Little Fox Cottage

by Barbara Cool Lee

  Maisy limped over to greet Bree. "How you doing, pup?" she asked. She checked the bandage the vet had put on Maisy's foot. It was still on. "It's time for your antibiotic pill." She went in the kitchen and got the pill and a piece of cheese. She wrapped the pill in the cheese and then fed it to the dog, who happily gobbled it up.

  Bree noticed that Helena had stopped her sorting. "Do you need any help?" she asked her.

  Helena just sat there, and Bree realized she was crying.

  "What's wrong?"

  "I can't read them anymore. So confused!"

  Bree had seen her melt down enough times now that she recognized the signs. "Let's take a break, okay?"

  She tried to get her to leave the table, but Helena pulled away from her.

  "No!" She swept her arms out and the pills, case, bottles, everything just fell to the floor.

  "Maisy, no!" Bree shouted as the dog started sniffing around the mess on the floor. She grabbed the dog by the collar and started to take her out back, away from the mess, but then there was a knock on the front door. She went to the door, still holding Maisy by the collar.

  Nico stood there when she opened the door. "What do you want?" Bree said.

  He looked wary. "Bad time?"

  "I'm sorry. Come in. We're having a meltdown. All of us."

  He came in the door and shut it behind him.

  Bree started to lead the dog to the back door.

  "What happened to her paw?"

  "She cut herself when we were walking around at the tileworks. She'll be okay."

  "I kissed Bill at the tileworks," Helena said randomly from her spot at the dining table.

  "That's nice, Helena," Bree said, trying to stay patient.

  "What were you doing over there?" Nico asked.

  "Looking for—" she stopped, then spoke quietly, so Helena wouldn't hear. "Looking for some explanation for why Helena and Sophie are so out of it."

  "Did you find anything?"

  "Not a thing. And then Maisy hurt her paw, and here we are. Let me take her outside." She led the dog to the back door and let her out to roll around in the yard.

  "That was actually my idea, too," he said, when she came back into the dining room. "To try to look for a cause of the problems, I mean." He pulled out a package. "This is a lead tester. I thought we could check the water in both cottages, just in case."

  He started to open the package, but she interrupted. "She just spilled her medicine all over here. Can you help me with her?"

  "Sure."

  Bree got a broom and dustpan and went back into the dining room.

  "I like the tileworks," Helena said.

  "Yes, dear," Bree said. "Let's get your pills picked up." She turned to Nico. "She's very confused today. Maybe she needs someone to help her sort all these pills every week."

  "Good idea. We'll have to look into a visiting nurse. That would maybe buy her a little more time in her own home."

  He started picking up the bottles and putting them on the table. He'd put a bottle on the table, then Helena would pick it up and examine it, trying to read the label.

  Bree knelt down on the floor near Helena's feet, trying to get the last of the pills.

  Nico knelt next to her and worked to scoop up a handful of pills that had come to rest in the grout lines between the floor tiles.

  "So why did you come?" Bree asked.

  "Huh?"

  "Just to check the lead levels? Or did you want to see how Helena was doing? I mean," she said, "you wanted to avoid seeing me."

  "I know. I came to tell you that we didn't find anything." He glanced up at Helena. "Anything suspicious. In the medical records."

  "Oh." She sank back on her heels. "I should be relieved, I guess."

  "You should be," he said. "Now you can move on."

  She nodded, then got back to work. "Okay, I think that's all of them. I want to make sure, because if Maisy finds them and eats them, it could make her sick."

  She put the dustpan with the now-dirty pills on the table. "This is really a mess. I had no idea she took so much medicine."

  "Only five prescriptions," he said. "That's not unusual." He picked up the bottles. "She has a pre-diabetic condition, medication for depression after her husband's death, and…," he trailed off.

  She tried to match the pills by shape and color to the ones that remained in each bottle. It was like a puzzle, and she found herself examining each pill slowly: the white oval pill went in the brown bottle, the yellow went in the white bottle, where did the pink ones go? It was a very slow process.

  Nico wasn't helping. He just sat there and looked at the bottle he was holding in his hand.

  "Is that the one for the little pink pills?" she asked. "I can't find a bottle for them.

  He said nothing.

  "Is it lunchtime?" Helena asked. She played with the dirt in the dustpan, swirling it around with one finger. Her fingers shook, but she just kept making swirls in the dust, like a Japanese rock garden.

  "Nico?"

  He finally looked up. He looked confused. No, more than confused. Baffled.

  "What's wrong?" She held out her hand. "Is that the bottle for the pink pills? I need that one now."

  She reached out and he let her take the bottle from his hand.

  "What's wrong?" she asked again.

  He cleared his throat. "That medication is the same thing as the yellow pills."

  "What do you mean? Should I put them both in the same bottle?"

  He shook his head, still acting shell-shocked.

  He turned and stared at Helena for a long time, as if seeing her for the first time.

  "What is it, Nico? Snap out of it and tell me what's going on."

  He reached out and took two bottles from her. "This medication," he said, holding up the bottle for the pink pills, "and this one," he held up the yellow pills in the other hand, "are basically the same medication."

  "Okay."

  "No," he said. "Not okay. Not okay at all."

  She suddenly realized what he was trying to say. "Are you saying they're poison or something?"

  "No," he said. "Let me explain it this way. They are both essentially the same thing. Different drugs, different brands, different names, and were filled by different pharmacies, one online, one local. But essentially they both are anti-anxiety medications."

  Bree looked at Helena, who was still playing with the dust.

  "Does she have anxiety?"

  "It's common to give this kind of drug for, say, someone who is extremely upset after losing a loved one. If she complained of having trouble sleeping, or was so nervous and upset she couldn't function, it would be normal to put her on this drug."

  "So that sounds okay."

  "Sure it is." He held up the bottle with the yellow pills. "Dr. Lil prescribed this for her a few months ago, probably soon after her husband died. A medication like this would be given in small, controlled doses. And," he said, looking closely at the prescription label, "that's exactly what her doctor gave her."

  "So why are you acting like you just saw a ghost?"

  "Because this bottle," he held up the other one. "This bottle contains a different anti-anxiety medicine. The dose of this one is near the maximum dosage a doctor would give a patient." Then he held them both up. "And that means Helena has been taking about twice as much medication as she should."

  "She's overdosing on it."

  "Right. And the symptoms of an overdose for this medication look almost exactly like dementia."

  They both turned and looked at Helena. She smiled at them, all her tantrum of earlier gone. "I want chicken for lunch," she said brightly.

  "She might not have dementia?" Bree whispered.

  Nico nodded. "There might not be anything organically wrong with her at all."

  Bree reached for Helena and gave her a big hug. "Oh. This is wonderful news." She looked her in the eyes. "You're going to get better, Helena. We know why you've been feeling sick now."

 
; Then Bree leaned back in her chair. "This is fantastic. What a relief. So it was just a medical mistake."

  "No," Nico said. "It wasn't a mistake. No doctor would do this."

  "Well, then, I don't understand. How did she get the wrong medicine?"

  Nico held out the bottle with the pink pills. She took it from him.

  "Read it," he said.

  She read the name of the medicine aloud. "I don't know what that means. So what?"

  "Not that. Read the rest."

  "Dosage, two per day. Prescription originally ordered, March 23 of this year. Pajaro Bay Pharmacy. Prescribing physician, Dr. Nicolas Silva."

  She looked up at him, and he shook his head. "I didn't do it. I swear I didn't."

  Nico got out of his seat and went to where Helena sat staring blankly at the table in front o her.

  "Mrs. Madrigal," he said, speaking very slowly and clearly. "I am going to take you to the medical clinic to run some tests. We are going to see if we can help you feel better."

  "Do you understand, Helena?" Bree asked her. "We're going to go to the doctor's office now."

  "I can't feel Henry's heartbeat," Helena said. "I can't feel him at all."

  "I'll take her in my car," Bree said. "Give me a minute, okay?"

  BREE EXCUSED herself and went out into the back yard. Maisy limped up to greet her, and she petted the dog absently. Then she pulled out her phone and wandered over toward Kits, stopping in front of the rampantly blooming rose. She punched in a number on the phone, then held it to her ear. With her free hand, she reached up to the rose and touched one of the flowers. But the petals fell apart in her hands, drifting down onto the ground.

  "Hello?" she said when the line was picked up. "Detective Graham? This is Bree Taylor. You know how you said I was good at figuring things out? Is it too late to do an autopsy on Henry Lassiter?"

  A COUPLE of hours later Bree found the two doctors at the medical clinic, going over the charts.

  "I've brought Sophie Robles," Bree said. "She's in the other exam room, like you asked." She tapped her foot. "If both of these women have been poisoned, I don't understand how no one here noticed."

  "That makes three of us," Dr. Lil said. She turned to Nico. "Are you absolutely sure you didn't prescribe this for her?"

  Nico seemed to bristle at that. "I would never do that. I would always check the chart before doing something like this."

  "How could you people just poison people without knowing it?" Bree said.

  "We take great pains not to poison people," Dr. Lil said. "That's why we have medical records. And there's no record of this medication in her chart. That's why we didn't find it earlier."

  "But then how did she get it, if it wasn't prescribed?"

  "According to the bottle, Nico prescribed it."

  "But I didn't, Lil. I swear I didn't."

  "We will find out. In the meantime, we have to see what damage has been done."

  "Is the damage permanent?" Bree asked. "Won't they get better?"

  "Ms. Taylor," Dr. Lil said. "Thank you for coming in. But right now, you need to step outside."

  "Fine," she said. She glared at Nico and Dr. Lil. "But you better have some answers soon."

  Nico caught up to her as she left the clinic. "Wait. I'm sorry about that. She's very upset. We all are."

  "Yeah, well I'm upset, too. This is horrible. You poisoned some innocent women."

  He took her by the arm. They stood there outside the clinic, and she glared at him.

  "I didn't do this," he said slowly and carefully. "I don't know how it happened, but I swear upon my father's life, I did not write that prescription."

  "Well, somebody did."

  She shook off his hand on her arm. "How bad is it? I mean, will they recover?"

  "I can't tell you, Bree. I can't discuss it."

  She exploded. "Not that HIPAA thing again! Is the damage permanent? Is there any hope for them? Will Helena go back to being who she was before, or is she going to always be like this?"

  He ran a hand through his hair. "Theoretically, with this kind of thing, we would continue to test them, and monitor them, and see what part of the apparent dementia is toxicity from the drugs in their systems, and what is actual permanent damage. We'll know more soon, as the drugs are flushed out of their bodies. In the meantime, we can count our blessings no one died."

  "Can we?" she said pointedly. "I mean, yes, I'm happy Helena and Sophie have a chance at least for a partial recovery. But the others?"

  "What others? You think there are more?"

  "I called the police in Sacramento. They're doing an autopsy on Henry. A thorough one, starting from the assumption that his death was not natural. And if they find anything, they'll start investigating all the heart attacks in town."

  "We don't know there's any connection."

  "Do you really need to see an autopsy to know, Nico?"

  He looked away. "No. I don't think I do."

  He headed down the street at a fast walk, and she followed. "Where are you going?"

  "To the pharmacy to get some answers."

  "I'm coming, too."

  The charm and assurance he had exuded before was gone. In its place was a frightened, nervous man. "I just couldn't have done this. I just couldn't have," he kept saying.

  She grabbed his arm and he stopped walking. "Nico, I want you to be honest with me. Have you been sober the entire time you've been in Pajaro Bay?"

  He smiled. "Dr. Lil asked the same thing. This whole situation may be crazy, but at least I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have not ingested anything stronger than a cup of coffee in the last three months and eight days." Then he frowned. "But if I didn't do it, somebody else did. And I need to find out how that could have happened."

  At the pharmacy they found the pharmacist getting ready to close up. But he was quick to let them in when Nico explained the problem.

  Nico handed him the bottle.

  "Sure, this is one of ours."

  "Do you have the original prescription?" Nico asked.

  "Let me check."

  "Could someone have emailed it in?" Bree asked.

  Nico shook his head. "Dr. Lil doesn't use computers. Everything at the clinic is done the old-fashioned way. But I have a feeling that's about to change after this."

  The pharmacist handed him a slip of paper.

  "This looks like my prescription pad," Nico said.

  "But is it your handwriting?" Bree asked.

  He shook his head. "I've got really sloppy handwriting. It looks a lot like my writing, but I don't know how I can prove that without a handwriting expert."

  "Then let's get an expert." She took it from him. There was nothing odd about it. It was a totally normal-looking piece of paper, with Dr. Nicolas Silva printed at the top, and a barely legible prescription written on it.

  Nico turned to the pharmacist. "Did she bring this in herself? Do you remember?"

  "She never brings in her own stuff. It was the meal delivery people who dropped these off, usually. What day was it?"

  Bree looked down at the paper. "March 23," she said.

  The pharmacist shook his head. "I can't remember that far back. What's wrong with it? We've been sending automatic refills every month to her since then. That's what it says on the prescription. Is there a problem?"

  "Yeah," Nico said. "This prescription never got into her chart, and—wait a minute!" he said. "Did you say March 23? Let me see." He took the paper back from Bree. Then he smiled, a big, relieved grin. "Gracias a dios. That's my dad's birthday. I was in L.A. for his birthday, and stopped by the V.A. clinic while I was there as well."

  "Then you're in the clear," Bree said.

  "But we still have a problem. This is my real prescription pad, or a really good copy. So there's a thief out there who for some strange reason is using a stolen prescription pad to drug old ladies instead of loading up on narcotics for themselves. But at least I know I'm not losing my mind."

 
He held up the prescription. "Mind if I take this to show to Dr. Lil?"

  "And the police," the pharmacist said. "Let me make a copy for my files first."

  "Thank God," Nico said again, under his breath while they waited for the copy to be made. "I'm not going crazy after all."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE NEXT DAY, Bree was finishing updating the pantry list in the senior meals kitchen. The supplies were still a bit sparse, but she had most of the basics to create the lunches. There was a definite need for more fresh fruits and vegetables, though. She wondered about that Saturday farmers market. How many fruits and vegetables were left at the end of each market day? Was it possible some of that was getting thrown away? If she could get her hands on the leftovers, she could quickly freeze or can them and use them to spice up the seniors' meals. She pulled out a card and wrote: call Kyle Madrigal about farmers market leftovers for senior meals. Then she added the card to the stack of notes she was making.

  That task done, she looked over the finished work she'd completed this morning. On the counter, the first 47 meals created under her watch were stacked high in their insulated carrying bags.

  "You think they'll like them?" Wade Olson asked.

  "I don't know," she said. "I hope at least they'll appreciate the homemade gravy."

  "And lack of green jello," he added.

  The others laughed. All the delivery drivers were there: Wade Olson, Kim Kelly from Bluebird cottage, Fiona O'Keeffe (an older lady who she learned was the receptionist at the medical clinic and was dying to gossip with her about Nico), and the strange guy from the garage, Hector Peña, who thankfully appeared to have washed his hands.

  They gathered up the meals for their assigned routes. She noticed Hector took only three of the insulated bags.

  "That's all I can carry on my bicycle at once," he explained.

  "Your bicycle? Don't you run the garage? I'd think you'd have a car."

  "Can't drive," he said. "Captain Ryan says I can't drive if I'm stoned."

  "That seems reasonable," she said, hiding a smile.

  "Yup," he said. He picked up the three bags. "I'll be back for the rest of mine." Then he left.

  The rest stood silently for a minute, and then Wade blurted out, "so how many old people were poisoned?"