Рита Браун - The Hounds And The Fury

“Mr. Haslip, if Coach lets me, I’ll drive your rig home and do everything. I’d like to do that. I’m really a good driver.”

“Thanks, honey.” He melted at the sight of the girl, even though he was gay. Val was breathtaking. “I think Walter will drive and leave his horse here with Mrs. Chandler.”

“Well, if that doesn’t work, I’ll do it.”

Jason strode over. “All right, Ronnie, let me get you up in the tack room.”

He, too, melted at the sight of Val, but most men are wise enough to not dally with minors.

Ronnie stepped into the tack room. Jason untied the makeshift sling.

Ronnie, feeling the pain once the adrenalin of the chase had worn off, joked, “Hey, at least you don’t have to cut off my boots.”

“I’d never do that,” Jason joked back.

Sister stuck her head in the trailer tack room. “Need a belt? Say bourbon and branch?”

“When it’s over.” Ronnie grimaced as Jason wiggled the coat off his left arm.

Sister stayed outside, holding a flask carrying Woodford Reserve mixed with 25 percent pure water.

Ronnie unbuttoned his shirt with one hand. What hurt was having Jason pull over his head the silk and cashmere long-sleeved undershirt he wore on the nasty cold days. Tears ran down his eyes. The cold hit his lean naked torso, and he shivered.

“All right, Ronnie.” Jason felt the collarbone. “Not my specialty, but it’s a poor doctor who can’t set a bone.”

Walter joined Sister at the tack room door. Val worked on Ronnie’s nice mare. She didn’t want to see the bone being set. People in pain upset her, made her feel helpless.

“Ronnie, with those abs you ought to be a cover boy.” Sister made light of the situation.

“Right.” He gritted his teeth as Jason put his right hand on one side of the break, left on the other, then snapped the bones back.

“Oh, shit,” Ronnie blurted out. He nearly crumpled.

Jason put his hand under Ronnie’s elbow, helping him to lean on the raised section in the tack room, the nose of the trailer.

Walter stepped in. “May I?”

“Sure,” said Ronnie, lips white.

Walter lightly ran his fingers over the collarbone. “Good job, Jason.”

“What’d you expect?” Jason smiled. “Ronnie, as you probably know, it doesn’t do much good to set a collarbone. Keep it in a sling. That’s the best advice I can give.”

“He’s broken that left collarbone twice before.” Sister handed up the flask. “First time was at our hunter pace when he was twelve.”

“You didn’t give me bourbon and branch then.” Ronnie’s color was returning.

“I would have if your mother hadn’t been hovering.” She noticed his shiver. “Boy, you aren’t going to get that pullover back on. I don’t have anything I can give you.”

“I have an old flannel shirt in my bag,” Walter said. “Better than nothing. It’ll be six weeks before you can get a sweater on.”

“Three,” Ronnie resolutely replied.

Jason pulled a Montblanc ballpoint pen out of his coat pocket. He produced a prescription pad, for he’d first gone to his own trailer and changed coats, picking up the pad, too. “I’m giving you a prescription for 800 Motrin. Take one in the morning. One at night. It’ll help.”

“Thanks.” Ronnie took the small white paper.

“Nice pen.” Sister admired the Montblanc.

“If you use the best equipment you have fewer problems.” He stepped out so Walter could come up to help Ronnie on with the shirt. “Walter, you want to tie him up?”

“That doesn’t sound right.” Walter reached for Ronnie’s stock.

Despite the short notice, Cindy Chandler had put together a breakfast. People brought in dishes. Most wanted hot coffee or tea more than anything else at that moment.

As Sister walked to the farmhouse, a little jewel, she had her own epiphany.

So did Ben Sidell when he called back the number displayed on his cell phone. Lyle Aziz was jubilant that the results had come in so quickly on Angel Crump.

“Her death certificate said heart attack. Her heart stopped beating all right, Ben. She was loaded with scopolamine.”

CHAPTER 28

Following hounds on horseback is an early-morning activity. On weekdays people clean their horses, clean themselves, and report to work. In hunt country, many employees use flexible schedules not only for parents but for foxhunters, deer hunters, fishermen. The ways of the place might be altered by modern life but not utterly transformed.

Ben kept Nonni with Betty and Bobby Franklin. He enjoyed tending to his sturdy mare, no beauty basket but honest and wise. Three years ago the sheriff had known nothing about foxhunting. Now he couldn’t imagine life without it, nor could he imagine a day without Nonni. It was a love match.

He changed clothes in the tack room, his uniform crisp, then drove to the hospital. The snow, falling heavily now, worked its magic on the countryside. The brown patches were turning white; tree branches were outlined by a silver-white line on top.

Margaret DuCharme met him in her office.

“Please sit down, Sheriff.”

“Call me Ben.”

“This is an official visit, right?”

“It is.” He sat in the high-tech aluminum chair, the back and bottom a mesh that looked hard but wasn’t.

Margaret walked out from behind her desk and sat opposite him on a duplicate chair.

Noticing his wiggle in the seat, she inquired, “I hope that’s not uncomfortable.”

“No. It’s actually very comfortable.” He noted the décor of her office. “Funny, I would have thought you’d be, uh, I’m not very good at styles and periods, but, you know, traditional.”

She smiled. “Paradise takes care of that. It’s so traditional it’s falling down.” She indicated a slender Italian desk lamp, the dome over the halogen bulb a deep green. “I’m crazy about Italian design.”

“Sleek.” He crossed one leg over the other. “I hope you can help me.”

“Am I under suspicion?” She folded her hands together, leaning slightly forward.

“Technically, yes. Realistically, no. If you were a killer, you’d never be stupid enough to leave the evidence in your vehicle.”

“Thank you.” She smiled, her symmetrical features relaxing. “What can I do to help?”

“How easy is it for a doctor, a nurse, or even an orderly to steal controlled substances?”

She exhaled deeply. “In theory, it’s difficult. Medicines that need to be refrigerated are in locked refrigerators. Those which can be stored at room temperature are in steel cases, locked. Years ago they used wooden cases, but a desperate junkie could pry or smash them open.”

“Do you think things like morphine, say, are taken?”

“Not morphine so much. The drugs of choice are cocaine and OxyContin. Prozac, Valium, mood elevators have a street value, but the real prizes are coke and OxyContin. As you know, all hospitals have some pure cocaine as well as morphine for extreme pain.”

“Steroids?”

She shook her head. “It’s much easier to buy those on the black market than to fool around with the hospital supply, which isn’t that large.”

“Has anyone been caught recently?”

“You would know.”

“Only if the hospital prosecuted. It’s in the administration’s self-interest to let them go quietly, just as it’s in a bank’s self-interest to write off an embezzler. Prosecute; it makes the papers, and the public loses confidence. I may not like it, but that’s the way it is.”

Her eyes leveled on his. “True.”

“So, have drugs been stolen?”

“I don’t know, but common sense tells me, yes.” She smiled. “There’s no wall that can keep out a lover or a cat. If a staff person is hooked on Percodan, they’ll find a way. The higher up they are on the food chain, the more ways they can cover the theft—sometimes for years.”