Treating Murder: Book One of the Veronica Lane, M.D. series (medical thriller)

by Gabrielle Black

  Auguste put in, “It’s Glenfidditch.”

  I nodded to him. “With water, please.” Then I looked at Ellen. “Well I guess it’s good that they can learn from my mistakes. I focused on the MS and I couldn’t see past it.”

  “And now ye’re full of self-reproach because you think that you missed the diagnosis.” Her eyes were understanding.

  “I feel like I should have known," I said.

  "So now ye don’t know if you will ever be able to trust again that when a patient is failing treatment that it isn’t because of something ye missed.”

  I blinked and nodded, mute. Auguste returned with a tumbler for me, and set the bottle on the table. I took the glass gratefully, and swallowed a huge mouthful immediately. The whiskey burned on the way down, even watered down as it was, but I appreciated it anyway.

  “My dear lass, what did you learn in school? Medicine is an art, not a science. How similar is the presentation of arsenic poisoning to multiple sclerosis?”

  “Very similar. Almost the same presentation, except that in arsenic poisoning the neurologic damage does not recover until the arsenic is taken away.” I repeated what I had read earlier.

  “And were ye confident in your diagnosis of multiple sclerosis?”

  “Yes. Very. She did have it.” My voice was a little thick. I took another sip of the Glenfidditch to loosen it.

  “Were there any other events that would have caused ye to look away from that terrible disease and believe that there was another?”

  “In retrospect, yes. I shouldn’t have attributed her loss of appetite and anemia to that disease.” I took another swallow of the excellent Scotch.

  “But aren’t anemia and weight loss very common symptoms, and very non-specific?” Her pale green eyes held concern.

  “Yes.” I felt like a student on rounds, and strangely that was a comfort. I took another mouthful of strudel, enjoying it more this time.

  Krauss smiled gently while continuing to sip at her drink. “And was it likely that they were caused by the MS?”

  “Yes. It seemed to be.”

  “And was there any other reason that ye should have pursued a one hundred million to one possibility of arsenic poisoning, only a few cases of which have been reported in this country in the last century, when ye had an accurate and perfectly plausible diagnosis right in front of you?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “No, not that I can think of, but there must have been. It was right there.”

  “Aye, and so rare that it’s raised a furor in a major medical center like Emory.” Ellen sighed. “Tis tragic when something goes undiagnosed, but no other doctor in the country would have looked for arsenic in this case. Perhaps if the symptoms were new, and the MS was not present, the arsenic would have eventually found its way into the differential, but that was not the case, and ye could not have known.”

  “But it was there, and the pathologist saw it right away.”

  “He was looking at her organs. Tis why we have autopsies, ken? Nic, what can I tell you? Ye canna let this lead you to believe that you cannot practice medicine, and you doona need to change the way you practice medicine either.”

  I raised my glass and appraised her as I sipped, unconvinced.

  “Look at this from a different point of view,” she said. “Find the cause of the poisoning. Epidemiology is an important side of medicine. Think of what caused this girl to be exposed to the arsenic in the first place. Food contamination from insecticides and industrial washout are the most common forms of exposure, correct?”

  “Yes. That’s what I read today. But how do you know?” I set the empty tumbler down.

  Krauss smiled slyly as she refilled my glass, rising to cross to the sideboard to add ice and water. “I thought ye might call. I reviewed a bit.”

  I smiled a little as well, surprised in spite of myself.

  “So,” Krauss continued. “Trace it back to the source. Prevent it happening to another person. Ye will have made her death at least valuable to someone else.”

  “She’s still dead.”

  “And that canna be changed.” Krauss paused and ran her finger along the fine grain of the tabletop. “Look forward. What good can come of this situation now?” She looked from the table to meet my eyes directly. “What of the holocaust? Auguste’s family were German Jews, and lucky to have survived. Could it have been prevented? Possibly, if the right people had recognized what was happening early enough. But they didnae, and the result was one of the worst atrocities the world has ever known. And what did the survivors do afterwards? They came together as a people, and recreated their own nation, a verra strong nation, after hundreds of years of being scattered across the world. It didn’t repair the damage of the holocaust, but it was good which came of it. Your patient’s death might have been preventable as well, but it wasn't. ‘Nae man can tether time or tide.’ What’s done is done. So what will ye do now? Let it destroy you, or overcome it? ”

  She was right. I could not purge the sense of guilt I had, but she was giving me a way to heal. I reached inside myself for the strength to do so.

  The night grew late and the rain never abated. The thought of driving all the way back home was not appealing. In the end though, I refused Dr. Krauss’ offer of a spare room to spend the night in, saying that I had to be back to meet someone early in the morning. I did not want to impose on them anymore than I already had, and—truth be told—I wanted some time to myself to mull things over. I said good night to both Auguste and Ellen and started back up the rain-soaked road toward home. My plan, in reality, was to spend the night in the nearest motel, and then drive back home in daylight.

  After only a few miles of treacherously dark roads, with occasional puddles that yanked my car toward the side of the road and sent up rooster tails of water, I began to regret my decision not to claim asylum with the Krauss’ in their dry home. I spied a neon sign ahead and prayed for a vacancy.

  The motel was small and only half of its sign was lit, but I was grateful to see it. I pulled alongside the door labeled manager’s office, and received a key from a small bespeckled man who never took his nose out of his book the whole time I was with him. I wondered if he would remember my face the next morning when I checked out. It was more than a little disconcerting to realize that not a soul in the world knew where I was.

  I scurried down the outside walkway toward my door. I was thoroughly soaked and chilled to the bone. I undressed and went into the bathroom. The tub was the old-fashioned claw-foot kind, with a shower curtain that went all the way around. I undressed and hung my clothes to dry. I would have liked to try a soak in the giant expanse, but it was filthy—covered in what looked like permanent grime. Clearly the new gentrification of Atlanta had not reached this area.

  The front portion of the room held a small double bed with reasonably clean appearing sheets, but I still wished for something more than my bare skin to wear between myself and the bedclothes. I looked at the phone trying to think of someone to notify of my whereabouts, but I could think of no one who would understand this trip, particularly the part where I stayed in a seedy roadside motel, so I gave up on that idea. Crawling between the sheets, I finally sank into an uneasy sleep, disturbed frequently by the exaggerated sound of cars flying past on the nearby wet road.

  I awoke before daylight wanting to talk to Sarah Summers’ sister. Perhaps I could vindicate myself with the woman. I hoped that would help relieve the nagging feeling inside my chest. There was nothing that I could do at this hour. The woman in Risk Management wouldn’t be in before eight, and I had no idea where to find the phone number otherwise, so I rolled back over and tried to sleep through the sounds of trucks rumbling by.

  At 7:30, moaning and rhythmic rocking sounds vibrated at my head, and I was forced to get up. I showered with a bathmat spread on the floor of the tub, and a hand towel on the floor outside the tub. My clothes were not quite dry, and the cotton shirt was wrinkled beyond recognition. I had no
choice but to wear them anyway. Then I ran my hands through my matted hair as I sat the bed to dial the hospital. A little orange tag on the base of the phone informed me that one dollar would be added to the bill for the luxury of using the appliance, but at this point my cell phone was dead. The rocking noise finally stopped and the sounds of water running in the next room were now all I heard.

  The operator answered and I asked for Risk Management hoping that I would get more than a voice mail.

  A voice answered.

  “Hello, is this Pam?”

  “What?” She sounded annoyed.

  “Is this Pam?” I shouted. The phone receiver was staticky, and the voice sounded distant.

  “This is Pam! Who’s calling please?”

  I shouted. “This is Dr. Lane. I need to ask you a question about Sarah Summers’s sister.” The sounds next door had vanished altogether. I wondered vaguely if they were now listening to me. Surely they could hear me through the paper thin walls.

  “Yes. What do you need to know?”

  “What is her phone number?”

  “You don’t need to call her. We spoke with her attorney yesterday about the results of the autopsy. He does not intend to file. I tried to reach you last evening, but it went straight to voicemail.”

  “I still need her number.” The groaning began again. I stared at the wall in disbelief.

  “Be careful that you don’t upset her,” replied Pam.

  I blew upwards, mildly exasperated, lifting my bangs from my forehead, and started to respond that I would never intentionally do such a thing, but the woman was already reading me the family’s number as well as that of the attorney.

  “Her name is Sheila Summers,” came her distant voice.

  Thanks!” I shouted, scribbling as fast as I could on the back of a customer satisfaction card I found on the table. I dropped the phone back in its cradle and snatched it up again to dial the new number.

  A sleepy voice grumbled, “Who’s this?”

  I took a deep breath and said, “This is Dr. Veronica Lane. I’m looking for Sheila Summers.”

  “You got her. What’s this about?” The voice was still sleepy and distrustful.

  I spoke in a normal tone of voice. At least this time the connection was good. “I took care of your sister in the hospital, and I wanted to speak with you about her.”

  “She ain’t my sister. She used to be my sister-in-law, but her man left.”

  “Oh.” Now I understood why Sarah had never mentioned this woman. She had never even mentioned her ‘man.’ Why, then, had the woman taken such an interest in Sarah’s death when she wasn’t involved in her life? “Could I come by to talk to you today?”

  “What for?” I heard her voice rumble something unintelligible as though muffled by her hand, and then a more distant male voice answer.

  “I want to explain what happened.”

  The male voice again rumbled in the background, and I guessed that they were trying to decide if they should let me come by. Sheila’s voice returned unmuffled. “I guess it’s okay. I got to go to work though in a couple of hours.”

  “Great.” I heaved a sigh of relief. “Where do you live?” The house was only about thirty minutes west, just this side of the Alabama state line. I hung up the phone and gathered my few belongings. At the front desk sat the same bespeckled man from the night before, who was now leaning back in his chair, snoring, with his book flung open on the floor. I felt guilty ringing the bell. He sat up with a snort and looked wildly at me.

  I said softly, “I’m here to check out.”

  He stood up and accepted the key wordlessly, then printed my bill and handed it to me, still without a sound. I glanced back inside after paying and saw him settling back in his chair with his arms clasped in his lap, resuming his nap.

  I turned my little car down a winding road toward the state line. The morning was still gray, but the clouds looked thin so I hoped it would be sunny by the time I reached the Summers’ place. Along the road, bedraggled weeds stood in puddles from the deluge the night before. Their heads were beaten down and rusty with mud.

  I drove past miles of fences and farmland, each made up primarily of battered shades of brown. The region had the look of a place where prosperity had once reigned, but had passed on. Eventually, my GPS instructed me to turn down a gravel road lined with trailers. My tiny Prius bumped and splashed through muddy waters collected in potholes, and I hoped none of them were deeper than they looked.

  I stopped in front of a cheerful, blue vinyl-sided mobile home set on a brick and mortar foundation. I knocked and the door opened right away. Before me stood a faded woman of about forty, wearing an incredibly vivid shade of orange lipstick. The woman’s suspicious face relaxed into an unexpected smile as she stepped back and invited me in.

  I stepped forward and said, “Hi, I’m Dr. Lane.”

  The woman said, “Sheila Summers. We don’t get too many visitors out here.”

  I thought wryly of her road which had more dips than flats, and nodded. “Is there somewhere where we can talk?”

  “Oh, yeah, come in.” She led me to a sitting room with a pair of chenille-covered recliners. Sheila took a seat on the one farthest from the door and motioned for me to sit down.

  I asked politely, “Is your husband still at home?”

  “Oh, I’m not married. Got no use for it.” She must have seen the confused look on my face because she continued. “My man was here this morning though. Is that what you’re talkin’ about?”

  I nodded, rubbing the soft chenille under my fingers.

  “He’s gone to work, but I’m gonna catch a ride in with Eugenia next door in a couple of hours. My shift starts after his. You want anything to drink?”

  “No thanks, I don’t need anything.”

  The woman’s eyes quickly changed into a scowl. “You don’t think we got anything good enough to drink?”

  I turned, startled by her change in demeanor. If she was trying to keep me off balance it was working. “No, I didn’t mean that. I just wasn’t thirsty.”

  “You’re just like that hospital insurance lady that called me the other day, tellin’ me that Sarah was dead, but she didn’t need no autopsy.”

  My eyes nearly popped out of my head. “You got a call from insurance?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It wasn’t the hospital that called you?” I asked, leaning so far forward in my recliner, I nearly pitched out.

  “You think I’m stupid? I said it was insurance.” The woman stood up from her recliner. “You better go. I don’t want to hear any palaverin’ from you about what happened to Sarah. I reckon the lawyer told me everything about it. Just git.”

  “Mrs. Summers, I wanted to tell you that I tried everything to save Sarah. She was very important to me.” I stood up and backed toward the door, thinking only of the instructions we had had on Psych rotations. Never let the patient get between you and the exit, and never take your eyes off them.

  The woman stopped and eyed her slowly. “I told you, I ain’t married.”

  I blinked, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Sheila watched me for a moment through narrowed eyes, then said, “I guess it’s all right. But I got nothin’ else to say.”

  I opened the door and stepped out onto the brick steps. They were surrounded by bright, red begonias in pots; I hadn't noticed them when I walked up. “You have a nice place here.”

  “Don’t you patronize me. I shouldn’t have let you come.” The woman slammed the screen door.

  Inspiration hit. “Did you care much for Sarah?” I called through the screen.

  “No,” Sheila reappeared in the doorway. “No. She was an uppity little thing. That’s why my brother left her, and he was right to do it. After that she moved off toward Rome, and we ain’t seen her since.”

  “So, why would you get a call about her?”

  “Dunno,” she shrugged. “The lady said I was listed on her papers.�
�

  “What was her name?”

  “Got no idea.”

  “Did she give any reason why she would be calling rather than the hospital?”

  Now Sheila looked confused. “Why not?”

  “Because usually the hospital makes those types of calls.”

  “Humpf. Well this time it was insurance.” Sheila started to close the solid door as well.

  “Wait!” I held up my hand. “Have you heard from them again?”

  “Nope. You got to go now. I got to get ready for work.” This time she did close the door.

  I started the engine and backed up to an area wide enough to turn my car around without becoming mired in the red clay mud alongside the gravel road. I could make no sense of her, nor of the statement that she had been called by the insurance company. Did she mean Fiona Crawford? Why would Kinder be calling her rather than the hospital?

  Chapter 8

  Late the next day, Chapman arrived at the precinct. His sleeves were rolled up, and the edges of the folds were black with accumulated grime. “Dex, any luck?”

  “No on Summers, but we’ve got a burglary report by Lane. Six months ago she filed a theft report on a bunch of jewelry and supplies.”

  “What happened?” Chapman raised his heavy gray eyebrows.

  “She’s got a jewelry workshop. She reported that someone broke in and stole some of the gold and jewelry, and some tools. Sounds like they grabbed whatever looked good and ran. The workshop is just inside the basement door. There's an entrance at the back of the house.” Byers leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on a desk drawer. Chapman would take credit for this discovery, but he didn’t mind. So long as the criminals eventually found their way to jail, he was willing to help the team.

  “What showed up in the investigation?” Chapman grilled.

  “Some kid said that he saw someone wearing a hoodie leaving the house that day. He couldn’t give us an ID, and there is little information in his statement. He came forward after a reward was posted, so he may have just been looking to make a buck.”