by Lee Hollis
Her best bet in finding out the truth was Jimmy MacDonald.
The pharmacist.
Maybe the rash of recent pharmacy thefts weren’t the sole work of some local hooligans trying to get a quick fix with OxyContin.
Maybe one of those thefts included a big bottle of Mephyton tablets.
The same ones that clogged poor Bessie Winthrop’s heart and killed her.
Chapter 36
Jimmy MacDonald scratched the back of his head as he scrolled down a list of medications. “Nope. None of the meds that were stolen were Mephyton, Hayley. Just OxyContin.”
“The only way anyone could have gotten his or her hands on it would have to have been through a pharmacy. Which means if it wasn’t stolen, then it was prescribed to someone with either a vitamin K deficiency or hemophilia or some other condition that would require a coagulant,” Hayley said.
“Sorry, Hayley. I’m already taking a risk telling you what meds were missing. Disclosing patient information is not only a fireable offense, I’d probably be breaking a few laws too, and I’m too close to retirement to lose my pension now and spend my twilight years behind bars.”
“I understand, Jimmy. I would never ask you to do anything that could get you into trouble.”
“I appreciate you understanding,” Jimmy said, eyeing the plump blond woman in a blue apron vest who was positioned up the aisle in the front of the store. “Looks like Deanna at the register is ready for her break. She usually takes a good fifteen minutes walking down the street to the Big Apple for a coffee.”
Hayley nodded, not quite sure why this information was relevant.
Jimmy removed his lab coat and laid it down on the pharmacy counter. “I usually close up shop here for a bit and cover for her. That’s where I’ll be. Waiting on any customers, who might come into the store. But right now, the store is pretty empty, so there shouldn’t be anyone wandering around back here. You’ll be all alone. Just saying.”
Jimmy gave her a conspiratorial wink and wandered up the aisle, taking his place behind the cash register as Deanna threw on her winter coat and exited out the sliding glass doors.
Once she was gone, Jimmy called out to Hayley, “Guess I’ll take this opportunity to restock the mints and gum over at the last register, where I can’t see anything that’s going on back there!”
Hayley took her cue and bounded behind the counter lickety-split. She kept one eye on the front door to make sure no one strolled in and spotted her as she threw on Jimmy’s lab coat. She figured if anyone did catch her scrolling through the pharmacy records on Jimmy’s computer, she could claim she was working a part-time job as a pharmacy assistant to pay her astronomical winter heating bill. The whole town knew how cheap Sal was, so it was more than likely most people would totally buy it.
Hayley quickly typed Mephyton into the search engine and hit the return button. The computer was agonizingly slow.
She heard Jimmy whistling an old Glen Campbell song “Wichita Lineman” as he ripped open a carton of Tic Tacs and started unpacking them.
“Come on, come on . . . ,” Hayley whispered to herself as the computer continued to load a page.
Finally a list of names appeared under the heading of Mephyton.
Four in all.
Three names she didn’t recognize.
Probably summer residents who were long gone.
The dates of their last prescription refills were in August and September.
Only one name was issued a Mephyton prescription more recently.
In January.
Right about the time Bessie started taking the anticoagulant medication for her heart.
Marla Heasley.
Dr. Palmer’s plucky, cat-loving, devoted, and fiercely jealous assistant.
Chapter 37
Hayley tried calling Sergio, but she got his voice mail.
This was explosive information about Dr. Palmer’s assistant, Marla Heasley.
The pieces of the puzzle were finally coming together.
It was late Friday afternoon, and Hayley hoped Aaron was still at the office so she could quietly sit him down and explain, out of earshot, her suspicions about Marla. She was certain he would have enough information on Marla’s identity on file to confirm her theory. Then she could turn everything over to Sergio, and he could take it from there.
However, when she arrived at the vet’s office and parked her car, she noticed Dr. Palmer’s parking space was empty.
She casually strolled inside to find Marla seated at the reception desk in her bright pink scrubs emblazoned with Archie comic-book characters. She was flipping through the latest issue of In Touch magazine, engrossed in all the latest gossip about all her favorite Hollywood stars’ most recent exploits.
Marla looked up at Hayley and grimaced, irritated she had to deal with her once again.
“Here to ransack the office?” Marla said, sneering.
“No. I’d like to have a word with Aaron. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“What do you want to talk to him about?”
“It’s a private matter.”
“Well, the doctor is a very busy man.”
“I’m sure he’s going to want to hear this.”
“Look, when it comes to crackpot stalkers, I’m Dr. Palmer’s first line of defense. So if you want to talk to him, you have to go through me.”
“‘Crackpot stalker’? Seriously?”
“He caught you looting his office! What else do you want to call it?”
She had to admit the girl had a point.
Hayley’s eyes fell on a small white bottle on Marla’s desk, next to the stack of glossy magazines.
“What are you looking at?” Marla hissed.
“Nothing,” Hayley said, quickly averting her eyes.
“You trying to get a look at my meds? Mind your own business,” Marla said, snatching up the bottle and stuffing it into her bag on the floor. “Since you’re so curious, I have a vitamin K deficiency. Nothing serious. It’s nothing you can use to get me fired.”
“I’m not trying to get you fired, Marla.”
“Yes, you are. Ever since you first showed up here and set your sights on Dr. Palmer, you’ve had it out for me. You feel threatened by me. Well, don’t worry. I’ll be leaving town soon, so I’ll finally be out of your hair and you can have him all to yourself.”
“Marla, I’m not trying to get between you and the doctor, or get you fired. I don’t care about your future plans and that you take Mephyton. I just want to speak to Dr. Palmer. So, where can I find him?”
Marla’s face went pale. “How did you know I was taking Mephyton?”
Hayley kicked herself.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“I saw the label on the bottle.”
“From way over there? You must have X-ray vision.”
“I had LASIK surgery a few years back. I have better than twenty-twenty vision.”
“I’d say. The label was turned toward me. You would have had to see through the plastic bottle.”
“Or maybe I read about it on the Internet—”
“You just happened to be researching vitamin K deficiencies on the Internet? Now that’s a remarkable coincidence.”
Hayley knew she had blown it.
Her best course of action was just to leave now.
She grabbed her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. “Forget it, Marla. I’m just going to call him. That’s right. I have his personal cell phone number from when we went out on a date.”
“Yeah, I heard how well that turned out.”
“Good-bye, Marla,” Hayley said, pivoting to leave.
“Wait. He’s in his office.”
“But his car is gone.”
“It broke down on his way in this morning. I had to pick him up at the garage and drive him to work.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“Go see for yourself.”
With her phone still in her hand, Hayley marched past
Marla toward Aaron’s office.
The door was open a crack and the light was on inside.
She knocked on the door. “Aaron, can I come in?”
Suddenly she was violently shoved from behind. She pitched forward, dropping her cell phone, her hands outstretched to break her fall as she crashed to the floor.
Her cell phone clattered next to her; but before she could react, Marla scooped it up and slammed the door shut, locking it from outside.
Hayley looked around.
Her first instincts were right.
Marla was indeed lying.
There was no sign of Dr. Palmer.
Hayley sprang to her feet, first trying the knob and then banging hard on the door. “Marla, this is crazy! Open up! You can’t keep me prisoner in here! Marla!”
Nothing.
Just a few dogs were barking in their cages, excited by Hayley’s loud pounding.
“Marla, it’s no use. I know the truth, and it’s only a matter of time before the police do too. I’ve already put a call in to them. Marla?”
Still, nothing.
Hayley dashed over to the phone on Dr. Palmer’s desk and picked up the receiver.
The line was dead.
Marla must have unplugged the system from outside.
There was no window in the office to climb out.
She was trapped.
She ran back to the door.
Pounded several more times.
Then she rested her head against it; her mind was racing to come up with some means of escape.
After what seemed like an eternity, she heard a mousy voice coming from the other side of the door. “So, what do you think you know?”
Hayley took a deep breath. “I know you were adopted, and I know Bessie Winthrop was your biological mother. I know when you turned eighteen, you were able to look at the records and get in touch with her. Which is why you moved here and got a job as Dr. Palmer’s assistant. Knowing Bessie as I do, I figure she was feeling lonely and was more than happy to reconnect with the daughter she had given up when Bessie was in high school.”
Hayley paused, then pressed her ear to the door. “Marla?”
“Go on,” she heard Marla say quietly.
“You worked hard to make a good impression on Bessie, and to worm your way into her heart, to the point where Bessie wanted to make up for not being there for you all those years. She must have told you she was making you the beneficiary of a very generous life insurance policy. That was your ticket out of Maine—your way to Hollywood so you could finally live the life of all those glamorous celebrities you constantly were reading about and worshiping so much.”
Hayley heard sniffling coming from the other side of the door.
“I just want to be like my idol, Selena Gomez. Have my own TV show, do movies, maybe get a recording contract.”
“And Bessie dying was your only chance to get your hands on the capital you would need to make your dreams come true.”
“She was already sick. Everyone said she was a walking time bomb. I was just speeding up the inevitable.”
“You did your research and realized your own meds would go a long way in accelerating poor Bessie’s demise. So you swapped out her meds with yours and just waited. Bessie was taking fistfuls a day, believing they were thinning her blood. In reality they were causing deadly clots, which left unchecked would surely kill her. And they did. When you read that the coroner wasn’t going to perform an autopsy, and Bessie’s death was determined to be from natural causes, you thought you were in the clear. You were just sticking around long enough to pocket your money and then you were going to blow town.”
“I told Bessie I wanted to be a famous actress and move to Hollywood, and she was very supportive. She said she would help me in any way she could.”
“I’m not sure she understood exactly how much it was going to cost her.”
“I liked Bessie. I know what I did was wrong, but at least she never had a clue what I was up to. I take comfort in that.”
“You shouldn’t. The reason you’re never going to be a star is because you’re a lousy actress.”
“No, I’m not!”
“You may have acted fond of Bessie, but she suspected you were up to something. She just didn’t know what it was or how you were going to do it. But as her health worsened from those counterproductive meds, she took out another small insurance policy, just in case.”
“What do you mean?”
“She put a little note inside some candy she made especially for me. In case something happened to her. She knew how dogged I can be when I think something’s fishy. So Bessie insured I wouldn’t let the real facts be brushed underneath the carpet. And her note did just the trick. And here we are.”
Hayley listened for a moment.
There was silence on the other side of the door.
“Marla? Marla, where did you go? Are you still out there?”
Nothing.
Hayley banged on the door again.
“Marla?”
Five minutes passed.
Hayley sat on the floor, knees to her chest, rocking back and forth, trying to figure out how she was ever going to get out of this one.
The kids would know something was wrong if she didn’t come home.
Then they would call Sergio.
He would retrace her steps to the pharmacy, and Jimmy MacDonald would show him the records Hayley had been scrolling through.
Sergio would see Marla Heasley’s name. Hopefully, that would be enough to get him to drive over to Dr. Palmer’s office, looking for her.
And he would burst through the door and rescue Hayley.
Yes, that was what was going to happen.
Positive thoughts.
Positive thoughts.
It was still quiet outside the office door.
The dogs in their cages had calmed down and stopped barking.
Hayley thought Marla had left, because Marla’s best bet at this point was keeping Hayley locked up while she got a head start out of town. By the time she was discovered, Marla would be long gone and on the run. But the state troopers would be alerted and an all-out manhunt dispatched; with any luck Marla would be captured before crossing state lines.
There was a click.
Someone was outside unlocking the door.
Hayley jumped to her feet.
The door slowly swung open.
Hayley was dead wrong.
Marla hadn’t fled the scene at all.
She was standing in the doorway. There was a wild look on her face as she brandished a large syringe.
Chapter 38
“What is that?” Hayley asked, backing away.
“Pentobarbital or sodium thiopental. It’s what we use to euthanize the poor sick animals we just can’t save—”
“Sodium what?”
“It doesn’t matter. All you need to know is it causes unconsciousness, followed by respiratory and then cardiac arrest.”
Hayley put up her hand, pleading. “Marla, please don’t do anything you’re going to regret—”
“If there is one thing I know I won’t regret, it’s shutting you up for good!” Marla said, raising the syringe like a knife, inching toward Hayley.
“Now I know why Blueberry liked you so much. Evil attracts evil!”
Marla let out a ghastly scream, like a war cry, and charged Hayley.
Hayley threw her arms up as Marla plunged the syringe toward her chest. Hayley locked her hands around Marla’s wrist.
The two women struggled over possession of the syringe.
Marla kicked Hayley’s shins with her feet and clawed at her face with her free hand.
Hayley kept her eyes locked on the needle while grappling for it as it swung away from her chest and over her face, settling above her left eye.
If she gave even an inch, the needle would plunge directly into her iris.
Marla backed Hayley up against Dr. Palmer’s desk, forcing Hayley up on top of
it as folders, pens, letter openers, and framed photographs were swept off by the fierce struggle.
Down the hall, from their cages, agitated dogs barked and frightened cats meowed.
Marla was younger and stronger and used that to her advantage in order to pin Hayley down on the desk, forcing an arm down over her neck while trying to inject her with the syringe. However, Hayley still had a mighty grip on Marla’s wrist, making it difficult to finish her off.
But Hayley felt her grip weakening.
Marla was getting the best of her.
She couldn’t believe it was going to end like this.
Euthanized like a decrepit, old dog in a vet’s office.
Her arm was ready to give out.
Marla managed to lower the needle so it was now just two inches from Hayley’s right cheek.
Suddenly a booming voice startled both of them. “What the hell is going on here?”
Marla twisted her head around.
A shocked Dr. Palmer stood in the doorway in a brown leather winter coat and a tan scarf around his neck.
Hayley seized the opportunity to bring her knee up and drive it into Marla’s stomach.
She felt a gush of hot air on her face as it got knocked out of Marla.
Hayley wrenched Marla’s hand gripping the syringe away from her.
The needle grazed Marla’s upper left arm.
Everyone froze in place.
Marla stared at her arm and watched in horror as a small line of blood began staining her pink Archie scrubs from the inside.
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Marla wailed, sinking to the floor, in shock. “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!”
Hayley bolted out of the office past a still-stunned Dr. Palmer. She spotted her cell phone lying on the floor, where Marla had tossed it. She grabbed it. The screen was cracked, but the phone was still working.
Hayley punched in 9-1-1.