Chapter 29
It took Barnaby a good half an hour of extra walking before he felt ready to walk inside the Maine Medical Center.
The news—even the possibility—that his mother might have been murdered hit him like a cannonball to the heart.
Had someone deliberately robbed him of the chance to know his own mother?
Who would do something like that, and why?
Who would his father be trying to protect?
Even though John Carmichael was generally out for himself, he also considered his family members to be extensions of that self.
Unless they went directly against him, as Luke had done, they generally fell under his umbrella of protection.
Outside of the family, he probably wouldn’t have bothered to shield anyone.
Did that mean that a member of the Carmichael family had murdered his real mother and his father had kept the secret for nearly thirty years? It seemed almost incomprehensible. Hence the half an hour of stress-walking.
By the time he was at the reception desk, waiting for the charge nurse to get off the phone, Gabby had caught up with him.
Damn. He didn’t want her to witness this next part.
He needed to move fast, before any higher-ups could get in his way.
For that, he had to do something he usually avoided like poison.
“I’m about to go full Carmichael,” he murmured in her ear. “Just a heads-up.”
“Can I get it on video for future extortion purposes?”
“No need for extortion. Keep this to yourself and I’ll owe you unlimited favors. Any kind you like.”
With that, he pushed aside every part of his personality that he actually liked, planted his hands on the reception desk, ended the nurse’s call for her, and channeled his father.
“I’m Barnaby Carmichael, you know that wing over there, the one for obstetrics?
My family built it. We donate another million every year.
We pay your salary. So when I need something, I expect a good faith effort from everyone in this building. ”
“Yes, sir.” The poor nurse jumped to her feet. He made a note to send her flowers or something later. Maybe tickets to a show. He hated acting like this. “What do you need?”
“I need the hospital records of Sophie Brown and myself, Barnaby Carmichael. I’ve written the names and date here.” He passed her a piece of notepaper. “I also need the names of every person who came into contact with Sophie during her stay here. Doctors, nurses, visitors.”
“But that’s…normally that would require—”
“This isn’t about normal. This is about millions of dollars flowing into your hospital.
Do you want to be responsible for cutting that off?
I’m sure you’re familiar with my father, John Carmichael the Third.
You might even know his situation. It’s been in the headlines.
So maybe you are aware that I am currently in charge.
Every future bit of funding will come through me. ”
The nurse’s glance slid to Gabby, as though pleading for either help or confirmation.
Gabby gave her a comforting smile. “These records are so ancient, it’s not like anyone’s going to even notice.
It’s not so much to ask, really. Some of them are his own birth records, after all. There can’t be any problem with that.”
The nurse glanced at her phone as if debating whether to ask someone higher up. “Best if we keep this on the down-low,” Barnaby told her. “For everyone.”
“This might take me a few minutes.”
Boom. He had her. “Fast as you can. The quicker you get them, the sooner we’ll be out of your hair.”
She nodded and hurried away from the desk, while another nurse stepped in to take her place.
Barnaby guided Gabby a short distance away where they wouldn’t grab attention.
“Safiya said they’re going to leave her tox screen results at the front desk in the hematology department.
She designated me as an official representative so I can pick them up,” she told him.
“Great. Did you talk to your brother?”
“Yes and he scared the shit out of me.”
Barnaby narrowed his eyes at her, noticing that she still looked pretty agitated. “He wanted you to loop the police in?”
“No, he didn’t say that. He told me to watch my back. He thinks something fishy’s going on, but he didn’t come out and say it.”
Smart guy, thought Barnaby. Without being here, he probably couldn’t say for sure, but he wanted his sister to be aware. “Good advice.” There was something more, he could tell. “What else?”
“Oh, nothing. Just the usual ‘be smart and don’t trust anyone’ kind of thing.” Although she was trying to laugh it off, he could read between the lines.
“He means me.”
Gabby said nothing, which answered that question.
“It’s okay, Gabby. That’s what he should say. He doesn’t know me.” He flashed her a reassuring grin. “I just have to prove that I can be trusted.”
“That might take a while with him.” She bit her lip. “With any of the rest of my family.”
He set his hands on her shoulders, pushing aside the memory of her naked body. “So be it. I’ll move mountains. I’ll reroute rivers. I’ll fight armies. Give me some tests, bring ’em on. Whatever it takes.”
She laughed at his goofiness, but he was completely serious, and after a moment she got that message. “You’re being so dramatic.”
“Some things are worth the drama.” A wave from the desk caught his eye. The charge nurse was back. “Let’s go.”
Like some kind of undercover drug deal, the nurse handed over a manila folder. “We’re still digitizing the archives, so I had to get them out of records storage. I photocopied them, hope that’s okay.”
“That’s perfect. If anyone questions you, tell them to call me. I’ll make sure you don’t get into any trouble for this.”
That reassurance made her slump with relief. “That’s good, because I need this job. I’m up for a raise, is there any chance…?” He nearly laughed out loud at how quickly she’d switched gears from fear to sensing an opportunity.
“I’ll see what I can do. Thanks again, Lissa.”
As they headed for the hematology department, his fingers itched to go through that folder. Gabby must have sensed his eagerness. “I’ll go pick up Safiya’s results, why don’t you find a quiet spot and start looking through this stuff? Just send me a pin, I’ll find you.”
“You’re an angel.”
“My mother might faint to hear you say that. See you in a flash.” She hurried onwards, while he followed the scent of baked goods and coffee to an area where tables and chairs were set up around a Green Mountain Coffee kiosk. He picked the quietest spot and opened up the file.
He hadn’t expected the rush of emotion that came over him at the sight of his mother’s name written in official hospital records.
Sophia Marianna Brown. Age twenty-four. My God, so young.
She’d come in with a healthy pregnancy and no known pre-existing conditions.
A nurse’s note said that she had no previous medical records at all.
That was probably because she’d spent her life on Sea Smoke Island being treated by Tamara for anything that might ail her.
The day of her death was recorded as one day after his birth. That seemed like a discrepancy, but not a big one. Someone could die “in childbirth” even if they technically were declared dead the next day. The strange thing was that no cause of death was noted.
He carefully scanned the list of medical professionals who had been involved in his birth.
None of the names were familiar to him. He pulled out his phone to see if any of them still worked there.
Only one did, Angus Telford, an orderly who was now a physician assistant.
That was disappointing. What would an orderly know about a cause of death?
They just cleaned up, for the most part, as far as he knew.
Still, maybe he’d seen something. It would be worth checking in with Angus Telford.
He next checked the visitors’ logs for the three days that Sophie Brown had been at the Maine Medical Center. They weren’t very complete, since not everyone had written down who they were there to see. But he was lucky these logs had even been retained, so he wouldn’t complain.
Tamara Brown was at the top of the list. She’d stayed with Sophie until the baby—Barnaby—had been born. She’d left the next morning, before Sophie had died.
Would she have done so if she’d thought Sophie was in any kind of danger? Hell no.
John Carmichael III was on the logs too, but he was the only Carmichael to be found.
That was a relief. Tamara and John were the only two people to specify they were visiting Sophie.
He ignored the folks who had visited other patients, and focused on the people who had left that box blank.
There were five of them. None of those names meant anything to him, although one of them rang a very distant bell. Elle Evans.
He didn’t know an Elle Evans, but damn, that name did mean something to him. He just couldn’t pin it down.
Frustrated, he closed the folder and pushed it aside just as Gabby dropped into the chair he’d reserved for her. Her eyes shone like someone on a mission. “I found something interesting.”
He straightened up. “What does it say?”
“Here’s the thing. The first tox screen doesn’t show anything.
There’s nothing about ‘inconclusive’ here.
Whatever she’d taken had been cleared from her bloodstream by the time they did the test. But, they did run another test, specifically requested by the doctor, apparently at the suggestion of the police. See this note? PD req.”
He scanned the report. “Positive for ricinine?”
“Exactly. I did a quick little Google and ricinine is an alkaloid that’s a biomarker for ricin. Standard tests don’t detect ricin, you have to do one of these specialized tests that only regional labs or the CDC perform. It takes longer to get the results.”
This didn’t seem like good news at all. “So they did find proof it was castor bean. That’s not good for Tamara.”
“But look.” She pointed to the date on the report.
“This says the ricinine test was requested the same day Safiya went to the hospital. Before anyone else got sick, before Amelia was found, before the police even searched Tamara’s house or had a reason to think it was a toxic plant.
Doesn’t that seem weird to you? Who was it that suggested it was castor bean? ”
“The Harbortown police.” He shrugged. “I can’t remember which one it was, Chen or Hooper. I think probably they both said it.”
“Well, I don’t know where they got that idea. It wasn’t in the initial tox screen, because it came up negative. They wouldn’t have had the ricinine test result until much later. It probably just came in. To me, it looks like they wanted an excuse to arrest her, so they fudged the report.”
He loved her fiery indignation. She looked almost as angry as he felt. “So someone is framing her.”
“Bingo. The question is who.”
A few options came to mind. “It could be Amelia’s killer, trying to deflect attention to someone else. Or it could be the police just being lazy. They always want to close cases as fast as they can.”
“This goes beyond laziness. Someone lied about Safiya’s tox screen report.”
“But who? Either someone lied to the police, or the police lied. I don’t see any other options.”
“Wonderful.” Gabby heaved out a breath of pure resignation. “I guess the time has come to call my mother.”
“Right now?” He made as if to leave the table to her.
“No no, I need to gear up for it. Sit back down.” He sat, amused by her bossiness. “I want to know what you found in the files you strong-armed from that poor nurse.” Gabby asked. “Anything interesting?”
“One local lead. An orderly who still works here called Angus Telford. Does that name mean anything to you?”
She shook her head.
“Everyone else is long gone, and none of them are familiar to me. I’ll have to get on the computer and try to track them down.”
“Can I see the names?”
He slid Sophie’s file to her and she quickly scanned it. Then froze.
“Someone you know?” he asked quickly.
“This name. Jill Garner. That’s the mother of the piano student we were looking into, the one we thought might be involved in Amelia’s death. Keith Garner.”
They stared at each other. “Does this mean there’s a connection to the poisonings going on?” he asked incredulously.
“I don’t know how. Jill and Keith Garner both died in a plane crash in Alaska.”
Still, he thought. Hell of a coincidence.