all you have to do is nod or shake your head. Nod if it’s someone you know, shake if it isn’t.’

  ‘I’ll know them all,’ Cassie told him, but the feeling of defeat that was threatening to overcome her was lessened by a new and quite peculiar sensation. Almost as if her body was pleased to have McCall’s body close to hers again. Not that they were touching. Just close!

  McCall heard the despair in her voice, and decided he wasn’t very good at this bodyguarding business. What he really wanted to do was put Cassie Carew on the first plane out of town, and though Dave might still want him here to find the murderer, McCall’s first choice would be to be sitting right alongside Cassie when the place took off.

  He read out the names, but it only proved she was right. She did know everyone on the list.

  But she’d rallied—rising above the fear she must be feeling—and had taken the list from his hands and was studying it.

  ‘This one was away when Lisa died—he busks at the Country Music Festival in Tamworth at that time every year.’

  She ran her finger down the list, then paused at another name.

  ‘Here’s another you can cross out—he can’t drive at night. I’m probably the only person in town who knows about his night blindness. It’s not something someone who thinks he’s the town stud is going to advertise. And another impossible here.’ Her index finger indicated another name. ‘He couldn’t have crawled under a car and fiddled with tubes or pipes. He’s paranoid, but about germs and dirt. He wipes the bottom of his feet with a tissue before he gets into bed.’

  ‘You know that for a fact?’ McCall demanded, the words out before he had time to analyse his reaction.

  ‘He was in hospital for a month last year, McCall,’ Cassie told him. ‘Badly broken femur, leg in traction, drove the nurses mad with his cleanliness routines.’

  And she continued until she’d eliminated eight names with arguments McCall had to admit were valid.

  ‘The others? I could cross off another ten I don’t think could plan a party if they were given a list of names, free beer and sausages, which would leave us with the people most folk in town would consider solid, upright citizens.’

  She frowned at him.

  ‘We’re talking psychopath here, aren’t we? Would a psychopath—sociopath, whatever we’re calling him—function well enough to be successful in a job?’

  McCall felt his sigh work up from somewhere near his boots.

  ‘I have never thought so—not long term,’ he said. ‘In fact, most literature on the subject suggests they can’t. They can appear superficially adequate, but as people get to know them better they realise it’s an act, albeit a convincing one. For this reason, they usuall
y find it difficult to make a success of life, or to reach the level of success those they’ve charmed and conned—those close to them in their work or personal life—would expect them to reach.’

  Again he hesitated, thinking of how much he’d learned since Helen had died, not wanting to let what had happened to her distort the basic facts he was trying to impart to Cassie. He stared at the filing cabinet in the corner so she wouldn’t read the conflict in his eyes.

  ‘You have to realise they have a moral insensitivity. They know right from wrong, but have no empathy or fellow feeling for others, so they can exploit people, hurt them, be unfaithful, disloyal or manipulative without feeling any guilt from the consequences of their actions.’

  He thought he was doing OK, until he felt her touch. She’d reached out and rested her hand on his knee.

  ‘Is that why you left medicine, and went searching for psychopaths? Because one hurt someone you loved?’

  She sounded so upset he had to look at her, and saw the depth of her sympathy in the soft wash of tears across the beautiful green eyes. And suddenly he was telling the story that had been bottled up inside him for so long it had become an anchor tying him to the past, impeding any forward movement in his life.

  ‘My twin sister married a man who was handsome, charming, upwardly mobile, seemingly the perfect match. He was in real estate, which probably gave him an outlet for his less agreeable traits. He changed jobs quite often, but always, Helen thought, to something better—or sometimes because the boss was jealous of him. There was always a plausible reason. It took her five years and two children to realise there was something wrong with him—to work out he was manipulating her as well as the people he met through his work. Oh, he was always remorseful when he’d hurt her, or he had believable excuses when she caught him out in a lie, but in the end she saw through the façade because, though he might say he was sorry—even act as if he was for a short time—he’d go right out and do the same thing again. He gave no thought to the consequences of his acts.’