The Coroner, page 17
29
Emily checked her phone when she got to her car. There were two messages. One was from Brandon, asking if she knew how many guests she would be inviting from her side of the family. This was definitely something his mother had put him up to. And it was not something she could think about just now. How could the family be so insensitive to her needs at this moment? They weren’t unkind people, but they sure seemed to be disconnected to any life she had apart from Brandon’s.
There was also a message from Jo, reminding her about the equestrian show on Saturday and inviting her to their house for dinner afterward. That sounded like a nice break from everything she had been dealing with. She was hoping Nick would have called with an update. She phoned him and he answered right away.
“Great timing. I’m between interviews. What’s up?”
“Dr. Lillen thought Julie might have been using ketamine to wind down. I think you should have another chat with David Sands about it. He would know.”
“I’m double-booked over here. Can you take this one?”
“Nick, I’m not qualified for this.”
“You did the autopsy on his girlfriend. You have the authority.”
“Won’t he think it’s weird?”
“I guarantee you no one else is giving him the answers about Julie’s death that he really needs.”
* * *
Emily waited in the auditorium of Freeport High School for David to arrive for basketball practice. When he came dribbling onto the courts in practice clothes, Emily called him aside and drew him into the hallway.
“Do you know who I am, David?” she started. He shook his head. “I’m Dr. Emily Hartford. I did the autopsy on Julie Dobson. I wondered if I could ask you a few things.”
“Have you figured out who killed her yet?” He continued dribbling his ball, switching off hands—left, right, left, right—while Emily searched for the right words. “I heard a rumor she was hit in the head,” said David.
“David, Julie had ketamine in her system. Do you know what that is?” Emily asked.
“Horse sedative,” he replied.
“That’s right. Do you know if Julie was taking it?”
“I think your lab made a mistake,” David said, bouncing the ball off the brick hallway wall.
“There is no mistake,” Emily pressed. “Help me figure out what happened to Julie.”
“Did you tell her folks?” David dropped the ball and dribbled nervously and scrambled after it as it rolled a few feet down the hall.
“I wanted to talk to you first,” Emily said with a probing look. “Was Julie taking ketamine?”
“We both took it. Just a little,” David said.
“I see.”
“We just wanted to feel better.”
“Feel better about what?”
“Life.”
“Can you be a little more specific?”
“I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“I’m not going to rat on you. I’m just trying to figure some things out to help find the person who killed her.”
“See them?” David nodded to the center quad, where teens were milling about after school. “That Asian girl twirling her hair has anxiety issues. Pops antidepressants like chewing gum.”
His gaze shifted to a hipster couple sharing ear buds. “That guy has a bad back. Uses his mom’s medical marijuana card.”
Emily glanced around the room at the seemingly normal clusters of teens, heads bent over their phones.
“That girl in the black frames is ranked number three in our class. Takes Vicodin for migraines. Can’t hold her GPA without them.”
Emily tried to remain calm, but she wanted to wring him out. She knew he hadn’t dealt with half the things she’d had to contend with when she was his age. “But why Julie? Why you?”
“Stress, dude. Parents. Grades. SATs. College. Basketball scholarships. Julie’s riding competitions.”
“These seem like normal things every teen has to cope with.” Emily wasn’t sure where to go with this conversation. Nick was so much better at this.
“Have you ever met Senator and Gloria Dobson? Stress balls.” David pounded his basketball in an aggressive dribble back and forth between his palms.
“They are only the first of many stressful people and stressful situations you’re going to encounter from here to eternity.”
David didn’t respond. But Emily wasn’t surprised by this reaction. David’s attitude was nothing new to her. She saw it all the time in Chicago too. Kids were growing up ill-equipped for the challenges of life because of helicopter parents who didn’t want them to land too hard on the ground.
“Julie’s parents hated me,” said David. “And they’re gonna blame this on me.”
“David, did you and Julie get the ketamine from Gary Bodum’s office?” she asked.
David dribbled nervously.
“No way. He kept that thing locked tight,” said David.
“Where then?”
“Why should I tell you?” said David. “What does it get me?”
“You get a clear conscience. And a chance to help the girl you loved,” Emily said. David stopped dribbling and tucked the basketball under his arm. His glanced from the floor to Emily.
Emily softened her tone. “This is the girl you wanted to spend your life with, right?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t go to jail for telling me,” she said.
“It’s not jail I’m worried about,” he said. “It’s him.”
“Him? Who? If you tell me, I’ll be sure to keep your name confidential,” Emily reassured him.
“What guarantee do I have?”
Emily paused. “I’ll do my best to protect you. But I’ll be honest: I don’t know what the future holds for this case.”
David started to dribble back to the gym.
“But I can tell you that if you don’t help me now, there’s a good chance you’ll be in deeper trouble later, and … Julie’s killer may never be found.”
David turned around and looked her directly in the eyes.
“You know how she really died.”
“Yes.” Emily paused. “Was it Gary Bodum?”
David paced back to where Emily was standing. He held the ball close to his chest, as if he were protecting his heart.
“Did she suffer?”
It was the one question a victim’s family and friends always asked.
“If I tell you, will you tell me what I want to know?” Emily bargained. She hated using this as leverage. It felt coercive. David nodded.
“She was struck in the head and suffered a brain hemorrhage,” Emily told him gently.
“Was it … quick?” David asked with a quiver in his voice.
She wanted to tell him that Julie had been knocked unconscious and slipped into her death peacefully and painlessly. She wanted to protect him from the truth. But her father hadn’t trained her to lie about the manner of death. He never sugarcoated the truth. He was gentle and respectful. Yes. But he had taught her that, number one, the truth always comes out. And number two, it is always easier to heal from the truth than a lie.
Emily looked David in the eyes levelly, in a way she felt was more warranted than it had been with Sarah. “She probably felt immense pain after impact. Like a really bad, bad headache. And most likely she felt her skull crack. She would have been conscious for about a minute. Maybe less. And then it was over.”
David looked away, digesting the raw information. Emily knew he was experiencing surging emotions as he grappled with it. She wished no one ever had to hear what she’d just told him. This was a turning point for David. He hung his head and dribbled the ball a few feet down the hall. He couldn’t face her.
“David? Are you okay?” Emily asked. David moved the ball back toward Emily, slowly palming it across his chest again. “Was it Gary? Just nod or shake your head.”
“No. It was Tim Hart. He works at the stables,” said David. “He’s a groom.”
“He had access to the ketamine?”
“Yeah. He had the key to Gary’s cabinet. He had other stuff too.”
“Other drugs?”
“That’s what he told us. But Julie and I only did ketamine,” said David.”
“Do you think he killed Julie?”
“We had a falling out with him.”
“Explain.” Emily didn’t like the sound of this.
“We owed him money.”
“How much money?”
“Couple hundred.”
“Couple hundred like two? Or couple hundred like five?”
“Eight-fifty.”
“How did he let you rack up such a high debt?”
“I guess he knew we were good for it. At least Julie. With her dad’s money,” he said.
“Didn’t Gary know someone was stealing his ketamine supply?”
“Tim would sell it off and then invoice the vet for more to replace it,” David explained.
“But, again, didn’t Gary notice that in his books?”
“Are you kidding? It all balanced out. And it’s such a little amount compared to what he spends in his whole budget. It’s an easy score.”
“You seem to know a lot about how Premiere operates,” Emily said.
“Julie used to help Gary sometimes in the office,” David explained.
“So this debt you had, how were you planning to pay it?”
“I had a little in savings. And Julie was gonna get the rest from her dad. Tell him she needed it for horse supplies. He was putting so much money into her training, what was another couple five hundred?”
“Did that work?”
“It would have. But then he asked for invoices from the stables. We were trying to forge something, but Tim was getting impatient. Said he was gonna make things really rough for Julie if we didn’t pay right then.”
“What did he mean by that?” Emily asked.
“This one kid from school owed him, like, two hundred dollars. He raised hogs, you know, for show—the fair. And Tim went to his house one night and led one of his hogs into the back seat of this guy’s car that was parked near their barn. Then he killed the pig in the car and left it there.”
Emily’s stomach rolled over. A hog-killing drug dealer. Revolting.
“We just didn’t think he’d do anything like that to Julie because, you know, with her dad being a senator and stuff.”
“You thought you were untouchable,” Emily said. “But you set up the GoPro just in case.”
David nodded. “Julie wanted it for blackmail.”
“But when you caught Tim, you couldn’t tell anyone because then she wouldn’t be able to compete?”
“Right.”
“How did you hide Mercedes’ wounds?”
“We cleaned the sores and applied an antibiotic and a numbing agent so that Mercedes wouldn’t feel the pain. The judges don’t test every horse, and thankfully Mercedes wasn’t called in that day.”
“So no one suspected a thing, and Mercedes was able to perform,” said Emily, piecing it together.
“They won the competition.”
David’s breathing had increased, and Emily noticed his forehead and arms were sweating. A good sign. He was telling the truth. She wished he had come clean for Nick. And whether or not Tim was involved in Julie’s death, he seemed strongly connected to this misdeed. Ire and sadness intertwined in Emily as she thought about the deadly consequences of Julie and David’s actions. No one was left untouched by their string of poor teenage choices. Even the innocent Mercedes.
30
Emily zipped across the street to the Freeport Public Library. She wanted to find out more about Tim Hart so she could tell Nick. Emily also knew that now that the toxicology report was released, there would be even more finger-pointing. The Dobsons would blame David for leading Julie into a life of drug abuse and criminal activity that eventually led to her murder. They would demand to put him under the microscope. This was exactly the kind of juicy tale that could garner all sorts of media attention and sway community and jury members. If Emily could come up with solid evidence that pointed this investigation in the right direction and potentially even result in an arrest before the news broke, Nick and his team could sweep in and make Tim’s arrest. David could be saved from public harm.
Emily selected a computer and tried to log in. She quickly realized she needed an account. Of course. She found the only librarian on duty, stacking books in the shelves.
“Oh, you’re a familiar face, Emmie Hartford. Remember I used to call you that?”
“Miss Sally Overzet?” Emily exclaimed, recognizing the woman. She had let her hair go gray and had put on a few pounds under an oversized sweater and elastic-waisted polyester pants. She had the same warm smile and calming personality.
“I suppose you’re back in town for your dad? How’s he doing?”
“A little better. Thank you for asking.” Emily didn’t want to get into it with her. “I need to use the computer, and it’s asking for my log-in. Can you help me set up an account?”
“Of course. Have you tried your old log-in?”
“Well, no, I didn’t think it would still be active.”
Sally walked with Emily to the computer station. “Try it. Let’s see. If not, we’ll get you set up with a new one.”
Emily typed in first initial and last name.
“Do you remember your password?” said Sally.
Emily thought for a second. She had started her own account shortly after her mother passed away. So … what would have been important enough for her to set as a password when she was fifteen? Then, in a flash, it came to her. She entered “NICK4EVER.” The log-in screen disappeared, and she was in the system. Emily laughed out loud.
“What’s so funny, dear?”
“Oh … oh … just … I can’t believe it … after all this time.”
“I’ll let you get to work. If you need anything, I’m just right over there in the steamy romance section,” Sally said with a wink.
Once in the local periodicals system, Emily did a quick search for Tim Hart. From what she found, she learned that Tim would have been a freshman at Freeport High School when she had been a senior. But he didn’t look familiar to her, and she wondered why she had never heard of him. His address popped up. She jotted it down and then scrolled down a few pages to see if she could find out anything more about him.
The Freeport County Examiner had featured him in a few hunting photos when he was a teenager. There was a graduation picture from seven years ago. She kept scrolling until a link titled “Hart Arrested for Assault” caught her eye, and she clicked onto the link.
Timothy Hart, age 23, was arrested Saturday night for assault on his girlfriend, a Freeport resident. Hart and his girlfriend were leaving Bart’s Bar a little after 1 AM, when a witness reported Hart threw his girlfriend to the ground and kicked her. Police took Hart to the Freeport County Jail, where he was placed in jail with a $500,000 bond. Trial date to be set Tuesday.
Nice guy, Emily thought smugly. She clicked onto another link. Hart had been sentenced to eight months in jail two years ago. Another link informed her that he had been released from jail on good behavior after five months.
Emily clicked on a third page of links and found a source stating that Tim had been arrested as a minor for robbing a gas station and for truancy. He had been sent to juvenile detention. Between his truancy and juvenile detention, Tim had virtually been absent his freshman year. No wonder she didn’t know who he was. And now he was dealing to the high school population of Freeport and quite possibly Julie’s killer.
Emily got back into her car and pressed Nick’s number. It went right to voicemail. He was probably tied up in interviews. She wasn’t sure what to do. A texted pinged from Nick: In interview. Urgent?
She quickly texted back: Tim Hart is go-pro guy. Dealing drugs to Julie & David.
Nick came right back with Nice work.
She waited for more. Nice work? That was it?
Are you gonna arrest him? she texted.
Based on what cause? came the answer after a few minutes.
Based on wht Davd said, Emily typed quickly, misspelling half the words.
Doesn’t work that way. Gotta go.
Emily was quaking inside. Why wasn’t Nick dropping everything? Certainly none of these other interviews held this much weight! She had practically handed him his killer.
Emily stewed for a minute about her next course of action. She had to get in front of this story before the news cycle did. Once Tim got wind of Julie’s tox results, there was no doubt in her mind that he would go on the run. He might even head out of the country. The Canadian border was only five hours away. David was counting on her.
Then she remembered one very important detail about the position of medical examiner. The medical examiner outranked the sheriff when it came to matters involving death investigation. And if public safety was at stake—and she believed it was—Tim Hart was dealing drugs to minors. Worse, if Tim even got a tiny whiff that he was being considered as a suspect in Julie’s murder, she knew he would ditch Freeport. This had to be handled carefully. And even though Emily had the right to demand the sheriff’s department to take immediate action to secure public welfare, she thought she would do a little more reconnaissance first. The more puzzle pieces she could put together for Nick, the better equipped he would be to make a clean arrest.
