FORGET ME NOT (Mark Kane Mysteries Book One) (22 page)

“What would be your opinion as to her mental
ability to make important decisions in the fall last year?”

“I’ve checked my notes. I’d advised her not
to drive anymore, and not to venture out alone, but that’s because
of the forgetfulness that can occur. People with the condition may
appear perfectly alright when you have a conversation with them but
at the same time they can’t remember where they live. What I’ve
recorded in my notes relied very much on what Gloria and Greg
reported to me during my visits. In the space of a short time with
a patient it’s difficult if not impossible to form a view of one’s
own.”

“You may not be aware of this, but Gloria
executed her will without Greg’s knowledge. That seems remarkable
to me given their close relationship.”

“I didn’t know that, but it certainly puts a
different complexion on things.” Two vertical creases resembling
quotation marks formed in the space between his eyes. “I agree it
sounds completely out of character with the Gloria I knew. They
discussed everything together.”

“Does that fact throw any light on her mental
condition at the time?”

“The problem, Mr. Kane, is that I’m not an
expert in the field of mental health. As a family doctor one might
fairly say that I’m a Jack of all trades, master of none. If this
became a matter for a court to decide I would obviously be able to
assist, but my qualifications and experience fall far short of
expertise, I’m afraid. Your common sense observations coincide with
mine, and because of my medical examinations of Mrs. Philips I can
confirm that she had the condition, and I can confirm that from the
beginning there was a gradual but noticeable deterioration, but I’m
not a neurologist. And whilst I knew Gloria well as a member of the
community and a patient over many years I don’t think my opinion of
how she might or might not have behaved even before she became
unwell would carry much weight. A person’s reasons or motivations
for doing or not doing something may be affected by many things
apart from illness, mental or otherwise.”

“I appreciate your frankness. Can you form an
opinion about whether a person in Gloria’s condition at the time
might have been more easily manipulated? I mean mentally, of
course.”

“I would expect that to be the case. The main
symptoms, before serious physical problems manifest themselves, are
forgetfulness and muddled thinking.”

I thought it time to put Mowbray fully in the
picture.

“I’d better put my cards on the table and put
all this in context, as I’m not sure how much of the background you
are aware of. Gloria has bequeathed a large part of her estate to a
woman called Susan Granger. Prior to her death, but after Gloria
first showed distinct symptoms of dementia, Miss Granger showed up
claiming to be her natural daughter. There was indeed a daughter
born to Gloria before she met Greg, who was apparently adopted by a
couple named Granger in California over forty years ago. It’s
apparent from Gloria’s will that she accepted Miss Granger’s claim
was genuine, since she left her a very generous portion of her
estate. Greg has reason to suspect otherwise and, as a matter of
fact, so do I. Proving otherwise however is difficult, maybe
impossible. But if the will is invalid because of the mental
incompetence of the testator the problem goes away, because as an
adopted daughter Ms. Granger has no entitlement to any part of the
estate by virtue of intestacy.”

“No, Greg didn’t tell me the details. I
appreciate his concern but I don’t think I can help with regard to
Gloria’s mental competence for the reasons I’ve already given you.
But I may be able to help in another way.”

“In what way is that?”

“To find out if the mystery woman is who she
claims to be.”

I shook my head to try to clear a pathway
into it.

“How would you propose to assist with
that?”

“Possibly by a DNA comparison.”

“I’ve been down that route. There are no
known living blood relatives and the only thing we were able to use
was some of Gloria’s hair. Unfortunately the test was
inconclusive.”

“I was thinking of Gloria’s blood.”

“Her blood?” I said, faintly wondering when
he’d had his last drink. “Where would we get a sample of Gloria’s
blood?”

“From the hospital where she was treated when
she had surgery on her leg.”

“Why would they have her blood?”

“Well I can’t be sure, I’ll have to check.
Gloria had a very rare blood type, AB negative. As a result, her
surgery was delayed to enable them to collect blood of that type so
that they’d have it ready in case of emergency. After she was
operated on the hospital decided as a precaution to collect blood
from her so that if she were to need surgery again in the future
they would be sure to have stock.”

If my mouth was as wide open as it felt, I
must have looked like an imbecile.

I’d read and heard about bated breath
thousands of times. Now as Doctor Mowbray made the call to the
local hospital I realized that I was actually experiencing it. Was
it possible that it could be this simple? Why hadn’t I thought of
approaching the hospital in the first place?

“I’ll have one of those cigarettes now’” I
mouthed silently to Mowbray, as he waited for confirmation or
otherwise from the hospital.

He put his hand over the receiver and
nodded.

I lit the cigarette, inhaled a lungful of
smoke and blew out a long whitish plume. After a moment or two
Mowbray put the phone back in its cradle.

“It’s going to take a little while before
they can check the blood bank, maybe half an hour or longer, Why
don’t you have a stroll and I’ll call you on your cellphone when I
have some news?”

I went outside, finished my cigarette, found
a coffee shop and treated myself to a donut. Gloria had only passed
away a few months ago so the prospects seemed promising. Even
without Gloria the hospital would keep the blood in case someone
else of the same blood type needed it. On the other hand it was
more than two years since Gloria donated her blood so perhaps
someone else with the same blood group had needed a transfusion. As
usual it was useless to speculate, but going through the various
possibilities helped to fill up some time. I bought another coffee
and looked at my wristwatch. The hands didn’t seem to have moved.
It wasn’t true what they said about time always passing at the same
rate. I thought about phoning Greg to tell him about the new
development but then why should I put him through it. Better to
wait until I knew for sure one way or another.

I walked back to the Chevy, climbed in and
switched on the radio. It was a classical music channel and
Mozart’s clarinet concerto was drifting out of the speakers. I
closed my eyes and waited. My phone rang almost immediately; it was
Mowbray.

“We have lift off,” he said triumphantly.

I hurried back to his consulting room. The
hospital still had Gloria’s blood.

“Can you ask if it’s possible to send a
sample to Complete Forensics in Cambridge? Express it, for the
attention of Jill Bloom. I’ll cover whatever it costs. Please tell
them it’s really urgent.”

I telephoned Jill to give her the news. She
said she would liaise with the hospital to arrange for delivery of
the sample. As soon as she received it she would get to work.

“I’ve already prepared the profile of your
mystery girl. I’ll have Mrs. Philips’ profile done as quickly as
possible, but it will take a few days. I’ll make it a priority.
Five days is possible, if I put everything else on the back-burner,
so if I get the sample today I may have the profile ready by
Thursday if I work over the weekend. The things I do for you,
Kane,” she said.” I pictured her shaking her head.

Thursday seemed like a million years away,
but it was a less time than a government lab would take. Seven to
ten days was the norm, and then only if it was urgent, sometimes
months if it wasn’t. I drove over to Greg’s house to give him the
news.

We sat on the patio. This time I settled for
a scotch and ice, and Greg was having one too.

“So within a few days we shall know for
certain. It’ll be quite a relief,” he said.

“Chance is a strange thing, isn’t it?” I
said. “It never occurred to me to enquire at the hospital.”

“Well I’m probably at fault there,” Greg
said. “Now I do vaguely remember about the blood, but I had
completely forgotten about it. I suppose I had other things to
worry about. I can only apologize; it certainly would have saved a
lot of time.”

I thought about this. If the blood had been
discovered straight away there would have been no need to test
Gloria’s hair, and I would never have come to know about the
poisoning, but I kept these thoughts to myself. Greg still had that
bombshell to come. While I was musing about this Greg was mirroring
my thoughts, although in a different way.

“It’s funny how things work out isn’t it? If
you hadn’t gone to see Gilbert to enquire about Gloria’s mental
competence I don’t suppose the blood would ever have come to
light.”

Sooner or later Greg would have to be told
about the arsenic, but I’d yet to see Josette; and anyway it seemed
an unnecessary and inappropriate intrusion in the tranquil setting
and peaceful surroundings of Greg’s patio. I’d just been able to
deliver some good news at last, and I didn’t want to spoil the
moment. Anyway, Susan was still the prime suspect and the DNA
result would reveal the truth, one way or another.

Greg persuaded me to stay for a late
lunch.

“I’ve always enjoyed cooking, but it’s not
much fun cooking for myself. I can rustle up some pasta if you’d
care to stay; you’d be doing me a favor. I spend far too much time
on my own as it is.”

I stayed to lunch. We ate angel hair pasta
with sautéed mussels and garlic bread. Afterwards we sat on the
deck, letting the food go down and helping it with another
scotch.

I was home shortly after five. I checked my
mailbox, but only out of habit. Nobody had my home address except
Lucy and she was hardly likely to mail me a letter. Not many people
wrote letters anymore, they just typed emails or sent electronic
messages. It all seemed rather impersonal. In fact the only letters
I’d received since moving in were for the former occupants; mostly
demands for payment of one kind or another, and even they’d dried
up now.

I went into the kitchen and took a cold beer
out of the refrigerator, cracked it open and took it out to the
porch with me. I called Lucy. The computer guy would have the
printouts ready by Wednesday morning, but if I wanted them
delivered to my house then it would probably be nearer lunchtime. I
briefly told her about the blood. She said she’d call in later and
she was as good as her word.

“So it was more luck than judgment then,” she
said before she was half way through the door.

“I wouldn’t say that. You know how thorough I
am. Don’t forget I found out about the arsenic which was more than
Mowbray did.”

“I thought that was more by luck than
judgment too.”

When you were a small child did you enjoy
bursting the other kids’ balloons?” I said.

“Only if they were smug.”

“Anyway Greg blames himself about the blood.
He knew about it all the time, but it had slipped his mind.”

“Well, he’s only human after all,” she said.
The sarcasm of the unspoken words ‘unlike you’ hung heavily in the
air.

I gave her one of my long-suffering looks.
Only one of them though. I was keeping others in reserve in case I
needed them later.

“Is the computer stuff still relevant, now
that we’ve got the DNA?” Lucy said. There was that ‘we’ again.

“Of course. Whoever Susan is there’s still
the possibility of undue influence. It seems to me that will be of
particular importance if Susan really is the missing daughter.”

“I can’t see how the DNA is going to help
identify the murderer.”

“No, I’ve been thinking about that myself.
Either way Susan is the chief suspect, but I’d like to nail it down
before I break the news to Greg. The answer’s probably somewhere in
all the information I’m gathering.”

“Aren’t you going to interview the other
nurses?”

“No, I’m not. I’ve got enough suspects
already.”

“Are you eating dinner tonight?”

“No, as a matter of fact I’m not; Greg cooked
me a rather splendid meal. He’s quite a gourmet on the quiet. He
even wore one of those blue and white aprons while he was preparing
the meal. We had a glass of port too.”

“What did he cook?”

“Angel hair pasta and mussels drizzled in
virgin olive oil, and some very garlicky garlic bread.”

“And I bet you washed it down with plenty of
booze too.”

“That’s always a safe bet,” I said.

The appointment with Josette had been
arranged without a hitch. I arrived at Greg’s house at nine thirty
on Monday morning.

“I don’t suppose I shall be too long with
her,” I told Greg. “Can you tell me how long Susan would stay, on
average, when she came to visit Gloria?”

“Perhaps a couple of hours; I didn’t really
monitor her comings and goings. I would let her in, perhaps around
six to seven, but she usually wouldn’t disturb me when she left. Is
it important?”

“Probably not, I was just checking on
something Susan herself told me about the duration of her
visits.”

Josette was a thirty something brunette, her
hair cut in page-boy style. She was about five three and was
dressed completely in black; black slacks and an open neck black
polyester shirt. She wore no jewelry that was visible. She looked
boyish. I noticed when we shook hands that she had a tattoo of a
butterfly on the inner wrist of her right arm. She didn’t make eye
contact when we met and avoided looking at my face directly when
she spoke. I gave her one of my Probate Consultant cards.