“Whoa. What’s this?” He pulls out one of the sock rolls and squeezes it. Then he unrolls the socks and removes a small syringe with a capped needle attached to it. He starts to hand it to me, but I stop him.
“I’m not wearing gloves. Stick it in an evidence bag.”
Larry doesn’t have an evidence bag with him, so he leaves the room to go next door where his helpers do have some. He returns a minute later with the syringe safely bagged. He sets the bag down on top of the bedside stand and proceeds to label it. When he’s done, he hands me the bag with the syringe inside.
“This is an insulin syringe,” I say. “Don’t the nurses administer all of your insulin, Mr. Dudley?”
Frank Dudley folds his arms over his chest and sets his jaw. He looks away toward the wall and I can tell he’s not going to answer me.
I tap the side of the basin with the socks in it. “Check all of these,” I tell Larry. “See if there’s anything else in there.”
He does so and it isn’t long before he finds two more syringes and a vial of insulin. These are bagged and tagged like the first syringe.
“What are you doing with these in here?” I ask Dudley.
“I told you, I’m diabetic. Diabetics take insulin.”
“The nurses are supposed to be in charge of administering your insulin.”
“Yeah, somebody in this damned place is in charge of everything about me,” Frank snaps. “I managed my own blood sugars for fifteen years at home and did a better job of it than they’re doing here.”
I look over at Hurley and give him a little head nod toward the hallway. The two of us leave the room and meet just outside the door. “An injection of insulin in someone who isn’t a diabetic, or even too much insulin in someone who is, can cause what we call insulin shock. The symptoms of insulin shock are disorientation, hypotension, diaphoresis, and eventually death.”
“Lay terms, Winston. I know what hypertension is but I don’t know what di . . . dia . . .”
“Diaphoresis,” I say. “It means a cold sweat. Insulin shock doesn’t cause hypertension, or high blood pressure, it causes hypotension, or low blood pressure. Based on what Bjorn told us about Bernie’s behavior in the bathroom, it fits.”
“Are you suggesting that Frank Dudley injected Bernard Chase with a dose of insulin?”
I think about this for a moment, with all the logistics that would be involved, and realize it would be very difficult. “It’s possible, but I have to admit it wouldn’t be easy. Even though the needles on those insulin syringes are very small, it would still be difficult to stick one in someone and have them not feel it. You would have to create some sort of a distraction, or some other reason for the pain.”
“The guy does have motive,” Hurley says. “Can Izzy tell if someone received an overdose of insulin?”
“I don’t know, but I can find out.” I take out my cell phone and call Izzy’s number. I can tell when he answers that he was asleep. “Hey, Izzy, it’s Mattie. Sorry to wake you. We’ve come across a situation here in our investigation and I need to ask you a question.”
“Not a problem,” Izzy says. “I hadn’t gone to bed yet. I just dozed off on the couch watching TV. What’s your question?”
“Could an injection of insulin have caused the symptoms that Bjorn reported in Bernie?”
“Hmm, interesting idea. And yes, it certainly could.”
“Then my next question is can you test for it?”
“I can, but it’s not a simple test and it’s not one that we can do here. I’ll have to send it off to Madison. The problem is, insulin is rapidly metabolized, so a postmortem level may not be helpful. Diabetics typically have anti-insulin antibodies, which is why they end up with the disease. Since Bernie wasn’t a diabetic, if his serum and free insulin levels are elevated and there are no anti-insulin antibodies present it would certainly indicate that he received a dose of exogenous insulin. But even if I put a rush on the test, we probably won’t have an answer for a couple days.”
“What about a basic blood glucose level? Can we do that here to give us some idea of whether or not this theory is even viable?”
“We can, but we have to be careful where the blood came from. It’s a known fact that people who go through what we refer to as death throes will have high glucose levels in blood taken from the right side of their heart due to glycogen breakdown in the liver. Of course, the other thing I can do is take another look for an injection site. If the needle used was the type that comes on an insulin syringe, it will be extremely small so I might’ve missed it when I looked earlier today.”
“Which reminds me, I meant to ask you whether or not you found any bruises on Bernie’s body.”
“As a matter of fact, I did. It was on the back of his right arm and I assume it came from him hitting the edge of the sink when he collapsed in the bathroom. Of course, that would be a perfect injection site as well. I’ll take another look first thing in the morning.”
“Thanks, Izzy. I’ll let Hurley know.”
“You know, it may prove to be serendipitous that Bjorn was in the bathroom when he was today.”
“Why is that?”
“Because if he hadn’t been there, Bernie’s body could have lain there all weekend before anyone found it. If that had happened, any traces of insulin would have probably disappeared.”
“Interesting,” I say. Hurley is giving me impatient looks, eager to know what Izzy has told me. “Let me go so I can fill Hurley in on what you just told me. I’ll let you know if anything else comes up. Otherwise, we’ll check with you in the morning to see if you found anything that looks like an injection site.”
“I’m curious. Is your suspect a patient or a staff member?”
“It’s a patient. I’ll fill you in on the details in the morning.” I disconnect the call and then tell Hurley what Izzy has just told me.
“Damn,” he says. “I hate waiting, but I don’t suppose we have any choice. Since the insulin theory fits what we know about Bernie’s death, we will definitely have to keep Frank Dudley on our list of suspects. It will be interesting to see if we can find his fingerprints anywhere in Chase’s office. In the meantime, we need to continue with the investigation as planned.”
“So what do we do next?”
“Since none of the employees are talking, we might as well finish up over in Bernie’s office.” Hurley takes a moment to give Larry a quick update, and tells him to let us know if they find anything else in the rest of their room searches.
On our way to the administrative wing, we check on Emily, who is seated at a table in the dayroom. Hoover is curled up under the table at her feet, sound asleep. Seated with her are half a dozen residents, all of whom appear to be very interested in her drawing. There is the vague shape of a face on the paper, but Emily has yet to give it any detail. Hurley tells her where we will be, listens as the residents at the table assure him that she is in good hands, and then he returns the fingerprint scanner to Richmond with instructions to upload Frank Dudley’s prints ASAP.
With that done, he and I head for the administrative wing via the outdoor route. The exit door is locked, but Hurley raps on the door three times and a moment later a uniformed police officer opens it.
“Have any of the staff or board members tried to come back here?” Hurley asks the officer.
“No, the only person who was back here is that guy from the medical examiner’s office.” It’s the new officer on the force, the one I don’t know. According to his tag, his name is P. Foster.
I wonder what the P stands for and then ask, “You mean Arnie?”
“Yeah, that was it. He spent some time inside the victim’s office dusting for fingerprints. He left about half an hour ago and said he’d be back in the morning to finish up.”
Someone has left two boxes of gloves on the floor outside Bernie’s office and Hurley is donning a pair when Officer Foster says, “Pardon me for saying so, Detective, but you threw me a bit of a curveba
ll earlier. Was that some kind of test or initiation rite?”
Hurley gives him a puzzled look. “What are you talking about?”
“Earlier when I told you I was going to call for another on-duty officer to roll by because I needed to take a bathroom break, you were here in this office. You told me to go ahead and that you would keep an eye on things until I came back. But when I came out of the bathroom the person at the desk said she just saw you and the lady here go running out the front door of the place. I figured you must have had someone else come by to stand watch, but when I came back there was no one here.”
“Damn!” Hurley says with a grimace. He gives himself a literal and a figurative slap on the head. “That was when I got that panicked phone call from Dom about Emily. I completely forgot that I was supposed to be covering for you. I’m sorry.”
“No harm done,” Foster says. “It was totally deserted when I came back. That Arnie guy showed up a minute later. He was ticked because someone took out the rock he had used to prop open the end door.”
“That was me,” I say, knowing I’ll owe Arnie an apology tomorrow.
I put on a pair of gloves, flip on the light switch in Bernie’s office, and step inside. Evidence of Arnie’s presence is everywhere in the form of fingerprint dust on nearly every surface. The desk and the chair behind it are covered, as are all the items on top of the desk, including the coffee mug and the tax papers. I’m guessing Bernie’s CPA won’t be pleased.
Hurley walks over to a filing cabinet behind the meeting table. It has four drawers and Hurley opens the top one. “Might as well see what’s in here although I don’t expect to find any smoking guns.”
I see Arnie has left his processing kit along with several empty boxes, packs of various-sized evidence bags, two large rolls of evidence tape, and several empty collection jars over by the couch. I turn to Hurley. “You said you were using an ultraviolet light on the couch earlier. Did anything light up?”
“Hell, yeah, the whole thing did. I wouldn’t sit on it if I were you. It looked like a hotel bedspread.”
“So Bernie was enjoying some hanky-panky in here?”
“So it would seem. The question is, was he alone or with someone?”
“Did you take any samples?”
“Didn’t have time. You can do that if you want.”
I don’t particularly, and I don’t know if Arnie already did, so I focus on collecting other items, instead. “We should probably bag up his entire coffee station since we’re considering poisons,” I say to Hurley.
“Yep,” he says distractedly, flipping through hanging folders in the file cabinet drawer.
I bag and tag the coffee pot after pouring the coffee left in it into an evidence jar, and then I bag and tag the coffee maker, a box of sugar, a box of loose artificial sweetener, four clean spoons and one used one, a coffee grinder, a partial bag of coffee beans, and three coffee cups that appear to be clean. I stack everything in one of the empty boxes and go to work on the small refrigerator, where I find and bag a carton of half-and-half. When I’m done I have three boxes of evidence to take to the office.
I look over and see that Hurley is on drawer two of the filing cabinet, patiently looking through every page of every file. I look over at Bernie’s desk and see his coffee cup sitting there. Knowing I need to bag it and collect its contents as well, I get the items I need to do so and head that way. But when I get to the desk, what I find there throws me. After staring at the coffee cup for several seconds, trying to decide if I’m losing my mind, I take out my cell phone and punch in Arnie’s number.
He answers on the second ring and since I can tell he has food in his mouth, I at least know I didn’t wake him.
“Hey, Arnie, it’s Mattie. I’m in Bernie Chase’s office with Hurley and I figured I’d pick up where you left off. I see you managed to lift prints everywhere. What else did you do?”
“Nothing else. There are more surfaces to dust if you feel so inclined.”
“You didn’t swab anything? Or collect any other evidence?”
“Nope.”
“What about the coffee in the mug on the desk?”
“There was no coffee in the mug. It was empty.”
“No it wasn’t.”
“It was when I was there.”
“Hmm, maybe I’m mistaken,” I say, though I’m pretty sure I’m not. After thanking him for his help, apologizing for the rock thing, and telling him we’ll see him in the morning, I disconnect the call. I take out the camera I have in my pocket and scroll through the pictures I took earlier.
“Hey, Hurley, I think we have a problem,” I say when I get to the picture of the coffee mug.
“What?”
“There was coffee in this mug when we were in here earlier, but now it’s empty and it looks like it’s been cleaned.”
Chapter 17
Hurley appears extremely upset by my news. His lips are tight, his face is red, and the muscles in his jaw are jumping around like water dropped on a hot frying pan. “You’re sure?”
I nod and show him the picture I took earlier. “I’ll bag the mug anyway, but I suspect it won’t be of much use.” I do so while Hurley paces back and forth in front of the desk. I’m thinking things couldn’t get much worse with this case when we hear a commotion out in the hall and Foster’s frantic voice saying, “You can’t go in there!”
A second later, a parade of people enter Bernard Chase’s office. There are five people in all. Dorothy is in the lead, with three men and one woman behind her. The newcomers are dressed in suits, which gives me a pretty good idea who they are. Dorothy steps aside and lets the new woman take charge.
She does so by asking, “Who’s in charge of this investigation?”
“I am. I’m Detective Steve Hurley with the Sorenson Police Department. Who are you?”
“Legal counsel for the Twilight Home,” the woman says in a no-nonsense tone. She hands Hurley a business card that has LLOYD COLLINS & HUMMER LLP written on it, along with a Milwaukee address and phone number. I’m praying that the woman’s last name is Hummer so I can at least make some crude jokes about her later, and then I wonder what Dr. Maggie would make of that thought. The woman is like a brain tumor, always in my head and causing me a lot of pain.
“I’m Trisha Collins,” the woman says, dashing my hopes for her last name. “And these are my associates, John Hudson, Michael Finnegan, and Oscar Walden. I would ask that you immediately halt whatever you are doing until we’ve had a chance to examine your warrants and consult with the administrative group.”
“Too late for that,” Hurley says. “Our search is nearly finished. We’ve talked with the majority of the patients already, and I can assure you our paperwork is all in order. You’re welcome to examine it all you want, but I’m not stopping anything we are doing to wait for you to do so. If you know anything about conducting a criminal investigation, you know the first hours are golden. You have already hampered our efforts and delayed things by threatening the employees with their jobs if they were to talk to us.”
“We have done no such thing,” Trisha says. “We just arrived here.”
“Yes, of course. Plausible deniability,” Hurley sneers. “You lawyers are pretty savvy when it comes to covering your own asses, but we know you told the board members to let the employees know what would happen if any of them spoke to us before you got here. I don’t much care how you made it happen, I just know you did and you’re interfering with my investigation of a murder. I don’t much appreciate it.”
I’m a little shocked by how in-your-face Hurley is behaving. Judging from the tight lips and white knuckles on the hand holding her briefcase, I’m guessing Trisha Collins is surprised, too, despite the stern bun in her blond hair and the stern tone in her voice. I’m sure she isn’t used to having people talk to her this way. I suspect the reason Hurley is being so confrontational is because he’s tired, he’s hungry, and he’s mad at himself for leaving our crime scene unguarde
d, an action that has compromised some of our evidence.
Trisha says, “I assure you we are quite familiar with the investigative process, Detective. I apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused you, but I’m sure you understand that our primary concern here is to make sure the facility continues to function and to mitigate any liabilities that might be incurred by the board of directors, the staff, or the residents. I assure you we have the best interests of the staff members and the residents in mind. I’m sorry that your investigation was delayed, but it was unavoidable. We are here now and you are welcome to talk to any of the board members or employees who are willing to talk to you. My only stipulation is that one of us must be present at all times.”
Hurley sighs and his shoulders sag. Whatever had him ramped up is starting to fade away. “Fair enough.” He glances at his watch. “It’s getting late and I think the majority of what we have left to do can wait until morning. However, I would like to interview the evening staff on duty now while we’re here, and I would also like to search the employee lockers. I’ll talk to the day shift and your board members tomorrow morning. In the meantime, you and your people need to leave this wing. It’s a crime scene and it’s off-limits. I would appreciate it if you would leave and not touch anything on your way out.”
“I’m sure your paperwork is in order, but I still need to look at it,” Trisha says. “As for searching the employee lockers, I will leave that up to the individual employees.”
Hurley cocks his head and gives her a weary look. “My warrant covers all the public areas in the building as well as any of the administrative offices, employee areas, and individual patient rooms. The only restrictions imposed on us are the patients’ medical records, but if we have evidence that points to a suspect who is a resident here, and we believe the medical record might contain information that can assist us in our investigation, we can get a subpoena for that particular medical record.”
Board Stiff (Mattie Winston Mysteries) Page 16