Desperate Measures (17 page)

And how much was too much in the bloodstream?

15

After dropping Frank
off, Barbara headed out to the Opal Creek Middle School, where Nola Hernandez greeted her with suspicion. She studied Barbara's ID, read the power-of-attorney document, studied Barbara, and finally pointed to a closed door. “That was her office,” she said. “I thought the family usually picked up personal things.”

Barbara nodded. “Thanks. You're right, they usually do. But since they are from out of town, it's a little awkward. My father, as Hilde Franz's attorney, is continuing to work on behalf of her estate. If there is an investigation by the Children's Services Division, he'll represent the interests of her estate.” She walked to the closed door. “Has anything been removed yet?”

“No. What do you mean, if there's an investigation? Of what?”

“Mr. Marchand threatened to file a formal complaint against the school, you understand. We don't know if he did, and we don't want to stir up a hornet's nest by making inquiries, but if he did, we want to be prepared to fight any charges. I believe he threatened to claim that the school and all the employees here contributed to the delinquency of a minor, and if he actually filed the charge, CSD is obliged under the law to follow through with an investigation.”

The effect of her words was dramatic. Nola's eyes widened, her fists clenched, and her cheeks turned scarlet. “That bastard!” she said.

Barbara opened the door and entered the inner office, with Nola at her heels. Then, as Barbara went through the desk drawers, Nola stalked around the office angrily and talked about the trouble they had had with Gus Marchand over the years. Barbara heard about incidents she was already familiar with, and others that were new. Her search of the desk and closet could have ended in ten minutes—there were few personal things to pick up—but she dawdled and encouraged Nola to keep talking.

“Of course,” she said during a brief pause, “if Ms. Franz's health was bad and she was on a lot of medication, they might conclude that she was not paying much attention to what the students were up to.”

“Her health was fine,” Nola said. “Diabetes, that's all, and it was controlled by her diet. She followed a diet you wouldn't believe and hardly ever had to take medicine for the diabetes. I don't think she had more than half a dozen sick-leave days in the last five years. She had the flu five or six years ago and didn't even want to take aspirins for that. And when she strained her back a couple of years ago, she took a muscle relaxant for a couple of days and then used it only at bedtime for a week or two. She said she couldn't read a newspaper when she was taking it in the daytime. I tell you, she hated medicine.”

“But she went home the day Mr. Marchand was killed in order to relax and take medicine,” Barbara murmured.

“She was stressed out. We all were. No one knew if Gus would come stamping in screaming and yelling and making a fool of himself during the graduation ceremony. Poor Leona was a wreck. She was the one who should have taken a tranquilizer or something.”

When Barbara left the school, she had a box of Hilde Franz's belongings, the attendance record for Rachel Marchand, a copy of her report card for the past year, a sex-education book, and the name of the boy Rachel had cut classes to be with. Plus a defense witness if Alex was accused of stalking. Not a bad haul, she told herself, as she drove to Dr. Minick's house. Today the little waterfall was dry.

Dr. Minick was almost pathetically glad to see her. “Come in, come in. Coffee? Tea? Wine?”

“Nothing, thanks. I don't want to take up much of your time….”

“Barbara, what I have in excess is time. Every day this house grows a little bit bigger and quieter. I find myself tiptoeing so I won't break the silence.” He ushered her into the living room and motioned toward a chair. “I have a few more hate bulletins for your collection. I'll get them in a minute. First, tell me what I can do for you.”

“Have you considered moving into Will's house for a few days?”

He shook his head. “No. They might put on hoods and come in the night to burn down my house. I put the word out that Alex is away, so no one's going to bother me, I think. But an empty house? What a temptation.” He smiled slightly. “But what I'm concerned about is that I don't think we can keep Alex away much longer. He says he can't draw or think; he misses his hikes in the woods, misses his freedom.”

“You've been together so long, you both must be terribly lonesome,” she said.

“We are. At first when we came here, Alex was totally dependent on me for everything. That's changed over the years, and now I'm very much afraid I'm the dependent one, and he knows that. He's worried about me, about my being here alone. I'm afraid I've done him a grave disservice. Instead of isolating him, shielding him from the world, I should have thrust him out into it. By now he would be used to the stares and the comments and take them in stride.” He drew in a breath, then said, “By now I would be used to the idea that he's his own person who no longer needs me. You see, I've come to realize that I no longer serve a purpose in his life. That shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was.”

“Dr. Minick,” she said cautiously, “you've done a remarkable job of rehabilitating a desperate young man. You have made him whole and complete, but he needs you and always will. A child needs the parent.”

After a moment he nodded. “Thank you, Barbara. Let me show you something I treasure beyond words.”

He stood up and hurried from the room, and returned with a framed picture, which he handed to her. It was one of Alex's drawings, a tent with strange feet, and a stranger top that might have been a head with a lightbulb nose under a great wide-brimmed hat.

“That's me, how Alex saw me the day we met,” Dr. Minick said. ‘'It was snowing. That figure appears now and then in his strip
Xander
. The lightbulb glows when he sees something bad is about to happen. When the light goes on, the boy Timmy clutches his head; there is communication of some sort, and he turns into Xander and is off to the rescue.”

She smiled at the drawing and handed it back. “Point taken,” she said.

“Yes. Exactly. One day you'll probably become a character in his strip. It will be interesting to see how he treats you.”

She laughed. “I'm not sure I'm ready for that. How would he treat Shelley?”

“Like the princess on the glass hill. You know the fairy tale? She lives on top of a glass mountain so smooth that no one can climb it, although many try.”

“That's very sad,” Barbara said.

“Yes, it is. Now, what did you want to tell me, or have me tell you?”

“It's about Hilde Franz—her death, specifically. I have her autopsy report, and I'd like an expert opinion of what it means. Okay?”

He nodded, and she handed the autopsy report to him, then watched him read it. When he finished, he said, “What's your question about it?”

“Would that medication kill her? Why did she die in her sleep?”

“Ah, I see. Meperidine HCl, a muscle relaxant, analgesic, narcotic: powerful medicine. I've never done forensic medicine. I'd have to know how much she took, if she had built up a tolerance, if it was oral or IV -administered. How much had she already metabolized. They probably were looking for meperidine, since she had the prescription, but were they looking for anything else after they found that?”

“It was all there was in her house. An oral dose, capsules,” Barbara said. “She made a phone call at about eleven, and the estimated time of death is between one and three in the morning.”

“Capsules. Just a second,” he said, and left the room again, this time to return with a thick book, which he consulted. “Capsules come in fifty-milligram doses. So, if she had not built a tolerance and took just one, she probably would have relaxed enough to have a restful sleep. Two, a deeper sleep; she might have slept through a thunderstorm. Three is getting rather heavy for her weight; sleep would have been much deeper. She would have been hard to awaken. Four at one time could have edged into the danger zone. Do they know how much she took?”

“Let's just assume a fatal overdose,” Barbara said. “No one knows how many she had. What would the progression be?”

“Depends on the dosage, of course. Palpitations, sweating, hypothermia, coma, paralysis, apnea, cardiac arrest, death. Depends on the dose, her physical condition, what she had eaten prior to taking the medication; the autopsy report indicates that her last meal was six to eight hours before her death.” He shook his head, as if trying to shake away other memories.

“Barbara, I've seen people go through the same array of symptoms from taking two aspirins. What was her prescription for? Did she tolerate it in the past? There are many questions to be answered before you can assume a fatal overdose.”

“She used it a couple of years ago,” Barbara said, puzzled by the intensity of his gaze, a new harshness that had come into his voice. ‘'It was labeled to be taken three or four times a day, and she took it for at least two days, then one at bedtime for a while. If she had not tolerated it then, it doesn't seem likely that she would have kept the remaining capsules.”

“People change,” he said. “But if she was confident about how she would react to the medication, then she would have known better than to take more than one or two at the most. What are you suggesting? That she overdosed on purpose? Suicide?”

Barbara shook her head. “I don't know. Could she have been certain an overdose would kill her?”

“No. More likely she would have gone into a coma, suffered brain damage. The autopsy says no signs of a struggle. She fell asleep and never woke up, but she couldn't have counted on that to happen. She was too intelligent not to know that. She wouldn't have risked brain damage and possibly a vegetative existence afterward.”

The harshness in his voice made her want to apologize, retreat, close the subject and not refer to it again. Of course, Alex had tried to commit suicide with prescription medication and alcohol, and for years Dr. Minick had served as a children's psychologist, a crisis manager. He must have seen many suicides.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I know I appear heartless, trying to make the death of a woman fit into a big puzzle. I didn't mean it that way. You've been helpful, and I'm grateful.” She stood up. “I should be on my way.”

Dr. Minick got up and handed her the autopsy report. “In my years of practicing medicine, and then as a psychologist, I've seen people die who should have lived, and I've seen some live for whom we had given up hope. I'll never believe that Hilde killed herself purposely or that she killed herself accidentally by taking an overdose. That leaves the mysterious hand of God, I suppose, and I tell you this, I have come to hate that hand with all my soul.” He turned away. “I'll get that other hate literature for you.”

He left and returned with a manila envelope, which she stuffed into her briefcase without a glance.

“Those people,” he said, watching her stow it away, “walk the earth sowing hatred, and good people like Hilde and Leona are swept away. Why? That's the real mystery of the universe. I'm glad you came today.”

“I am, too,” she said. She held out her hand, but to her surprise he clasped her to him in an embrace, and she was strangely comforted by it.

At seven o'clock she pulled into Frank's driveway and entered the house. Frank looked better than he had that morning. He had slept and loafed and read, he reported, and there was cheese and wine in the kitchen, and dinner on the way. He had ordered pork loin in wine-garlic sauce from Martin's for both of them. She groaned at the thought of real food, and headed for cheese to tide her over.

Then, in the kitchen nibbling cheese, trying to resist filling up on it, she told him about her day. She did not mention the name of the doctor she had consulted. “So,” she said, wrapping it up, “two years ago, if Hilde took from six to eight of the capsules the first two days, then one a night for the next seven, that means she used thirteen to fifteen out of thirty of the capsules, leaving fifteen to seventeen, or thereabouts. With a strained muscle that's a reasonable guess. We'll assume that she didn't use them again until now. Anyway, they found fourteen, which means she could have taken one or two, three at the outside, and that wouldn't have been enough for a fatal overdose. So I don't know where that leaves us.”

Frank had listened without a word. He moved the cheese platter out of her reach almost absently. “I don't like coincidences,” he said after a moment.

“Right. What time did you tell Martin?”

“Between seven and seven-thirty. I talked with Hilde's insurance agent; there's a video of the house contents, he said. He advised her to put it in her safe-deposit box. And I called Hilde's brother. They will have her funeral on Friday, and he agreed that I should empty her safe-deposit box and have everything ready for him to pick up on Saturday. I'll empty the box tomorrow.”

She poured more wine. “And we don't have a clue about what Mr. Wonderful, or whoever it was, was after. What usually happens in a situation like this? The family comes around to look over the house, then what?”

Frank shrugged. “They'll tag things they want to keep, more than likely, haul them away, and then have an estate sale. It will take time, a couple of weeks more than likely before that happens.”

“Then anyone could walk in and plop down a dollar or two and take out whatever it is he's after. No one the wiser.”

“Maybe. Sometimes a dealer will make an offer, for antiques, or art, things of that sort, and take them all for a flat price. Someone could offer a hundred dollars for all the books, for instance, and take them away, the worthwhile and the worthless, and sort them later.”