“Did she ever call him back?”
“Not that I know of. She felt bad about it, but she wanted to leave the past in the past. I thought she was leaning against meeting with him again. Look, you think he had anything to do with it? Last I heard, he didn’t even live in the area. Samantha said that he’d gotten married and moved to Oklahoma.”
“We’re not sure of anything right now, Jason,” Dawn responded carefully. “The step-brother’s name came up during the course of the investigation, and we feel it’s worth a follow-up. Thanks for the information. If you remember anything else, please give me a call, okay?”
Dawn disconnected the call and turned to Rick. After giving him a brief summary of what Jason had said, she asked, “You think that it’s possible she talked to Marc that night, agreed to meet with him?”
“That, or maybe he was stalking her. Saw her run out of the door after her argument with Jason and intercepted her. Maybe she wanted a shoulder to cry on and let him get in the car with her. Or maybe he followed her in his own car and used some trick to get Samantha to stop. That would actually fit the evidence at the crime scene better.”
“Yes, you’re right about that. Look, I promised I would keep Rafe in the loop on this case. I’m going to send him a quick email, give him an update.”
After she had emailed Rafe, Dawn leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes briefly. As much as she was trying to keep everything professional and adopt a ‘business as usual’ approach, Dawn admitted to herself that working with Rick was getting to her. She felt out of her rhythm with Rick, and she’d give anything to be working with Rafe instead. In the meantime, she wondered how everything was going with him at the hospital.
*****
The hospital was the last place Rafe Melbourne wanted to be. He wanted to be with Dawn, working the case. Especially now that they had a name. What he would give to be far, far south of Mountpelier General Hospital, on the trail of Marc Foxe.
The chess game with Gabe had diverted him for a while. After the game, the doctor had come in and checked him over. He had been pleased with Rafe’s progress and suggested he get up and walk around a little after lunch.
Gabe had gone with him for the walk, just in case, but he really hadn’t needed any help. He actually felt a lot stronger than he had expected.
Gabe had left him alone after lunch, informing Rafe that he needed to check in with his office and find a place to do a little work. Rafe took a brief nap, and when he woke up, he thought he was going to die. Not from pain, but from frustration.
It occurred to him that he might be able to do some work himself. He might not be able to work on the Foxe case, but he had another open case. And most of the resources he needed to follow up on that case were right here in this hospital.
He knew for a fact that no one had had a chance to follow up on the suspected poisoning of Jillian Kaelar. He had started the ball rolling on Tuesday when he had started gathering information on Amethyst Gascoyne, but no one had done any work on the case since.
It was time for another walk, he decided. And if his walk happened to take him up to the nurses’ station on the floor where Jillian Kaelar’s records were kept, well, so what?
He pulled on the robe that Tara had brought in for him last night, left his room, and, pushing his med pole alongside him, walked slowly down the hallway. He suspected that he would be breaking all sorts of hospital rules by leaving his own floor, but what were they going to do if they caught him? Arrest him?
He made it to the elevator without anyone giving him so much as a glance.
When he got off the elevator on the floor where Jillian had been treated, he found the same nurse on duty that he and Dawn had talked to before. She recognized him, but was shocked by the fact that he had arrived at her station wearing only a bathrobe, with a med pole flanking him on his left side.
After he had explained the circumstances to her, she had relaxed a little, and he had used a little charm on her to get her to admit that the tox reports had come back on Jillian Kaelar. After a little more persuasion, the nurse handed the relevant file over to Rafe and watched him as he scanned the report.
Rafe finished reading the reports and handed the file back to the nurse, saying thoughtfully, “So it was atropine that caused her symptoms. Interesting.”
“Very interesting,” the nurse responded. “I’ve never seen a case of atropine poisoning before. The symptoms are really unpleasant, but at least the dose she received was not life-threatening. But what a fuss that patient made about it!”
“Did she now?” Rafe said encouragingly.
“She sure did. You would have thought she was dying. When we told her she was fine and that she was going to be discharged, she raised the roof. She insisted that we were mistaken and demanded that we do some more tests. But the doctors were firm and refused. The tests were definitive. There was no reason for her to stay, so she was sent home last night.”
Returning to his own room, Rafe shook his bathrobe off his shoulders and got back into bed. His trip upstairs had tired him more than he had expected, and he soon dozed off to sleep.
When he woke up, he saw the last sight he expected. Amethyst Gascoyne was sitting in the chair beside his bed.
“Hello, Sergeant,” she purred.
“Amethyst,” he acknowledged. “I have to admit, this is a surprise. What are you doing here?”
“I heard that you’ve been asking questions about me,” she said. “So I decided to ask some questions about you in return. Imagine my surprise when I found out that you were in the hospital. Appendicitis, huh?”
“That’s right. And you decided to come to visit me, just out of the goodness of your heart? I’m touched.”
“Actually, I was also hoping to get some information from you.”
“About Jillian?” Rafe guessed.
“Yes.” Amethyst pulled a face. “I called her, you know, just to check up on her and see how she was doing, but she refused to talk to me. She’s back at home, though, so I gather that she’s okay after all, huh? What was it? Some sort of virus?”
“No, not a virus. Turns out that Jillian was poisoned after all. So we still might need to investigate her accusations against you.”
“She actually was poisoned? Really? My, my. What a surprise. So what kind of poison was it?”
“Atropine.”
“Never heard of it. Is it fatal?”
“In large enough doses, it can be. Fortunately for Jillian, the dose given to her wasn’t large enough to cause any lasting damage. And she says that you told her that you poisoned her coffee.”
“Which I deny. Hold on a minute while I look something up.” She busied herself with her cellphone for a minute. Then she said, “Ah. Here’s the answer. Turns out that one of the symptoms of ingesting atropine is hallucinations. That explains it.”
She lifted her eyes from her cell phone and met Rafe’s gaze blandly.
“Yes,” Rafe admitted. “It can cause hallucinations. Why do I get the feeling that you knew that already, without having to look it up?”
Amethyst arose from the visitor’s chair and began to wander around the room, examining some of the cards and flowers that had been trickling in for Rafe. Sniffing at a bouquet of flowers, she commented, “You have a nasty, suspicious mind, Sergeant Melbourne.”
She’s enjoying this, Rafe thought. Aloud, he said, “Having a nasty, suspicious mind is actually an advantage for a detective. So you still deny that you put the atropine in her coffee?”
“Adamantly. Look, from what I read, they’re in eye drops, right? Maybe it was just an accident. Or maybe Jillian did it herself.”
“Why would she do that?”
“For attention, maybe. Who knows?”
“You know, I talked to an old neighbor of yours the other day. She told me a story about a classmate of yours who was giving you a hard time. She ended up in the hospital with a bacterial infection that usually isn’t found in humans. It’s usually found
in cats, as a matter of fact. You happen to have a cat around the time that other girl got sick, Amethyst?”
She turned wide, innocent eyes on him. Beaming, she said, “I love cats. I had several when I was a child.”
Walking back to the bed, she fingered the med pole sitting beside it and gestured toward the IV bag hanging from the pole.
“You know, I was watching a TV show last night,” she said. “It was a detective show, actually. A man died mysteriously in a hospital. The detective discovered that the murderer had injected poison into the victim’s IV line.
“Looking at this set-up here, I’ve got to say that it would be easy to do. All someone would have to do is wait until the patient is sleeping.”
“Are you threatening me, by any chance, Amethyst?” Rafe said gently.
Those big blue eyes batted at him again. “Why, no, Sergeant. I’m just making an observation. You should take extra care when it comes to these things, you know. I’m sure that a cop like you has made many enemies over the years.”
She looked up as a nurse entered the room. “Looks like it’s time for a check-up. Guess I should leave, give you some privacy.”
Bestowing a brilliant smile on Rafe, Amethyst said, “Good-bye, Sergeant. I hope you recover soon.” And with that, she sauntered out of the room.
After the nurse was finished with him, Rafe put in a call to Lt. Westbrooke, who lost no time in making her way over to the hospital.
She strode into his room with authority. “Tell me the whole story,” she demanded, without preamble.
Rafe complied, filling her in with all the details of his conversation with Amethyst Gascoyne.
When he had finished, she said, “I don’t like this, Rafe. I don’t like it at all.”
“I’m not too happy about this development myself, LT. Especially not while I’m lying in here, unable to do anything about it.”
“This needs to be followed up on,” the lieutenant resolved. “Your partner’s tied up with the other case. You got anyone else you’d prefer I put on it?”
Rafe thought it over.
“Noritaki,” he answered eventually. “I liked the way she handled herself when we worked the library shooting case together.”
“You got it,” Lt. Westbrooke affirmed. I’ll pull her off the Foxe case and set her to work on digging into Amethyst’s background. Prentiss, Sokoto, and Vettakor can continue working with Cimarron on the Foxe case. With the CBI involved now, we can afford to shake a team member loose to follow up on a not-so-veiled threat to one of our own.”
Chapter 29
On their way south, Dawn and Rick took the time to stop at the rest areas on I-25. At each rest stop, they examined the video feed. However, they didn’t catch a glimpse of anyone who even resembled Marc Foxe.
At the last stop, Rick said, “I’m going to get something to eat. You want anything?”
Dawn shook her head absentmindedly. She sat down at a table and studied her case notes while Rick stood in line and picked up something from one of the fast food joints. He returned a short time later, carrying a tray on which rested a burger, some fries, and a soft drink.
He sat down opposite Dawn and said, “I know you don’t like fast food, but I figured you might be tempted by this.”
He handed over a package of peanut butter crackers, and she stared at it blindly.
“I saw them and remembered how much you like peanut butter,” Rick commented. “I’d always have bacon and eggs for breakfast, while you had peanut butter toast. Remember?”
She remembered, all right. But she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of enjoying a trip down memory lane with her, so she responded, “Yeah, I’d eat my toast and warn you about your cholesterol. It was really romantic.”
“Way to kill the moment, Cimarron,” Rick said wryly.
The iron control she had been exerting over herself slipped a little. She had made a vow to herself that she would keep everything between her and Rick business-like and professional. No way was she going to let their past relationship intrude upon the investigation. Upon reflection, though, she decided that it might be better to get some things out into the open. Maybe doing so would help her resolve some things and get her rhythm, her balance back.
They were officially on a break, so she decided to take the plunge.
“Rick?” she said.
“Huh?” he said, pausing between taking bites in his burger.
“Would you mind answering a question for me?’
“About the case?”
“No – about us.”
“I thought you said there wasn’t any more us.”
“There isn’t. But I’ve always wanted to know one thing: Why, Rick? I’ve never understood why.”
“You had intimacy issues. Remember?”
“Are you telling me that sex was the problem?”
“No. The sex was great. It was what happened afterward that got to me after a while.”
Dawn was silent for a minute. Then she said, “We talked about the fact that I had trouble sleeping together with you in the same bed. You said it was no problem – you could deal with it.”
“I thought I could. But it started to bother me – a lot. We talked about it a few times – remember?”
“Yeah. I told you that I needed time to get used to it. We managed it a few times. And when I couldn’t sleep and had to go back to my own bed? You agreed with me that getting a good night’s sleep was more important. You told me you’d rather have me alert during the day, and the hell about sleeping issues at night. What was the matter? Didn’t you mean it?”
“I thought I did,” he answered.
“Obviously, you changed your mind.”
“No – not really. What happened with Kristy was an aberration, D.C. It wouldn’t have happened again.”
“That’s right Rick. You just go on telling yourself that. Maybe you’ll even convince yourself that it’s true. But you’re never going to convince me.”
There was dead silence for a while. Then Rick looked at her curiously. “What about now, D.C.? he said. “You’ve been married for almost two years. Still having the same problem?”
Dawn reflected before answering Rick’s question. When she had first been married, she’d had the same trouble with Ty. But over time, the situation had resolved itself. It was a rare occasion now that she had to leave him in the night and seek out her own bed.
Aloud, she said, “My marriage is none of your business, Rick. I’m not discussing it with you.”
And so the personal interlude ended, and the curtain of silence descended between them once again.
Chapter 30
“She never made it to her rifle,” Dawn said softly.
She and Rick were standing next to Kit Blakewood’s car, a sporty little hatchback. The car, a dark forest-green in color, had been pushed off the unpaved road behind a band of trees. On the back seat of the vehicle, Dawn could clearly make out the outline of the rifle, despite the fact that it had been placed under a thin blanket.
Rick acknowledged Dawn’s comment only with a grunt as he pulled on a pair of gloves.
“Have you taken the initial photographs of the car?” he asked the state trooper in charge.
“Yes. We did that immediately,” the trooper responded.
Rick opened the rear passenger door and scrutinized the interior of the car. In addition to the rifle, he spotted two small purses lying on the floor behind the driver’s seat. He also noticed a receipt resting in the cup-holder between the driver’s seat and the front passenger’s seat.
Rick carefully removed the two purses and the receipt in order to examine them. He handed the purses to Dawn, who had also donned a pair of gloves.
“See if you notice anything out of the ordinary in either of these, would you?” he requested.
While Dawn was examining the contents of the two purses, Rick scrutinized the receipt. It was from a restaurant in Pueblo, where Kit and Zoe had apparently stopped for san
dwiches and soft drinks. They had paid in cash, he noted.
Looking up from the receipt, he asked Dawn, “Anything of interest in the purses?”
“Not really,” Dawn replied. “Just the usual. Wallets with cash and credit cards, lipstick, tissues – nothing that would give us any clue about what happened to Kit and Zoe. What about the receipt?”
Rick handed it to Dawn. After looking it over, Dawn commented, “This is worth following up on.”
Rick nodded. Turning back to the state trooper, he said, “What about the trunk? Have you looked inside?”
“We opened it and photographed it as well. Figured that would be best, since one of the girls is still missing. Can’t tell you how relieved we were not to find a body,” the trooper replied.
Rick responded to that information by opening the driver’s side door of the car and pulling the trunk release. Dawn joined him as he walked around to the rear of the car and peered into the trunk.
The suitcases belonging to the two girls were still lying inside. A quick examination of the interiors showed that everything inside was still neatly packed. There was no indication that anyone had rifled through the contents of the suitcases.
“So he took them, but not their belongings,” Dawn said softly.
Rick nodded. “And there’s no sign of violence here. Which means that either the two girls went with Foxe willingly, or he pulled a weapon on them and forced them to go with him.”
Turning back to the state troopers, Rick inquired, “Who called it in?”
The taller of them replied, “A tourist on his way to the gorge. He needed to take a leak, so he pulled off and walked back into the trees to take care of business. When he was finished, he noticed the car. Because of the color, it sort of blended into the trees, so it wasn’t easy to spot from the road. At first he thought that someone might have dumped it here, but when he examined it, he noticed that this wasn’t some old junker that a person would want to get rid of. And whoever left it here hadn’t removed the license place or tried to file off the registration numbers, the way most people who junk cars do.”
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