The Laura Cardinal Novels (65 page)

“What do you mean?”

“Is it from a lizard?”

“Lizard?”

“Or a bird. Maybe that’s it. Does this have something to do with the West Nile virus?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Come
on
. You mean you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“This slide. It’s got to be either lizard or bird blood.”

If his girlfriend hadn’t been a vet, David might never have known that the blood that came out of Erin’s mouth was animal, not human. Or he would have found it out only after numerous tests and trips to the lab. He still couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t fathom how a woman would do that to her own grandchild.

He also couldn’t imagine how a woman could do that to her own grandchild without the grandchild’s cooperation. Erin was nine years old. She’d have to know what was going on.

Nothing in his training could have prepared him for this. He was a doctor, not a psychiatrist.

When he saw the nucleated cells under the microscope earlier today, his first thought had been leukemia. Normal human blood cells did not have nuclei. According to his brilliant veterinarian girlfriend, only birds and lizards had nucleated blood cells.

The only nucleated blood cells in a human were abnormal. Which meant cancer.

That was the diagnosis that had stared him in the face, pending another round of tests for leukemia. But now Jeanette had provided him with another possibility.

Relief made his limbs momentarily weak. He didn’t have to tell the grandmother that Erin had to be tested again for leukemia. He didn’t have to tell Erin either.

But now it looked as if that DPS detective might be right after all.

More and more, it looked like a case of Munchausen by Proxy.

David tried to concentrate on his patients while he waited to hear from Jeanette,who had taken the slide to the lab her veterinary practice used. She was pretty sure she’d be able to find out what kind of blood it was pretty quickly. As David tended to bee stings and wrote prescriptions for stomach ailments and gave people their annual checkups, he wondered what he would do if it turned out that the DPS detective was right. One thing he’d done, he’d sent Erin home, even though Mrs. Wingate had wanted her to stay overnight for observation.

When the phone rang and he heard Jeanette’s voice, he still wasn’t prepared for the diagnosis she gave him.

“Chickens,” Jeanette said.

“Chickens?”

“Your patient has been spitting up chicken blood.”

Laura was going over the autopsy notes of Dan and Kellee Yates when her cell phone rang. It was the sheriff of Yavapai County, Terry Langley. He was giving her a courtesy call to let her know about the status of Barbara Wingate and her granddaughter.

“We’re investigating charges of child abuse against Barbara Wingate,” he said.

Laura sighed: part relief, part guilt. It was never good to break up a family, but sometimes it had to be done for the safety of the child.

“You won’t believe it,” Langely added. “The girl, Erin, admits she faked spitting up blood. You know like they do in the movies? She did that with the chicken blood. Can you beat that?”

A void opened up inside her heart. “Why would she do that?”

“Kind of hard to explain. I talked to a doctor friend of mine at NAU who’s worked with Munchausen patients, and he said there are all sorts of things that go into something like this. Apparently, Erin adored her grandmother. She lived with her the first year and a half of her life, when Kathy was in med school at Stanford, and we’re pretty sure that Barbara was making her sick then. Erin eventually went to live with her mother—by that time Kathy and Mike were married—then her parents die, and presto! She’s right back with her grandmother. You can see how she might pick up where she left off. To her,
that
was normal.”

Laura was trying to follow this. “But wouldn’t she know what Mrs. Wingate was doing to her?”

“On some level, sure. The way the doctor explained it to me, because she was with Barbara early in her life, feeling sick was what she was used to. So when she went back to Mrs. Wingate’s, she took up with the familiar, I guess. And there was a good side to it. Seeing how her grandmother thrived on attention—and getting her own fair share. And her grandmother’s approval.”

Laura saw how it could happen. The void grew inside her. She wondered what kind of life Erin would carry with her from now on. If she was irreparably damaged or if she could find yet another kind of normal.

“We’re requesting a psychiatric evaluation from the court, so maybe we’ll know more soon.” Langley cleared his throat. “We’re also in touch with Child Protective Services. Things are moving pretty quickly now, thanks to you.”

After he hung up, Laura walked over to Richie’s room and knocked on the door. One look at his Woody Woodpecker boxer shorts and she started to laugh.

“Hey, I was just going to take a shower. What’s up?”

She gave him the rundown. About Erin, about her grandmother.

“Just a minute.” He disappeared into the darkened room. She heard the refrigerator open and close, and then a familiar
click-whoosh
.

He came back in jeans, holding two sweating bottles of Rolling Rock. “This calls for a celebration.”

They sat at his little round table by the window, enjoying the ice-cold beer and the buzz.

“I should have seen it,” Richie said, “especially after what Josh Wingate told me.”

“What did he tell you?”

He leaned back, kicked the table leg with a bare foot. “Just that ol’ Barbara tried to commit suicide a couple of weeks ago.”

Laura straightened up. “What? When did you hear this?”

He shrugged. “One of those down times, you know. I don’t think he meant to say anything; it just slipped out.”

Laura couldn’t believe her ears. If Barbara Wingate was that unstable, the sheriff’s office needed to hear about it. “Does the Yavapai County sheriff know?”

“Hey, don’t get your undies in a bunch. I called and told them soon as I heard. But they already knew. Matter of record.”

“Langley didn’t mention it to me,” she said, thinking how a suicidal Barbara Wingate might affect Erin’s precarious grip on reality.

“Well, he knows.”

“I hope they’ll take that into consideration.”

“I’m sure they will. It’s their job now.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing. Just that you’re so doggone conscientious.”

“Aren’t you?”

He started picking at the foil on the bottle neck. “Hey, I try. But for me, it’s more like a job, you know? Something to support the wife and kids. Don’t get me wrong—I like what I do. It’s the best job I can imagine. But you—you’re a true believer.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

He looked at her. “There’s nothing wrong with it. You’re a star, Laura. Sometimes I make fun of that, but you and I both know it’s true.”

“A star. Yeah right.”

“But you could make it easier for the rest of us, you know? Stumble every once in a while.”

She wondered if he was putting her on. He’d proved to be a smooth liar. “You know, Richie. I wish you’d be straight with me. We are supposed to be working this case together.”

“I am being straight with you. Sure, I like to joke around, but about this, I’m dead serious.”

What the hell, she’d take it.

“I think you’re a good cop,” he added. “Always have. I just like to get your goat every once in a while. It’s what I do, you know?”

He sounded sincere. Laura almost brought up the charade about his marriage, but they were sharing genuine good feelings for once, and she didn’t want to spoil it.

Richie held up his beer bottle and clinked it with hers. “No kidding, Laura, you saved that kid from God knows what. That’s good news for everybody.” He set his beer down and locked his stubby fingers behind his head. “We might not find Dan and Kellee’s killers, but you sure as hell bagged Barbara Wingate.”

Laura had just come out of the shower the next morning when the room phone rang.

Wrapping a towel around her, she tiptoed across the carpet to the phone, leaving wet footprints.

On the other end a voice said, “You fucking
bitch
!”

The venom in the woman’s tone made her voice unrecognizable. “Who—”

“I know what you did—the people you talked to. People I
know
! And now she’s gone. My little girl is gone!”

For a moment Laura was confused. Then she realized that Barbara Wingate was talking about her granddaughter. “Gone?”

Barbara Wingate’s voice was shaking—more with anger than pain, Laura thought. “As if you didn’t know. You called them.”

“Called who? Would you calm down and let me see if we can—”

“CPS, that’s who!”

“Child Protective Services?”

“Give yourself a gold star!”

The phone slipped from Laura’s grip and she had to grab at it; she realized her hands were sweating. “Mrs. Wingate?”

“Why the hell couldn’t you leave things alone, you vicious, conniving, meddlesome bitch?”

Ragged breathing. Laura started to say something, but didn’t get a chance. “How could you do that to me? How
could
you do that? I hope you burn in hell!”

It was almost as if Barbara Wingate had stripped away every vestige of her humanity, and the gibbering creature underneath was nothing she had ever heard or seen under the living sky.

“Mrs. Wingate—”

She was speaking to empty air.

Heart pounding, feeling disconnected from her own body, Laura fumbled for the phone book, trying to find Barbara Wingate’s number. The heavy book slipped off her knees and onto the cheap motel carpet. Her hands shaking, clammy with sweat.

The pounding had gone to her head. Suicide, she thought. The woman just tried to commit suicide. Barbara Wingate’s beautifully constructed picture of herself had disintegrated.

Laura knew she needed to go out there. She pulled on her clothes, grabbed her keys and headed for the car, her urgency making everything go twice as slow. Fumbling for the car key, pulling at the door and missing, the handle snapping back and stubbing her fingers. Dropping the keys on the floorboards. Water from her hair running down between her shoulder blades.

Maybe it shouldn’t be me, she thought as she drove fast out Cataract Road. Maybe I’m the wrong person to confront her.

But she had to go.

She punched in Richie’s number.

“I’m worried about Barbara Wingate,” she told Richie as she drove under the railroad tracks. “Child Protective Services took Erin.”

“Erin? Holy shit, that was fast. What—”

“Just listen to me. I think we’re going to need some backup. She was hysterical on the phone and I have no idea what she might do.”

“You think she’d try it again?”

“Suicide? Jesus, I hope not.” She hit the accelerator, sending the Impala into overdrive.

She fumbled for the END key and threw the phone on the seat, grabbing the wheel with both hands.

The meadow at Unicorn Farm was pale green-gold in the early morning light, glistening with dew. Laura had her window down and could smell the sweetness of the grasses, but rather than act as a balm to her, it only emphasized the starkness of the situation. She opened the gate, but didn’t bother to close it, made good speed up the road.

In the pine shadows, the house looked dark and shabby.

Laura pulled up just short of the house to the right, an unconscious move that had been trained into her. From here, anyone opening the door or looking out the window would not be able to see her.

Her eyes took in everything. The stillness. The pulled shades. The only movement the shadows on the house roof and the grass as a restless wind started up. She looked at the porch that ran along the front of the house. It was the kind of porch she’d seen often in rural areas—just a few inches off the ground, no railing, plank flooring, more of a boardwalk than an actual porch. Already she knew she would get on the porch and go left, making sure to stay under the windows, all the way to the front door on the left side.

She just had to do it.

She sat in the car, making sure she had all her ducks in a row, her plan solidifying in her mind. Felt the familiar surge of adrenaline, the “just do it” attitude starting to take over.

She should wait for backup. They wouldn’t be far behind her. But this woman was suicidal. She might already be dead. Or dying.

She slid across to the passenger side, her heart starting to pound. She felt something heavy and massive rise in her chest. Adrenaline like a wire through her, but more than that, something else, something wild and pulsating and buzzing in her mind, wanting to short out and go dark.

She recognized it, remembered it from the Chiricahua Paint Company: fear.

So fearful she had a hard time gripping the door handle. Fear beating like wings around her head, trying to blot out her vision.

Get a grip
!

She needed to push it down. She needed to quiet the tremor in her legs, the way her heart seemed to shake loose inside her chest. She swallowed and felt the fear retreat a little.

Logically, she didn’t think Barbara Wingate was a threat to her. Even so, she would take every precaution. Even so, she would be careful.

But she was surprised by her fear.

It had just shown up. In the blood thumping in her ears, the gnawing in her gut, the tremor in her hands, the dryness of her mouth.

Frank Entwistle:
You live in a glass house
.

Okay then. Wait. Wait for backup. You can fade into the woodwork, you can stay back, stay at a distance, you can—

Screw that.

She opened the door and duckwalked over to the first porch post on the far right.

The restless shifting of the tree branches nearby covering the sound of her footsteps.

Feeling the fear lie down, waiting and attentive, but no longer a danger to her.

She stepped up onto the porch. It creaked slightly under her weight. Holding her breath, she made it to the house wall, crouched beneath the window. She moved toward the door, careful to step only where the boards were nailed down. Gun out and ready.