The Girl With the Dragonfly Tattoo: An Austin, Texas Art Mystery (The Michelle Hodge Series Book 4)

by Roslyn Woods

  He hurried back, Blue still barking, and took the six steps in two. The key went in the lock, the door opening easily.

  “Tavy!” he called as Blue rushed past him into the house.

  Gus was almost immediately aware of a strong odor of gas. The oven door stood open, the knobs for the top and interior burners all turned to full throttle, but none lit. Without thinking, he twisted the knobs to off, throwing the door of the old range shut while shouting Tavy’s name.

  There was no time to waste. “Tavy!” he shouted again, running into the living room, a single lamp lighting his way into the hall and her room. He flicked on the light switch by the door.

  She lay beneath the dragonfly headboard he had painstakingly amended, glued, sanded, and finished at the direction of her father. The nightstand beside her held a capless sleeping pill bottle, turned on its side.

  Hurrying toward her, he inadvertently bumped the table and heard the bottle fall to the wood floor. It sounded empty.

  If one method doesn’t work, try two.

  Tavy lay there like Aurora’s corpse, one delicate hand resting on her heart, and one lying on the sheet that covered her.

  Chapter 32

  Saturday, Aug. 8, 9:30 p.m.—Gus

  “Tavy!” he shouted, but she didn’t move.

  He threw back the sheet, sliding one arm under her neck and shoulders and another under her knees, the cool silk of her black gown, and her smooth, cold skin adding to his fear.

  “Tavy! Wake up, Tavy! Tavy!”

  Her body should feel warmer than this, he thought while Blue barked and led the way out.

  In his adrenaline-infused state, the woman in Gus’s arms felt almost weightless as he made his way through the kitchen and out through the two open doors into the backyard. There being no furniture adequate to rest her body on, he laid her on the patio floor. Despite the short period of rain earlier, the pavers were still warm from the day’s hot sun, and the muggy evening air was heavily scented with basil and mint. He pushed a thick lock of caramel-colored hair from her face.

  “Wake up, Tavy!” he urged, feeling the cool skin on her neck as he checked for a sign of life. “Tavy! Wake up! Please wake up!”

  His face was close to hers as he searched, straining to sense breath coming from her mouth and nose. Then he felt the pulse, slow and weak. His own heart lurched with hope. She was alive.

  “Deep breaths, Tavy! Take deep breaths!” he shouted, shaking her shoulders, trying to rouse her. She moaned, her eyes flickering slightly.

  “Take deep breaths!” he said again. “Come on, deep breaths!” He was pulling his phone from his pocket and tapping in 9-1-1.

  Tavy’s eyes tightened as if in pain. Gus knew her head must be aching from lowered oxygen, and what about the sleeping pills?

  “I need an ambulance!” he fairly shouted the moment the operator answered. “I’m in Zilker neighborhood on Oaktree Hill. Number twenty-one, twenty one! Come through the gate to the back!”

  Blue whined and barked, nudging Tavy with her nose while Gus quickly described the situation to the operator and she assured him that help was on the way.

  He returned the phone to his pocket and bent over Tavy again.

  “You’ll feel better as soon as you get plenty of air,” he said in her ear, trying to encourage her as Blue whined at his side, occasionally licking Tavy’s limp hand.

  Her eyes opened sleepily and closed again, dark lashes splashing across her pale cheeks.

  “Deep breaths, Tavy! You have to try—”

  She moaned, then said, “My head.”

  The EMTs insisted on taking her to the hospital despite her protests and confusion. Gus watched as they put an oxygen mask on her face and took her away. He assured her he would follow to bring her home, but he had his doubts about her being released in her unbalanced condition.

  Why had she done it? He realized she must have been depressed. It was the only thing he could think of that would justify her actions, and she had certainly seemed emotional, even if he had been convinced she was stable. Maybe he should call his friend Dean Maxwell. His fiancée had seemed to be quite friendly to Ed Bishop’s daughter, and hadn’t the two of them planned to meet?

  He sat in the waiting room for an hour and a half without word of her condition, though he asked at the desk several times. At last, a young man with a deep brown complexion and an extremely thick head of black hair walked into the waiting room and approached him. His white lab coat and stethoscope were the only indicators that he wasn’t a community college freshman. His voice was accented—Indian or Pakistani—when he spoke, and his youthful dark eyes were intelligent and concerned, “Are you Dr. Angus Kerr?”

  “Yes,” he answered, sitting up straight.

  “I’m Dr. Saigal. May I ask what your relationship is with Miss Bishop?”

  “She’s my neighbor. My neighbor—and my friend.”

  “And where is her family?”

  “Her father died last Monday. She has no other family here—just a stepbrother she doesn’t really know.”

  “Yes, that’s what she says. I see. Please follow me,” he added, and Gus stood up and followed the small man through double doors, away from the listening ears of the others in the waiting room.

  It was a wide hallway with many doors leading in and out, and there were workers here, all in lab coats or scrubs, bustling from one thing to another.

  “So,” Dr. Saigal continued, turning to look at Gus, “you’re telling me you’re not involved with the patient other than as a neighbor?”

  “I said she’s a friend,” Gus repeated.

  “May I ask if you knew she was depressed?”

  “I knew she was probably grieving. I didn’t expect her to—”

  “So you think she did this on purpose. She says she didn’t.”

  “But the empty pill bottle—”

  “She told us she only took a normal dose—two tablets. Otherwise we’d have pumped her stomach. Of course, if she’d been unconscious we wouldn’t have had a choice. Anyway, the blood test didn’t indicate an inordinate amount of any sedative.”

  “And the oven?”

  There was a silence while the young doctor bit his lower lip.

  “She’s not admitting to it. I’m going to suggest we keep her here tonight. I hope you’ll encourage her to stay. You can see her now, if you like.”

  “How bad is she?”

  “Physically, she’s stable,” he said, turning to lead Gus along the hallway. “Her blood test indicates she’s clear now, only a small exposure. It’s hard to say how much inhalation she got, but she’s recovered well enough to speak clearly, and she says she couldn’t have been out long judging by the time she was removed from the house and the EMTs got to her with oxygen.”

  “All right. Thanks,” Gus said, following him.

  “The police should be here soon,” the doctor added.

  “Because?”

  “Because the police are always notified of a suicide attempt. It’s illegal, but I’m sure you must know that.”

  “I see.”

  Her eyes were open when he reached the room. She was wide awake, and she was sitting up against her pillow, the bed tilted up like an easy chair, the oxygen mask replaced with a long, thin tube that fed into her nostrils and wrapped around her ears.

  “How you doing?” he asked awkwardly.

  “I’m okay,” she answered, pulling the tube away from her face. “I need to thank you.”

  “Not me. Blue.”

  “Blue and you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I need to know what happened.”

  “So do I,” he answered, noting that her skin was flushed with color now, the black silk gown replaced by a white cotton one with blue polka-dots.

  “You go first,” she said, her voice husky.

  “Can I sit here?” he asked, indicating a chair just beside the bed.

  Tavy nodded but said nothing while she waited. A nurse came int
o the room just then, blond, short, and business-like, checking her patient.

  “You’re supposed to keep the oxygen in,” she said. “Doctor’s orders. You need the concentrated oxygen. It’s important to your full recovery.”

  “Okay,” Tavy said, putting the oxygen feed back where it had been with the nurse’s assistance, but Gus could see she didn’t want to.

  The nurse turned to Gus. “You wouldn’t let her take it out just to visit with you, would you? All her cells need to be infused with a big dose of oxygen. You understand, sir?”

  “I do,” he said.

  The nurse raised her brows and turned to go. “I won’t be gone long,” she said over her shoulder.

  Gus looked back at Tavy before he spoke again.

  “The doctor says you’re okay. You only had a limited exposure to carbon monoxide.”

  “Tell me what happened,” she said.

  He sighed before he spoke. “I went for a run and came around to the front of your house,” he began. “Blue wanted in, but I made her come home with me. I took a shower. She was still trying to get through the gate in back after that, so I decided to come check on you. You didn’t answer the door or phone, so I guessed something was wrong.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “I have a key.”

  She said nothing, but her eyes widened in surprise.

  “Look, I’ll give it back to you. Your dad wanted me to have a key to look after the place when he was out of town. Florencia has one, too. I didn’t say anything about it because the police were already thinking of me as the main suspect in your father’s murder investigation. I didn’t want to tell them I had a key. Then I sort of forgot about it till I got worried about you tonight.”

  “I see. And then what happened—after you went in the house?”

  “And then I went in and found the oven door open and the place filled with gas—and—I found the empty pill bottle beside you on the nightstand.”

  Tavy’s eyes looked very large and really rather hollow as she stared at him.

  He wanted to ask why she had done it, but he just looked at her, seeing the fear in her expressive eyes.

  “I’m going to recommend you stay here tonight,” he continued. “You’ll be safe here. We’ll talk all of this over tomorrow, or maybe you can talk to a counselor—”

  “Gus! I didn’t do it. Someone must have been there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t do it! I took two tablets and was so exhausted I went to sleep. Someone had to have been in the house. Someone must have been there, waiting till I was asleep.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I didn’t try to kill myself!”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure! I was sleeping hard because I’ve hardly slept since I learned about my father’s death. So I took two sleeping pills from a bottle I’ve had for over a year.”

  “It was lying on the nightstand open, and it was empty—”

  “I left it there as a reminder to get another bottle.”

  “When?”

  “When what?”

  “When did you lie down to sleep?”

  “I don’t know. I think it was nearly nine because I had to deal with a phone message. Then I took the two sleeping pills and must have drifted off almost immediately.”

  “You didn’t turn on the gas?”

  “Of course not!”

  Had someone actually been hiding in the house, waiting for Tavy to fall asleep? “That could explain,” he said, thinking aloud, “why Blue freaked out.”

  “Someone tried to kill me. Someone with access to my father’s house,” she whispered.

  “You can get the locks changed tomorrow. You can keep Blue at your house. You shouldn’t be alone.”

  “The doctor didn’t believe me. I don’t know why you do, actually. You do, don’t you?”

  “I think so. Are you going to accuse me of trying to kill you?” he asked.

  “Gus—I’m so sorry about that. I realized I was wrong after you left. I was angry because you hadn’t told me about—I don’t know—the photos and the police record—”

  “I can explain about all of that later,” he said, feeling a little sorry for her. “You need to rest now. I can come get you in the morning if you want me to.”

  “But what about the police? What should I tell them?”

  “The truth. I suggest you tell them the truth.”

  “But what about you? Should I tell them you have a key to my house and that’s how you got in? Won’t that increase their suspicions about you and my father’s murder?”

  “How else would I get in?”

  “I might have forgotten to lock the door.”

  “No. Tell the truth. You’ll tell them, or I’ll tell them. I won’t lie. I should have told them before.”

  “But, with your record—”

  Just then the nurse came back into the room. “Miss Bishop?” she said. “The police are here. Can you see them now?”

  Chapter 33

  Sunday, Aug. 9, 9 a.m.—Shell

  After breakfast, Shell and Dean headed toward the exercise studio located in the south part of the hotel.

  “I’m not sure they’re going to want spectators,” Dean suggested, noticing a few women congregating by the door.

  “I kinda think they won’t, Dean. Besides, I’m not really ready to show you any moves. I think you should go ahead and take your run, and I’ll do this for an hour or so,” she responded.

  “Okay,” he said doubtfully. “You’ll be all right?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Because,” he said under his breath, “you had a hard time when you first started self-defense, and this is a new class.”

  “I’ll be fine, Dean. I’ll see you in an hour. We can swim later, or maybe you’d like to do a little sight-seeing on the island.”

  “Okay. Back in an hour, then,” he said, looking at her steadily for a moment before kissing her cheek and turning to go.

  A line was forming outside the studio door, and Shell was remembering her first self-defense class six weeks earlier. The teacher’s body type had reminded her of her kidnapper—short and stocky—and his introduction had upset her. She had stood against a ballet bar, trembling with anger.

  “No one is helpless,” he had said. “There are things you can do to prevent an attacker from hurting you.”

  Even now, six weeks later, she wondered if there was anything she actually could have done. Though she couldn’t remember the event, she had been told that her abductor had jabbed her with a syringe full of ketamine, and he had carried her away unconscious.

  “The first thing you can do to prevent an attack, is don’t be stupid,” Bryan Moto had said. “Stay away from dangerous situations. Yes. That’s what I’m saying. Don’t walk alone at night! Stay in groups, remain in places that are well lit, and don’t date jerks.”

  Looking back on it now, Shell realized her car had been found in a dark corner of an HEB parking lot. So maybe she had done something stupid.

  The studio door was opening, and the women were filing into the large, exercise room.

  “Are you signed up?” the man in a white karate uniform asked as she approached a table by the door. Even in the loose clothing, Shell could see that he was quite muscular. She guessed he was of Japanese descent and about fifty years of age. Probably only a little taller than she was herself—like her teacher in Austin—he wore his salt and pepper hair long enough that it hung almost to the collar of the uniform.

  “No, actually,” she answered. “I’ve been taking a self-defense class in Austin, and I was wondering if I could attend your class this morning?”

  “The class isn’t full, so of course you can join us. Who is your instructor in Austin?” he asked, his speech slightly formal.

  “Bryan Moto,” she answered.

  “I am acquainted with Bryan! He was my student a few years ago. How long have you been
taking his class?”

  “Only about six weeks, I guess,” Shell replied.

  “The people who signed up for today are guests of the hotel, so they’re probably inexperienced with the movements Bryan and I teach. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind helping me show the ladies some of the basic escape strategies? My assistant can’t be here today—”

  “I’m just a novice. I wouldn’t know—”

  “If you’ve been in Bryan’s class, you know how to turn and break away, how to get away from an arm grab, how to take advantage of soft targets. Is this correct?”

  “Well, yes, I guess.”

  “And I suspect you’ve been practicing kicks and elbow strikes? That should be sufficient to get the class in motion today. It is much harder for me to show these exercises to people on my own. Will this be acceptable to you?”

  “I—I guess I could. I’m not sure.”

  The man smiled encouragingly and offered his hand to be shaken. “I’m Riku Hayashi,” he said, with a slight head bow. “It would be much appreciated, and I could call Bryan and let him know how you assisted me.”

  “That’s not necessary, but I guess I can try it,” she consented, shaking his hand.

  The women were gathering around the perimeter of the room. Most were dressed like Shell, in tank tops and yoga pants.

  “You know the teacher?” a young woman with short, brown hair asked as Shell approached an empty spot against a wall.

  “No. But it seems I’ve been taking classes from a former student of his,” she answered.

  “Really? I wish I’d been taking that class. I was mugged the other night.”

  “Oh, no! I’m sorry to hear that. Were you hurt?”

  “Not really. Just a skinned knee and elbow. The guy came up behind me in a parking lot and took my purse before he knocked me down. Then he ran off. I know it could have been worse, but I was really shaken up by it.”

  “These things happen to women all the time, I guess,” Shell said sympathetically.