Norman shrugged. “The water didn’t work either.” He closed his eyes.
“Norman! Is there more to this story?”
“Yeah. My spies tell me Ceci finally called Doc Finn, even though he was officially retired. But he’d been her doctor when she was little, and she trusted him. He recognized that the baby was severely dehydrated. Finn convinced her to take the baby down to Southwest Hospital, where they put her on an IV. They said down there that in another twelve hours, the baby would have been dead. That’s the rest of the story.”
“That’s all of it?”
“Ceci was eternally grateful to Doc Finn. That’s why she wanted him to give her away at her wedding.” Norman’s eyes filled with self-pitying tears, which he brushed away. “Instead of me.”
“I understand,” I said, and Norman finally seemed more chipper, as if he’d just been let out of class. “Uh, Norman? Is there something else, something you’re not telling me?”
NORMAN SQUIRMED. “WELL, this next part, I’m not supposed to know.”
“Seems to me you shouldn’t be knowing any of this.”
“Well,” said Norman bitterly, “aren’t you the soul of compassion.” I stood and refilled his coffee, hoping that would make me seem more…compassionate. Alcoholics are always saying no one understands them, Tom had told me often enough. “Dodie began malpractice proceedings against Spruce Medical.”
“Against a physician’s assistant or doctor in particular?”
Norman shook his head. “Don’t know that. All I do know is that somebody came along claiming to represent the practice, and told Dodie if she dropped her suit, he’d give her three hundred thousand dollars. That’s a huge amount, given that the doctors in Romania or wherever it was had given the little girl a clean bill of health. I don’t think anyone in the entire country of Romania has three hundred grand. Dodie must have known she was on slippery ground with the suit, so she took the money. It paid for Ceci’s wedding and a down payment on a large house for Ceci and her husband.”
“Wow.” It seemed to me that Norman O’Neal might be estranged from his ex-wife and daughter, but that he was doing a pretty good job of keeping up with their doings.
“So will you help me with Ceci?” he asked, his voice pathetic with desire.
“Absolutely,” I replied. “I’m sure you’ll be a great grandfather.”
“I’m a drunk,” he said, with doleful insight.
“That’s why there’s rehab,” I told him. And then I drove him home. Afterward, I called Norman’s office and said somebody would have to deliver his car to his house, as he was now indisposed. And, I hoped but did not say, Norman’s on the phone right now with rehab centers.
24
It was half past ten. I was already feeling guilty about leaving Julian with all the work out at Gold Gulch. So I jumped into my catering uniform, phoned Boyd to ask if he could still meet me at the spa, and hopped into my van. On the way out on Upper Cottonwood Creek Road, I called Tom and told him all I’d learned from Norman O’Neal.
“I’m not seeing a straight line yet,” I said.
“A dotted one, maybe.” Tom was uncharacteristically silent.
Wait a minute.
“Charlotte’s blackboard,” I said. “The name O’Neal had been written down, and then erased. Maybe Billie wrote it down when she was looking for me last Friday morning, and blasted into Ceci’s wedding. But maybe it had to do with Dodie’s lawsuit.”
Tom said only, “Okay, go on.”
“Look, Tom, you said for me to look at the relationships among these people. And of all the people connected to this case, the Attenboroughs are the only ones I know who have three hundred grand just lying around. They also would have the motivation to try to save Spruce Medical, because they didn’t want anything to sully the name and reputation of their dear Craig Miller.”
Tom said, “Big leap.”
“What about the piece of paper I got at the golf club? Did you analyze the handwriting?”
There was more silence. In a low voice, Tom said, “It looks like it’s Doc Finn’s writing. I’m sorry, Goldy.”
“You’re sorry?” Once more my brain wasn’t functioning quite properly. “Sorry about what?”
“Well…we always suspected these two cases were linked, and now we know it for sure.”
Okay, maybe my brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders, but my emotions were picking up signals from Tom that made me anxious. “So the two cases
“I’ve sent guys out to try to find the right people to match the names on the list. Unfortunately, most people won’t admit to having symptoms of addiction,” he added. Still, this was good, I thought, as the sheriff’s department had much better resources for finding people than yours truly with a phone book. Tom paused again.
“Tom, what is it?”
“Okay, Miss G. We got the preliminary results back from the autopsy on Jack. He did die of a heart attack. But the attack was induced.”
“Induced? How?”
“He was taking verapamil for his heart. We talked to his cardiologist, and she insists Jack was very faithful about his medicine. The only problems she had with him were his smoking and drinking.” Tom took a deep breath. “I wish I could be with you to tell you this. Jack had a very excessive amount of verapamil in his system. Our guess at this point is that a liquid form of verapamil was put into his IV…at the hospital.”
I pulled over to the side of the road.
“So Jack was killed at Southwest Hospital,” I said flatly.
“I’m sorry, Goldy. Yes. They don’t have surveillance cameras pointed at the patients’ rooms, so we have no idea who could have gone in or out. Liquid verapamil? We asked ourselves, who with a motive to kill Jack would have access to that? At first, we just came down to Craig and/or Lucas. But then we thought, wait a sec, wasn’t his girlfriend Charlotte a nurse, back in the day? Maybe she would have a way to get hold of it. Plus, Billie the Bitch Bride hated Jack, and she has money, so she could probably get what ever she wanted on a black market somewhere. And finally, we have Victor Lane. You said he videotaped Jack hunting around in the Smoothie Cabin. Maybe Victor got real nervous about what Jack was up to, and decided to get rid of him. He knows how to make smoothies, maybe he knows how to put stuff in an IV.”
“But…did all those people know Jack took verapamil?”
“We don’t know. Listen, Miss G., I’m aware that Marla’s out at Gold Gulch. Is Julian still there, too?”
“Yes. In fact, I’m on my way to help him. Boyd’s going to meet me, then we’ll drive in together.” Tom said nothing. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you to night.”
“Wait. Where’s Boyd meeting you?”
“On the dirt shoulder beside the turnoff from Upper Cottonwood Creek Road that leads to the spa. Please don’t worry, Tom.” I made my tone reassuring, because I’d kept my poor husband up most of the night with the country club key caper, and as long as I was feeling miserable anyway, I might as well feel guilty about that, too.
We signed off with assurances of mutual love. This helped.
As I waited for Boyd, I glanced across the street at the old Spruce Medical Group building, now virtually empty. Two trucks with the logo front range drains were parked on the side, but I didn’t know if they were the last or even the only remaining tenants of the building.
I took a sip of the coffee I’d remembered to bring and averted my eyes from the former medical building.
I couldn’t help feeling that I had failed Jack, not to mention Doc Finn. Doc Finn had tended so lovingly to Arch, it made my heart ache now. And Jack had come through for me, over and over. He had showered me with many things, but what I’d most appreciated was his steadfast love.
Outside, the weather was sunny and cool. The plethora of rain we’d had in the past month had left everything freshly green and refulgent, not at all like a normal Colorado August. Still, the tall, swaying grasses and the thick bunches of wild asters did nothing to brighten my mood.
