Rausch & Donlon - Can Be Murder 01 - Headaches Can Be Murder (12 page)

“Mom, Mabel’s going to be okay, isn’t she?”

“She’s awfully sick, sweetie, but the Mayo Clinic is one of the best hospitals in the country. They’ll find out what’s wrong and do their best to help her. You stay here. Honey needs some company, and Runt needs to be bottle-fed. Chip, we could use your help if enough First Responders don’t make it in time. Can you come with me?”

Jane was off and running with Chip trailing again. He wondered why he was always bringing up the rear behind Turners Benders. They headed down Main Street, past Harriet’s House of Hair, Larson’s Hardware, Bill’s Barbershop, Grandma’s Attic, the antique store only open by appointment, and five empty storefronts. The wide street with its diagonal parking and faux gaslight lamp posts had once been a bustling retail area with a dry goods store, a grocery store, a butcher, a pharmacy and a bakery. The Walmart monster out on the highway had gobbled business up, just as the greedy corporate giant had done in so many small towns across America.

They turned off Main Street and dashed two blocks to a Victorian-style house with a veranda and gingerbread trim. It was badly in need of paint and repair. A crooked sign was hanging from the banister of the porch. It read: Herbert Schultz, MD.

“This is the doctor’s office?” Chip felt like he had stepped back about a century in time.

“The parlor is the exam room and the library is the waiting room. Doc and Marion live in the rest of the house. He’s been in practice here for sixty years.”

Chief Fredrickson pulled up in the town’s squad car, and a white hearse came speeding up behind him. A magnetic sign on the door panel read, Turners Bend Ambulance. Two men with First Responder jackets over their overalls jumped out of the vehicle and rolled a gurney out of the back of the hearse. They all rushed into the house.

Chief Fredrickson was clearly in charge. “Get her on that gurney, boys, and be careful. AgriDynamics is moving the cars out of the south parking lot. ETA on the chopper is twenty minutes. Let’s move it.”

Iver was sitting on a wooden folding chair in the waiting room. His normally ruddy complexion was ashen. “She’s real bad, Jane. Doc Schultz doesn’t know what it can be. I don’t trust anything that don’t have wheels on the road, but I got to go with her up to the Mayo. I can’t let her be alone. Oh, Lord, I hope that whirlybird doesn’t crash and kill us all.”

Jane sat next to him, held his big fleshy hand and began to reassure him, “She’s going to get top-notch medical care, Iver. She’ll be okay. Just stay strong for her.”

Chip headed into the exam room. Doc Schultz was leaning on his walker, a stethoscope around his neck. His baggy gray suit was rumpled and his white hair stood out like Einstein’s. He handed Mabel’s medical chart to the chief and barked instructions to the first responders. “Easy boys, keep that gurney level and strap her in securely. Be sure these medical records get on the helicopter with her.”

Chip pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, flipped it open and checked for reception. He accessed his contact list and made a call. “Yes, this is Charles Collingsworth calling for Dr. Jacob Stein.” He waited only a few seconds.

“Jake, this is Chip. A friend is on her way to you at Mayo via medi-vac from Turners Bend, Iowa. I’d appreciate it if you could look at her as soon as she arrives, as a favor to me. Here, the local doc can give you a rundown, and thanks, buddy, I owe you one.”

“I’ve got a fifty-seven-year-old female patient complaining of intense headache, dizziness, cramping, visual impairment, profuse sweating, blood pressure 172 over 110, sharp pain in hands and feet. She’s cyanotic, definitely blue, but no SOB, no jaundice. No remarkable medical history recently, although she had a nasty case of hepatitis a few years back. He paused. “No, drug use is highly unlikely. Believe me, I know this woman.” He listened for a few more minutes and handed the phone back to Chip. “I’ll be damned,” he said to the assembled group, “Stein is going to run a tox screen. He said it was a wild guess, but he thinks that Mabel may have been poisoned with arsenic or lead or maybe mercury. Her liver might make her especially vulnerable, even in small doses. ”

With Iver in the passenger seat, the squad car headed toward the chopper’s landing place with its lights flashing and its siren wailing. The ambulance followed close behind. As he watched the taillights disappear, Chip couldn’t erase the look he had seen on Iver’s face nor his own assessment of Mabel’s condition. She was one very sick woman. Their devotion and caring for each other was so palpable that he could almost wrap his hands around it. He was not sure whether or not he had ever experienced a deep and abiding affection like theirs, certainly not one that lasted long. He envied them, and he feared what might happen at the hospital. Although it was a rarity for him, he sent up a little prayer for their health and safety.

As Chip and Jane walked back to her clinic, they saw heads popping out of doors and appearing in windows. “Who is it?” yelled the barber, standing outside next to his red and white striped barber pole.

“Mabel. She’s on her way to the Mayo Clinic,” reported Jane, news she repeated several more times before they reached her clinic. Chip got the feeling this was not nosiness, but rather genuine concern for a beloved neighbor and friend.

“So, Charles, how do you just happen to know a doctor at the Mayo Clinic?” asked Jane, as she and Chip walked into the empty waiting room.

“Jake was my roommate at Johns Hopkins for my one year in medical school. His father and my father were also classmates. He’s now an internist at Mayo. Hell of a nice guy and a damn good doctor. Mabel will have the best. What do you make of that possible poisoning diagnosis?”

“Funny you should ask. I suppose you have heard about Jethro. Well, now another of Oscar’s cows is showing symptoms and so is one of Hjalmer Gustafson’s bulls. I’ve sent some blood samples on to the vet school in Iowa City, but I think we might be looking at some kind of poisoning. They called today and asked me to send water samples from each of the farms. But Mabel doesn’t live near those farms, so how could they be connected? It’s puzzling, isn’t it?”

Ingrid was holding Runt when Chip and Jane returned to the clinic. The well-fed pup was sleeping on her lap. He was on his back with his paws in the air, and he snored softly as Ingrid stroked his tummy.

In the dimness of the Bend Chip hadn’t noticed the girl’s acne. Ingrid’s face was in full bloom. She had a pimple on her chin and another one on her nose. She was grim-faced and her eyebrows were scrunched, reflecting her worry. She took a deep breath, as if to steady herself.

“Mom, I didn’t have time to tell you before, but Sven wasn’t on the bus coming home from school today. While you were gone, Mr. Carlson called from school. Sven wasn’t in any of his afternoon classes. I hate it when he does stuff like this. He’s such an idiot.”

Jane briefly closed her eyes and sighed while rubbing her temples. “Hey, Ingrid, I’ve told you, your brother’s behavior isn’t your responsibility. I’ll call Chief Fredrickson and ask him to find him and bring him home again. This is just more of his attention-getting stuff.”

“Well, if I were you, I’d start with Dad. I have a feeling he’s got something to do with this.” She returned her attention to Runt, evading eye contact with Jane and Chip.

The events of that day had given Chip a throbbing headache. He checked the bathroom mirror to see if his face had a bluish tinge. The face that looked back at him was a pasty winter white. All during the night, blue cows, helicopters turning into birds and fields strewn with dead medical examiners haunted his dreams. He woke at 3:20 a.m. made a pot of coffee, sat down and turned on his computer. No words came to him and the screen eventually timed out and shut down. Floating in his brain was a vague thought about poison, but he couldn’t pin it down. Just when it was at the verge of materializing, it eluded him and spun away, escaping into the depths of his celebral cortex.

He had ended up spending the rest of the night surfing the Internet. That’s when he found the site that detailed different types of warrants. Now he was off and writing again and in the zone that produced some of his best work.

Chapter Fourteen

Turners Bend

The Next Day

Oscar Nelson’s farm was set way back from the main road. The house, barn and three sheds were clustered together, weathered and weary-looking. The north and west sides were lined with tall, thin jack pines. Viewed from the main road it looked like a deserted island floating in a sea of snow. Chip’s Volvo headed toward the house on his way to collect water samples from the cow pasture. With Mabel in the hospital, Sven still missing, and more cows sick, Jane had her hands full. Chip had volunteered to collect water samples from the affected farms. He had convinced her that his field biology class had taught him how to do so. Oscar met him in the yard.

Oscar was short and stocky. He was wearing what Chip had determined was standard farmer garb, a plaid wool shirt under overalls, thermal underwear poking out here and there. On his head was a hat with fur-lined earflaps.

“Jane said you would be coming. She was here yesterday morning. Bertha up and died, just like Jethro, same brown mucous membranes and chocolate-colored blood.” Oscar spit chewing tobacco on the ground and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “We gotta get a handle on this or I’ll lose my whole herd. This could ruin me. A man my age can’t just start over again, just too dang old.”

“How old would that be, Mr. Nelson, if you don’t mind me asking?” Chip was guessing he must be at least seventy from his prune-like face and stooped posture.

“Be eighty-seven this coming July 4th. I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy. Suppose you’re too young to know that song.”

“George M. Cohen. I know all the lyrics.” He sang, “Grand old nephew of my Uncle Sam, born on the Fourth of July.”

Oscar cracked his first and possibly only smile of the day, showing a set of brown-stained teeth. The two trudged out to the cow pasture. Chip had a hard time keeping up with Oscar’s pace. In wonderment he was again lagging behind a Turners Bender. He used to think he was in pretty good shape, but he was finding out these Norwegians were genetically “built to last” just like a Dodge Ram truck. He kept his eyes on his boots, sidestepping large cow pies, a couple still fresh and steaming.

Chip had never been in a cow pasture and was totally perplexed by the trough. For one thing, the water in the trough wasn’t frozen, although the air temperature had been below freezing for two weeks.

“You can take water from right here,” said Oscar. “Bet you never saw a contraption like this before, have you, young fella? This wind turbine pumps the water from that creek over there, through this PVC pipe and into the trough. The turbine also powers an agitator to keep the water from freezing. Pretty slick, huh? Turbine’s from right here. Made over at AgriDynamics.”

“So there’s no well out here. The cows drink creek water… but the creek’s frozen.”

“Just a few inches on the top. The PVC is lying on the creek bed where the water’s still flowing. Cows been drinking that water for years and never had a problem before. Can’t see how it could be the water.”

“Does this creek go by Hjalmer Gustafson’s farm?”

“Ja, he’s got the same kind of setup I have.”

Chip collected six samples of water into sterile tubes, just as Jane had requested, sealing and labeling each. He decided to forego his sample collection at the Gustafson farm since the water source would be the same as here at Oscar’s farm. Instead he headed for town hall.

Turners Bend Town Hall was a stone building fronted by tall windows. The brass plaque beside the front door said it was erected by the Works Progress Administration during the 1930s. There was a flagpole in the small patch of front yard with an American flag at the top and the Iowa State flag beneath it. The elements had taken their toll on both of the flags, which were faded and frayed around the edges.

At the front desk a middle-aged woman with a ratted helmet of too-black hair greeted him. “Good morning, Mr. Collingsworth, I’m the city clerk, Flora Fredrickson. How may I help our town writer today?” Chip had seen her at the Bun but they had not been formally introduced. Apparently he was not a complete stranger to her, and she most likely had read
The Cranium Killer
. He steeled himself for more literary criticism.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Flora. I wonder if you have a county map that would show me the waterways, rivers, creeks, and the like.”

“Of course, would you like me to pull up the US Geological Survey’s topographic map or would you prefer the aerial photography we use to determine GPS coordinates for chemical application on fields?”

He sensed this was a crucial moment in his relationship with the city clerk. He figured he better not offend her or his name would be mud in town. “You’re the expert, Flora. I’d like to follow the path of the creek that flows through Oscar Nelson’s farm. I need your advice. Which would you recommend?”

Flora’s stern face softened. She reached out her pudgy hand and patted Chip’s arm. “Of course, dear, that’s what I’m here for. Now if you’ll just follow me to the backroom. We’ll look at the aerial maps.”

Chip followed Flora, watching her ample rump sway and bounce, sway and bounce under her black knit pants.