Doctor and Protector

by Meredith Webber

  ‘So he’s not happy with the treatment he’s getting?’

  ‘I doubt any psoriasis patient is happy with the treatment they’re getting,’ Cassie snapped. ‘It’s a horrible disease and, as you no doubt know full well, no real cure has ever been found for it, but having psoriasis doesn’t make him a murderer.’

  ‘It might make him feel the world’s against him. Why should he be suffering this way? The “why me” syndrome.’

  ‘So why shouldn’t others be made to suffer, too?’ Cassie whispered.

  McCall heard the despair in her voice.

  ‘Why does the thought it might be him upset you more than, say, Wayne?’

  She lifted her head, her face pale and tight with pain.

  ‘I dated him in high school. Not for long. He wanted to get serious, and I knew I’d be leaving to go to university. All he’d ever wanted to do was run his father’s bakery—build it into the best bakery in the west, he always said.’

  ‘And has he?’

  McCall didn’t think her face could lose more colour, but it did.

  ‘Not really. Big plans, but things go wrong.’

  McCall moved from where he’d been sitting, hip hitched on the edge of her desk, and walked around to grasp her shoulders.

  ‘Plenty of people fit the profile, Cassie. Don’t upset yourself that it might be him until we have some proof. You got the most recent letter on Monday, was he at Outpatients Tuesday?’

  ‘Yesterday?’ She sounded panicky. ‘I can’t remember doing Outpatients yesterday.’

  ‘You didn’t—we were operating on Joe until well after one. And Mike was with us. What happens at times when you’re both tied up like that?’

  Cassie frowned, but he felt her body stiffen, as if she was banishing the despair she’d felt earlier.

  ‘The sister on duty sees whoever she can, and tells the rest if it’s urgent to go to a GP, otherwise they come back the next day, although that’s today and Outpatients is prenatal, so the ones who didn’t go to a GP will come back tomorrow.’

  ‘By which time you might be over your shock so it won’t be worth him seeing you. Can you find out if he was here yesterday?’

  With another sigh, Cassie lifted the receiver, pressed some numbers and asked her question.

  Her face told McCall the answer.

  ‘Do we tell Dave?’ she asked.

  ‘Let’s go through the rest of the list first. See if there’s anyone else who’s as good a fit.’

  Cassie agreed, though reluctantly. It wasn’t that she wanted Paul to be the man who wanted to kill her, but he seemed to answer all the criteria McCall had listed earlier. He was fun and charming and always going to do better, but as you got to know him you realised there was nothing much underneath.

  And she knew from all the new cures he kept coming up with that he spent a lot of time on the internet, so must have a computer.

  But if she couldn’t trust him—an old school flame—who could she trust?

  Certainly not the man in the room with her now—the man who lied so easily…

  The deep pain of regret seized her, and she had to blink tears away from her eyes.

  ‘Are you actually reading through that information or just staring at the pages?’

  McCall’s question reminded her of what she was supposed to be doing, and she set aside her bleak thoughts and read through information she already knew about the other men on the list.

  ‘I hardly ever see these two,’ she said, putting a red cross against two names. ‘This one works at the local garage so I’m in and out of there a fair bit and we usually have a chat about how things are going. He’s a chatty person. Cheerful. Interested in people. Has a computer because he was telling me he’s recently upgraded.’

  She was thinking of something else the mechanic had told her recently, something she felt might link in to the deaths, when her phone and pager both sounded.

  ‘Ambulance coming in, ETA five minutes. Lennie Wentworth, bleeding from the wrists, unconscious from heavy blood loss, suspected suicide attempt.’

  Cassie passed the information which had come in from the ambulance officers on to McCall as she struggled into her coat, then explained, ‘I was reading that they’re trialling computer hook-ups in one of the southern states, so patient details can stay in a computer from palm-held units the ambos carry, right through to the main city hospitals. Mind you, we’d all have to get onto the same computer system to start off with. At present, even this district doesn’t have uniformity.’

  McCall guessed she was talking to keep her mind off Lennie and what kind of precarious condition they might find him in.

  This question was answered as soon as Lennie was wheeled into the trauma room. Blood loss had left his skin a sallow grey colour, and his body looked wasted as it lay on the trolley. Cassie was firing orders at the staff already gathered there.

  ‘Blood typing first, he needs whole blood. What oxygen level have you got him on? With reduced blood flow to the brain, I want optimum oxygen. How bad were the wounds?’

  This last addressed to the ambulance attendant signing the form to hand over to the hospital.

  ‘Four inch, professional job, lengthwise.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got to get those sutured or whatever we put in will leak out again.’

  She turned to McCall.

  ‘You’re the A and E man—done a lot of this kind of thing?’

  McCall was reluctant to admit it but, yes, he had. City hospital A and E departments sometimes saw several suicide attempts a day.

  ‘Is Mike here?’

  Cassie shook her head. ‘I can get him, but from the number of new admissions, he had a busy night.’

  ‘Well, how about you do the anaesthesia this time and I stitch?’

  He smiled at her but it did nothing for the tension he could see in her body, neither did it relax the strain evident on her face. Silently he cursed the man who was doing this to her, then he looked down at Lennie, unconscious on the trolley, and wondered if this man was the object of his anger.

  He had no idea—no sudden certainty. Obviously, he didn’t have Dave’s policeman instinct. In fact, he admitted to himself as he followed the trolley to Theatre, the only instinct he had was to save Lennie’s life. His doctor’s instinct was intact.

  ‘Lengthwise cuts?’ Cassie was muttering to herself as she attached a monitor to Lennie. ‘Why would Lennie know to cut lengthwise?’

  ‘Why cut lengthwise anyway?’ Paula, who was assisting, asked.

  Cassie glanced at McCall who’d unwrapped Lennie’s bandaged wrists. He nodded to her as if to say, I’ll do this, you explain.

  ‘It’s because of the tendons in your wrist,’ Cassie told Paula, holding out her hand, palm upwards, to indicate what she meant. ‘If you slash crosswise, which most people do, those strong tendons protect the veins. It takes a really sharp knife and a great deal of strength to slash your wrist that way and make an effective job of it. Particularly the wrist on your dominant hand.’

  ‘So slash lengthwise,’ Paula said, as if repeating a lesson she’d need to remember. ‘Would anyone but a medico know that?’

  ‘Some people would,’ McCall said, before Cassie had time to reply. ‘But unless someone is ambidextrous, it’s impossible to be totally effective on both wrists.’

  Cassie peered at the wounds but could see little from where she was. Was McCall saying the two wounds were equally effective?

  Which would mean someone had deliberately injured Lennie…

  In such a way to make it look like suicide?

  ‘Why am I here? What happened? Who’s cleaning the cat boxes? Who’s taking Blondie for a walk?’

  Lennie’s questions when he finally regained consciousness revealed little more than what they already knew—his life revolved around the animals in his care.

  Cassie looked at McCall, who was perched on a stool on the other side of Lennie’s bed in the recovery room, but he shook his head, indicating it was she
who should ask the questions, although both of them had felt constrained to stay by his side until he recovered from the anaesthetic. Dave would also have been there, but a traffic accident out of town had made him unavailable.

  ‘We want to ask you what happened, Lennie.’ She reached out and lifted one of his bandaged wrists. ‘Do you know?’

  Lennie frowned.

  ‘I cut myself.’

  His voice was so flat it was hard to tell if it was a statement or a question. Cassie took it as a statement.

  ‘Why, Lennie?’

  Her patient peered around, apparently taking in his surroundings for the first time.

  ‘Accident?’ he guessed. ‘Happens sometimes. Derek gets me to take the used scalpel blades out of the scalpels. I sometimes cut myself.’

  ‘But not deliberately?’ McCall asked, and Lennie turned a puzzled look his way.

  ‘Why would anyone cut themselves deliberately?’ he asked, his voice weakening from tiredness.

  McCall reached out and lifted both bandaged hands.

  ‘Both your wrists were cut,’ he said, and Cassie guessed he was having a hard time keeping any emotion out of his voice.

  ‘But I couldn’t do that getting scalpel blades out,’ Lennie said. ‘Not both wrists. Usually don’t cut my wrists anyway, just my fingers.’

  His eyelids drooped and Cassie remembered this was a very ill patient they were interviewing, whether or not he was a murder suspect. She signalled McCall they had to leave and spoke to the nurse on duty, warning her a policeman would be here before long.

  ‘Don’t let him wake Lennie,’ she said. ‘In fact, you could ask him to wait outside. Tell him you’ll call him when Lennie wakes, but check if Lennie wants a cup of tea or something to eat before he talks to the police.’

  ‘That’s a lot of kindness for a man who might have been trying to murder you,’ McCall murmured as they made their way back to her office.

  Cassie glared at him.

  ‘I don’t care if he is a murderer. In my hospital, he’s a patient first.’ She paused then added defiantly, ‘I don’t think he’s a murderer anyway. I just can’t see Lennie hurting people.’

  ‘But you said earlier he had brains.’

  ‘So?’

  She sounded so snappy McCall decided he’d best leave well alone. But once again they had a suspected suicide query suspected murderer in the hospital. The problem was, in McCall’s experience, serial killers rarely killed themselves. They were attention-seekers and, if they were, by some chance, captured, what better attention could they get than in a murder trial?

  Then there was the evidence of the wounds—maybe the slashes on the left wrist were slightly deeper than those on the right, but only slightly, and there’d been none of the shallow hesitation wounds suicides usually made before they went deep.

  Baffled by this turn the case had taken, he changed the subject.

  ‘Who found him and called it in? Was it Derek?’

  ‘No, June, Derek’s part-time secretary. She comes in Monday, Wednesday and Friday to do paperwork and banking, orders whatever Derek needs, answers the phone and makes appointments, then he has the receptionist you met last night for his evening sessions. Apparently, Derek was out somewhere—he usually is when Lennie and June come in—and, according to the ambulance men, June smelt something funny and went through to the operating suite. Good thing she did, because if Lennie had been left much longer, he’d have been dead.’

  ‘Smelt something funny?’ McCall echoed.

  ‘Blood, I suppose. It does have a distinctive odour.’

  McCall wished Dave were here. The sooner someone questioned June the better.

  Though when Dave did arrive, Lennie would be his first priority.

  ‘Will you be staying in the hospital for the next little while?’ McCall asked Cassie.

  She looked up at him and managed a smile, and though it certainly wasn’t her best effort, it still twanged at McCall’s nerves, reminding him this woman meant far more to him than any research project.

  ‘Leaving me, McCall?’ she teased.

  ‘Not for long,’ he said, ‘and only if you promise, on whatever oath is most sacred to you, that you won’t leave the hospital.’

  He took her hands in his, looked down into her eyes, then kissed her very gently on her soft, warm lips.

  ‘I mean it,’ he whispered. ‘I want you here where you’re safe.’

  ‘So you can kiss me better next time?’ This cheeky retort was accompanied by a much better smile. It even twinkled in her eyes, making McCall wonder if he really wanted to leave her—now or ever…

  Oh, for Pete’s sake, he remonstrated with himself as he forced himself to walk away. Get your mind on the job and keep it there!

  Finding the road that led out of town in the direction of the vet’s place was a little tricky, but once on it he was confident enough to speed up. Although the town was flat, this road led up into hills. In fact, Derek’s spread was on a hillside, and beyond his place the road rose higher, winding upwards. In daylight, McCall noticed a few houses dotted on the slopes of the hills higher up and realised they’d not only look down on the vet’s place but would also have a spectacular view of the town.

  But he wasn’t thinking of views as he pulled up outside the surgery. Two cars were parked outside and the front door was open, so McCall walked in, to find two women, one young and upset, the other older and protective.

  He introduced himself, then wondered what on earth he could say he was doing there.

  The older woman saved him making up a new lie.

  ‘I suppose Cassie sent you out to see to June,’ she said. ‘Trust Cassie to think of it. Those ambulancemen said she had to wait here for the police. Not very nice, leaving a young girl on her own next to a room where there’s blood all over the floor. I’m her mother, Beryl Sykes, by the way.’

  She put out her hand and McCall shook it.

  ‘Are you all right, June?’ he asked gently, and the young girl nodded.

  ‘But I don’t think I can work here any more. Not after seeing Lennie like that, and all that blood.’

  ‘You probably saved his life, going in when you did,’ McCall told her.

  ‘He’s going to be OK, then?’ Beryl asked.

  ‘We hope so,’ McCall said. ‘Thanks to June’s quick thinking and clever reactions. Do you always check the operating room when you arrive, Jenny?’

  He hoped the question, slid in with praise, might get past her defences.

  ‘Not usually,’ she admitted, ‘but Lennie’s always here first and he’s usually somewhere around the yard. He cleans up the theatre before he leaves at night, then does the yard and the cat boxes and the dog runs every morning. This morning he wasn’t in the yard, and when I smelt this funny smell, I wondered if they’d been working in the theatre during the night and he was still in there cleaning. I opened the door—’

  The horror of what she’d seen cut off the words, and her mother drew her close, but McCall pressed on.

  ‘What kind of smell?’ he asked. ‘And was it coming from there?’

  Jenny raised her head from her mother’s shoulder.

  ‘No, I smelt it when I was coming in—it was more outside than inside—but it reminded me of the smell in Theatre, that’s why I looked in there. Derek does most of his operations at night, but sometimes someone brings in an injured animal while I’m here and that’s the smell I smelt.’

  Aware he had to be careful because witnesses could latch onto a suggestion, he hesitated. Questioning really wasn’t his area, but he was worried that if they waited for Dave or one of his men to arrive, June’s recollections might not be as clear.

  ‘I think Mr McCall wants to know what kind of smell it was. You’re good at smells, June. You can always pick what perfume I’m wearing, and you can do it with most of your friends, too.’

  McCall gave Beryl a grateful smile but, though June screwed up her face in concentration, it didn’t seem to help.


  ‘It was an operating smell,’ she repeated. ‘That’s why I looked in the theatre.’

  ‘Could you smell it in there?’

  She shook her head and went a little pale.

  ‘No, all I could smell in there was the blood.’ She put her hand over her mouth, swallowed then took a deep breath. ‘I want to go home,’ she wailed.

  ‘I think you could go home,’ McCall said, feeling sorry for the young woman who’d had such a shock. ‘I’ll phone Dave and tell him that’s where you’ll be, and I’ll wait here for one of the police to come.’

  That final offer bothered him because it meant leaving Cassie without protection, but as long as she stayed in the hospital, she should be all right.

  ‘Oh, you don’t have to do that,’ Beryl told him. ‘Lisa never got to have the keys but Derek said June’s been here long enough to have the responsibility. She can lock up before we go.’

  ‘Lisa?’

  ‘Lisa Santorini—she’s my niece—she was my niece. Died in an accident earlier in the year,’ Beryl explained. ‘She only worked here a couple of weeks, but I’m beginning to think this place might be unlucky!’

  ‘I think I’d better stay anyway,’ McCall told them, remembering where the conversation had begun.

  Beryl shrugged as if it was no concern of hers, and ushered her daughter out the door, leaving McCall adding up a whole lot of things in his head.

  Dave’s lists had given some explanation of possible relationships between the men and the victims, but he couldn’t remember anything about Lisa and Lennie working at the same place. If he remembered rightly, Judy was tied to Lennie because they lived in the same street, and Mrs Ambrose because she’d once taught Lennie, but he couldn’t remember the tie to Lisa.

  The lists were in Cassie’s office.

  He pulled out his mobile and dialled Dave’s mobile first. Not answering, out of range or turned off. He dialled the hospital next and asked to be put through to Cassie.

  ‘I’m sorry, but she’s not in her office. Shall I try to track her down?’