Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Two families, who obviously cared and adored their loved ones, had suffered. It made me even more determined to find out what happened to them. Two children would be growing up without their father. It wasn’t fair, and no one understood that better than I did.
I’d adored my dad, but he’d died when I was quite young. My poor mom couldn’t handle it. We were estranged for years, and I spent much of that time with my grandmother, until she also died. Then I was raised by a lovely couple of professionals, who helped guide me to my chosen profession.
My husband had also died suddenly, leaving me a widow. He was the reason I had trust issues. Though I’d come a long way over the past few years.
One thing I’d learned as the head of the ER was that death was a part of our existence. Still, it didn’t make it any easier to explain that loss to the people who had loved the deceased. The very least I could do now was find clues to help us find out what had happened to the victims.
What if the same person had killed them?
That was the one thing that I couldn’t get out of my mind.
Even though the deaths were quite different, and from my training I understood that killers didn’t shake things up.
But these could have been murders of opportunity.
That knife from our display had been there when we went to dinner.
Either someone snuck into the haunted house before things started, or they picked it up when we hadn’t been looking during the tours.
They couldn’t have known it was there until they saw it.
And there would have only been a few minutes between the time his friend and sister had left and when we found him. Maybe a half hour.
It could have been one of them. But they’d been so surprised and hurt. I didn’t think anyone was that good of an actor.
Like Ewan always said, supposing didn’t get a good detective anywhere. We needed evidence.
Do the job. To do that, I had to be objective and look for anything that could be a clue.
The scent of coffee pulled me from my thoughts. Abigail was up.
I headed downstairs.
She was alone in the kitchen. “Mornin’,” she said.
“You look like you slept.”
She glanced at me. “Oh. You didn’t.”
I laughed. “Do I look that bad?”
“Never,” she lied.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened last night.”
“We’ll figure it out,” she said. That wasn’t her being a Pollyanna, she believed it. Only one more reason to adore her. “Tommy’s in the garden. Ewan dropped him off this morning.”
“Where’s Henry?”
“He went to the station with Ewan. The Constable said for us to go ahead with the autopsy. They are following up on last night’s … whatever it was. Then they are going to tell Flora.”
“I don’t envy that job. Are those the tests from last night?” I pointed to the papers on the counter.
“Yes. Something weird has come up. Look.” She pointed out some numbers that were incredibly high.
“His adrenaline was through the roof. Drugs?”
“Not that has come through yet. But I’m rerunning everything, and added poisons to the list, as well as drugs. Is it possible to be scared to death? I know it sounds silly, but that was the first thing I thought when I saw those results.”
“We’ve discussed this. Nothing you think about is silly. It could happen, yes. Highly unlikely. But who knows?”
“We prove the theories.”
“Right. But we need to go in that room with objectivity.”
“Let’s go,” she said. I loved her enthusiasm. She had changed so much in the past year, and her confidence had grown.
We systematically went through everything. Opening his chest, gave us our biggest clue. His heart was nearly twice its normal size. He was also diabetic.
“Did his medical records come through yet?”
“No. It’s the weekend, but I put a call into his doctor this morning.”
“Early stages?”
“Yes. Diet and meds would have helped. He may not have even known yet. He may have been ignoring the symptoms. Many people do, especially men.”
“His poor family.” There was emotion in her voice.
“Yes. The best we can do is provide answers for them.”
“You always know what to say,” she said.
“So do you, Abigail. Give yourself credit. Now, let’s put him back together for his family. I told Ewan they could come by this afternoon.”
“I wish we had more answers for them.”
“You know these things take time. Every case is a puzzle. Right now we have very few pieces. The medical side of things is just that. Information. The more we know—” My phone dinged on the metal table behind us.
“We have an emergency,” Mara said. “A bunch of teens capsized. They’re all accounted for, but Grandad says they’re worried about hypothermia. They are on their way to you now. The boat just arrived in port.”
“Thanks for the warning.” I hung up and told Abigail.
Luckily, we’d finished with the autopsy just in time.
I locked the freezer. By the time they arrived, we’d gathered the warming blankets and changes of clothes—we kept sweats in all sizes for emergencies like this.
Sailing injuries were not unusual. We’d been dealing with them all summer.
Usually, it was tourists who took on more than they could handle.
I was surprised when we opened the door, to find it was the rowing team from the high school. I knew most of them because I’d done their school physicals. They usually trained in one of the lochs, which had smoother water than the sea, especially this time of year.
“Doc,” Henry said. “They’re a bit chilled, but so far OK.” They already had warming blankets around them. There were six girls and their coach. “Samantha took on a bit of water trying to save the others.”
He pointed to the tallest red head in the crowd. She was coughing.
“Room one,” I told Abigail.
“Do you need me?” Abigail said. I could see she was worried about the state of the others. Even under the blankets the girls shivered and were extremely pale.
I shook my head. “You and Henry look after the others.” I eyed the girls. “You listen to Abigail and do what she says. We need thorough exams of all of you. But Sam, first you.”
I guided her into the office.
“I’m going to gather a few things I need. You change into these,” I said.
“I’m OK,” she said, but she coughed roughly.
“I know, but we need to check to make certain. I don’t like that cough.”
“I had it before we hit the water,” she said. “But I didn’t want to miss practice. Also, I feel like I’m swallowing glass. My throat hurts.”
“Get changed. I’ll be right back.”
By the time I made it back, she was in the sweats and a warming blanket. Her mom was with her.
“Ma. I’m fine.”
“You scared me to death,” her mother said. “When they called …”
“She’ll be fine,” I said. “She already has color in her cheeks.” Though she was still quite pale. “When did this cough start?” I’d put on a mask and gloves. One couldn’t be too sure these days.
“A few days ago,” her mother said. I struggled and then remembered her name was Amber. “I tried to make her stay home from school, but she kept saying she was fine. She left for practice before I woke up this morning. The call came and …” She started crying again.
“Oh, Ma. I’m OK. It was just a rogue wave. Came out of nowhere. Nothing any of us could do about it. And our training kicked in. Coach was right there. We’re all fine.” She coughed hoarsely again.
“Thank the Lord,” her mother said.
“Sam, I need you to take some deep breaths. Amber, why don’t you have a seat while we check your girl out.”
Her mother nodded, her hands shook. I wasn’t sure which one of them was in worse shape.
“Take some deep breaths.” She did as I asked. I didn’t like the sound of her lungs. There was definitely fluid in the lungs.
“Open wide,” I said. Her throat was on fire.
“OK. We’re going to get a swab of that throat and some scans of her lungs,” I said. I put a hand on Amber’s shoulders. “She’s going to be OK. We’ll get her fixed up. Stay here, Sam, Abigail will come and get you for the scans.”
“Wait. What’s wrong?” Amber asked immediately.
“I’ll know more after the test and the scans. But don’t worry. She’s going to be fine.”
Her mother nodded.
Abigail was just coming out of one of the other rooms. “I need a scan of Sam’s lungs,” I whispered.
She nodded.
“Anything else?”
“Strep tests for all of them. If one has it …”
“They all may.” She frowned. “Tis the season.”
“Exactly,” I said. “How are the rest of them doing?”
“They’re cold, but they were only in the water for a few minutes. I have three more to check.”
“I’ll do that. You run the scan.”
She nodded.
By the time we’d finished, most of the girls had the all-clear. Sam went home with antibiotics and an appointment on Monday for a recheck. She had pneumonia and strep. I’d considered keeping her in one of our surgical suites, but most patients did better at home.
“If her fever goes up or symptoms seem worse, call me,” I said to Amber.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
It was midafternoon, and I was dead on my feet. “So much for our Sunday off,” I said.
Abigail laughed. “You would have found some kind of work to do. Have you met you?”
I grinned. “Well, you and Tommy should go home and make the most of what’s left of your weekend.”
“Are you sure? We could stay here. I don’t like leaving you here with the body.”
“She won’t be alone,” Ewan said. He came down the hall from my living area with a coffee in his hand. He handed it to me.
“Uh. Thanks.”
“We have the victim’s wife coming in an hour and a half,” he said. “Henry is bringing her down. She’d been coming earlier, but I explained that we had an emergency. I picked lunch up for you from the pub. Mara sent it.”
I took the coffee from him. “Well, it seems you have everything in hand,” I said. “Don’t you have some killers to find or something? I can handle the widow.”
“I know you can. I also came to see if you have some idea of how our second victim died.”
“I’m not ready to say quite yet. I need to review all the findings. We were interrupted by an emergency, as you know.”
He frowned. “But do you have some idea for cause of death?”
“It’s not like our other victim. There was a spike in adrenaline, and his heart was enlarged. Abigail hasn’t had time to run the rest of the tests.”
“I’m off to do that now,” she said. She’d been behind me, and I’d forgotten she was there.
“They can wait until tomorrow.”
Ewan started to speak, but I held up a hand. “We’re exhausted, Ewan.”
He angled his head but gave a tight nod.
“Actually, Tommy isn’t done in the garden. I gave him two more hours. That’s enough time for me to finish up. I’ll have the findings for you then, Doc.”
I sighed. There was no use arguing with her.
“All right then. I’ll have more information in a few hours.”
“I’ll also get him ready for viewing,” she said.
“I can do that,” I said. “You have your hands full with the tests.”
Ewan followed me to the autopsy room. “If you’re going to help, why don’t you tell me what you know so far about our two Duncans?”
The more information I had, the faster we could solve these deaths.