At her first autopsy, she’d wedged herself in a corner, afraid if she moved, she’d fall on her face. The sight, grim as it was, wasn’t the problem. The smell. Like no other. It got deep in the throat and stayed there for days. Once smelled, never forgotten.
Dr. Fisher, in scrub greens, glanced at her briefly as he snapped on a pair of latex gloves and spoke into the tiny microphone clipped to his chest. He recited the case number and name: “Victoria Barrington … body that of well-developed, well-nourished, thirty-one-year-old Caucasian female. Blond hair, blue eyes. Body sixty-three inches long, weight 112 pounds.”
With deliberate attention, he examined the hands and fingernails for skin or blood or fibers that could provide evidence of an assailant. Hands and fingernails were clean.
Vicky lay on her back on the stainless-steel table, the bright overhead light harsh on her blue-gray skin.
Picking up a scalpel, he made a deep Y incision, starting at a shoulder, to a point midway in the chest, then the other shoulder, and a straight line to the pubic area. He examined the chest, lifted out the block of organs, weighed each, sliced sections for lab evaluation, moved methodically to the pelvis, then grunted and muttered, “Gravid.”
“She was pregnant?”
“Five to six weeks gestation. Embryo ten millimeters.”
Slightly larger than a bb shot. Had Vicky known she was pregnant? Five to six weeks, only just begun. A fetus weighing less than 500 grams—usually five to six months—didn’t require a separate death certificate, but two lives had been taken here. Licks of anger like small flames flared in Susan’s chest.
Fisher removed the bladder. Any urine would be carefully removed and sent, as would the dregs of hot chocolate from the mug in Vicky’s living room and the vial labeled codeine, to the KBI lab in Topeka for toxicology. Many drugs, including barbiturates and sedatives, were excreted by the kidneys. Urine was the way to find them.
Dr. Fisher peeled off the latex gloves. “Not much to help you with.” He turned on a spigot in the deep sink and washed his hands. His hands were actually quite beautiful. They fascinated her. Even working on somebody long past caring, they were gentle. His touch on a body was almost a caress, as though knowledge was absorbed through the fingertips.
“What can you tell me about porphyria?” she asked.
“She didn’t have it.”
“It’s a disease,” Susan said to get him started.
“Not one. A constellation of seven different inheritable diseases.” He shook water from his hands and reached for a towel. “Some forms are more debilitating than others, some life-threatening.”
Dr. Fisher was a man happy in his work, enthusiastic about the job, with the attitude “Oh, boy, I’m fortunate to be given this opportunity” and “Well, well, what do we have here?” whenever he pulled on latex gloves. Sometimes his enthusiasm spilled over and he had to share it with whomever was at hand. Like the time when he’d sliced open the heart of a young man and traced the flow of blood through the chambers. In great detail. There might have been some purpose if the kid had had heart disease, but he was a healthy young male who’d died of a head injury sustained in a motorcycle accident. For a long time after that she’d been aware of her every heartbeat.
Questions never irritated him, no matter how irrelevant. Information about the human body came pouring out, like turning on a tap.
“Extremely rare.” He tossed the towel at a hamper and leaned back against a stainless-steel cabinet. “A group of inborn errors of metabolism caused by mutations in genes that code for various enzymes of the heme biosynthetic pathway.”
Right. One difficulty with all this information that poured out was she usually needed a medical dictionary to interpret it.
“The rarity makes it hard to diagnose. Each form has its own symptomology. Appropriate lab tests give an unequivocal diagnosis, but the symptoms simulate a multitude of illnesses, even including mental illness.”
“What are the symptoms?”
He drew his heavy, dark eyebrows together and peered at her from under them. “Seven different kinds.” He held out the index finger of his left hand, tapped it with the index finger of his right hand, and recited, “Congenital erythropoietic porphyria. Characterized by severe cutaneous lesions, hemolytic anemia, large amounts of uroporphyrin 1 in the urine. Onset of symptoms usually in the first year of life. Treatment here, often blood transfusions. The photosensitivity can lead to scarring to the point of mutilation affecting nose and fingers. Teeth can get pointed and red. Increased hair growth sometimes.”
Dr. Fisher broke off his discourse and rubbed a finger down his forehead between his heavy eyebrows. “Matter of fact, some scientist somewhere hypothesized that vampires might have been porphyria victims.”
“Vampires.”
“They go out only at night. The teeth get pointed and look larger because mouth and gums are tight. The need for blood. He even brought in the bit about garlic. Theory being garlic was dialkyl disulfide, which destroys heme and increases the severity of an attack.”
“Heme.”
“Porphyria’s a metabolic disorder, comes from a deficiency of an enzyme involved in the synthesis of heme. Bunch of nonsense, this vampire stuff. All it did was cause people suffering from an incurable disease a whole lot more suffering by making them the victims of nasty jokes.”
He held out his middle finger and tapped it. “Protoporphyria. Characterized by acute photosensitivity, no urine abnormalities, often serious liver disease.”
He held out his third finger. “Acute intermittent porphyria. Can exist in latent form. No cutaneous manifestations, but acute attacks of neurologic dysfunction—”
“Never mind.”
“—chronic pain, muscle paralysis in arms and legs, seizures, blindness, tachycardia. Purple urine. Then there’s porphyria cutanea tarda. Excess iron in the blood, needs to be periodically removed by phlebotomy.”
“Never mind.” The problem with turning on Fisher’s flow of information was that it was hard to turn off. “Was Dorothy Barrington likely to see a patient with porphyria?”
“Not likely, no. I told you, it’s extremely rare.”
“Tests can be done to find out if a patient is suffering from this illness?”
“Didn’t I just say that? But because of its rarity, it’s not considered until other things are ruled out.”
Had Dorothy thought she might have a patient with porphyria? Had she been reading about it to see if she might be right? Which patient? Susan had never had the need to get a court order to look at patient files, but she knew there was no way a judge would sign an order on the basis of her vague speculations. Fishing expedition. She didn’t even have a name, would have to go through all the patient files. The possibility—if it even was a possibility—of a patient having porphyria could have no bearing on the murders anyway. Probably didn’t. A bookmark inserted in a different spot probably meant, as Parkhurst had suggested, someone used the book and put the bookmark back at random. Maybe.
“Have you ever seen a patient with porphyria?”
“By the time I see them, it wouldn’t matter. I haven’t seen any evidence that might indicate porphyria. Unless I missed it.”
“You ever know of anyone who had it?”
“No. I told you it’s rare.” He massaged his chin. “One interesting particular. Sometimes a genetically affected individual is asymptomatic. Raises some questions concerning the simple, Mendelian, dominant mode of transmission, doesn’t it?”
Is that what it raised? In her mind, it simply raised confusion.
24
SUSAN NO LONGER needed sunglasses when she left the hospital; the clouds had taken over. She turned right on Railroad Street—passable, but with standing water in the gutters—and drove past Bobcat Canyon Park, which was a big lake with trees rising from it, wooden benches covered with water, the old railroad locomotive in water up over its wheels.
Outside of town, the farm road was passable, but the
fields on both sides held standing water. In one, nine mahogany-colored cows stood in a line, water up to their knees. They all had their rears turned toward the road, except one white-faced freethinker in the center who blandly watched the pickup drive by.
At the crossroads, she went left. Ellen Barrington’s land lay to the right. Not much was getting accomplished in the way of plumbing repairs, most likely. Susan slowed at a row of six mailboxes. Two redwing blackbirds perched forlornly on one, surveying the flooded fields like leftovers from the ark.
She made a left to the Dietz farm and pulled up behind the house. A large walnut tree, uprooted by high wind, lay across the ground, limbs split and broken.
Heat and mugginess made the air seem like something you had to push through. Her white blouse stuck to her back, her beige pants clung to the back of her legs. Shrugging off the linen jacket, she tossed it on the seat beside her.
The Lab, the collie, and the hairy mutt eyed her from inside the kitchen. As watchdogs, these three were a washout. Not even a mild growl until she rapped on the screen door, then they gave excited little yips and whipped their tails so hard their rear ends wiggled.
Holly came into the kitchen. There was no surprise on her face at seeing Susan. The corners of Holly’s mouth twitched as she was deciding whether or not to smile; she opted for a smile. The dogs crowded in front of her, prancing and yelping.
She held open the screen. The dogs rushed out and swarmed around Susan, nudging and sniffing. “Come in.” Holly had on baggy cotton shorts and a green shirt. Her loose brown hair stuck up in a clump in back, as though she’d been resting her head on a pillow.
The living room still had stacks of photos in piles on every flat surface. Without waiting for an invitation, Susan made her way to the couch and plunked herself down. The Lab stood by her knees, eyeing the spot next to her with the clear intent of leaping up beside her. Holly snapped a finger. With a sigh, the Lab lowered itself to lie across Susan’s feet. She reached down and rubbed its chest. It licked her hand and snuggled closer.
Holly sat across from her in the overstuffed chair. “Can I get you something? Iced tea? Coffee?”
“No thanks. What time did Taylor Talmidge get here last night?”
Holly flinched as though she had a headache and Susan’s voice was too loud.
“He was here last night? Is that correct? What time did he come?”
“I’ve already told Ben Parkhurst.”
“I understand that. If you don’t mind, I’d like to hear it again.”
“Around nine-thirty.”
“You were expecting him?”
With a fingernail, Holly scratched at the frayed arm of the chair.
“Your husband was home?”
“No. He went to see a friend in Kansas City.”
“He got home at what time?”
“I don’t know. One maybe, one-thirty.”
“Did Taylor know he wasn’t home?”
“Yes. I guess. I don’t know.” Holly glanced at her watch. “I don’t have much time. I need to get ready for work.”
“Work?” Susan was surprised; she assumed farmers’ wives spent all their time gathering eggs and milking cows.
“Of course, work. How do you think we make it? Farmers’ wives work wherever they can. Even farmers have second jobs. And this year, with the rain and the flooding—” Holly zipped her mouth shut.
“What time do you need to be there?”
“Three,” Holly admitted.
Since it was only one-thirty, there was no risk of being late.
“Where do you work?”
“At the hospital. Nurse’s aide.”
Oh, for Christ’s sake. Asses needed to be chewed about this one. Primarily, her own. She’d talked with Holly two days ago and hadn’t gotten this little nugget of information.
“You knew Taylor was coming to see you last night?”
“No. Not really. I mean— Well, we’re friends. He needed a friend to talk to.”
“I see.”
Holly had a half-tense, half-wary look of expectation, waiting for a question and hoping it wouldn’t come. What the hell was it she didn’t want to be asked?
“How long have you been friends?”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe you can tell me about your friendship.”
“What business is it of yours?”
“None. Unless there is a connection with the murder.” Susan almost had a thought here, but it got away. She hadn’t had enough sleep to be doing this.
“I don’t know anything about Dorothy’s murder.”
Dorothy’s, not Vicky’s. “What time did Taylor arrive last night?”
“I told you, nine-thirty.”
“Your shift doesn’t last until eleven?”
“I was off yesterday.”
Taylor could have gone to Vicky’s house, fed her codeine, then come here. The time would have been tight, but it was possible. An attempt to set up an alibi? The thought teased and vanished before she could catch it. “How long was he here?”
“A couple of hours.”
“You must be very good friends. He came without being invited, stayed late. Your husband wasn’t here.”
Holly didn’t respond. Susan waited.
Holly fidgeted. “We’re good friends.”
“How good?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Lovers?”
“No!” Holly’s face turned a hot pink. “Let me tell you something. I am not some bored housewife just dying for excitement, fluttering over romantic looks, snatched murmurs of love, and forbidden afternoons of lust. Taylor and I are friends.”
Susan believed her, reluctantly. If Taylor wasn’t trying to rig up an alibi, hadn’t come to ease into the sack with Holly, then why? The thought fragment slipped into her mind and out again. Damn it, what was she groping for? “What did you talk about?”
“Nothing.” Holly took an instant too long to answer.
Ah. Whatever they’d talked about was the very thing Holly wanted to avoid.
“I mean we just talked. It’s hard for him. The Barringtons never really liked him all that much, and they think he— He just needed a friend.”
“Did he mention Vicky?”
“No. Why would he?”
“Did he tell you why the Barringtons got together last night?”
“No.” The word came too fast and got caught on an indrawn breath.
Stolen painting. That’s what Holly was trying to avoid. Susan finally got hold of the errant thought. Taylor had come to tell Holly the theft had been discovered. Why would he do that unless Holly was involved somehow and he wanted to tell her to expect cops with questions? “He told you they were all there because Ellen asked them to come?”
“He may have. I don’t remember.” Holly reached up, smoothed down the clump of hair, and for a moment held her hair back in a ponytail. She looked ten years younger with the hair off her shoulders and curly wisps around her face.
“And the reason Ellen asked them was because she thought she knew why Dorothy had been killed.”
Apprehension pinched Holly’s face, a thin white line appeared at the corners of her mouth. Susan had seen the look before, usually just a moment or two before the person dropped over in a dead faint.
She went to the kitchen, found a glass, and filled it with tap water. She handed the glass to Holly and watched her take a sip; then, when she was sure Holly wasn’t going to pass out cold, she sat back down. “You want to tell me about it?”
“About what?”
“You must have known you were breaking the law,” Susan said gently. “You could go to jail.” Not unless some charges were made.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The painting is valuable. You’re facing a felony charge.”
Holly gripped the glass with both hands. “I didn’t steal it.”
“You know who did. It was Taylor, wasn’t it? That�
��s why he came to see you last night. To warn you we’d be around asking questions.”
Holly stared at the glass.
“Is that why Taylor killed Dorothy? He took the painting and she found out.”
Holly looked up, stared at her with eyes like flint.
“You helped him steal it.”
“No.”
“Mrs. Dietz, you’re in a lot of trouble. Your best bet is to tell me about it. Maybe I can help you.” She waited. Holly sat like a rock. “You told the owner of the gallery you were Ellen Barrington.”
“No.”
“He can identify you.” Susan wasn’t sure he could, if his eyesight was as poor as Osey thought. Doubts niggled in. Why would Holly help steal a painting? Why would Taylor steal it in the first place? Money, of course, but an urgent need? She was speculating ahead of the evidence again—her biggest flaw, according to Captain Reardon—but she felt the kick of adrenaline that happened when a case starts to come together.
“I don’t want to talk to you anymore,” Holly said.
Short of reading her her rights, taking her in, and booking her, there was nothing Susan could do. Ha. Book her for what? There was no evidence linking Holly to murder, no evidence linking her to theft. Which they didn’t even officially have.
Susan stood up. “When will your husband be home?”
“Harlen? This afternoon sometime.”
“I’ll be back.”
In the pickup, the radio chattered. She reached for the mike. “Yes, Hazel?”
“Ben’s trying to get you. Hang on, I’ll patch him through.” A minute later, Parkhurst’s voice came in over a lot of static. Birds again, sitting on the communications tower; something had to be done. Beyond the odd word, all she could hear was fuzz. They did manage enough contact to work out a meet at the Best Little Hare House in Kansas.
Family Practice Page 22