Grave Doubts (A Paranormal Mystery Novel) (19 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Lee made her
way to the car, her mind filled with the image of Diane fighting for her life. It
had never occurred to her that Diane hadn’t died quickly. And the knowledge
that her friend’s last moments may have been spent suffering, or with the
knowledge that she was about to die, left Lee with a profound feeling of
sadness. Since Diane’s condo was near where she planned to have lunch with
Marion, Lee decided to confirm a few of the things she’d just learned.

Fifteen minutes
later, she was using her key to gain access to Diane’s house for the second
time. The first thing she checked for was the feather, but it was gone. Then
she remembered the intruder. Everywhere she looked books had been pulled from
shelves and tossed onto the floor. The doors to Diane’s curio cabinet had been
thrown open and her treasures swept from their shelves. Much of Diane’s
glassware had also been smashed. Lee thought anger had fueled this intruder.
But why? And was it the same person who had invaded her own home, and her body?

Lee shook off a
sudden chill and looked around again. Carey had obviously attempted to clean
up. The dining room table was covered with lopsided stacks of linen, papers,
and books. More books were stacked on the floor. A large plastic bag sat in the
dining room filled with trash and broken pieces of china. Lee almost cried,
knowing how much Diane had loved her grandmother’s rose-patterned dishes. But an
overwhelming feeling of déjà vu hit her as she stepped through the mess,
remembering her own living room. Lee began to tremble at the memory of her own
attacker and an intense feeling of vulnerability swept over her again. She
needed to make this quick.

Lee took a deep
breath and marched to the refrigerator. She found a row of little bottles lined
up in the door. Lee grabbed a bottle that was only half full and turned it
around so she could read the label. It was NPH insulin. Her mind whirred back
to Janine’s chart and the
pre-mixed longer acting insulin that Janine
thought would be used for cats. A quick check confirmed the other bottles were
the same. One fact confirmed. Now Lee had to find out what kind of insulin had
been found in Diane’s body.

She pulled out
her cell phone and dialed Alan’s number at the police station.

“Alan, it’s
Lee.”

“Hey, how are
you doing?  I heard about the break-in at your house. I called you at home, but
you’d already left.”

“Um…I’m okay.
Nothing was stolen. Hey, listen, I was just curious about something and
wondered if you’d check it for me.”

“Sure. What is
it?”

“I’m over at
Diane’s condo helping to clean up.” She hated lying to Alan, but didn’t want to
raise any alarms. “Just to satisfy my curiosity, could you check the coroner’s
report to see if they determined what kind
of insulin was found in her
body?”  She held her breath wondering if Alan would question her right to know.

“What
difference does it make?”

“Call me anal
retentive. I just want to know.”

“I’m not on the
case, Lee.”

“I know it’s a
big favor. It would just…I don’t know…it would just make me feel better.”

He sighed so
heavily she could hear it over the phone.

“I’ll call you
back.”

She hung up and
returned the insulin bottle to the refrigerator. Then she pulled out a chair
from the dining room table and sat down to wait. Her thoughts went back to what
Janine had said about how long it would have taken Diane to die. Lee began to
consider the vase again. Maybe Diane had fought with her attacker, and the vase
had been broken in the struggle. And the attacker had cleaned it up. Or, what
if Diane had tried to fend off her attacker, but was injected with the insulin
during the struggle?  Lee tried to picture that in her mind. It was plausible.
Then, momentarily stunned, Diane might have made an attempt to escape, and
that’s when the murderer picked up the vase and hit her with it.

No, Lee
rejected that idea. Under that scenario, Diane would have had enough time to
make it out the door, or call for help. She had to have been disabled
before
she was injected with the insulin. Click. That’s how the vase was broken. Lee
thought back to that night when a skinny policeman knelt next to Diane’s body
and fingered a large bump on the side of her head. He’d looked at the coffee
table and come to the immediate conclusion that her head had hit the table when
she fell. Lee was certain now that he was wrong. The bump had come from being
hit with the vase. But there was nothing to prove it.

Just then, her
cell phone jingled.

“The report
doesn’t address the insulin in her body,” Alan said without greeting. “It does say
they analyzed the syringe and found a small amount of insulin in it. Something
called Humalog.”

Lee came to
attention with a jolt. Humalog was the rapid-acting insulin. Not something
Diane would have had in the house for Sasha. She took a deep breath to calm her
nerves.

“Lee?  Are you
there?”

“Yes, thanks,
Alan. That helps. One more question. What does the report say about the bump on
her head?”

“Lee, there’s
no reason to investigate. I told you.”

“I know, Alan,
but if it will make me sleep better, it’s worth it, don’t you think?”

There was
another sigh and the sound of paper rattling before his voice returned.

“The coroner
said she had a blunt force trauma on her occipital lobe, probably caused by
hitting the coffee table as she fell.”

“Thanks.”

“Does this mean
you’ll stop worrying about this now?”

“Just for the
record, Alan, Diane doesn’t have any Humalog insulin in the house. She didn’t
use that type of insulin for the cat.”

“Isn’t insulin
− insulin?” he asked.

“No. You would
use a different type for a person than you would for a cat.”

She stopped
again, letting what she’d said sink in.

“Okay,” he said
too quickly. “I’ll let Sergeant Davis know. He’ll look into it.”

Lee’s heart
fell. Sergeant Davis wouldn’t do anything.

“If there’s a
reason to investigate, Lee, we will,” Alan said as if reading her thoughts.

“I know.
Thanks, Alan. I’ll probably see you guys this weekend.”

She hung up,
but remained where she was, lost in thought. Finally, there was something
concrete, something the police had overlooked. Someone had brought in the
insulin used to kill Diane, along with the larger syringe. But would they
actually investigate it?

She got up and
wandered into the living room. There had to be more. Something she could hold
up to Sergeant Davis and say,
“Here, you lazy son of a bitch!  Here’s the
evidence you ignored.”
Her eyes scanned the room, landing on the oval
coffee table, taking her back to the night of the murder. She and Diane had sat
side by side on the sofa, flipping through a stack of color photos.

“
Look at
this one,
” Diane had said. “
I’m telling you, you could bounce a quarter
off Bud’s abs. He also has one tight ass.
”

She had giggled
at this, while Lee kept silent.

“
God, I never
thought I’d get a guy like Bud. He’s never satisfied. He always wants more
.”

“
And you’re
more than happy to give it to him
,” Lee had quipped, not really in the mood
to banter about Bud’s sexual prowess.

“Wouldn’t
you be?
” Diane had asked.
“C’mon, Lee, I know you don’t like him that
much, but you have to admit he’s sexy.”

Lee had begun
to retreat, tired of hearing about the man she couldn’t stand. Diane was
oblivious to Lee’s change in body language.

“When we
were in Sisters last weekend, he hinted that maybe we’d make the relationship
permanent. I really thought I’d never get married again, but now…”

“Married!”
Lee had snapped.
“You’ve got to be kidding? C’mon, Diane. You can’t be
serious. I know the guy is good in bed, but…”

Diane had
glared at Lee, and Lee quickly tried to back track. But the tension that had
been growing over the past few weeks erupted into an ugly exchange.

“What I
meant,” Lee began, “was that Bud isn’t right for you – long-term.”

“Right for
me? How would you know who is right for me? You’re just jealous, Lee. You go
home to an empty house every night and can’t stand that I don’t.”

“That’s not
it at all.”

“Yes, it is.
I’ve noticed how you clam up every time I want to talk about him. You probably
think I’m not attractive enough to get a guy like that.”

“No, what I
can’t stand is finding out that you’ve left work early or come in late because
of a hot date with Mr. Libido.”

“Really? Do
you have a problem with my work performance?”

“No,”
Lee
had stumbled.
”But, you’ll have to admit that you’ve been distracted.”

“Distracted?
Maybe I’m in love, Lee. Did you ever think of that? No. Because you don’t
really think about anybody but yourself.”

“I just want
you to focus on your work,”
Lee had shot back.”
That shouldn’t be too
much to ask.”
Lee had stood up and turned for the door.
“I think I
should go.”

“Wait,”
Diane called her back.

Lee turned back
only to have a camera flash in her eyes. Diane had grabbed her Olympus camera
off the mantel and taken a picture.

“What the
heck was that for?”
Lee asked, not happy.

Diane had put
the camera back on the mantel.

“It has all
my pictures from Sisters on it. I want to get it developed. Once I’m married,
I’ll put that picture of you in my scrapbook with all my other single friends.”

Even now, the
memory of that argument drew Lee into a tunnel of grief. Diane would never have
the chance to get married again, and Lee would never have the chance to
apologize. She thought about the old camera still sitting on the back seat of
her car, wondering what had happened to the film and that last picture. She
wiped her eyes and looked around the room hardly recognizing it as Diane’s
anymore. The carefully organized, pristine environment was gone.

Diane’s purse
sat on a chair on the other side of the room. Lee went over and picked it up,
thinking maybe Diane had taken out the roll of film to have it developed. But
there was no film anywhere in the pockets. As Lee threw the purse back onto a
chair, something besides the voice in her head filled the room.

“What the hell
are you doing with Diane’s purse?”

Lee swung
around to find Vern Mathews standing in the entryway.

“I…I was just
making sure her wallet was still there, you know, what with the break-on and
all,” she lied.

“How’d you get
in here, anyway?”

“I have a key
Diane gave me some time ago,” she said, picking up her purse.

She tried to
maintain her composure and stood as tall as she could, but her height would
never intimidate Mathews, who had at least four inches on her. The veins stuck
out on his neck, and she began looking towards the open door behind him.

“You were
trying to steal something,” he said, taking several steps forward. His gaze
swept the room. “What did you take?”

“I didn’t take
anything,” Lee snapped, conscious how it must look after the place had been
burglarized. “I told you, I was just checking to see if anything had been
stolen.”

His eyes bored
into hers as the muscles in his jaws clenched and unclenched. She didn’t like
her odds and began to circle towards the entryway. He countered, blocking her
retreat.

“I’ll just take
a look into your purse,” he said, extending his hand.

Lee sandwiched
her bag between her elbow and her ribs. “You will not. I told you I didn’t take
anything.”

He lunged
forward and yanked the purse away, catching her hand in the strap and nearly
pulling her off her feet.

“I don’t
believe you,” he snarled, shoving his big hands into the pockets. “I’ll just
bet that… what’s this?”  He pulled out the onyx bird.

“That’s mine,”
Lee exclaimed, trying to grab it from him. “Carey gave it to me.”

He kept it away
from her, a self-satisfied grin slithering across his face. “Well, well, well.
I did catch a thief. Perhaps I’d better call the…ouch!”

Mathews’ hand
jerked back and flipped the figurine into the air. Lee just barely caught it
before it smashed against the coffee table. She looked over to see Mathews
shaking his fingers.

“Dammit!  Get
out of here!” he yelled, throwing her purse at her. “Or I’ll call the police.”

Lee grabbed her
purse and sidestepped around him, not trusting that he wouldn’t reach out and
snag her. But this time he kept his distance until just before she reached the
door.

“Just a
minute!  I’ll take that key,” he snarled, coming forward. “We own this condo,
now.”

As he put out
his left hand, Lee caught a glimpse of a red burn mark across his right palm.
Lee reached into her pocket and reluctantly handed him the key.

“Now, get out
of here,” he ordered, pressing the injured hand to his chest.

She turned and
fled around the building to the parking lot. As she slipped behind the wheel of
her car, she looked up and saw him staring at her through the living room
window. Suddenly she felt sorry for Carey. She couldn’t imagine what it would
be like to come home to a man like that.

As she drove
away, she contemplated the incident. It seemed as if the bird had come to her
rescue somehow. But what was Mathews doing there in the first place?  It was
the middle of a weekday. Mathews wasn’t the kind of guy to help Carey out with
cleaning the condo, so why would he go there? Especially when he knew he’d be
alone?  Perhaps he, too, was looking for something.