Knock Off (19 page)

“Did anyone scrutinize the medical records?”

She nodded. “Dr. Wong translated some of the stuff for us. I mean, he wasn’t an M.D., but he understood all that stuff about apnea tests and corneal reflexes.”

I wasn’t following. “Were they the initial signs of the infection that killed Brad Whitley? Signs that maybe Dr.

Hall should have started treatment sooner?”

She shook her head. “I wish. That was all stuff about the transplant itself. The lawyers spent almost three days telling us all the steps that led up to the surgery before they even got to the postop complication.

“The details of it sailed over my head, but I got the main gist. Dr. Hall did the apnea tests and corneal reflex tests and something else that had to do with CO-two levels before they pronounced Ivy Novak brain dead. Then they harvested the heart and did the transplant. It still makes me queasy when I think about those disgusting diagrams they showed us.”

“And all the jurors agreed that there was no malpractice, right?”

“ ‘Agreed’ is relative,” she said, adding a mirthless chuckle for punctuation. “A few people on the jury felt sorry for Mrs. Whitley and wanted to give her something just because they could.”

“Were you one of them?”

She vehemently shook he head. “No, that was the
drama student, Kayla, and Dave Rice and Harold Greene.

They all fixated on the out-of-pocket costs Mrs. Whitley had to pay after her husband was dead.”

“The Whitleys didn’t have medical insurance?”

“Sure, but her husband was self-employed, like mine. We carry insurance. The premiums are high, and the coverage is low. If I remember right, she had to pay twenty percent of the total costs. The transplant was over two hundred thousand, and then there were other associated bills—radiology, pharmacy charges, that sort of stuff.”

“If there was division among the group, what brought you all together?”

“The truth. No one, not even Mrs. Whitley’s medical experts, could state”—she paused and made air quotes—
“to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that Dr. Hall was negligent in any way, shape, or form.”

We continued to talk for a few more minutes, then Paula Yardley claimed she wanted to go in and catch the last half hour of her daughter’s dance class. Me? I’d rather join John eating dirt than watch uncoordinated mini-ballerinas dance out of sync.

Something about my conversation with Paula Yardley was bothering me. Why wouldn’t she be scared of the possibility that someone might want her dead? Made no sense.

Unless, I reasoned as I made a sudden U-turn, she had other things on her mind. It would have to be something huge.

Since her address was on the jury questionnaire, I found my way to her home with relative ease. It was inland, west of Wellington, where high-density housing gives way to sprawling nothingness. Her long driveway was crushed gravel, flanked on either side by in-need-of-repair fencing.

Not post-hurricane repairs—more like simple neglect.

I parked in front of the large two-story and sidestepped bikes, trikes, bats, and balls as I climbed the two brick steps to the front door. Of course it had to have frosted glass, I thought disgustedly. I would have pressed my nose against it, but I remembered Paula’s comment about the alarm. And, quite frankly, I didn’t want to leave an incriminating nose print on the glass. One arrest per decade was plenty for me.

Maybe I should go around back, I thought, and started there until I saw the mail stuffed in the box hanging just to
the left of the door. I was pretty sure tampering with mail was a federal offense, but I didn’t know the actual definition of tampering. After a brief hesitation, I decided looking wasn’t tampering, so I took the newly delivered stack out of the box.

More than half of the envelopes had Past Due stamped in bright red. Cable, phone, Florida Power and Light, all delinquent. Visa, MasterCard, and Discover weren’t real happy with the Yardleys, either. I stuffed everything back where I’d found it.

Around back, I found the swimming pool drained. A pool was expensive to maintain. A pattern was becoming clear to me. It was reinforced when I went up to the sliding glass doors and peeked inside. I knew decorator touches when I saw them. But like Paula’s purse and shoes, everything was a good two seasons’ old. There was a huge col-lage of the Yardley family hanging above the gas fireplace.

Squinting, I focused on the wedding picture. “Damn,” I whispered. Clear as day, she was sporting an impressive ring. I counted ten half-carat diamonds channel-set in a platinum band.

There was a possibility that the ring was someplace inside the house and she’d simply forgotten to put it on her finger.

But it seemed much more plausible, based on the evidence I’d seen, that the Yardleys had fallen on hard financial times.

The dance-lesson check had bounced; creditors were sending them demands for payment; no functioning pool; neglected repairs—Paula must have hocked the ring to keep the family afloat.

“So, what? She decided to blackmail Dr. Hall?” I murmured. That didn’t make much sense, either. If she’d blackmailed him, she wouldn’t be up to her unwaxed brows in debt.

I rubbed my hands together as I walked back to my car.

I was still missing something. If there was no malpractice, what else could have come out during the trial? Something incriminating enough that, if revealed, would make the doctor pay a blackmailer. Maybe it wasn’t something they’d heard. Maybe it was something they’d seen. But what?

Well, I couldn’t dally at Paula’s and risk getting caught snooping around her place, so I headed back to the office.

Highway 441, like all other roads in and around Palm Beach County, was under construction delays, so there was no way I’d make it back in time to meet Liam at 4:30.

With my stomach in a knot, I called him and hit the hands-free option on my phone as the prayer, Please God? Please God? looped in my head. “Please let the lab results prove Marcus and the others were murdered,” I said aloud.

“McGarrity?” he snapped, clearly irritated. Probably because he was cooling his heels at Dane-Lieberman waiting on my tardy butt.

“It’s me. Sorry, I’m running late. So what’s the verdict?”

“I’ve got good news and bad news. How do you want it?”

“Good news first.”

“Keller’s postmortem blood sample showed high levels of potassium and calcium.”

“Yes!” I whispered, a rush of excitement surging through me. “According to my sister the doctor, that proves he was murdered.”

“According to the director of the lab, it’s inconclusive.”

“What?” That couldn’t be.

“Keller was hooked up to IVs while they tried to revive him. IV solutions contain potassium. Since he died, his blood might not have had time to absorb the potassium, resulting in a false positive on the test.”

“Well . . . shit. How is that good news?”

“The calcium finding is suspicious.”

“Because?”

“Calcium is the indicated treatment for an overdose of potassium.”

An image of Keller’s hospital chart flashed in my mind.

“Helen Callahan made a note in Keller’s file, then crossed it out. I could make out three of the letters, c-a-l. Assuming the potassium came from the injection in Keller’s neck and not an IV, someone in that hospital room knew why Keller’s heart was attacking him and tried to counter the effects. How do I prove that? Can they run more tests?”

“Nope. That’s part of the bad news.”

My heart sank. “Part? There’s more?”

“Yeah. The machine they use—a centri-something—is on the fritz. They can’t finish the tests on Marcus’s sample until it’s back up and running.”

“When will that happen?”

“Maybe tonight. Tomorrow midday at the latest.”

“That sucks. Can you take it to another lab?”

“The sample has already been partially processed.”

“I am not happy.”

“Stuff happens, Finley.”

Like the tingle that danced along my spine when you said my name? “You’re right. I guess I can wait another day.” How Scarlett O’Hara did I sound?

“You didn’t let me finish the good-news part.”

I held my breath.

“Vasquez’s blood showed a high level of oxycodone.”

“Which is?”

“A Schedule II pain reliever. It’s a commonly abused drug, but I checked with all the local pharmacies and his wife. José wasn’t taking oxycodone. At least not legally.”

“Is that what killed him?”

“Not enough in his blood to be fatal, but enough to make him seriously high.”

“So, basically, we still can’t prove anything conclusively.”

“We’re making progress. Patience isn’t your thing, is it?”

Ignoring the question, I filled him in on my meeting with Paula and what I’d found at her house.

He laughed. “You trespassed again?”

Crap, I hadn’t thought of that. “I . . . visited.”

“In the future, try calling me first. I could have told you that two years ago her husband started an Internet consulting company. It’s circling the drain as we speak. The Yardleys are about to file bankruptcy.”

“Or try blackmail.”

“She’d have to stand in line.”

“Why?”

“Almost every one of the people on the Hall jury is in some sort of financial bind.”

“That isn’t very helpful information.” I sighed, completely exasperated.

“Don’t get your scrunchie in a twist. We just have to rethink the approach.”

“As in?”

“The only common thread we’re sure of is the Hall trial.

We go back to the beginning to see what we missed.”

I hung up feeling utterly frustrated. Trying to solve a crime was like riding a stationary bike. A shitload of work to end up right back where you started.

I was crawling along in the traffic when a sign caught my eye. “Environmental Studies Center,” I read, then quickly flipped on my blinker. If José was high when he’d planted the attack palm, maybe Sharon Ellis had noticed.

Hell, it was worth a shot.

After asking several overly cheerful people, I found Sharon in a small office off the Center’s gift shop. She was an older
lady with short gray hair. A bright green T-shirt with a silk-screened image of a sea turtle was tucked into the elastic waist of her pull-on jeans.

We exchanged the usual pleasantries. I gave her the quickie version of my mission, then asked, “Did you ever know José to have a drug problem?”

She vehemently shook her head. “Never. He was a good man, rest his soul. Cut his normal fees in half on account of us being a nonprofit and all.”

“So you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary the day of the accident?”

“He didn’t like the palm tree, but once I explained that it had been donated, he agreed to plant it.”

“Donated? By whom?”

“Anonymously,” she said. “We were so grateful. We lost almost all of our big palms during the last hurricane season.”

I shivered, remembering all too well my sixteen days without power. Though, on the plus side, I had built character and learned a new skill—not gagging on instant coffee.

“I was a little surprised when his crew left him here alone,” Sharon said. “They were called to some emergency.

I think it had to do with a sprinkler-system malfunction.

Anyway, José waited a while, sitting on the back of his truck, drinking water from the insulated jug he always kept there. It was an unusually hot day for January. Must have been in the upper eighties with high humidity.”

Enough already with the weather updates.

“I didn’t personally see him go back to work, but a couple of our volunteers did. They said he looked a little tired, but as I said, it was a hot day, and he does very physical work.

“He started pushing the tree into position and then it started to fall, and I guess he just didn’t have time to get out of the way.”

I stood, shook her hand, and left quickly. My first thought?

Someone had spiked José’s water with oxycodone.

My second thought? I had just screwed up big time. It was after five and I still had to go back to the office for my walk of shame. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Margaret was still at her desk, smirking like the spawn of Satan.

“You’re here late,” I commented.

“I wanted to be sure to give you these messages before you . . . left. ”

Garbage. She just wanted to savor the last few minutes of my employment. I took the pink slips from her and went to the elevator. A month away from her made it almost worth it. Almost.

I had one message each from Liv and Jane. One from my sister, who’d thoughtfully called to say she’d wired the money to me. Margaret must have loved taking that one.

The last was from Dr. Wong, Juror Number Eight. His seven o’clock appointment had cancelled, and he wanted to know if I could come earlier. I called and confirmed the time change, then started packing my briefcase.

Not a lot to pack. In fact, the only thing I decided not to leave behind was a nearly full bag of coffee. I didn’t mind giving Cami my cases, but an eighteen-dollar-a-pound bag of Special Blend Arabica was a different matter.

I called Liv and let her know to expect a package from me but not to open it. She was relieved to hear I’d be spending the night at Patrick’s place.

Jane said roughly the same thing when I spoke with her.

Intentionally, I was dragging my Betsey Johnson heels.

Hoping beyond hope that Margaret had something better to do than lie in wait for my Walk of Shame.