Rx murder, p.16
Rx Murder, page 16
The kitchen was spacious with a center island. To the right was a dining room, to the left a family room with a big flat-screen TV on the wall.
A young woman with short, bleached hair sat at a round table in the breakfast nook, her head down, propped in her hands.
Alison.
When she saw Trav and me she shot to her feet with a startled look and quickly dabbed her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I—”
“This is Alison Crowley,” Harris said to Trav. “She takes care of the house for Marge.”
Alison looked up at me with narrowed, red-rimmed eyes. “You’re the doctor from the hospital, aren’t you?”
Was that a note of hostility in her tone?
“Yes,” Harris snapped. “The one who let Marge go too early.”
That explained the hostility—Harris had been filling her head with his accusations.
When I refused to respond, Alison looked from me to Trav.
“Why—?”
Trav said, “We’re searching for a peanut product that may have sneaked under Mrs. Harris’s radar.”
“If only I’d been here like last time,” Alison said. “I could have saved her, you know. But now she’s gone.” She sobbed. “She was a good person. She didn’t deserve to die.”
“You probably should go, Alison,” Harris told her. “You’re too upset to get anything done today. We can put off any cleaning till next week.”
She looked at him with tear-filled eyes, then grabbed her bag and brushed past us. I turned to watch her go. She paused outside the little office off the foyer, looked through the double doors, then back at Harris.
“At least let me clean up her office. It’s such a mess and she always kept it so neat.”
“Leave it for now,” Harris said.
“Yeah, but if she ever saw…” Her voice choked off.
“Just go home and get some rest.”
Her gaze drifted to me. Our eyes met and held for a second. She glared at me, then shook her head.
“The place feels so empty,” she whispered.
She left without closing the front door behind her. Didn’t anyone shut doors around here?
I turned back to find Harris staring at us with a suspicious look.
“How usual is it for the police to search the home of someone who died of medical neglect?”
Again I said nothing. My tongue was becoming studded with bite marks.
“I wouldn’t know about that, sir,” Trav said. “What I do know is that your wife’s death was unattended so that makes it a coroner’s case and this is his idea.”
Uh-oh. Not true. The coroner had no idea I was here. I hoped Trav’s words wouldn’t turn around and bite him.
Harris studied us for a few heartbeats, then heaved another sigh.
“All right. As long as you’re here, you might as well get on with it. The sooner we get this over with, the better, I suppose.”
We were in.
“But I’ll warn you,” he added. “You’re wasting your time. Marge and I were very careful about the ingredients of anything edible we brought into this house.”
Again I sensed conflict in Harris. His attitude puzzled me. So matter of fact. The cleaning girl seemed far more upset about his wife’s death than he. Of course, if he’d killed her, that would explain it. But you’d think he’d at least try to fake a little more grief.
But then, if he was guilty, why was he letting us search?
Then I thought I might have the answer. Stanley Harris was no dummy. Refusing us and demanding a search warrant wouldn’t look good—it would attract attention by blowing something minor into something major. The other reason might be arrogance: He was so confident he’d covered all his tracks that he didn’t care who poked around.
Well, he’d let a wolf into his house: me. I was going to poke like no one had ever poked.
The question was, where to start?
7
I turned to Trav. “Where was the”—I caught myself. I’d almost said body. “Where was Marge found?”
I knew the answer but didn’t want to let on that he and I had been discussing this.
Harris opened his mouth to answer but Trav beat him to it.
“In the study.”
“Then let’s start there.”
Harris said, “I thought you were going to search for peanut products. That would be the kitchen and pantry.”
Did he not want us exploring the office?
“These reactions can strike like lightning,” I told him. “If the office is where she was found, then it’s likely that’s where it hit her. And if so, that’s where we should look first.”
Trav led the way. As we passed near the front door—I couldn’t help it—I reached out and closed it. Harris brought up the rear.
The office was a stuffy little box with a pair of windows in the left wall and shelves across the rear. A desk, a high-backed swivel chair, a computer, a printer, and a three-drawer filing cabinet pretty much filled the rest of the space.
What a mess. Papers were strewn about the desktop and the floor—no doubt the result of the EMTs trying to save Marge’s life. I fought an urge to straighten up. If this turned out to be a crime scene, I should leave it all as is.
Trav pointed to the space beside the desk. “This is where they started resuscitation.” He turned to Harris. “Was it your wife’s office?”
“We both used it.”
Trav nodded. “Any idea what she might have been doing when… when it happened?”
“I can tell you exactly what she was doing: paying bills. Every Thursday morning she’d sit down here and pay the week’s bills.”
“Did she do it through the computer?” I asked.
Harris shook his head but didn’t look at me. He answered grudgingly. “No, I wanted her to, told her it would be much quicker and easier for her, but she was set in her ways. She’d always written the checks by hand and saw no reason to change.”
“Computerphobe?”
“No. She loved chat groups and online shopping.”
The chair had been pushed into the right rear corner. I stepped around the desk and rolled it back into position before the kneehole. Then I sat in it.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I just want to see where she was before it happened. If she ate something, the culprit should be somewhere nearby.”
“The culprit is sitting in her chair!” Harris said.
He turned and walked out.
Suddenly the office seemed brighter. Stanley Harris was the sort who could light up a room by leaving it.
“Sorry,” Trav said. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
“No, it’s a very good idea. And since we may never get this chance again, let’s make the most of it. Why don’t you start on the pantry while I check out this place?”
“Sounds like a plan,” he said, and moved off.
8
Sitting here in a dead friend’s chair made me feel like some sort of ghoul. But this was where Marge had been struck down, where she died. I had to stick with it. I put aside the uneasiness and started with the desktop.
The computer monitor took up a good amount of space, but the most striking feature was the array of pigs lining the perimeter—plush, plastic, papier-mâché, Beanie Baby, you name it. If it went “oink,” it was represented.
A checkbook, a pen, and half a dozen bills lay scattered across the remaining area. To the right I noticed an amber plastic pharmacy bottle labeled Cimetidine 150 mg, and a blister-pack of Benadryl capsules with a few missing. My discharge instructions had included regular doses of each until she saw me again.
Neither cimetidine nor Benadryl contain peanut protein.
I checked the three drawers to the right of the kneehole, hoping to find some sort of goody she might have stashed away for a snack, but came up empty. Nothing but office supplies.
I pushed the chair back and dropped onto my hands and knees inside the kneehole on the chance she’d dropped whatever she might have been eating. I found a wastebasket and the computer’s dark, silent tower.
The basket held possibilities. Hoping for a candy wrapper I pulled it out and searched through discarded flyers that accompany most bills. The only other things I found were patient information printouts from Gold’s pharmacy about cimetidine and prednisone.
I rose and gave the shelves behind the desk a thorough going over, removing all the books, manuals, and office supplies—and pigs—from each section to make sure I didn’t miss anything. The shelves weren’t exactly jam packed, so it didn’t take long.
Again, nothing.
I did a slow turn. The only place left was the three-drawer filing cabinet in the corner next to the door. I stepped around the desk and checked to see if it was locked.
Yes. Damn.
But I remembered seeing a couple of keys in the desk. I went back to the top drawer and found them. The lock popped with the second key I tried.
Now the big question: Did I dare?
Poking through a locked file cabinet was way overstepping my bounds. But why was it locked? No children around. Who were they barring from their files? Alison?
On the other hand, it might be simple anal-retentiveness.
I tried to talk myself out of it. I failed. What if one of the drawers hid a jar of Skippy Super Chunk?
But before I did anything I wanted to locate Stanley Harris.
9
I walked into the kitchen and saw Trav in the pantry, studying what looked like a box of pancake mix. Beyond him, in the family room, Harris sat slumped in a chair before the TV, abusing the remote.
“Any luck?” I said.
“I’m going cross-eyed reading these labels.”
“Told you from the start,” Harris said without looking up. “You’re wasting your time.”
“Can I borrow your flashlight?” I said to Trav.
He gave me a questioning look as he unhooked it from his belt. I had Harris’s attention too.
“I want to check the floor under the desk,” I explained, loud enough for Harris to hear. “Just in case she dropped something. You know, my hard candy theory.”
He nodded. “Good luck.”
I took a quick look at Harris before returning to the office. He was back to staring at the screen, flipping through the channels at a rate too fast for anything to register.
I headed straight for the filing cabinet, went down on one knee, grabbed the handle of the bottom drawer, and hesitated. Harris could walk in on me at any time. Trav didn’t know what I was up to, so he couldn’t run interference or give me warning. And if Harris did find me pawing through his papers, what would I say?
My palms were moist and I felt shaky inside. I’m a straightforward person in a straightforward profession. I’m not cut out for this type of thing, and I’m sure as hell not experienced in it.
But I had to know.
So I yanked back on the handle and slid the drawer open. Inside sat a row of hanging folders. Each of their multicolored tabs contained a neat little typed label.
Yeah, some definite anal retention going on here. I liked it.
I started at the rear and worked my way forward, peeking into and between each of the folders.
No luck in the bottom drawer so I eased it shut and paused, listening.
I could still hear the TV, but nothing from Trav or Harris. Good. Most likely neither had moved from where I’d left them.
I opened the middle drawer: same contents, same story. Nothing edible.
Another pause, another listen. Nothing seemed to have changed. I moved on to the top. No sign of any edibles there either, but I did come across a pair of neighboring folders, one labeled POLICIES—Marge, the other, POLICIES—Stan.
I couldn’t resist. But as I opened the Marge file and started sorting through it, I caught a shadow of movement in the doorway and froze. Someone was standing there, watching me.
Oh, God. Busted.
I turned my head and went weak-kneed with relief: Trav.
He stared at me, eyes wide, a baffled expression.
“What—?”
I shook my head and put a finger to my lips, then waved him away.
He gave me one last puzzled look, then headed back toward the kitchen.
I was breathing quickly, almost panting as I flipping through the policies, doing a quick survey of their provisions. Marge had three term policies on her life—two for $500,000 and one for $200,000.
I felt my jaw clench. Stanley Harris was heading for a million-plus windfall, all of it tax free.
Someone might call that motive.
10
I wanted to search a little further but couldn’t stand the tension any longer. I eased the drawer closed, relocked the cabinet, returned the keys to the desk. Again I noticed Marge’s cimetidine bottle and Benadryl package, and that raised a question.
Where was her prednisone? I’d seen the P-I sheet from the pharmacy in the wastebasket, but where were the pills? I’d prescribed three doses a day until her follow-up visit.
I shuffled through the bills on the desktop, but no prednisone.
Maybe Harris knew.
Trav looked relieved to see me when I stepped into the kitchen. I gave him a quick, reassuring smile, then moved to the edge of the family room where Harris still mindlessly surfed the channels.
“Where did Marge keep her meds?”
Harris glared up at me. “I thought you were supposed to be looking for peanuts.”
“We are, but a medication I prescribed as post-hospital treatment seems to be missing.”
He jerked his thumb toward the kitchen. “Marge kept her vitamins and such in the cabinet above the dishwasher. If it’s anywhere, it’s there.”
I went to the cabinet and found an array of plastic bottles—multivitamins, calcium, evening primrose capsules, an omega-3 supplement, and a white paper bag from Gold’s pharmacy.
I pulled that out and found it stapled closed. The still-attached receipt read:
Margery Harris
Prednisone 10 mg.
Why hadn’t she opened it?
“Mr. Harris,” I said, carrying it to the counter. “Can you think of any reason why Marge wouldn’t take a prescribed medication?”
His head swiveled toward me. “What are you talking about?”
I held up the bag. “This is what I prescribed for her when she left the hospital. She had it filled but never took any.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped, rising from his chair and approaching. “She was religious about taking pills.”
“Not these.” I jiggled it. “They’ve been untouched since they left the pharmacy.”
He snatched the bag from my fingers. “Impossible.”
But as he examined it his expression slipped from annoyance into bafflement. He ripped the bag open and pulled out an amber vial with a white safety cap. He shook it, rattling the pills inside.
“I… I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.” I extended my hand. “May I see?”
He handed it over and I examined the label. It listed her name, my name, the drug name and dosage, and the instructions: Three (3) tablets three (3) times a day for three days, then as directed.
Exactly as I’d prescribed.
I looked up at Harris. “I saw the two other meds I recommended on her desk. She’d been taking those. Why didn’t she take these? They would have saved her life.”
“So that’s it!” Harris said, his snarl back. “This is some sort of trick. This whole little venture is just a smoke screen so you could plant these pills and get yourself off the hook.”
Trav said, “You’re way out of line, sir.”
I felt myself reddening—not just with embarrassment, anger bubbled as well. Nobody accuses me of something like that.
“You know, Mr. Harris, you can talk like a fool if you want, but don’t make me sound like one. The when and where of that prescription can be checked with a simple phone call to Gold’s. Bad enough you slander my integrity and this police officer’s, but then you accuse me of being an idiot as well!”
Maybe the word “slander” made a splash in his suit-happy mind. Whatever it was, he backed off.
“All right, all right. I’m upset, okay? My wife died a couple of days ago, remember?”
I remembered. Damn right I remembered. And if this vicious little man was upset now it was probably because he saw the huge malpractice suit he’d been fantasizing about—maybe he figured he could add it to his insurance payout and retire to Tahiti—turn to smoke and begin blowing away.
And that was when it hit me: Marge’s death wasn’t due to being discharged too early, it was due to ignoring my advice.
But why would she do that?
A sudden thought: Could Harris have hidden the prednisone from Marge?
And then I remembered the patient information sheet in her office. I groaned.
“What’s wrong?” Trav said.
Instead of answering him, I turned to Harris. “Marge was trying to lose weight, wasn’t she? That was why she was eating that diet bar that caused the first reaction.”
He nodded. “She was trying very hard to drop a few pounds but wasn’t having much luck.”
Yeah, and I could guess why she was trying so hard: She knew her husband was fooling around and she wanted to return to a slimmer, younger figure.
I said, “Wait a second.”
I hurried back to the office, snatched the prednisone information sheet from the wastebasket, and returned to the kitchen, reading along the way. I shook my head as I ran down the list of what it called “the most commonly encountered side effects.”
Sodium retention
Increased appetite
Increased fat deposits
Increased acid in your stomach
Increased sweating, especially at night
Increased hair growth
Acne on the face, back, and chest
Bone and muscle problems
Growth problems in children
Increased sugar in the blood
Increased sensitivity to the sun
