'Hmm,' Dad said. That knocked some of the fright out of me, and replaced it with irritation. I hate it when doctors do that. 'Hmm' can mean just about anything. 'How soon can I get this disgustingly healthy person out of my office and go on to someone with an interesting ailment?' or 'Yikes! How can I possibly break it to her that she's got maybe six weeks to live?' or 'Chinese or tacos for lunch?' Give me a doctor who babbles out exactly what he's thinking.
Dr. Peabody looked faint. He examined the body visually, but from rather a distance, with his hands clasped tightly behind his back. Dad was doing his Sherlock Holmes act, inspecting every inch of Victor Resnick with great attention. Jeb scrutinized the Anchor Inn's kitchen fixtures as if he planned on buying the joint. Michael was snapping pictures frantically. Only Binkie and I paid attention to Dad's examination. I wondered what he found so interesting about Victor Resnick's fingernails.
'Let's turn him over,' Dad said after a while.
Binkie and I supervised again while the men did the turning.
Dad repeated his detailed inspection on this side of Resnick, with particular attention, naturally, to the head wound, which didn't look all that bad now. I thought I had seen quite a lot of blood on Resnick's head when we first found him floating facedown in the pool, but there wasn't much when you looked at it close-up. Had a lot of it washed off while we were hauling him up here to the Anchor Inn? Or had I overreacted when I first saw him--when I thought, for a heartbeat, that it might be Dad. Close-up, the wound looked so small that I wondered how it could have been fatal.
'Very interesting,' Dad said at last. 'Let's turn him over again.'
'So, did he die of drowning or from getting hit on the head?' Jeb asked when the body was right side up again.
'Neither,' Dad said.
'Neither? Then how the blazes did he die?'
'Electrocution.'
Chapter 29
'Electrocution?' we all chorused.
'How can you tell?' I asked.
'See this small burned spot?' Dad said, indicating the corner of Resnick's mouth. 'And this discoloration?' He pointed to the fingernails.
'Don't tell me those tiny burns killed him.'
'No, undoubtedly the ventricular fibrillation killed him.'
'The what?' Jeb asked.
'Ventricular fibrillation?' I echoed, stumbling over the half-familiar term. 'Isn't that what they do in emergency rooms to revive people?'
'That's defibrillation,' Dad said. 'If a person's heart has stopped or is irregular, you can use a controlled electrical current to get it started, or steadied. But if you take someone with a normally functioning heart and subject them to an electrical shock, it can slow or stop the heart, or mess up the rhythm. Can be fatal.'
'So that's why in emergency rooms they always yell, 'Clear!' and make sure no one's touching the patient before they try to defibrillate,' I said.
'Oh, right,' Jeb said, nodding. 'I've seen that on TV.'
'Essentially, yes,' Dad went on. 'Most people who die in low-voltage electrical accidents don't die from burns; it's the v-fib that kills them.'
'Dr. Peabody, what do you think?' Jeb asked.
'Oh, Langslow's diagnosis sounds fine to me,' Dr. Peabody said. 'Electrocution, definitely.'
'You can really tell that, without an autopsy?' I asked.
'Well, not for certain,' Dad said. 'We won't really know for sure until the local ME does a formal autopsy. But I'd put my money on electrocution.'
Dr. Peabody nodded vigorously and glanced at his watch.
'What about the wound to the head?' Jeb asked.
'Superficial,' Dad said. 'If he walked into my office with that, I'd have given him a few stitches and had his family watch for signs of concussion.'
'Can you tell what did it?'
'A rock, most probably,' Dad said.
'Not a stick?' I said, thinking of Aunt Phoebe's walking stick and the no trespassing sign reposing back in the cooler. 'Or a board?'
'Oh, no,' Dad said. 'Much too jagged for either of those.'
'Could the blow have knocked him out?' Jeb asked.
'It's not impossible,' Dad said. 'But unlikely, I'd say. And even if it did knock him out, it wouldn't have caused his death. Unless he fell on a live wire when he lost consciousness.'
'And he didn't fall on a live wire; he fell into the tidal pool,' Jeb said.
'Unless someone put him there,' Michael suggested. 'To make it look as if he'd drowned.'
'Or unless there was an electrical charge in the tidal pool,' I said. 'Remember how the birders accused Resnick of shocking the puffins to scare them away from his land? According to Jim Dickerman, he did run a charge through some of the metal parts of his roof to keep the birds from sitting on it and messing it up. But I only saw seagulls on his roof. Puffins are waterbirds--so maybe he ran a wire along the shoreline.'
'And the gash could have happened if he was thrown back by the shock,' Dad said. 'In fact, considering the angle, I'd say it was probable.'
'Good heavens,' Jeb said. 'Maybe it wasn't murder after all. Maybe the whole thing was a horrible accident. Probably reached in to retrieve his precious no trespassing sign, not realizing that the power was on.'
He suddenly looked very cheerful. Obviously an accident, however horrible, would cause the town a lot less trouble than a murder.
'I don't suppose you could rule it a death by misadventure,' he said.
'The coroner may, when he or she gets here,' Dad said. 'I have no jurisdiction. Still, I shouldn't be surprised.'
He looked so downcast that I was almost tempted to pat him on the back and say, 'Never mind, Dad; I'm sure we'll find you another murder soon.'
'It's possible,' I said instead. 'But until they're positive, I'm sure the police will take every precaution. Treat it as a possible homicide until they're sure it's not.'
'She's quite right,' Dad said, brightening again at the thought that the investigation would continue, even if it was only pro forma.
'And while you're at it, why not take a look at the dead puffin?' I asked.
'The puffin?' Dad echoed. 'Why?'
'Evidence,' I said. 'I'm sure the police will want to know how and when it died. Just to confirm Rhapsody's story.'
Jeb pulled out the puffin and Dad bent over to examine it.
After blinking once in surprise, he shrugged and began giving the puffin the same careful scrutiny he'd previously given Resnick.
'Good thing Meg already figured out that Rhapsody had it in her freezer, or I'd worry about him,' he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at Resnick.
'I think he's past worrying about,' I said.
'I mean, from the point of view of an accurate autopsy,' Dad said. 'Could complicate things if you'd been running the meat locker cold enough to freeze the body. But, of course, you already figured out that the puffin was frozen elsewhere.'
'Because of plumage,' Michael put in.
