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

by Gabrielle Black

  “What are you doing?” She rubbed her eyes sleepily.

  “I’ve got to go to Steve’s house. I have to tell him something.”

  “Steve?”

  “You know, my ex-husband. The one who was accused of murder. Murder that he didn’t commit.”

  Missy was riveted. “Wait, I’m coming with you.” She turned back for her shoes and ran down the stairs.

  I had never seen her display so much energy. I thought of objecting, but I was in no condition to argue.

  We drove to his house, and knocked on the door. There was no answer. I tried the back door, but still no response. I tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. Steve gave no answer to his name. I stepped into the dim kitchen, and tentatively walked further into the house. Missy ran into me when I stopped to listen.

  Upstairs I called again. On the floor of his bedroom, I found his crumpled body. “Steve!” I shouted. No response.

  Missy hung back in the doorway, “Is he dead?”

  I rolled him onto his back, checking for a pulse, and for respirations. He had both, but he reeked of alcohol.

  “Steve.” I shouted into his face. He groaned, and his bleary eyes fluttered open.

  I breathed again the sickening smell of alcohol, “What happened?”

  He shook his head. “Got drunk,” he slurred.

  “Steve, have you taken anything else?”

  He snored. I slapped him. His eyes opened again slowly. “Steve. What else have you taken?”

  “Tylenols. My stomach was hurting.”

  “How many Tylenol did you take, Steve?”

  He shook his head again, “Don’t know. A bunch.”

  “How long have you been drinking?”

  “Since you left.”

  “How much Tylenol? Steve wake up! How much Tylenol?” I shouted at him.

  “I don’t know,” he slurred. “A few at a time.”

  “I’ve got to get you to a hospital. Don’t you know that alcohol and Tylenol don’t mix?” He was too heavy to lift.

  “Missy, call 911. Tell them there’s a man with acute alcohol ingestion, and probable drug overdose.”

  Missy ran to find a phone. Then I tugged him towards the door.

  In fifteen minutes, an ambulance arrived with a stretcher. I identified myself as a doctor and climbed into the back.

  “Missy, take my car home and wait for me there.”

  “I can’t drive.”

  “Okay, climb into the ambulance.” I said shortly. Missy tripped climbing over the high bumper in her platforms. I caught her by the waistband and nearly yanked her off her feet. Immediately the truck started rolling, and we raced to the hospital. On the way, the paramedics measured Steve’s oxygen level, and started IV fluids. He was breathing fine.

  In the emergency room, I stopped at the secretary’s desk as they rolled the stretcher to a room. “Mary. I’m taking care of him. Please order a blood alcohol and acetaminophen level right now, and find this girl a place to wait.”

  Mary scanned Missy with some distaste but said, “Sure thing, Doctor Lane.” She began typing orders into the computer and without looking back up, said, “So how’ve you been doing Dr. Lane?”

  “Mary, it’s been crazy, and I think things are going to get worse before they get better.” My voice was strained. I couldn’t maintain casual conversation. I walked away.

  In the exam room, I ordered a tube to be placed in Steve’s stomach to pump it out and then some charcoal to be pumped in to absorb whatever was still present and undigested. The fluid from his stomach was brown, and smelled like a brewery floor, but the nurse and I examined it carefully for bits of pills. There were a total of six pieces remaining, not a lot, but there was no way to know how many were already digested. The moment that the lab technician drew his blood, I gave him medicine to bind the Tylenol in his system.

  The nurse asked, “What is the patient’s name? We don’t have it yet.”

  “His name is Steve Lane.”

  The nurse’s eyes grew wide, and she said, “This is the guy that killed your patient?”

  My face turned red and I choked out a barely civil. “Don’t believe everything that you read in the paper.” Then I turned on my heel before I said anything rude, and walked away to write my admission orders. Mary came over to tell my there was a bed available on 4A.

  “Thanks, take him up to it as soon as possible.” Then I called Jamie. “I need your help.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Can you check on something on the case for me? I’m at the hospital, and tomorrow may be too late.”

  Exasperation colored Jamie’s voice. “Just leave it alone. It’s over now.”

  “Please Jamie, this is very important.”

  “Okay,” he said. “As soon as I can finish up here.”

  “Call me at the hospital.”

  Then I followed Steve’s gurney to the third floor. The nurses stared at us, and then one courageous one came over, and said it was a shame about my husband. For a moment, I felt myself to be at a loss for words. Then my voice returned.

  “He didn’t do anything wrong. He’s been falsely accused.”

  Someone piped up, “We know what happened. There’s no reason to cover for him any longer. If it had been me, I would’ve turned him in a long time ago.”

  Someone else said, “He hasn’t been convicted of anything. There’s been nothing but a newspaper article. Newspapers have been wrong before.”

  I looked at his defender. “You take care of him tonight. He needs careful observation if he’s going to get better. He’ll be cleared of the murder.”

  The nurse nodded. “I will.”

  Jamie texted, and I called him back. “Hi Jamie, can you come take me back to my car?” I knew clearly now what I needed to do, but not how to go about it. I hoped that Jamie could help me to find proof of Jacqueline’s involvement with Fiona, but I had no idea what we were looking for. I would go to the police with or without evidence though, even if it destroyed me. I couldn’t let the world condemn an innocent man. Even if we were through.

  “Yes, I’ll be right there,” said Jamie.

  I gave the nurse instructions to call me if anything changed, and to let me know when his lab work was done. Orin Denby stopped me on the way out of the hospital.

  “Veronica, it’s nice to see you up here again. I had hoped that you were all right. Is there anything that I can do for you?”

  “No thanks, Dr. Denby. Thank you for your support with the hospital board. I probably would not have my privileges back so quickly if it had not been for you.”

  He nodded slowly. “By the way, if you aren’t too busy, I have a lady upstairs that I need some management assistance with. Do you think that you could take a look at her in the morning?”

  My heart leapt at the implied trust. But there weren’t many cases that he could not manage just fine on his own. “I don’t recall your ever needing my input on a case, Dr. Denby.”

  “Like I said, she’s a tricky case, and I could use another pair of eyes watching her.”

  “I’ll be happy to see her in the morning.” I smiled. “Thanks for everything.”

  I found Missy in the waiting room. The teen looked at me with questioning eyes.

  I said, “He’s stable. We won’t know anything else for hours.” I collapsed on a beige chair in the middle of the waiting room and covered my face with my hands. Missy put a hand on my knee. “I think you need for me to stay with you.”

  I glanced at her over my fingers, and then closed my eyes and nodded. It was the best news I had heard all day.

  Jamie arrived at the ER entrance with a high-performance roar.

  “Hey Nic, what’s going on?”

  “We admitted Steve to the hospital. He got drunk, and took too much Tylenol.”

  “Is that serious?” Jamie said lightly.

  “Yes, it’s serious.” I said, probably more forcefully than I needed to. "That combination is potentially deadly. It’s to
xic to the liver. He could die if the damage is severe enough.”

  Jamie’s face sobered. “I didn’t realize. When will you know?”

  “I hope that the results on the tests they’re running now will show the levels to be too low for toxicity, but if they're high, it could be days before he’s safe.”

  “Is it okay to leave him?” he asked.

  “Yes, for now. There is nothing more than I can do there. I called you because there is something else that I need to do for him.”

  “What?” Jamie looked a little bit skeptical, but willing all the same. I liked him more and more.

  “We’ll talk after we get to my house. I need to get my car from his house.”

  “Okay.” Jamie looked mystified but he was willing to see where I led. Following my directions, we soon pulled up in Steve’s driveway.

  Missy and I slid out of his cramped car and into my slightly more spacious one.

  “I’ll follow the two of you home,” Jamie said.

  At my house, I walked Missy to the door and let her in. “Stay here, please. I’ll be back soon, and I promise that I’ll tell you everything. Go ahead and eat dinner if you want to. Just don’t go anywhere until I get back.”

  Missy said nothing, but nodded with wide, serious eyes.

  I leaned in the window of the little, red Ferrari and said, “I need help finding out what happened to Fiona Crawford. She didn’t just run off of the road, Jamie. I think that she witnessed the murder in the hospital.”

  “Weren’t you just trying to prove that she was, in fact, the murderer?” Jamie asked.

  “I was, but Jamie, things have changed and I need your help. Just help me find out what happened to her.”

  “I still have the police report on file. We can go look at it.”

  “OK.” I said. I returned to my own car

  Inside the silent former bank building, Jamie took us by a short cut to his office, and went directly to an antique, wooden file cabinet on the back wall. He unlocked the top drawer, shuffling through paper until he located what he was looking for.

  He turned around with a file marked F. Crawford. “Here’s the report of the accident. Let’s see. Single car accident involving driver of white convertible versus tree. Blue paint scratches and dent on left front fender. Collapsed front end from impact with tree. Restrained driver dead at scene.”

  “Oh, I had forgotten about the blue paint. Jacqueline said that we should use that as part of the evidence that Steve committed the murder. His car is blue.”

  “Did you check his car for signs of damage?”

  “No. I didn’t notice when I was there. Are they still investigating Crawford’s death?”

  “The police haven’t told me much about it, but I haven’t been asking.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “She isn’t my case,” he answered, as he continued to leaf through her file.

  I pursed my lips and looked up at the ceiling. “Let’s go to see Jacqueline’s brother.”

  “What on earth for?” he glanced up at me, before looking back down at the papers. "Oh, crap," he exclaimed softly.

  I answered, “I just remembered that she went to see him on the day that Crawford was killed.

  “What has he got to do with it? Are you saying that Jacqueline is involved?” Jamie looked back up at me confused.

  I nodded.

  He gave me a reproving look. “This is a little far-fetched.”

  I said, “Jamie, I’m going to Ben Greene’s house because I hope he has some of the answers that I’m looking for. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

  “Oh, I’m coming,” he kept one of the papers and folded into his pocket before placing the folder back in his filing cabinet.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I could use your support.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “I remember it vaguely. I spent Thanksgiving there one year.”

  I followed him back out to his car and gave him an address from my phone contacts that he could put into his GPS. As he drove, Jamie pulled the saved piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me. "Look at this."

  I took it and had to squint to make out the blurry image from the fax. It was a picture of a passport. I flipped it over, but the back side was blank. I couldn't tell whose it was.

  "What is this for?" I asked.

  He cut his eyes over to me impatiently. "It's Fiona's. Look at the stamps."

  I squinted again. The last stamp said Miami, but the two stamps before that were arrival and departure from Haiti. "Haiti?" I asked. What the hell?

  "Yeah, Haiti. Remember when you wondered if European flights came in through Miami?"

  I nodded. "But what does this mean? It doesn't make any sense. Why did Reynauld, erm, Reid, lie? It wasn't her that killed Sarah."

  Jamie shrugged as he pulled up a long gravel road to the Greene farm, and stopped outside the screened porch of an old farmhouse. "I don't know. It just surprised me when I saw it," he said.

  Ben walked out to meet us. “Hey, Nicky. Long time no see.” He was blond like Jacqueline, but he had a more laid-back demeanor. “Gosh, I wish I’d known you were coming. Connie took the girls into town, and she would have loved to see you.”

  He looked over at Jamie and extended his hand. “Nice to see you, I’m Ben Greene.”

  Jamie said, “James Stone. Nice place you’ve got here.”

  Ben looked at me expectantly, as he said, “Yes. It’s been in the family for seventy-five years.”

  I said, “Jamie is a new friend of mine. We met just recently.”

  Ben raised his eyebrows and nodded in approval. “So where is my sister?”

  “We came without her. Wasn’t she just here the other day checking on you?”

  “Checking on me? Hell no, she came by to borrow the truck.”

  “The truck? That old, decrepit thing of yours?”

  “Yeah, she said she needed to move some stuff, and she couldn’t do it in that fancy BMW convertible of hers, so she took it for a few hours. It didn’t come back any better for wear though.”

  “How do you mean?” asked Jamie.

  “I think that I know what he means, Jamie.” I said. “Ben, that old truck is blue, right?”

  “Always has been.”

  “Do you mind if we go take a look at it?” I asked.

  “Why no, but it’s back in the barn waiting on repairs. Jackie hit a post with it, one of those big, concrete, white ones that the gas stations install to keep you from knocking over the pump. Well, I guess they’ve got those there for a reason,” he winked at Jamie.

  Jamie’s jaw dropped. He said nothing as they walked back into the barn to see the truck. He went directly to the right side panel where there was a long dent and streaks of white paint.

  Ben said, “Jacqueline was so embarrassed about that. She said that as soon as she had time she’d come out to take it in for the repairs herself.”

  “Ben, I’m afraid that she hit another car with your truck.” I said.

  “No. She said it was a pole.”

  I turned with wide-eyes. “Jamie, call whoever is on the Crawford case, and tell them to come take a look at this.”

  Jamie walked back to retrieve his cell phone from the car.

  Ben said, “Nic, I don’t like what’s going on here. You need to stop what you’re doing right now and tell me what’s up, and why you’re here without Jacqueline.”

  “Ben, we need to talk. Let’s go back inside.” I took his arm at the elbow, but he snatched it back.

  His face went red, and his nose and ears and his chin kept going until they were purple. “Tell me what the hell is going on now!”

  I had never seen him so upset. I tried to calm him. “I’m not sure how to tell you this, but your sister is in a lot of trouble.”

  “Wasn’t she just helping you out of a scrape?” he demanded.

  “She did, but it was her own scrape. I think that your truck is damaged fro
m a hit and run. Jackie killed Fiona Crawford, and she killed Sarah.”

  Ben shook his head. “You’re crazy! You’re out of your mind. Do you know that?” He paced around the truck and stared at the paint marks. “I have to call her.”

  “Ben, you know that I would never say anything like this if it wasn’t true. She told me about it today herself.” I was pleading.

  Ben ran back to the house as I followed. He grabbed his phone, shaking his head. “She would never do something like that.” Sweat beaded on his mottled, crimson face. I didn’t know how to respond to him. I would have reacted the same way if someone had come to her accusing my friend of murder, but I could not change what had happened. I put my hand on his arm again in a gesture of comfort, but he glared at me and I backed away.

  Jamie walked casually inside, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “The police are on their way. Nic, what made you come out here?” His glance only then took in the dangerous look on Ben’s face. He tensed and sucked in his breath.

  “Jackie killed Sarah.” I was blunt.

  “She admitted that she killed her?” Jamie began steering me toward the door, trying to put space between us and Ben. There was no telling what the man might be capable of; after all, his sister was a murderer.

  “Yes, but no one would take my word for it. She knew that.” I stepped through the screen door and off the porch.

  “When did you find this out?”

  I ran my hand through my bangs, “Today. She was wearing a piece of the stolen jewelry.”

  “So why did she kill Crawford?” Jamie tried to piece the scene together.

  “Crawford was in Sarah's room on the night she died. She signed the visitors’ log, so she must have seen Jacqueline that night. Fiona Crawford would have had the only concrete evidence in the case.”

  “How did you know about this?” asked Jamie.

  Ben watched us huddle together and stormed over after hanging up the phone. “Get away from my house!” He pointed his finger at me. “Don’t you ever come near here again. You’re no friend of hers. She went out on a limb in your defense, and this is how you repay her?”