by Jo McCready
“Good to hear. Thanks, Doctor. We’ve heard good things about your practice and your good self. I really appreciate you coming out to see me.”
“Not a problem.” He chuckled, and the sound made RJ’s skin crawl. His laugh seemed hollow in his body, haunting.
“You didn’t exactly have much choice, there’s only me that covers this village and the surrounding area. You wouldn’t have gotten any Oban doctors to come out this far.”
“Oh?” RJ said innocently. “I heard there was another doctor at your practice, too.”
“Nope, just myself and a nurse . . . you might be thinking of a locum we had recently.”
“I must be. I think someone mentioned your locum to me. He must have made quite an impression on her. Do you tend to stick to the same ones?”
“Oh no, we can never get the same one twice, you know.”
“It’s someone different every time?”
“Every time. There’s a bank of them, you see, and it’s always changing. Usually just the new doctors, trying their hand out to see if they want to work in a rural setting. It’s not for everyone. Country medicine’s quite different from city medicine. You’ve got to be a bit of a one-man band out here—no one else to rely on, you see. In towns, if someone gets stabbed or has an accident, they get taken to a hospital. Here, if there’s an accident with farm machinery or the like, then the local doctor is first port of call. It’s not the sleepy job that most expect it to be.”
He laid his hands gently on Stuart’s ankle and prodded carefully.
Stuart grimaced slightly, but it seemed to more for effect than actual pain.
“Have you been bearing weight on it?” the doctor asked as he continued to examine the area. The purple bruising was fading to green.
“Only on trips to the bathroom,” Stuart admitted. “It wasn’t pleasant at the time, when I went over on it, I mean. I had to use it more than was probably wise in order for us to get back to the car after the fall.”
“No, not ideal. And how does that feel? When you do bear weight on it?”
“Better than yesterday, which in turn was better than the day before.”
“Hmm . . . I’d hazard the opinion that it’s not broken. You’re very lucky, actually. The bruising is healing nicely. The pain at the start was most likely due to inflammation, worsened by the fact that you had to walk on it afterwards. I’d continue to rest it and just listen to your own body. If anything feels painful, stop. Also, when you do start using it again, take it slowly. It might not hurt at the time, but you might suffer for it afterwards. Be careful to build up your exercise. Don’t rush things.” He smiled, but it seemed like a poor act. He was certainly saying the right things, but his attention seemed to be somewhere else. His body may have been in the room with them, but his mind and soul were oddly absent.
Stuart nodded, listening intently.
“I’ll give you something for pain relief to see you through.” He scrawled on a prescription pad. “I’m also going to put a compression bandage on there.” He handed the prescription to RJ. “You’ll be doing the honors, no doubt?”
“Thank you.”
“Yes, thank you, Doctor. You’ve been very helpful. We appreciate you coming out.”
“Not a problem. I hope you’re back on your feet in no time.” He searched through his bag for a compression bandage, then wrapped it quickly and expertly around Stuart’s foot and ankle, securing it in place with a pin. He smiled his hollow smile at Stuart once he’d finished. With that, he gathered his paraphernalia and exited the cabin, his mind clearly already on his next patient.
RJ closed the door behind him and moved over to the window to watch him make his way down the stairs and out the gate. His walk was brisk but there seemed to be an underlying lethargy in his movements. She couldn’t quite pinpoint what she felt more than that, except that he seemed conservative in his energy. Maybe that wasn’t quite right, either.
She turned back to the bed. “What did you make of him?”
“Seemed pretty competent. If nothing else, I’m glad to get a good prognosis on my injuries.”
“There’s something off about him, though, something under the surface that isn’t right.”
“I agree. Alcoholism would explain some of the signs and is surely the most obvious conclusion to draw, but he isn’t an alcoholic—we’d have been able to tell. I do think your hunch is right, though. Something’s going on with him. Text in, ask them to check the doctor’s medical history, call history, and internet usage.”
“Internet usage?”
“Just a hunch.”
RJ took out her phone and did what he suggested.
“What about the whole locum thing? What did you think about that?” She tapped her fingers on her opposite hand, working through her own thought processes. She was asking herself the question just as much as she was asking him.
“I think it’s much easier to pull the wool over the eyes of a young locum, someone less experienced and not used to rural life. Hell, we don’t know, it may have been his first gunshot death.”
“Maxwell, on the other hand, he’d have seen his fair share of just about everything out here. There’s no way anyone would have been able to make anything else look like a fall. He might be weird, but he’s been around the block a few times. He knows what’s what.”
“No, unless he was pushed. Then the good doctor would be none the wiser.”
RJ sighed. “So, it is highly possible, or even likely, that the fiscal had nothing to do with the deaths and the doctors may be uninvolved, too. What does that leave us with?”
“Everything leads us back to the same thing.”
“And what’s that?” RJ asked.
“The estate. The answer’s got to be on the estate.”
“Yeah, well, Muggins here will hopefully be able to unearth something else when she goes shooting on the estate.” She pulled on her shoes and left him to think while she went out to fill the prescription. It gave her a chance to think things over as she drove, but when she returned from the pharmacy on the outskirts of Oban, she still hadn’t come up with any theories.
Three hours after RJ had texted in her request, her phone beeped. She raised her eyebrows at Stuart and was met with the same gesture.
“Nothing suspicious in his phone records,” RJ told him, scanning the message on her phone. “They also checked his bank accounts, nothing there either. Nothing medical. His wife got diagnosed with cancer three years ago.”
“I wonder if he needed cash for private treatment.”
“Doesn’t seem like it. She died eleven months ago.”
“That could explain why he looked like death himself. What about the internet?”
“Nothing suspicious.”
“I would have put my money on internet gambling.”
“It doesn’t seem like he has the time for any of that. Poor man.” RJ suddenly felt bad for suspecting him of helping to cover up a murder.
“It doesn’t let him off the hook, you know,” Stuart said.
“I know, but it seems a lot less likely that he’s involved.”
Her phone beeped again.
“What now?” Stuart asked, his head lifted as if he could see over the top of her phone from across the room, impatient to hear what was going on. Working with a partner was always a challenge for agents who often preferred to work alone. This whole business of filtering information through someone else was wearing thin. She could imagine that it was even more frustrating for Stuart as he was now confined to the small, square footage of the cabin, unable to actively investigate the case, relying on a much less experienced agent such as RJ to do the running about and heavy lifting—as it were.
RJ held up a finger to silence him as she read the message. “The locum’s moved on to a number of different practices. All his financials check out. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Probably as we suspected then. Buchanan, or someone working for him, covered up the killing of one of
his employees, or it really was a suicide.”
“Coincidence?”
“I read a quote someplace that said ‘Coincidence is the word we use when we can’t see the levers and pulleys.’ I think the writers’ name was Bull, if I’m remembering correctly. I usually do.”
“In this case, I feel like Ms. or Mr. Bull, whoever they may be, might be right.”
“I think so. The more we find out about this case, the less we know. But what we do know leads us back to something dodgy going on at the estate. We need to come up with a game plan for your little visit.”
Chapter 18
It wasn’t until the next morning that RJ remembered the object she’d found the night of Stuart’s accident.
Stuart stared at it as he held it up in front of his eyes. “It looks like bone to me. Skull bone most likely, a piece of it anyway.”
RJ took it back. “That’s what I thought when I saw it back here in the light. Up on the hill, I didn’t know what it was. I just knew that it didn’t belong there.”
“It doesn’t tell us anything, though,” Stuart said. “You saw the amount of sheep up there, there’s rabbits, foxes, probably stoats, others. The likelihood of it being human is small.”
She frowned at the fragment that looked so fragile. It was difficult to imagine that it had once protected anything as vital or delicate as a human brain or an animal brain.
“It’s just . . . I don’t know, it’s so close to where Sullivan died—”
“But at the top of the hill, instead of the bottom.”
“Exactly. So, if it does belong to James Sullivan, his death didn’t occur the way it’s been reported.”
Stuart frowned. “Just playing devil’s advocate for a minute, but what about scavengers? He wasn’t found for an undisclosed amount of time and even when they bagged him up and took him out, they might have missed a piece. It could be argued that there was plenty of opportunity for some animal to come along and forage for food.”
“No.” RJ shook her head as she studied the bone fragment. “If we find out it is human, the scavenger theory doesn’t sit right with me. If it was found nearby or further down the hill, then fine, but that’s a steep climb straight back up the cliff or at the very least a long, circuitous route back to the top. If this is James Sullivan’s bone, then I’m betting he was killed at the top, or at least his body was at the top before he somehow ended up at the bottom of the cliff. There’s also the possibility that if it is human, we could have another suspicious death on our hands. There could be something in that area that leads to people being killed.”
Stuart propped his chin on his hand. “I’m inclined to agree. If it is human, then it has implications for our investigation, whether it belongs to Sullivan or not. But, and it’s a very big but, the chances of it being human are low. We need to get it tested.”
“How are we supposed to do that out here?”
“I’ve been with the organization a lot longer than you, sometimes they still surprise me with what they have available and where. I’d say, though, the most likely solution would be to courier it somewhere.”
“We can’t just hand it over to a courier!” The thought was preposterous. “It could be a vital piece of evidence.”
“It’ll be safe and much faster than any other option, believe me. I can’t take it anywhere in this state, and we need you here, especially since I’m out of action. Look, I’ll phone it in while you go and get what we need—padded envelope, tape, gauze or something to wrap it in. We’ll need that whatever we end up doing with it.”
RJ tasted blood from her inner cheek, which hurt from the chewing she had been doing on it since the night before. “It doesn’t seem right.” None of it did. Perhaps when she’d been on the job longer, she would learn to detach herself from it. She’d have to, if she wanted to stay with the organization.
#
When she got back, Stuart handed her his phone with the address of the medical research facility she was to send the suspected bone fragment to. “They’re sending a bike courier up from Glasgow. He’ll be up in two hours. It’ll draw less attention to us if you meet him in Oban.”
RJ nodded in reluctant agreement as she carefully wrapped what could be the last piece of James Sullivan in existence in gauze, before wrapping it in cling film and inserting it into the envelope. If it was him, she hoped it would make its way home eventually. The family deserved to have him with them.
#
As she drove past the sign for the funeral home where James Sullivan’s body had been prematurely cremated, RJ felt the itch to go in. Dow and Sons seemed to be prospering. The building was freshly painted and a variety of shiny, gray hearses sat outside. In a town that relied on the summer tourist season to see it through until the next spring, it seemed the only year-round certainty was death.
She had no conceivable cover for entering the premises and no way of finding what she needed to know without generating suspicion. Even so, the bone fragment on the seat beside her threatened to burn a hole through its package and the car seat it sat on. It took all of her willpower not to turn the wheel into the car park.
She hesitated as she handed the courier the envelope. “You’ll go straight there? You don’t have any other pickups on the way?”
“No, Miss. This is the only thing I am concerned about this morning. It’ll get there, don’t you worry.”
RJ’s hand stayed clasped around the parcel as he tried to take it. Reluctantly, she let it go. The courier put it in his pack, which he swung over his shoulder, before revving his engine and disappearing down the road that led back to the central belt. RJ watched him until he was out of sight, feeling like she was missing something.
As she drove past the funeral home again, she stopped on the side of the road and made a U-turn. Goddamn it, she’d think of something to say when she went in.
A woman, who looked to be the same age as her, was showing an old man and his daughter out as RJ walked through the door.
“If there is anything at all that we can do to help, please don’t hesitate to call us,” the woman told the man as she clasped his hand in hers.
He nodded his thanks and allowed himself to be led outside.
The funeral director’s attention immediately turned to RJ and she smiled gently in welcome. “How may we be of service to you today?”
“I’m looking for Mr. Dow.”
The funeral director’s manner immediately changed. The expression on her face turned from welcoming to decidedly not. “He’s not available at the minute. Can I ask why you are enquiring after him?”
“My dad was a friend of his,” RJ said, improvising. “Is he about? My dad would never forgive me if I came all the way to Oban and didn’t look him up.”
“Oh,” the woman replied, still on guard. “And how do our fathers know each other?”
“They were pen-pals when they were boys. He must have mentioned him?” RJ took a punt on a practice she assumed many school children would have partook in back when Mr. Dow was a boy. She was unable to think of any other conceivable scenario why a funeral director in Oban might know someone from the south from way back.
The funeral director visibly relaxed and RJ heaved an invisible sigh of relief.
“He did mention something before, when our class at school got pen-friends from a school in France. I hadn’t realized he had such a strong connection. Sorry, I thought that you were . . . it’s all right, it doesn’t matter.”
“You thought I was what?”
The internal struggle was evident before she answered. “A journalist or lawyer or something. You’re not, are you?”
“Me? Most definitely not.” RJ chuckled at the absurdity of the idea then feigned concern. “You’re not in trouble, are you?”
“No. It’s nothing. It’s fine. It’s been a hard few months, that’s all. Dad retired unexpectedly. and I’ve had to step in to take over. It’s all been a bit much.” She shook her head. “Sorry to lay that on you when a
ll you’ve done is come in to say hello to your father’s old friend.”
“Not at all, don’t worry about it.” RJ put her hand on the woman’s arm and guided her over to a chaise where thousands of people had likely been comforted before. “What about your brothers? Where are they?” RJ asked as she looked around.
“Brothers? Oh, you mean the sign. Folks round here are just too traditional to see ‘Dow and Daughter’ out front. They can handle the thought of me running the place fine, but to see it in black and white, well . . . This place hasn’t quite caught up with the rest of the world yet. It’s just me and a couple of employees. Everything’s such a mess. Not exactly how I envisioned taking over the family business.”
“What happened? You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to. I hope your dad’s okay?”
She sniffed. “Actually, you’re the first person in months who doesn’t know our personal business, and the first person who’s actually given enough of a crap to ask.” She put her hands on her knees, lowering her chin to her chest. “We didn’t realize anything was wrong with Dad until he started making some mistakes around here. Some pretty big mistakes. We think he managed to hide or explain away his symptoms for a while. I don’t think he wanted to consider the possibility that he was losing his mind . . . that’s what he calls it anyway. The doctors call it the early stages of dementia. I’ll tell him you dropped by. There are no guarantees he’ll remember your father, but it might cheer him up. He tends to remember a lot more from his past, but he has his good days and bad days.”
A ringing pealed out from a nearby office. “Duty calls,” she said, standing up and walking hurriedly to answer the call. “Dow and Sons, how may we be of service?” Her voice was friendly, yet sincere, her own upset brushed aside to better serve whomever needed her on the other end of the phone.