'Don't know,' I said. 'Just looking for stress factors that might get her to act out. Probably because she was getting on my nerves.
Course, if Reggie turned out bad because Vicki abused him, that would tell us something. Meanwhile, I've got something that definitely is relevant. Cindy Jones lied about her military discharge. I just talked to Fort Jackson and there was no pneumonia epidemic in'83.'
'That so?'
'She might have had pneumonia, but it wasn't part of any outbreak. And she made a point about the epidemic.'
'Seems a stupid thing to lie about.'
'The Munchausen game,' I said. 'Or maybe she was covering up something. Remember I told you the discharge seemed a sensitive topic for her-how she blushed and yanked her braid? The public health officer at the army base said there was an epidemic in 83just about the time Cindy would have been in. But it was bacterial menIngitis.
Which can lead to seizures. Giving us a link to another organ system Cassie's had problems with. In fact, she had a grand mal seizure last night. In the hospital.'
'That's a first.'
'Yup. First time anyone but Cindy saw it.'
'Who else did?'
'Bottomley and the ward clerk. And what's interesting is, yesterday Cindy was talking to me about how Cassie always gets sick at home, then recovers right away in the hospital. So people start thinking her mother's crazy. And here we are, a few hours later, with eyewitnesses and chemical corroboration. The lab tests turned up hypoglycemia, and now Stephanie's convinced Cassie's really sick.
But hypoglycemia can be faked, Milo, by anything that alters the blood sugar, like a shot of insulin. I mentioned that to Stephanie, but I'm not sure she's hearing it. She's really geared up, looking for rare metabolic diseases.'
'Pretty sharp about-face,' he said.
'I can't say that I blame her. After months of dealing with this, she's frustrated and wants to practice medicine, not play psychological guessing games.'
'You, on the other hand..
'I've got an evil mind-too much time hanging around you.'
'Yeah,' he said. 'Well, I can see your point about the meningitis, if that's what the mom had. Seizures for all like mother, like daughter.
But you don't know that yet. And if she was covering up, why would she bring up the discharge in the first place? Why even tell you she was in the army?'
'Why'd your confessor make up his story? If she's a Munchausen, she'd get off on teasing me with half- truths. It would sure be nice to get hold of her discharge papers, Milo. Find out exactly what did happen to her in South' 'I can try, but it'll take time.'
'Something else. I went looking for Chad Jones's post-mortem chart today but it was missing. Pulled by Ashmore's research assistant in February and never returned.'
Ashmore? The one who was killed?'
'The very same. He was a toxicologist. Stephanie had already asked him to review the chart half a year ago, when she started getting suspicious about Cassie. He did it reluctantly-pure researcher, didn't work with patients. And he told her he'd found nothing. So why would he pull the chart again, unless he discovered something new about Cassie?'
'If he didn't work with patients, how would he know about Cassie in the first place?'
'By seeing her name on the A and D's-the admission and discharge sheets. They come out daily and every doctor gets them.
Seeing Cassie on them time after time might have finally gotten him curious enough to review her brother's death. The assistant's a woman by the name of Dawn Herbert. I tried to get hold of her but she quit the hospital the day after she pulled the chart talk about more cute timing. And now Ashmore's dead. I don't want to sound like some kind of conspiracy nut, but it's weird, isn't it? Herbert might be able to clear things up, but there's no address
