Murders of a Feather, page 4
“I hope my story didn’t make everything worse for you,” she asked. “Such a gruesome scene. What do you think happened?”
Still a bit shaky, I collapsed into one of our sagging armchairs and took a few sips of coffee before I answered. “Best I can come up with is they were hiking, for some reason, and she fell into the lake. He may have suffered a heart attack trying to get help.” It wasn’t a great guess, but it was all I had.
The coffee began to work its magic. My appetite kicked in. I remembered I’d stashed a granola bar over by the employee fridge.
Mari stared at me before asking, “Where was their car or truck?”
“Whose car?” My brain fog disappeared as the importance of her question kicked in. “Oh, you’ve got a point there. We might have it backward. Perhaps they started somewhere else nearby and were going to hike back from the lake to their vehicle.”
“A vehicle that no one has found.”
Before I knew it, Mari began presenting multiple alternative scenarios of what happened. A friend dropped them off. They were going to call an Uber. Thieves stole their car. She’d obviously put some thought into it.
Barely up to speed, I simply nodded or grunted in agreement.
When she ran out of ideas, Mari said, “We’ll find out when Cindy gets back.”
That was a true statement. Cindy’s brother-in-law was Bobby Garcia. Bobby wouldn’t and couldn’t supply any case details, but Cindy’s sister had the inside track with her husband—and the sisters talked, all the time and incessantly. The chief of police of necessity was careful what information he shared with his chatty wife.
I suspected he deliberately leaked certain information through his spouse.
“Maybe you’re right. Someone dropped them off on the trail,” I suggested, “and was scheduled to pick them up at a specific time.”
“Then why weren’t they reported missing?”
I ventured that opinion because during the time I’d been working and living in the Hudson Valley, I’d noticed a rather cavalier attitude in the residents regarding the winter. People periodically froze to death up here. Going to get firewood and tripping. Warming up their cars in the garage and dying from carbon monoxide poisoning. Strolling in town wearing shorts and a T-shirt.
With the cobwebs cleared by coffee, I said, “If you figure it out, let me know. I’ll be in my office checking lab results.”
It didn’t take too long before my staff updated me on the frozen bodies we’d found.
Cindy arrived bubbling like a teakettle with information. “Don’t quote me, but the couple you found were engaged to be married. Alicia Ramsey and José Florez. José’s got a big gunshot wound in his chest, which you must not have seen because he fell facedown. The snow froze the blood seeping from the wound. They aren’t sure about Alicia’s cause of death yet. They’re waiting on some tests. The coroner suspects José committed suicide, after killing his fiancée.”
“So it’s a murder-suicide?” I asked.
“Terrible,” Mari added, coming into the office and sitting down in front of my desk. Mr. Katt lay curled up on the other chair. “Why can’t couples work things out? There’s never any reason to kill someone.”
“Agreed.”
What could have happened? Did Alicia threaten to break off the engagement? Had José pushed her into the lake on an impulse, and then shot himself when he was unable to save her? The phrase “I can’t live without her” reverberated in my mind. How many times had we read or heard that? The majority of times, it simply wasn’t true. In my experience, a few weeks or months of painful separation passed, and then everyone moved on—the passion of the moment forgotten. Like swapping out an old sweater for a new blazer.
“Change of subject,” Cindy said, ready to discuss the truly important decision of the day. “Let’s pick the color of our spring uniforms before I leave.”
“Oh, no,” I groaned.
You might think this was an easy decision. You would be wrong.
Medical scrubs come in a dizzying array of fabrics, cuts, styles, and colors. Cindy, with her high school cheerleader body impeccably preserved, looked good in anything. Mari and I, on the other hand, had much more to consider. Our jobs required bending, kneeling, twisting, and holding on to our furry patients. We needed a certain roominess and give in our fabric. Not to mention a forgiving color.
“Pink?” suggested Cindy, in a temporary fit of insanity.
“No and no,” Mari immediately countered.
“Veto that,” I added. “How about black?”
“For springtime?” Cindy’s tone implied I moonlighted as a terrorist.
“What about blue?” Mari suggested, taking the middle road.
Cindy clapped her hands. “Robin’s egg blue. That would be nice.”
Thinking of the size of my ass in baby blue, I vetoed that idea too.
“Maybe yellow. What does it matter to you, Kate?” Cindy asked, throwing sensitivity to the wind. “You just put a white coat over your scrubs.”
“Yeah,” Mari added. “We’ll be the ones walking around looking like giant pencil erasers.”
“I’ll let you two decide,” I said, figuring it was the most diplomatic thing to say. I really didn’t care. Fashion is the last thing on my mind when I am working.
“Let’s take this up again when I get back,” Cindy said. “I’ll leave you with the scrubs catalog and see what you come up with.” She didn’t sound too confident in our decision-making abilities. “Think pastels.”
The idea of the staff walking around in a spring yellow, like Big Bird, gave me the shivers. I didn’t see why veterinary uniforms had to be “fun.” It was different in the human medical profession, I supposed, but our animals didn’t care what we wore. It was how we handled them when they needed us that was far more important.
Maybe green?
After our Saturday morning half day of work, I kicked back, spending time with my King Charles spaniel rescue, Buddy. We sat on the sofa, as usual, me with my glass of white wine, listening to his snores. I was catching up on some veterinary journals and watching HGTV when my cell phone rang. Caller ID let me know the most important man in my life was calling, my Gramps.
After my mom and little brother were killed by a drunk driver, all I did was fight with my dad, and for good reason. Soon after the funerals, it became apparent that my surgeon dad had been cheating on my mom, and his surgical nurse/girlfriend was pregnant. I couldn’t deal with it, and my father didn’t want to deal with me. Gramps took me in, despite my anger and teenage attitude. He was the reason for my successful graduation from high school, college, and veterinary school.
“Hey, Gramps,” I said, “how are you?” He’d recently moved from his multistory brownstone in Brooklyn to an independent senior living facility. The COPD from his days as a firefighter had taken its toll on his lungs, making stairs difficult.
“Hi, Katie. What’s this I read about a murder-suicide in your part of the woods?”
Busted, I thought. Now, how to explain things without upsetting him?
I stalled for time. “Do you mean the suspected murder-suicide?”
“Are you saying there is more than one?”
I sipped my wine. “Ah, no.”
“A man dead in the snow. A woman in a lake trapped under the ice. The Post published quite a picture. They’re calling her an ice princess.” His voice ended with a mild, gravely cough, the result of smoke inhalation from a huge fire he’d help put out—the one where he went back in to save two children.
I didn’t know if the Post had published Mari’s and my names. I decided to try the role of objective observer.
“Really? They’re that interested in what happens up here in the Hudson Valley?”
“Anything for a story,” he said. “What’s new with you? And Mari?”
Something jingled in the back of my consciousness. He knows. There’s no escape.
“Busted. What do you want to know?”
He laughed. “How the heck did you come across two bodies?”
I explained about Bruce flagging us down, but I didn’t include the trauma Mari relived at the scene, remembering the death of her sister. If Mari wanted to share those details, she would. As I explained discovering the first body and how the pink scrunchie led to the second body, he interrupted.
“Was the woman shot, too?”
“I honestly don’t know. The coroner has clamped a lid on that sort of information.”
“What about Cindy? Doesn’t she have a direct line from the chief of police through her sister?”
“Cindy’s getting ready to go on her annual family vacation to Florida. She hasn’t been very forthcoming,” I added.
In the background, I heard someone asking a question. I couldn’t catch the words but the voice was female.
“Do you have guests?” I asked, being as diplomatic as possible. I found out the hard way that my Gramps is very popular with the ladies at his independent living facility. Which means Gramps enjoys a more active social life than I do.
He cleared his throat. “A friend stopped by for cocktails.”
I found this so funny, because my Gramps was a drinking-beer-straight-from-the-bottle kind of guy for years until he recently started watching Internet videos. Now he made Negronis, Manhattans, and all sorts of fancy alcoholic drinks. Plus, he’d turned into a sort of card shark, playing poker for cash a few nights a week with his buddies.
“Katie,” he said, “please tell me you’re not going to get involved in this investigation.”
Gramps was the only person left on our planet who called me Katie.
“Of course not. I’ve got too much to do,” I reminded him. “And besides, it’s a murder-suicide. There’s nothing to investigate.”
There was quite a pause before he commented, “Let’s hope so. Prove me wrong, Katie, and stay out of this. I don’t want to worry about you.”
“There’s nothing to worry about, Gramps,” I repeated. “Except which house this couple is going to pick on House Hunters.”
He laughed again. “I’ll go with house number two, and I don’t even know which episode you’re watching.”
“No way,” I answered. “This one is a no-brainer. They just got engaged and have to have the house finished before the wedding.”
“So, no stress. Let me know how that turns out,” he joked. “Compromise is the name of the game.”
After we hung up, I watched the program till the end. Before the final reveal segment, the couple fought about everything. At one point, I thought they were going to call off the engagement. The practical thing would be to choose house number one, which had more square footage, needed less work, and sported a nifty oversized three-car garage.
Of course, they picked house number two, the fixer-upper. I was lucky Gramps hadn’t insisted on betting on it.
Chapter Six
Overnight, a thin layer of snow fell, dusting the hospital parking lot. Buddy shook his feet after his morning walk, leaving drops of water on the floor. I felt some trepidation as I opened the door between my apartment and the animal hospital that Monday. Today was the first day of a week without our longtime receptionist, Cindy. Frankly, both Mari and I relied on her to keep us on schedule and current with our clients and patients. Cindy combined enthusiasm with razor-sharp efficiency. What would it be like working with her substitute?
Voices came from the employee lounge. I recognized Mari’s, of course. The other, deeper voice must belong to Babs Fields, our temporary office manager.
Armed with a second cup of coffee, I decided to join them.
They seemed to be having an animated conversation until I realized it was more of an animated argument. Babs didn’t appear that perturbed, but Mari’s face was red, never a good sign.
“Good morning, ladies,” I said. That fell flat. Walking over to our new receptionist, I stuck out my hand. “You must be Babs. I’m Dr. Kate Turner.” I mustered up a friendly smile despite the glower on Mari’s face.
Maybe it was unfair to make comparisons, but I couldn’t help noticing whereas Cindy always looked camera ready and fresh no matter what time of the day it was, Babs didn’t. She wore an old gray sweater over her scrub shirt that was loaded down with pins that said, “Take it slowww” and “Not the Boss,” and “Don’t argue or I’m out of here.” Her short gray hair stuck up at the back of her head, and behind thick glasses her pale eyes appeared gigantic.
“Dr. Kate,” Mari began with unnecessary formality, “Babs is uncomfortable adding additional appointments to the schedule.” The stiff frown on my technician’s face was in danger of becoming permanent.
“I’m sure we can work this out,” I began, taking another sip of coffee to strengthen my resolve. “If one of my patients is sick and needs me, Babs, I will find the time to see them.”
Our temporary receptionist said, “Hummph.”
That didn’t sound encouraging.
“Cindy always checks with me or Mari before squeezing them into the schedule.” I punctuated this statement with another big friendly smile. Slightly forced.
“Hummmph.” Babs didn’t seem convinced. “A schedule is a schedule. That’s why it’s called a schedule.”
After mulling over that circuitous statement, I found no good response. “Well, it’s almost time to start morning appointments. Cindy told us you are familiar with our veterinary software program?”
“Yes. After I retired from Allendale Animal Hospital and moved up here, I’ve made myself available for part-time work at various animal hospitals in this area and across the river in Rhinebeck. I’ve worked here before with Doc Anderson.”
My ears picked up a chiming noise. “Did you unlock our front door?” I asked Babs. “Because I think someone’s at the receptionist desk.”
“I’ll go with you,” Mari volunteered. “We can go through today’s appointments while Dr. Kate checks the overnight lab results.”
As they disappeared down the hall, I noted this first morning felt a little bit rocky. Over the years I’d worked with many different veterinary employees, some more proficient than others. Cindy would only be gone for one week.
How badly could things get messed up in seven days?
Our first patient of the day was a silver-gray Weimaraner dog, well muscled with a shiny coat. Mari normally does a brief triage for me, taking the vitals and a history, but Babs must have detained her. I was asking the owner if he planned on neutering his dog when Mari opened the exam room door. She immediately went over to our patient, who was wagging his tail, and gave him a pat.
“You were saying…?”
“He’s neutered, Doc,” was his answer. For some reason the owner smiled after he said it.
I looked at the rear view of the handsome dog and from my point of view he obviously wasn’t neutered. Everything looked intact.
About to argue with the gentlemen, I caught a glimpse of mirth in his eyes. Bingo.
“Implants?” I asked him.
“The best that money could buy,” he bragged while petting his dog.
In the corner, Mari fought to suppress a laugh. Testicular implants were available for dogs when owners, usually men, hated to see their pet without his natural equipment.
“Like breast implants,” he proudly proclaimed.
This time Mari couldn’t hold it in and let out a snort of a laugh, which made the owner laugh, too.
I could only imagine regaling Gramps with this topic of conversation.
Now that the atmosphere felt definitely more relaxed, I examined the dog and noted a cracked canine tooth. Most clients don’t realize that veterinary medicine has board-certified doctors of dentistry who do root canals, crowns, extractions, and just about any other dental procedure.
“Hey, Doc,” he asked me, “what can I do about that tooth? Can’t have him looking bad for his lady friends.”
I smiled and gave him a one-word solution. “Implant.”
The next few hours galloped by as we admitted a dachshund with spinal trauma, a cat caught in a car motor, and a Dumbo rat whose tail tip had turned black. All these cases needed to be evaluated and given a treatment plan to discuss with the owner.
On days like this one, Mari and I ate lunch while working. Sometimes standing up. The adorable dachshund with the big pleading eyes was first. He was in obvious pain, and in need of immediate treatment with an anti-inflammatory. Because of his discomfort, we moved him by a towel sling under his belly. X-rays revealed arthritic abnormalities of the spinal column and a mild separation of two of the lumbar vertebrae. Ouch. He needed rest, he needed medications, and he needed time. This guy would be staying here at the hospital for the next day or two.
Our next patient, a smudgy striped kitty, had been trying to stay warm by climbing into the neighbor’s car engine. Other than being greasy and sustaining a moderate lesion and loss of some fur from the fan belt when the car turned on, he miraculously escaped with just a few months shaved off his nine lives. Other cats I’d seen were not so lucky.
Our Dumbo rat, a “fancy” rat breed with large ears and a rounded face scampered up my arm to rest on my shoulder, his tail dragging. From up above, Mr. Katt, our hospital cat, stared down with inappropriate interest. Trauma of unknown origin had disrupted the blood flow and innervation to the rat’s tail. That required an amputation.
“Did you know that in the 1880s, a scientist tried to prove that cutting tails off mice would result in tailless offspring?” I absently scratched along the rat’s back.
“Really?” Mari opened a surgical pack and prepared for our short surgery. “That’s like saying if a woman had her hand cut off, her babies would also have one hand.”
“Basically,” I agreed. “My genetics professor used to say Lamarck was off the mark. A funny mnemonic to remember who conducted this famous experiment.”
Once our little Dumbo was under anesthesia, I dissected the dead part of the tail from the healthy part, stitched it up with dissolvable sutures, and made a note to fit him with a tiny cone to stop him from gnawing on it.
