Рита Браун: The Hounds And The Fury

“Do you think there are doctors who are addicts?”

“Yes. It’s not that uncommon. Do I know who they are? No.”

“What about you?”

“No. I got through my residency drinking enough coffee to float a battleship.” She smiled. “That’s another thing: most doctors drink far too much coffee. The OB/GYNs have the worst of it because babies always seem to appear at three in the morning.” She smiled again.

“They do, don’t they?” His face felt particularly hot. “Another question. Were Iffy and your Uncle Alfred close friends? Do you think it was a passionate relationship?”

She rubbed her chin, an odd gesture that somehow seemed very feminine. “There was a connection there, but I don’t know how deep. It’s not the kind of thing Uncle Al would tell me.”

“An affair? Maybe when Iffy was more attractive, less bitter. Sometimes people can become friends afterwards. Most times not, I guess.” He kept the questioning conversational.

“Iffy?” She pondered this. “I doubt it.”

“Do you know much about your uncle’s business activities?”

Struggling, she swallowed. “He fiddles with stocks. He keeps a few fighting cocks. I stay out of it.” She quickly added, “He seems to be doing better this last year than years prior.”

Ben didn’t press it. “How’s your business?” He smiled broadly.

“Good. People will always tear up their knees.” She laughed.

“Tell me about the drug scopolamine.”

“Commercially it’s called transderm scope. In therapeutic dose, 0.3 to 0.6 milligrams, it’s often used to combat motion sickness. Usually a patient wears a small patch behind the ear.”

“How long does it take to work?”

“Two hours. So if you’re seasick and your cruise leaves the dock at noon, you’d put the patch on at ten.”

“Does it have other uses?”

“Arthritis. Then it’s usually in a cream. And it may be used in combination with other drugs—atropine, for example.” She paused. “I don’t have much use for it. My work generally is on ligaments and muscles. But people have such different chemistries. There may be a patient who responds better to scopolamine for chronic pain than another drug. Why?”

“An autopsy report has crossed my desk. The corpse had extremely high levels of scopolamine.”

She tapped her finger on the chair arm. “It can kill you.”

“How—I mean how could you administer it, and what would be the symptoms?”

“Mix a lethal dose and put it on a patch. Patches come four in a package. Any physician could easily mix up a dose. It’s not difficult at all.”

“Any other way?”

“Sure, put it in a cream. Depending on how quickly you wanted it to work, you’d alter the dose, obviously. But it will kill you in twenty-four hours if that dose is over the line.”

“Let’s say I’ve mixed up cream, arthritis cream. It’s full of scopolamine. What happens to the victim?”

“Depending on their age, current health, they’ll become confused, then sleepy. They can’t keep their eyes open. The heart will beat arrhythmically. Death.”

“Looks like a heart attack.”

“Yes.”

“If the victim were quite old, the heart failure probably wouldn’t arouse suspicion?”

“Probably not. Most elderly people have heart problems. The pump shows signs of wear and tear.”

“Anything else about scopolamine?”

“If you pulled up the victim’s eyelids, the pupils would be dilated, the opposite of narcotics, where they are pinpoints.”

“So a really clever killer could tell the victim to wear a patch, then pull it off before the corpse is examined?”

“Could.”

“Is Walter a good cardiologist?”

“Yes.”

“If he pronounced—is that the right word?” She nodded, so Ben continued. “If he pronounced a patient dead would he know they’d been killed with scopolamine?”

“No. I wouldn’t either, especially if the patient had a heart condition. There are no outstanding signs. You’d only know by autopsy. The technical term for the manner of death is supraventricular tachycardia. You’d have to see the heart. Now, any of us could have that type of heart attack, but the scopolamine will blow out the heart that way. The tissues, the blood work would tell the tale. It’s an ingenious way to kill someone.”

“Yes, it is. Someone would need to be a doctor, pharmacist, nurse.”

“Or a very bright chemistry major.” She folded her hands together.

“This is a different line, but it may have some bearing on Iffy’s case. How easy would it be for a doctor to falsify insurance claims?”

Margaret’s eyes, light hazel, opened wide. “All too easy, Sheriff.”

“And temptation is high?”

She folded her hands together. “People don’t realize what it costs to be a doctor. Oh, they know those years after college are expensive, but they don’t think about the costs once you are on your own. Salaries. Office space. Hospital privileges. Constantly updating your computers and software. The courses you must continue to take throughout your life to keep your certification. And the real killer is insurance.”

“It raises by specialty?”

“Well, there’s no cheap insurance. Mine is thirty-six thousand a year.”

He exhaled in sympathy. “No competition to lower rates?”

“Not really.”

“So there is incentive to cheat?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Create problems that don’t exist. For instance, I treat you for a bruised patella, kneecap. You’re fine. I fill out the paperwork. The insurance company sends me a percent of my fee.”

“I’d have to be in on it. You need my signature on the form.”

“I suppose patient signatures could be forged, but it’s cleaner if we’re in it together.”

“I see. Is it possible to fake an operation?”

“It is, but then everyone in that operating room has to be in on it. It’s easier to do this for in-office procedures.” She focused her lustrous eyes on his. “Iffy?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible.” He couldn’t help telling her.

She sat back up, putting her right forefinger to her temple. “I hate Jason Woods. If this is true, I hope you can make it stick.”

“Like I said, I don’t know. I shouldn’t have told you. It’s not professional.” He stammered for a moment. “I find it difficult to refuse you.”

“Then I’d better ask for something big.” She smiled broadly.

Heart pounding, he blurted out, “May I take you to dinner Saturday?”

“How about Sunday? College games are Saturday. There’s bound to be at least one torn ACL.”

“Sunday it is.”

He left the hospital far happier than anyone going into it. After stopping by headquarters and assigning another officer to direct traffic at a particularly obnoxious intersection, he drove out to Roughneck Farm, where Sister awaited him.

Rapping on the mud room door, he heard, “Come in.”

“There you are.” She took his coat, hanging it on a peg as Raleigh and Rooster sniffed him.

“What a day today. And hey, what a big field for Thursday.”

“Was good.” She’d made sandwiches, which she put on the table. “You probably didn’t eat enough at the breakfast.”

“Actually, I didn’t. Usually I make a pig of myself, but I was trapped between Ronnie, Walter, and Jason all telling war stories. You’re always feeding me.” He inhaled the rich coffee aroma. “You make the best coffee.”

“Thank you.” She poured him a cup, sat down, and picked up her sandwich so he’d pick up his. “I rarely eat at the breakfasts. For one thing, I can’t eat standing up. I mean, I can, but I don’t like it. For another thing, I usually don’t reach the table.”