A Wee Dose of Death

by Fran Stewart

  * * *

  Harper was surprised to find Fairing at the station.

  “I thought you pulled the day watch this week.” She rubbed her hands over her face, covering an enormous yawn. “Things went all screwy while you were gone. We have us a prisoner.”

  Harper’s step faltered. “Did you find him?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice turned to vitriol. “Mac ordered me to arrest Emily Wantstring.”

  “He what? That son of a . . .”

  “My sentiments exactly. Murphy and I both argued with him, but he was absolutely convinced she did it.”

  “Let me guess—he finally read the report?”

  “Yep,” she said. “The big fat insurance policy.”

  “Where is she?”

  Fairing nodded toward the day room. “What Mac doesn’t know, he can’t argue about. I gave her a blanket and told her she could stretch out on the couch in there. Last time I checked she was sound asleep.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t lock her up. She didn’t do it.”

  “I know that. I’m sure there’re some white-haired people who commit murder, but I sure don’t think this one did.”

  “You’re not listening to me, Fairing. I said she did not do it. About”—he glanced at his watch—“thirteen hours ago, I saw the person who did.”

  After he explained, Fairing asked, “You want to take her home, since you’re the one who cleared her?”

  Harper stretched his arms up over his head and groaned as his back popped. “No, you do it. I need to sit here and think.”

  She stood and walked toward the closed door of the day room. “She kept asking me if we’d found her husband’s scarf. You know anything about that, Sherlock?”

  “No clue, Watson.”

  36

  Monday Blues

  I managed to doze off and on for a few hours, but deep sleep wouldn’t come. I kept seeing red blood and Karaline’s ashen gray face. At five thirty I sat up in bed and called Harper. I got his voice mail. “I can’t wait,” I said after the beep. “I’m heading for the hospital. I’ll let you know as soon as I learn anything.”

  It vaguely occurred to me that as a police officer, he might be able to get more information than I could. No. Wait. I was her sister, right? They’d tell me the truth.

  When I opened my bedroom door, Shorty materialized and meowed so plaintively at me, I scooped him up for a big, fuzzy, purry hug. I could feel my muscles relax. Hug your cat, Harper had said. How had he known I needed to do this? Maybe if I’d picked up Shorty last night, I might have slept better.

  Dirk waited at the bottom of the stairs. “Did ye sleep?”

  “Not much,” I said. “How about you? Were you able to settle, or did you pace all night?”

  “I didna pace at all.” He nodded his head at Shorty. “Wee Short One laid himself down beside me on the arm of yon chair, and I didna want to stand for fear of waking him.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Shorty’s good at trapping people in one place. I’d better feed him, and then I want us to go to the hospital.”

  “I didna think ye would wait until seven o’ the clock.”

  Once Shorty had settled into his food bowl, purring contently—how could somebody swallow and purr at the same time?—I walked into the hall and reached for my parka, recoiling at the last moment as the bloodstains came into focus. “I need to get cold water on this.” I yanked it off the peg. “Why didn’t I do this last night?”

  “Mayhap because ye were so exhausted, ye were almost asleep on your feet.”

  “If I was that pooped, why couldn’t I sleep last night?”

  “Ye did sleep, but the only thing ye remember is the times ye awoke.”

  “Quit being so logical. It’s too early in the morning.”

  I started dunking the bloody parts of the parka into cold water in the kitchen sink, scrubbing and squeezing each section before moving on to the next.

  Finally I ran fresh water and left it soaking. Why was I even trying this? It would have to go to the cleaners.

  “Let’s go.”

  Thank goodness I had a second parka.

  * * *

  Harper stepped out of the station restroom and headed toward his desk. A little red circle winked on his phone. One voice mail. Peggy. What was she doing calling him at—he looked at the time listed beside her name—5:32 in the morning? He played the message, hit Call Back, and listened to her phone switch to voice mail. Wasn’t it possible to speak with a real person anymore?

  He called the hospital, identified himself, and asked to speak with someone in the ICU. When a somewhat harried-sounding voice came on the line, he identified himself again and asked to be notified when Karaline Logg was available. The voice interrupted and told him she’d been moved to third floor.

  So he went through the routine again, asking to be contacted when Ms. Logg was available for . . . He didn’t want to use the word “interrogation.” That made her sound like a suspect. “Can you call me when she’s awake? I’m working on tracking down who shot her, and I need her side of the story.”

  He wondered how long it would be.

  * * *

  The good news was that Karaline had been moved from the ICU to a regular floor. Even so, I was getting sincerely sick and tired of hospital waiting rooms. Dirk had no pity for me, doggone him. “Ye should ha’ listened to the constable and waited.” He sank down on the chair next to me, but I stood and paced again.

  “I want to be here when she wakes up,” I said. “The ScotShop’s closed on Mondays, so I don’t have anything else to do.”

  “Do you always talk out loud to yourself?”

  I spun around, uncomfortably aware of what had happened the last time someone walked in on me like that. Dirk had already whipped out his sgian-dubh and bounded to my left side. I guessed sitting down like that he couldn’t get to his dagger fast enough. “You startled me,” I said.

  “Sorry.” She wore scrubs, but no name tag that I could see.

  “Do you work here?”

  “I dinna trust her.”

  She nodded, but seemed to be looking around for something. “I start my shift soon. Is there somebody else . . .” She let the sentence hang.

  I glanced at Dirk. “Somebody else? What do you mean?”

  “It’s just that you were talking to someone when I came in. I know you were. It’s a man, I’m pretty sure.” She scanned the room and her gaze settled, unfocused, near my left shoulder. She tilted her head to one side. If she’d had black hairy ears, she would have looked like Scamp. Her whole body quivered for a moment, like a dog shaking water off its fur. “Sorry,” she said again. “Sometimes I feel things.”

  “I can see that.”

  “It’s hard, working in a hospital where so many people . . .” Again, her sentence trailed away to nothing.

  “She was about to say, Where so many people die, was she no? D’ye think she kens I am here?”

  “I know somebody’s here,” she said, but I couldn’t tell whether she was answering him or just continuing her thought from before. And there was no way to find out without clueing her in. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that.

  “Dinna tell her,” Dirk said.

  I didn’t dare answer him.

  A nearby door opened and a woman wearing the ubiquitous scrubs, these with little purple doggies romping all over them, said, “Hi, Deidre.” Without skipping a beat she looked at me. “Are you Ms. Winn?”

  When I said yes, she motioned for me to follow her. “Ms. Logg is awake and asking for you.”

  At the door, I glanced back. Deidre was watching me—only she wasn’t looking directly at me. She was looking directly at Dirk. The obvious confusion on her face convinced me she hadn’t seen him, but she knew.

  * * *

  “Ha
rper here.” He listened to the voice on the other end of the phone. “Thank you. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “That sounds promising,” Fairing said.

  “Sure is. Logg is awake and alert.”

  “Drive safe.”

  “Always do.”

  * * *

  “It’s . . . about time . . . you two came to visit.” Karaline’s voice was weak, but had that old ring of her indomitable spirit.

  The nurse pointed a finger at her. “I’m not visiting, as you well know. Now, I’m only going to let your sister stay for about five minutes.” Turning to me on her way out, she pushed a blond hair away from her forehead and said, “Don’t tire her.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  She closed the door and Karaline smiled. “I wonder what . . . she’d have said . . . if I’d said, Thank . . . goodness the ghost is here? . . . And what’s . . . this sister thing?”

  “It was the only way they’d let me in. Family only.”

  “Yeah, well . . . you both qualify.”

  Dirk leaned close to her. “I am so pleased ye are well, Mistress Karaline.”

  I took her hand and stroked across the knuckles. “You had me scared there.”

  “It wasn’t . . . like I planned it.” She had to pause. “It hurts . . . to breathe.”

  “That’s because your diaphragm got nicked.”

  “Dinna try to talk, Mistress Karaline.”

  “Okay. I’ll just sit here . . . while you tell me . . . what you found on it.”

  “On what for aye?”

  “On the USB.”

  “What are you talking about, K?”

  “Didn’t you . . . get it? The . . . one over . . . the door?”

  I took a step back and studied her for a moment. “I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Dr. W’s . . . flash drive. Remember . . . I told you I’d . . . found it, and then I . . . reached for it . . . above the . . . doorframe . . . and then the . . .”

  “You didn’t tell me it was a USB. You just said you’d show me something and then you got shot and I couldn’t think about anything except getting you to safety.”

  “We maun return to the wee cabin.”

  “I don’t want to leave Karaline.”

  Dirk skewered me with one of those looks of his. “Do ye want to find our wee murderer?”

  Oh. Well, when he put it that way.

  “It’s tucked . . . on the . . . ledge . . . above . . .” Karaline struggled to breathe, and something beeped beside the bed. A little red light flashed on.

  “On the doorframe. I get it.”

  “On . . . right . . . side.”

  The door opened. “Time’s up. I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  “It hasn’t been five minutes yet.

  “I know, but look at those lights.”

  “Hurry . . . back . . . let me . . . know . . . wh . . .”

  The nurse hurried forward. “You’ve overextended yourself. I was afraid this would happen.” She didn’t exactly glare at us—at me—but Dirk and I scooted out as quickly as we could.

  “We will return, Mistress Karaline,” Dirk said as the door closed behind us.

  As we pulled out of the parking lot, I saw Harper stride toward the front door. I really ought to go back in there and tell him what she said about the other USB drive, I thought. But, of course, I knew that was nonsense. Karaline would tell him. Anyway, I wanted to get up to that cabin and back again as soon as possible.

  * * *

  Harper took the stairs three at a time. He was slightly out of breath when he approached the nurses’ station. That was what happened when he had little or no sleep. He pulled out his badge and showed it to the dark-haired woman behind the desk. “Harper, Hamelin Police. Someone called me. I’m here to speak with Karaline Logg.”

  A blonde in purple scrubs with a busy pattern looked up from a cabinet against the wall. She adjusted the stethoscope around her neck. “She can’t talk. She’s been sedated.”

  “I was told she was awake.”

  “She was, about ten minutes ago, but she had a bit of excitement and needs to rest now.”

  “Could I just have a word with her?”

  The nurse lowered her head so her eyes focused on him above the steel rims of her glasses. “She’s asleep. You can try again this evening.”

  The dark-haired woman spoke up. “I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing.”

  37

  Hearts Carved on a Tree

  Fairing pushed her chair back from her desk. “Come look at this map, Harper.” She walked to the far side of the room and he joined her. “You saw the guy in the face mask here, right?” She pointed.

  He moved her finger up a quarter of an inch. “About there,” he said.

  She stuck a small yellow adhesive dot to the spot. “He’d have to have come out here.” She indicated the bottom of the trail. “We combed the whole area. No sightings of anybody matching what little description you could give us.”

  “Short guy unknown race on cross-country skis unknown make in a black ski mask with ice around the mouth hole; medium gray parka of unknown brand; maroon ski shoes ditto,” Harper recited. “You don’t think that was enough?”

  She snorted and pointed back to the map. “Motels here, here, here, and here. No overnight guests except for couples the motel owners knew, two or three women, and one man—don’t get excited. The guy was six and a half feet tall.”

  “Couldn’t be the one on skis.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “Did you check the bed-and-breakfast places?”

  She raised one expressive eyebrow. “You think we have the staff for that? Do you know how many there are?” She didn’t expect an answer. “I didn’t think somebody bent on murder would stay in a B and B. Too much chance of being identified. Motels are more anonymous.”

  Harper nodded. “What about somebody who lives here in Hamelin?”

  “A local,” Fairing said. “That should narrow it down. I doubt there’s more than ninety or a hundred gray parkas in town. Maybe a hundred and fifty with maroon ski shoes.”

  Harper raised his eyebrows.

  “Dawson Mercantile had a sale on the things last summer, remember? He said he must have sold a hundred pairs. Maroon was the only color he’d put on sale.”

  “That’s a big help.”

  * * *

  It didn’t take Dirk and me long to get to the cabin. Well, almost an hour, but that was so much faster than the last time we’d been on this trail.

  I had to drag one of the chairs over to the door so I could reach the ledge, but there it was, a little gray USB. Hard to believe such a minuscule thing had caused such a major uproar.

  We made it down the trail in less than half an hour—that had to be some kind of a record.

  As soon as I reached home, I rushed toward my office. “Come on, Dirk. We need to see what’s on here.”

  A minute or two later he asked, “What does the wee box mean?”

  “Crapola on toast. It means this file is password protected.”

  “Pass word p’teckted. What would that mean?”

  I double-clicked on the other three files; two of them opened, but they didn’t seem too promising. Just a bunch of jumble about protozoa and such. The final file needed a password, too. I was in no mood for either biology or a computer lesson. “It means we can’t see what’s on here. Dr. Wantstring locked the important files.”

  “How do ye know ’tis important?”

  “Because he wouldn’t have locked them otherwise.”

  Dirk craned to look behind my iMac where I’d inserted the thumb drive. “Where did he hide the wee key?”

  I clicked on the little eject symbol. “Hopefully in Karaline’s head.
She might be able to figure this out.” I slid my laptop out of the deep drawer where I usually stowed it and checked the charge. 89 percent. Good enough.

  * * *

  Karaline was waiting for lunch.

  “Aren’t they feeding you intravenously? I wouldn’t think your intestines would work after being shot like that.”

  She patted her abdomen. “I’m on liquids only. It’s tender, but the doctors are amazed at my recovery so far. I should be out of here by Thursday or Friday.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.” She pointed at Dirk. “We have a built-in, invisible healer here. And he does a great job. Too bad we can’t patent him.”

  “What would be . . .”

  She laughed. “Never mind, Dirk. It just means I’m eternally grateful to you for saving my life.”

  “Enough syrup. Your breathing sounds a whole lot better, so if you’re up to it”—I held up the USB and slung my laptop bag off my shoulder—“let’s get busy. I tried to open it, but three of the five files need passwords.”

  I positioned the computer and moved the adjustable table so she could reach it, but so it wouldn’t press against her tummy. She studied the file listing, glanced through the two open files, and said, “Very interesting.”

  “What?”

  “The test results on this microbe—it’s the one PD said he was working on—show a high degree of . . .”

  “Speak English, please.”

  “It killed his lab rats, and it looks like it would kill people, too.”

  “He was going to kill people?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, P. Anyway, he said it was easy to neutralize.” She clicked on one of the three locked files and got the warning box. “I know what Dr. W’s password probably is.”

  “You do?”

  “Yep.” She smiled a crooked little grin. “He always used the same one. EF&MW, all capital letters.”

  “What did it mean?”

  She shrugged and winced just a little. I thought there might not be quite as much healing as she’d claimed. “It’s like what he’d do for a girlfriend, or in this case, his wife. See—MW, his initials. And EF. I thought it was kind of like somebody carving his and his girl’s initials on a tree trunk inside a great big heart.”