by Leslie Leigh
The trip was uneventful. They had time to stop for lunch, still arriving at the Board of Nursing building before 2 p.m. They had discussed the best way to proceed over lunch, and the decision was to request—and, failing that, mandate—that they simply monitor the nurse closely. The trick, they felt, would be to deter her from action without tipping their hand.
There was a lot of fluster and bluster from the board members. Luckily, Detective Harms was one to cut through the bull. “Look,” he said. “I know that first of all you are outraged and embarrassed that this could happen. We will do our very best to keep this under wraps from the media, at least until it’s over. But righteous indignation is not what we need right now.”
With that, everyone seemed to calm themselves in order to listen.
“All I can do is tell you the way things have to be,” Harms told them. “You will have to figure out among yourselves how best to execute that, but we need to know what you’re going to do before we leave here today.”
After an hour, it was decided that the best thing to do would be to pull a “random” inspection of the agency, get the information they needed, especially about the nurse in question and her patients, but without even the agency knowing what they are really after.
It was agreed that the inspection would be conducted the next day, and that the agency would not be informed until after their arrival, but in a quiet and least intrusive way they could manage.
After more talk, it was decided that a board officer would meet Brian and Melissa in Sierra Vista the next day, with them posing as inspectors, since they knew best what all they were looking for. Detective Harms would be nearby in case there was any kerfuffle which might require legal intervention.
# # #
To say the staff at the agency was mortified when an Arizona Nursing Board officer walked in for an unannounced inspection was an understatement. Their entire demeanor showed that they had plenty they wouldn’t want uncovered, mostly the outrage of the agency owner. They were lucky, Melissa thought, that they were only after one thing. The rest could be dealt with later. However, when they found what they were looking for, the agency head balked.
“This is against HIPAA regulations, and you know it,” she said in a raised voice to the board officer.
“Madam,” the officer said without amusement, “the fact that you have hired this person and opened the patients entrusted to care to possible harm is all that we need to be able to requisition this information.”
“No, it’s not,” the woman insisted, clearly blustering to cover the agency’s culpability.
Melissa simply pulled out her phone and requested Detective Harms’ presence, which, when the woman heard her use the word detective, nearly went into apoplexy.
Detective Harms’ calm but forthright demeanor, along with his county badge, quashed all objection, and the requested documents were quickly printed and copied. Of course, had they taken a moment to see that Harms was out of his jurisdiction, they might not have complied so easily, but luckily, one county badge looks like another’s.
They were in and out in forty-five minutes. They all congratulated themselves, and the board officer agreed to do nothing but monitor until they had the evidence they needed.
Detective Harms realized they would need to enlist the aid of a Cochise County detective, so the Nursing Board member headed back to Phoenix while the rest of them made their way to the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department.
There they met with a chief deputy and a Detective Muller.
“This woman is operating under the name of Rachel Deborah Moore here in Cochise County,” Brian began once Detective Harms had introduced them and given the chief deputy and the other Detective a brief synopsis.
“We have reason to believe that she was involved in the death of Lloyd Johnston in Sonorita, and possibly a Howard Foster in Vail. Since she has patients here in Cochise County, as well—although they are currently all alive—we fear at least one of them may be in danger.”
“What’s her motive?” the chief deputy asked.
“That’s what we’re having a bit of trouble figuring out. One rather remote possibility is that she believes she’s doing a service by mercy killing, but many signs point to more nefarious reasons.”
“Has she ever brought forward a falsified will?”
“Not in the one case with which we’re most familiar. I’m still trying to find the next of kin for Mr. Foster.”
“So what more nefarious reason are you suggesting?”
Brian looked at Melissa to continue.
“Detective Byrne has received a report of ten other possible cases in western states with the same complaint: apparent digoxin overdose without supporting tox screens.”
“Meaning…?” asked the chief deputy.
“Meaning she’s got nothing,” said Detective Muller. “No evidence—nothing but a complaint of suspicious circumstances.”
“If I might explain, please,” Melissa asked. “I am a Master Herbalist. I have consulted with a medical doctor, and we have come to the conclusion that these are cases where the digoxin, or Digitalis, that the patient was taking was augmented by the same substance in herbal form, which can give a false negative—meaning it wouldn’t show up on a tox screen.
“The events surrounding these deaths showed substantial evidence of digoxin toxicity, but without the overdose showing up in the blood work. That could only be explained by the use of oleander or foxglove. Unfortunately, since these are all terminal or hospice patients, there is no autopsy other than the lab work.”
“So just how do you think you’re going to prove anything?” Muller asked.
“We have to catch her red-handed,” Harms said simply.
“That’s easy for you to say, Harms. You have a tiny county. Cochise County is huge.”
“That means, then, that you have more resources at your disposal.”
“We need welfare checks on these five patients with knowledge of what to look for, and then there needs to be some type of intervention, “Muller said and shook his head.
“Hopefully,” Melissa said, “not all of these patients are heart patients on digoxin. That will make it much easier to eliminate suspects.”
The deputy spoke up. “This all makes a lot of sense, but you still haven’t given me a motive.”
Brian spoke. “If there is any connection to the other cases in other states, we may have a sociopathic serial killer on our hands.”
Muller made a disgruntled sound, but the chief deputy looked at him and said, “This all sounds reasonable to me, so I want you to give them your full support.”
“Sounds like more of a job for U.S. Marshals,” Muller said.
“We have a lot more evidence digging to do before we can prove any of that,” Brian said. “Let’s just concentrate on the one we’re the most sure of, the similar one in Pima County, and a potential one here.”
“Fine. What do you need me to do?”
“Just patrol the address. At this point we don’t know what she drives, or even what other vehicles might be there. But she surely has a driver’s license under one of these aliases. See what you can find out.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of ‘I don’t knows,’” Muller said.
“Let us do our recon,” Brian said. “Because she allegedly killed two so close together—but all these are still alive—says that she may be lying low at the moment. But time is of the essence. When we get the list filtered for the likely victims, we’ll contact you with help in the stakeout, if for no other reason than to be standing by to arrest her.”
Muller nodded curtly, and they all stood. The chief deputy shook their hands, and Muller walked them out. He turned to Harms. “This had better not be some wild goose chase,” he said.
“Believe me, Muller. I don’t have time for a wild goose chase, either. But if we can take this woman off the street permanently, we may save a whole lot of lives.”
Chapter 6
Melissa ha
dn’t seen Kim for a few days—since she and Brian had been following up on so much of the case and traveling to hither and yon. But tomorrow morning was Chelsea Bun Saturday. Melissa was a little apprehensive as to whether or not she would show up.
Flora and Vivian had been handling everything by themselves, but with the heavy rains, the number of customers had slowed somewhat.
Brian mentioned that Corinne had asked for a leave of absence for bereavement. She decided that there would be no better time to sort out what she was going to do with her parents’ things, including the property itself.
Melissa’s thoughts turned to the missing supplements, but that had been over a week ago, and she hadn’t followed up on it.
“Vivian, did you and Flora come up with anything regarding the missing supplements?”
“We didn’t. About the only thing we agreed on was that there had been two or three people we didn’t recognize, both times, but we couldn’t actually recall any crossover.”
“Hmm…has anything come up missing since?”
“No. After that, I did a fairly thorough inventory of the supplements, and other than the three that you discovered and the three that I did, everything else matched the inventory sheets. Oh, and that they were the same three supplements both times.”
“So odd.”
Melissa sat down with a cup of tea late in the afternoon, along with the agency reports on Rachel Moore-aka-Donna Magnusson’s patients. Three were cancer patients, and one had debilitating rheumatoid arthritis. The fifth, an Anthony White in Bismuth, was a heart patient.
Bismuth was a little mining town, nearly a ghost town now, the perfect place to get away with murder. She would ask Brian to see what he could find as far as next of kin was concerned. Luckily, Brian came in for a sandwich and salad shortly after that, with news of his own reconnaissance. “Out of the ten ‘suspicious circumstances’ cases in other states, only two of them had the lab specimen taken less than eight hours after time of death. That leaves eight other possible murders. They’re fairly spread out, and yet not—two neighboring counties in New Mexico, one in Siskiyou County in Northern California, one in Jackson County, Oregon, which is, predictably, just up the road from Siskiyou. Two in neighboring counties in Idaho, and two near Roswell, New Mexico.
“Roswell? Too bad the aliens didn’t want her for experiments,” Flora said, as she brought Brian his order.
“Maybe that’s where the supplements went, too,” Melissa said without looking up.
“It’s just weird. Three-hundred-dollars’ worth of supplements in two days when we’ve rarely had any theft at all in the last five years. And duplicates, too. You know it had to be the same person.”
“Wow,” Brian exclaimed. “How would someone get out of here with that many supplements without being seen.”
“Three bottles, two different days,” Melissa said.
“Six bottles of supplements for three-hundred dollars?” he asked.
“I carry some really high-end supplements at my customers’ request.”
He whistled. “I guess so. Somebody wants to get really healthy.”
“I’m guessing either the person is planning on going somewhere those won’t be available, or she got them for two different people.”
“She?”
Melissa shrugged. “Most men only purchase one thing at a time, or ask for assistance unless they’re shopping with a list sent by their wives. In the latter case, I doubt they would steal them.”
“You don’t suppose…?”
“It had crossed my mind.”
“Mine, too, actually,” said Flora. “When Vivian asked me about customer crossover, I kept running everyone through my mind over and over. I finally remembered that one woman had come to the counter both times, and that she had given me the impression of having seen her before the second time, but I couldn’t place her. I’m thinking now that it was the same woman both times, only fixed up differently.”
“But why would she come to the counter if she was stealing something?” asked Brian.
“For a PI, you don’t seem to know much about shoplifting,” said Flora.
He laughed and said, “I’ve never taken a case in retail theft.”
Melissa smiled. “The best way not to seem suspicious when you palm something is to buy a couple of items so you seem more legit than just aimlessly floating around. Not too many people come in here just to look.”
“That makes sense,” he said. “Especially with Hawk Eye over there,” he said, indicating Flora.
They all laughed.
“Yes, I don’t worry too much about loss prevention with Flora around,” said Melissa.
Just then, Kim burst in, breathless. “Melissa, are you going to need me tomorrow?” she asked.
Center. Center, Melissa thought. “I do, Kim. Saturdays are always tremendously busy.”
“Even with all the rain predicted tomorrow?” Kim asked.
“Even with all the rain. We may have a little slack, but I’m going to make as many buns as usual, so I’ll need help.”
“Could Vivian or Flora help?” she asked.
Melissa took a deep breath. “One of them might be willing to switch with you if you want to come in later, but I will definitely need all three of you.”
“Fine,” Kim said and flounced out.
“I was afraid it would be this way once she got her money,” Vivian said.
“You mean this way since Brandon arrived,” Melissa said.
Brian’s phone rang. “It’s Corinne,” he said, as he answered the call. “Hi, Corinne…what? Is she still there? Oh…Melissa and I will be right there.”
Melissa looked at him, questioningly.
“Donna Magnusson showed up at the door at the Johnston place, big as life. C’mon. I’ll tell you the rest on the way. It looks like she’s bumping up her game.”
# # #
“She just walked in here and handed you this?” Melissa asked.
“I met her at the door. I didn’t let her in. But this is supposedly a copy of the original she has. It was done on my dad’s computer; I found the file for it after she left. Then, she printed it out and got him to sign it, somehow. The signature is legitimate. I’m almost sure she didn’t have a notary public with her, but if you dig, I suppose you might find she’s one herself, given everything else she does,” said Corinne.
“You can’t notarize your own stuff,” Melissa protested.
“You can if your notary is you under a different identity. Did she give you the paper with the notary’s signature block? Of course not,” said Brian.
“Her request is rather small, though,” said Corinne.
“That’s what I thought, but perhaps it’s because she’s afraid I’ll have everything sorted out soon, and she’ll lose out altogether,” said Melissa.
“That’s a possibility, but it could also be that she’s just getting her feet wet in this part of the game and wants to test her boundaries,” said Brian. “I came up with a partial list of next of kin for our out of state suspects. Let me see if I can come up with phone numbers to match and see if any of them received something similar.”
“Have you found any next of kin for our Pima County victim?” asked Melissa.
“I’m not sure there was any,” said Brian.
“Well, someone made the complaint,” said Melissa.
“Perhaps an attending physician?” Corinne said.
“I can try that. It’s a whole lot tougher getting medical information than it is getting other personal information,” said Brian.
“There should be a signature on the death certificate. That could help,” said Melissa.
“Excellent idea,” said Brian.
“So what happened after that?” asked Melissa.
“I told her, coldly, that I’d have to look into it, and she said she’d see me in probate court. I didn’t intend to have to go to court; my dad’s estate is pretty simple. Other than filing a legal ad and waiting for non-existent
comers to show up,” said Corinne.
“Except you’ve already had one comer,” said Melissa.
“Would you please find this woman and prove her to be a fraud before she costs me a whole lot in legal fees?” asked Corinne.
“Yes, we will try to do that. But failing that, wouldn’t it be cheaper to let her have what she wants. It can be recovered later if she’s proven to be a fraud, especially if it’s a fraudulent notary signature,” said Melissa.
“I suppose, but I just hope it doesn’t have to go that far. Dad’s car is five years old, but it has virtually no miles on it, so I can see why she would want it. I was just going to try to sell it while I’m here. It’s no biggie. I don’t need the money, but I’d rather her not have it—just on principle,” said Corinne.
“Of course,” said Melissa.
“So now we can get a description--a good one. Well, of one of her personas anyway,” said Brian.
“I can go you one better than that. I was just ready to make a phone call when she showed up at the door. I looked out and figured that’s who it was, so I took her picture through the window,” said Corinne.
Brian and Melissa’s jaws dropped.
Corinne pulled up the pictures on her camera and showed it to them. Melissa wanted to laugh. The woman was wearing a platinum blonde wig from the Eighties—or better yet from the Seventies!
“Yes, and she was wearing thick makeup, eyeliner, and mascara. She really did not want me to recognize her again,” said Corinne
“Or from before,” said Melissa.
“Huh?” asked Corinne.
“I think she may have been in the store when you came in to talk to me about your father,” said Melissa.
“You think…ohhhh,” Brian said.
“Picture text this to my cell, if you would?” asked Melissa.
“And mine,” Brian requested. “I’ll get it out to law enforcement here, and in Pima and Cochise counties.”
Chapter 7
“That’s definitely her,” Flora said.
“You can tell even behind all that makeup?” asked Melissa.