Bad Medicine (20 page)

“Dr. Natoni likes
us to separate a slice of fresh peach pie when we bake them, and a couple of the nurses have us set aside apple fritters, but that’s about it.”

“So it would have been assumed that a large slice of pecan pie was for Dr. Roanhorse.”

“Yes,” Vera Mae said.

Ella was about to ask them more when Justine and Sergeant Neskahi arrived.

Ella took her two team members aside and filled them in. “Speak
to them separately, and try to find out who besides cafeteria staff might have come into the kitchen. Someone knows something. I’d bet on it, even if they don’t remember it right now.”

“Do you suspect any of them?” Justine asked.

“Honestly? No. But we’ll have to check them all out. And if any of them is related to Senator Yellowhair, I want to know right away.”

“We’re on it,” Neskahi said,
then, as Justine moved away, dropped his voice and added, “I’m sorry I didn’t call in. My cousin still refuses to talk to me. I spent quite a bit of time following him, hoping to get him to change his mind.”

“Did he?”

Neskahi shook his head. “He’s too stubborn. He’s also going on vacation, visiting in-laws at Zuni, so he won’t be any good to us from now on.”

“Focus on the situation here then
and see if you can find out who poisoned the M.E.,” Ella ordered.

Leaving them to work, Ella went down the corridor to the emergency room and asked the nurse about Carolyn.

“Dr. Roanhorse will be fine. It appears her identification of the poison was right on the money. We pumped out her stomach in time, and the contents have been sent to toxicology already. She’s on oxygen to help her breathe
right now, but that’s not unusual at this point. Dr. Natoni has had her admitted and wants her hospitalized for at least a day.”

Ella had a feeling Carolyn wouldn’t be too pleased about that. “When can I see her?”

“She’s in Room One-oh-four. I’m sure it’ll be okay if you stop by. Just don’t stay too long.”

Ella went to her friend’s room. Carolyn looked up at her from the bed, tired and weak,
but the gleam in her eye told Ella that nothing had dampened her fighting spirit.

“If I catch the s.o.b. who did this, he’ll end up on one of my stainless steel couches,” Carolyn whispered.

“I’ll track him or her down,” Ella assured her friend. “Tell me, who knew you’d ordered that slice of pecan pie?”

“I do it every time they bake pecan pies. Everybody around here knows that. I ordered this
particular piece when we were in the cafeteria yesterday, just before leaving for the Chapter House. I was treating the entire team to coffee and juice. Several orderlies who’d helped us load up were also there. And that list doesn’t include whoever was on break, or visitors who had come to check on a patient. The cafeteria is open to the public, not just staff.”

“You’re not helping much.”

Carolyn smirked. “I just ruled out everyone else in the world who wasn’t here. I’m just lucky whoever did this did a sloppy job. They should have realized I’d know it wasn’t a heart attack.”

“That doesn’t mean you would recognize the poison. How were you able to diagnose it so quickly?”

“I did a lot of research on native plants and herbs when I was looking into Angelina’s death. I wanted to make
sure that my report meshed with the toxicologist’s, so I got volumes of toxicology books. They’re still there in my office.”

“Who normally has access to those books?”

“The entire hospital, practically. Dr. Charlie is our toxicologist and she makes most of her books available to any doctor who needs them.”

“I’ll see what I can do to unearth the scumbag who did this. In the meantime, take care
of yourself. You really scared me, you know. I thought I was about to lose another friend.”

She smiled. “No way. I’m too stubborn to die.”

Ella walked down the corridor, her fear now giving way to cold anger. Someone had tried to kill her best friend. One way or another she was going to find that person.

Howard Lee met her coming the other way. “I just heard! Is Dr. Roanhorse okay?”

She gave
him a long look. “She’ll be fine.”

“That’s great news!” he said, visibly relieved.

“I thought you two were having your differences.”

“That’s true,” he said, without hesitation. “But believe me, I had nothing to do with this. I need her well. If she doesn’t give me a passing grade, my medical career is going to be stalled for a whole semester. Since she’s our only M.E., the only way I have to
get my grade up is to work with her until the end of the semester and convince her that I can do the job. If anything were to happen to her, at best, I’d get an incomplete. Or if the professors weren’t sympathetic, they’d let my current grade stand.”

Ella had hoped for a fleeting moment that she’d had her man, but logic now dictated she look elsewhere. Lee was laid-back, as her conversations
with Carolyn had revealed, and killing his teacher for getting a low grade wasn’t too credible a motive. He was the type to travel down the easiest path and, for that, he needed Carolyn.

“Do you have any idea who might have done this?”

“What poison was used?” he asked logically. “Something from the pharmacy?”

“It was monkshood, they believe.”

“I could research it for you and see where it grows
and where it might be available. But right off the bat, I can tell you that the people who know the most about the use of herbs are those who run health food stores, or our own medicine men.”

She looked at him directly, uncertain whether he was intimating that her brother had been involved somehow. “There aren’t any health food stores in the area I’m familiar with. What do you know about our
local medicine men?”

“Some older
hataaliis
who live in the regions where we were giving the inoculations are not too happy with Dr. Roanhorse. In fact, our team had a bit of a problem with one of them yesterday.”

“Who?”

“John Tso. Do you know him?”

She nodded. John had to be in his early nineties. He was a formidable man and a born leader, even now. She was also certain, however, that he was
incapable of harming anyone. Most important of all, he wouldn’t have had the opportunity, unless he’d come to the hospital for some unfathomable reason.

“How could he have contaminated the pie?”

“One of his patients was brought in. He made quite a ruckus about it, too, saying
we
were responsible for what happened.”

“How so?”

“The man got sick just a few hours after he was inoculated. It didn’t
appear to be a reaction to the shot, either. It’s some kind of bacterial infection. Tso is up on the third floor, watching over old man Todacheene, if you want to track him down.”

“Thanks.”

She didn’t like it, but she was too good a cop to knowingly ignore any lead. Yet off hand, she couldn’t think of anything that would cause a bigger stir than the police questioning a respected
hataalii
about
a murder.

She entered the cafeteria and saw Neskahi writing something down on his pad. Noticing Ella, he went to meet her.

“You want it in a nutshell?” Seeing Ella nod, Neskahi continued. “Anyone could have walked into the kitchen. They have a meeting every morning and the doors to the kitchen stay unlocked. They had a heated discussion over budget cuts this morning so nobody heard anything.”

“I want you to ask specifically if anyone saw John Tso in the cafeteria this morning.”

“The
hataalii?
Why? He’s practically a hermit nowadays. He lives down by Big Water Spring—” He saw the expression on her face. “He’s not one of the meningitis victims, is he?”

“No, but he’s here with Frank Todacheene. I’m going to go talk to him now.”

As Neskahi moved off, Justine came up to Ella. “I keep
thinking about the note you found where Randall Clah threatened your family. Maybe this is an offshoot of that. Everyone knows you and Dr. Roanhorse are friends.”

“Randall Clah is dead,” Ella said firmly, but she couldn’t suppress the shudder that traveled up her spine. Memories sometimes were more powerful than the death of those responsible for creating them, and someone was using that against
her.

TWELVE

Ella went to the third floor and found John Tso sitting by the silk flowers in the waiting area. His long gray hair was kept in place with a red bandanna, and his deeply wrinkled face was tanned saddle-leather dark from decades of New Mexico sunshine.

Ella approached and sat beside him on the well-worn sofa. She waited, not interrupting his thoughts.

After several minutes he spoke. His
voice was deep and his words were spoken slowly, with a slight hesitation between phrases. It wasn’t his English that was at fault, but rather his age. “The medicines they bring to us don’t cure. They just create new problems. Your brother would know this. Do you?”

“Your patient’s illness has nothing to do with the vaccine.”

“That’s what they say, but he’s still sick and he wasn’t before they
came. So what have they accomplished?”

Ella said nothing, and allowed the silence to stretch out.

“I heard about your friend the doctor,” Tso commented. “She says she wants to protect us, but she doesn’t even know how to take care of herself.”

“She was poisoned with an herb.”

The old man smiled slowly and mirthlessly. “Do you come to me for advice or with accusations?” He shook his head. “I
am not The People’s enemy.”

As a nurse approached, Tso stood up. “What is wrong?”

“I’m so very sorry, Uncle,” she said, using the term out of respect, not to denote kinship, “but your friend has died.”

John Tso fell back down heavily onto the sofa with a deep sigh. The nurse immediately bent down and, taking his wrist, tried to take his pulse.

He pulled away. “No. I am all right. I protect
myself in the old way.” He shot Ella a stern glance. “You and many others have grown up thinking the new is better than the old. But look clearly at what happened here today. We’ve lost neighbors before, but when they died, they did so with dignity, in their hogans. What dignity is there in dying in a place like this, surrounded by strangers, with tubes sticking into your body? Even the air they
give you comes from a machine.”

Ella watched helplessly as Tso stood and walked away slowly. She started to go after him, but the nurse grabbed her arm gently.

“Your questions can wait a little bit longer. He needs time alone to grieve for his friend. Give him that.”

Ella felt her heart sinking with sorrow. “How long has he been here?”

The young woman shook her head slowly. “I know what you’re
getting at, but there’s no way he could have been responsible for poisoning Dr. Roanhorse. He hasn’t left this floor since his patient was brought in. He’s so old, all the shift nurses have been keeping an eye on him, too. We’ve brought him food and something to drink, and made sure he was okay.”

As Ella went downstairs she considered what she’d learned. It was possible that the nurses were covering
for him. John Tso was not only well liked, he was also a very respected member of the tribe. Her gut was telling her to look elsewhere, though. A
hataalii
pledged his life to one of gentle healings and teaching, not death. It would have been totally out of character for him to harm anyone.

Ella returned to the cafeteria as Justine finished the last of the interviews.

“I’ve got zip,” Justine
said. “But it’s time for me to go meet Raymond Nez. Maybe I’ll find out something there. Would you like me to go alone so you can continue here?”

Ella shook her head. “No. We’ll proceed as planned. Where were you supposed to meet him?”

“It’s a hogan in the middle of nowhere, northeast of Beclabito, about halfway between there and the river. He says that’s the only place he’s reasonably sure
nobody can follow him without being seen, and a place where we can talk without either of us endangering the other one.”

“He’s right, but it’s going to be tough for us to do anything except listen in. If you get in trouble, it’ll be awhile before we can reach you.”

“I won’t get in trouble,” she assured. “I think he’s glad to have someone to talk to. He’s a leader, and sometimes it can get lonely
for people in those positions.”

Ella smiled. “People in leadership positions often are nothing more than experts at manipulating others.”

“He’s a potential informant. I can handle this.”

Ella sighed. Young officers were always so tremendously confident, often with nothing substantial to base it on except for their boundless enthusiasm. “Tell Neskahi to get you some gear and find us a lookout
point. I’ll pick him up at the station. We’ll set out twenty minutes after you and stay as close as we can, but we’ll have to hang back and go in on foot in case he’s got a lookout.”

“Okay.”

As Justine hurried down the hallway, Ella stopped by Carolyn’s room one last time. Carolyn seemed to be breathing easier now. “Hey, you’re looking better by the minute.”

“I’m improving,” she admitted, though
her voice was still shaky. “Come up with anything?”

“I’m considering an interesting theory. Maybe the person who poisoned you was the same one who wrote the Randall Clah note threatening my family. You’re almost family, you know. It’s obvious that person wants revenge, and by hurting you they would be striking out at me.”

“You’re reaching. This is connected to Yellowhair. I’m sure of it, though
he wouldn’t be stupid enough to do it himself.”

“Or it may not be linked to him at all,” Ella answered, palms upward. “I’ll see you soon. I’ve got to get back to work.”

Ella went to the parking lot, then, after switching on the sirens, made record time to the station.

Neskahi was making one final check of the listening equipment as Ella entered the lab. The wire had been taped to Justine’s
skin and was hidden by her shirt. “You’ll be okay, but don’t fidget so much. You’ll give yourself away.”

“It’s uncomfortable.”

“It’s not leisure wear.”

“Right.” Justine glanced at Ella. “I’ll do my best to get some answers.”