Chapter 22 #3
He might not mind, but I did. I didn’t know what to expect. But I wasn’t one to back down from the challenge. I tried the knob, and I wasn’t happy when the door opened.
Crud. Now, I’d have to go inside. My heartbeat quickened, as I stepped up. The caravan was small but appeared empty.
“Baird? It’s Doctor McRoy. I’m doing a welfare check.
I took a few steps into the camper. There was a weird sound.
A thumping from what looked like a closet.
My heart rate went even faster. “As I said, I’m on a welfare check.
No need to be alarmed. Whoever is in there, I’m here to help.
” My voice was squeaky, and my palms were sweaty.
Where the other caravan had smelled strongly of lemons, this one had a dank odor, as if someone had drunk too much.
The whiskey bottle in the kitchenette’s sink spoke volumes.
There was also a pill bottle on the counter.
It was empty. The drug was equivalent to Tylenol #3 in the states, but a bottle could do serious damage, especially mixed with alcohol.
The doctor in me won out. I opened the door quickly.
It was a toilet. He was fully dressed, but sitting on the floor.
There was a lot of sick in the sink, which may have saved his life, as there were a few pills in it.
When I opened the door, he fell forward.
He had a pulse, but barely. I ran to the door.
“Call 999. Tell the dispatcher I need a bus.”
“Oh no! What’s wrong?” she cried out.
“I found him. I need you to call 999. Now.” Then I ran to the back of my car where I kept a travel kit. I carried it into the caravan. As I worked on Baird, I could hear people gathering outside.
“Someone, help the doctor. Please.” Isobel screamed.
A man came rushing in, I glanced up and saw it was Pete. He was one of my patients. “What do you need, Doc?”
“Help me straighten him out.” Baird was in a fetal position, and too heavy to move on my own. Pete was in his sixties but worked on one of the local farms. He was strong.
Together, we straightened Baird out and rolled him on his back. I went to work on him, barking orders at poor Pete. He followed without question. By the time the ambulance and Ewan arrived, I had him stable.
Ewan assessed the situation quickly. “Tell me what you need.”
“Let’s get him back to mine and wake up poor Abigail. I’m going to need you both.”
He nodded.
Ewan and the EMTs had Baird on a stretcher and into the ambulance quickly. They started an IV. I tossed my keys to Henry. “Can you get it back to my place? No rush? And look after Isobel?”
“I’m coming to yours,” she said. “I have to know he’s OK.” She was a mess, but I had someone who needed critical attention.
“Henry?”
“Got it, Doc. Go.”
“Thanks, Pete. You were a big help.”
“Just hope he’s OK. Baird is one of the good ones. Hate to see him like that.”
“We’ll get him fixed up,” I said.
Ewan jumped into the back of the ambulance with me, and Henry slammed the door shut.
“Tell me what you need.” We worked seamlessly together with the EMT on the way to my office. More officers and Abigail were there to meet us and helped me roll the gurney to the back.
Abigail was already there with the set up I needed.
She took labs. We pumped his stomach, and it wasn’t long before he was doing much better. When he’d fallen forward, he hit his eyebrow on the edge of the sink. I put a few stitches in, and he slept through it all.
Ewan was there, assisting as needed. He’d really become quite useful in the surgical suite.
A few hours later, we put Baird into the same suite where Isobel had been. She sat next to him in a chair, holding his hand.
I motioned for Ewan to follow me. Once we were in my office, behind the closed door, I told him everything.
“At the very least, he’s going to need a psych eval,” I said.
“He was over emotional last night.” I had to tiptoe around what Isobel had said, but he’d seen her face, and he had questions. I answered the best I could.
“If he touched her, she needs to come forward.” Like me, he had no tolerance for that sort of thing.
“She swears it wasn’t him, and I believe her. The round mark on her cheek fit that doorknob perfectly. I’m just glad we arrived when we did. Another half hour and his prognosis would have been dire.”
He frowned.
“I’ve known Baird for a while,” he said. “He’s an artist and sensitive. This isn’t like him. Something more is going on.”
“Well, his best friend was murdered,” I said. “I can’t imagine how I’d feel if that happened to you or one of my friends.”
Abigail knocked on the office door. “He’s awake,” she said.
Ewan opened the door and then followed me out.
Isobel sat with him, but I needed to speak to Baird alone.
“I need a minute,” I said, and motioned for her to go with Ewan. She glanced at the Constable and then me. “I want to stay with him.”
“You can, but I need to check him out.”
“It’s OK, Belle.” His voice was scratchy and rough.
She used the scooter but wasn’t happy about leaving.
“I did that to her,” he said. “I scared her so bad she couldn’t get away fast enough.”
“She’s tough and OK. It was an accident. At least, that’s what she tells me.”
I left it open-ended.
“I know how it looks. I would never hurt her, and I don’t lay hands on women. It isn’t my way.” He coughed. After a stomach pump, that wasn’t unusual. I handed him a box of tissues, and some ice chips Abigail had put on his bedside.
“That’s what she said.”
“I followed her but couldn’t see which way she went. And then the rain came.” He coughed again. “I came back and waited. Cleaned up. But she never returned. Then I started drinking.”
“About that,” I said.
“I was stupid, but I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”
“Right. I’m still ordering a psych eval. You need help, Baird. Your best friend died, any of us would need to talk to someone after that.”
He closed his eyes. “You don’t understand,” he said. “It’s all my fault.” Then he coughed. I helped him to sit up.
“Your throat is sore,” I said. “Whatever you need to say, you can tell me later.”
He shook his head. “No. I need you to explain it to them. You examined him. You have to know I didn’t mean to hurt him.”
Wait. What?
“You killed him?” The words came out a whisper.
“No. I mean, I was there. But he—”
“He couldn’t have stabbed himself. It’s impossible.”
“I held the knife. I thought it was a fake. I mean, it was heavy. But he handed it to me. I thought he was being dramatic. He was good at that.”
“Start from the beginning,” I insisted.
“I went to get Isobel’s scarf. He was there, painting something on the canvas.
He said, ‘I know.’ I had no idea what he was talking about.
Then he turned and picked up the knife. ‘You might as well stab me in the heart. You’re supposed to be my best friend.
I’ve risked my job and my life for you.’ Again, I had no idea what he meant. ”
He sipped on the ice chips. His voice was hoarse now, no more than a whisper.
“Then he handed me the knife. ‘Take it. You might as well kill me. I’ll never let you be with my sister.’ And there it was.
I thought I’d been so careful, but I’ve been in love with Isobel from the day we were introduced.
But you have to know, I never pursued it.
I hadn’t planned to because her brother was my friend. There’s a code.
“I told him that. ‘Liar,’ he said. Then he rushed me, like he wanted to attack and tripped on the drop cloth we had on the floor. I was still holding the knife. It all happened so fast he pushed himself onto it with his full weight. His last words were, ‘It’s real.’ We both thought it was a fake knife.
I don’t even know where he found it. We didn’t have anything like it in our room at the haunted house.
I didn’t know what to do. He was just dead. I sat him in the chair.
“Isobel would never forgive me. It was the only thing going through my mind. I just left. The blood on my shirt looked like paint. I put my jacket on, and no one knew. I have a bunch of the same ones, and that’s what I brought for you to test.” He started to weep then.
“I just left him there alone, but it was an accident. No one will ever believe me, but it was.”
I cleared my throat. “I believe you. Leaving him wasn’t a great idea, but we don’t always think clearly during high-stress situations. But you’ve wasted a great deal of the police’s time looking for a killer.”
“I’m ready to take whatever comes my way.”
“I will ask you again. Did you try to kill yourself last night?” I would insist Ewan keep him under observation.
“Not intentionally. I drank too much. Then I had a headache. I took some pills. I don’t know how many. I just wanted the pain to stop.”
Definitely needed a psych eval. That would mean a transfer to Edinburgh, and Ewan would have to sort out the rest.
“Pills and whiskey are not the answer,” I said. I held up my hands. “No judgments, but there are people who care about you. And it matters that you are here.”
Sometimes that was all people needed to hear.
“I really didn’t try to kill myself. I was just stupid. So, so stupid.”
“Right. So you need to tell the Constable and Isobel what happened. I’ll be here to support you. But it’s time for the truth to come out. Isobel and Duncan deserve that.”
He nodded.
“Did you have anything to do with the other Duncan?”
He appeared perplexed. “The man with the wife and daughter? No. I’d never seen him before.”
Well, one mystery solved, and I was grateful for the confession. Poor Isobel was in for another upset. And why had Duncan taken our knife? Maybe to do exactly what he had, to threaten Baird.
But what had happened to the other Duncan?