Losing Patients (Animal Instincts Book 4) (3 page)

Green pulled out a notebook and scribbled something down. “I’m sure the police were in the house at the time of the notification, but like I said, it didn’t seem like anything more than an accident at first.”

“What changed?”

“We found the body two days after the boat was towed back to the marina. The autopsy took place. Givens didn’t have any safety gear on, and that was a major factor in the decision to call it an accident.”

“Right, but …”

“About two weeks later, we got a call for another accident on the lake, not far from the marina. Same sort of case. Guy was drunk and fell out of his boat. The thing is that when the police went to fish the body out, they found another life jacket. They thought it belonged to the dead guy, and they were right. But it was a different dead guy. Givens’ name was written in permanent marker along the bottom of it. One side of the device had been cut with something sharp.”

“Like someone had cut it off him?” I was starting to see the idea behind the change of heart.

“Exactly like someone had decided to cut it off him. Enough of the straps were cut that it could have been pulled off, and then the body left. No floatation device, no chance to survive long in that lake.” She air quoted “that,” which I found endearing. She had a knack for using air quotes at all the wrong places. I was never sure if she didn’t know that she was choosing the wrong word, or if she did it on purpose to mess with people. I’d seen a few witnesses who had been so thrown off by the move that they’d shared more than they had intended.

“Why wasn’t this on the news?”

Green shrugged. “And say what? The captain was very clear that we had no proof at all. The straps could have been cut at any time before or after the time of Givens’ death. So we had no case. He wanted a lot more than that to make a case and announce that we’d been wrong in calling it an accident.”

“So what have you been doing?”

“Anything we can, while keeping a low profile. We can’t get a warrant. We can’t search anything. We do watch the footage from the red light camera on a daily basis, so we can keep an eye on her movements and any visitors. Patrol cars go by on a regular basis too. That’s about all. We’re stuck. Whoever did this, and we’re all betting that it’s the wife who bumped him off, has gotten away with murder, and it’s driving us crazy. We don’t like to let people get the better of us.”

I thought back to what little the wife had told me. “You do know that the wife was on shore while the boat was out? She couldn’t have killed him before she waved goodbye, and she certainly couldn’t have killed him after you found him. So when was she supposed to have killed him?”

Green shook her head and then put her head in her hands. “That’s just it. We don’t know. Just barely enough evidence points to homicide to make us suspicious. No motive, no means, and a coroner’s report that says it was an accident. It’s a mess, a big mess, and no one has any idea how to fix it. Except right in the middle of all of this, you come strolling up the door to give away a free dog talk to this lady. There’s no way in hell that this is a coincidence. I just spilled my guts to you. Now it’s your turn.”

So I told her everything. I had no choice, but I made her promise that she wouldn’t release the information about the veterinary practice to the press unless it became necessary for the investigation. Otherwise, she’d keep my client to herself.

I gave every detail that I’d uncovered, which was not much yet. I did leave out the other two names. She didn’t ask me who they were. I figured that Green could figure it out on her own. There weren’t that many deaths in Toledo for her to go guessing. She’d be able to pick them out in a few minutes.

I took a deep breath and slumped back in my chair. I felt a bit like a traitor in giving her so much information, but at the same time, I knew that they would get farther with this than I would by myself. They had the resources to investigate. I could only go and ask a few questions here and there. While I’d done well with the matters I’d investigated, I always doubted that I would be able to do it next time.

Plus I really didn’t want to be taken into the police station. I knew that I had no standing as an investigator and I had no right to keep information from the police. I knew that Dr. Wilson would not be happy with me, but she had contacted me to talk to animals, not get involved in an open murder investigation.

“So you’re talking about the Adamson suicide, aren’t you?” she asked.

I raised an eyebrow. I had specifically not mentioned a name in that case.

“I talked to Bruno,” Green told me. “He’s a pushover when it comes to telling me everything he knows. He read the file and knew about it. 32 was about to take a whiz on it.” She gave me a smile as she talked about my dogs.

“So that’s not a suicide?” I asked. This case was getting harder by the moment. It appeared as though this might be a serial killer, and I had no desire to tangle with someone who enjoyed killing people. I was strictly amateur. I only wanted to deal with people who killed for a very good reason.

She shook her head. “It was ruled a suicide. There was a note. But we had real questions about the method of suicide. Real questions,” she repeated.

“Such as?” I asked. I might as well get comfortable and let her tell me about the cases. I was on the way to becoming an armchair detective.

“You’re going to have to take me out for dinner again if I’m going to do your job for you,” she said with a smile. Given that our first date had ended with a panic attack on my part, Detective Green had been forced to pay for the meal. It had been an inauspicious beginning to a potential relationship, and neither one of us had asked about going out again. I knew it would come up at some point, but I was not going to rush it.

“Fine. If you give me any information that allows me to solve the case, I’ll take you to dinner. If one of the pets tells me something, then I’m off the hook.” I threw that in, knowing full well that Sheila did not believe that I spoke to any animal except a certain two-legged mammal. However, it was always good to remind her of what I did for a living. I had to keep up the pretense so that no one would ever be able to say that I’d admitted that I was a fraud.

“This should be good,” she said with a smirk. “I’m going on memory here, because this wasn’t my case, but the lead on the case came and talked to me because I’d done some research on murders that had been made to look like suicides.”

“They have classes on that?” I asked. I was shocked that this happened enough for there to be a need for coursework on it.

“One of many classes that you can take. I bet there’s even one on meddling civilians in your murder investigation. I’ll have to look into that one.”

I rolled my eyes. That was enough to remind her that I had a pretty good track record when it came to solving crimes. I rarely made a point of telling her directly. She didn’t take it well, viewing it as something of a competition.  “So what are the details that bothered you?”

“Adamson hung herself in the abandoned building next door to their home. She made her entrance through a third story window and then went down to the basement. She pinned the note to her blouse. She stood on a chair and kicked it away to hang herself.”

I pondered the scenario for a minute. I was obviously being tested on what aspects of the crime were not typical for a suicide. “So the third floor window thing is an issue, right?”

She nodded. “Yeah, it was. What was your first clue?”

My face flushed a little. “You made specific note of which window was used. That told me that it was important for some reason.”

She nearly face palmed herself. “That’s your logic? My word choices. How is that relevant?”

“You actually only told me three things about the crime scene. The building was abandoned. She went in the third floor window and killed herself in the basement. So the way she entered had to be important to the story.”

“Great, so as long as someone tells you the summarized version of the story, you’re good to go. I want you to tell me why that detail is important.”

I was immediately reminded of Green’s technique in giving me the police file on my sister’s disappearance. She hadn’t told me what she’d found or what it meant. Instead she’d let me read the file and figure it out for myself. The result had been less than spectacular. I’d ended up having a panic attack when I realized the truth. I wasn’t sure that I wanted another round of figure out something about the crime.

She must have sensed that I was thinking about this, because she cleared her throat and started talking. “Would it help if I told you that they only had a six-foot ladder at the Adamson house and a rickety fire escape with a six-foot pull down? She was about 5’6” if I remember correctly.”

“So the third floor meant that she didn’t have an easy way to get in the house from that height. What does that mean?”

“Well, obviously, if she didn’t have access, then everything that follows is suspect too. She certainly couldn’t have gotten in, so how could she have done the rest. If she wasn’t able to go downstairs and kill herself, then what happened?”

“Did you ask the family about that?” I felt calmer now, feeling that we’d stepped away from the whole “figure it out yourself” mentality and its prior examples. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she talked.

“Yeah, the husband claimed that they’d had a longer ladder, but that it had gone missing a few months back. It sounds suspicious, but ladders aren’t like guns and cars where you expect a police report. You’re likely to think that a neighbor or friend borrowed it. So there’s no follow-up.”

“Even if it had been there at the time of the suicide, who would have wanted to take it? You’d have to have a truck or something to carry it away.”

She nodded. “Yeah, we asked the neighbors if anyone had seen a truck in the neighborhood that morning, but no one had.”

“So why isn’t this still open then?” I asked, thinking of the Givens case.

“Too much pressure to close it. Adamson was a friend of a TPD captain. He pushed to get the investigation closed down. Body, note, entrance, no signs of struggle and the ligature marks matched the rope. Adamson was out of town, so he was cleared. No clear evidence to the contrary.”

“So now you’re stuck with two cases that may be murder and no way to prove it?”

She took a deep breath too. The tension that had been in the room earlier was gone now, and we were talking like friends. “Yeah, definitely. It sticks with you, especially when it’s two in one month. You feel powerless and ineffectual.”

I’d had many days like that since my sister, Susan, had disappeared. I knew the feeling all too well. “So now’s the part when you’re going to tell me to stay away from the cases because they’re still technically being investigated?”

Her eyes widened. She gave me a wicked grin. “Not at all. I want you to ask all the questions you want about these first two cases. Knock yourself out.”

“Why?” I asked suspiciously. Normally I had been warned away from anything approaching police work. Today she was pushing me to play detective. I was apprehensive about her motives.

“Look, I can’t look into these cases. First, they’re closed and my higher-ups would be livid to hear that I had time to second guess what had happened with closed cases. They’d pile enough work on me to keep me busy until retirement. They’d be merciless about it.”

“So don’t let them know. Or look into them in your off time.”

Her lip twisted up. “Not possible. After a while, people just know when you’re a cop. I’d be known a hundred miles from either crime scene. Same ending to the story.”

“So you want me to investigate and report back to you?” I was hesitant to have two “clients” in this matter. I had some professional ethics, even if I didn’t have a professional license for this.

She gave me a smile. “You don’t have to report back. As you already know, we have ways of keeping track of what goes on there. We just want you to go ahead and ask questions. You have this knack of stirring things up. I think we can use you in this matter.”

I wasn’t sure I liked that answer. I was being used for a catalyst, and I remembered enough about chemistry class to know that a catalyst was typically burned up during the process of making other things happen. It was not a place I wanted to be.

“Will you keep all of this about the vet to yourself? I don’t want anything to happen to her or her business.”

She rolled her eyes. “By all means. It’s not whether or not justice is served. It’s all about if Griff Fitzpatrick needs to find a new veterinarian.”

She stood up, and I figured that our time together was about finished. She hadn’t mentioned our misadventure in dating, and so I was content to let the matter go for now. I’d been embarrassed by the date and upset by the information I’d uncovered. For the moment, I wanted to leave both of those on the backburner. I knew that my desire to help Dr. Wilson out came in large part from me wanting to avoid the subjects.

She stood by the door for a second, turned, started to say something, and then shook her head. She left without a word, and I was glad for that. I hoped that she knew that I was changing and growing slowly, but that it wasn’t going to be a fast process.

Given the green light by the police to investigate the first two crimes that Dr. Wilson had mentioned to me, I decided to try the same approach to the Adamsons that I had used on the Givens family. A free offer of services was usually tempting.

I had more difficulty with finding the number, but that was the least of my difficulties. I called the Adamson’s house. The man who answered hung up on me before I could even finish my spiel. Obviously this was going to take some thought.

Detective Green had indicated that I could stir things up, so I didn’t feel as though I had to be as circumspect as I’d been that morning with the Givens family. However, I couldn’t come up with a good way to talk to the Adamsons if they weren’t even going to talk to me.

I decided to mull it over. In the meantime, I tried to think about motivations for three possible motives tied to Dr. Wilson. From what I read of her records and from what Detective Green had told me, they were three separate crimes. Each with a different method of murder, and each one had another suspect for the crime, if a crime was actually committed. I wondered about marriage when the police are always likely to suspect the spouse first.

I started with the most likely cause, which involved something concerning Dr. Wilson. Since they’d all had pets and been patients of Dr. Wilson, perhaps they had all discovered something that required them to be killed. I couldn’t imagine what that might be though. I went back through the records, which were fairly detailed. The Adamson family had been in six weeks ago, but the Givens family hadn’t been in since January, nearly nine months ago.

Marksberry had been in last November for her annual visit with the ferret. None of this boded well for my theory. If Marksberry hadn’t been in nearly ten months, I couldn’t think of a piece of information that would sit dormant for that long and not be a priority until just a few days ago.

If they had all known the same piece of information or had come across the same thing in their dealings with Dr. Wilson, then they should have been silenced at approximately the same time. Presumably they had all talked to each other. It was difficult to believe and challenged the laws of probability that all three of them had come up with the same damaging theory at the same time.

I knew this was a long shot theory, because the most likely suspect was Dr. Wilson, who had brought attention to the matter herself. She would likely not tell someone about the connection when she’d obviously rather avoid any scrutiny. It didn’t make sense for her to bring attention to herself this way.

So if it wasn’t Dr. Wilson, then it would have to be another patient or other worker at the office who was there at the same time as all three patients. I called the office and left a message for Dr. Wilson, asking her to cross-reference the patients and staff for the three dates where the patients were last in. I gave her the three dates, hoping that it would expedite the process.

I felt more hopeful about that alternative. It would mean that something about another patient or the staff had set off an alarm about the situation, which had led to murder. However, I was still left with trying to explain why the last person killed was the one who had visited the earliest.

Of course, Google had some input into my study of possible motivations as well. I came up with the Ellery Queen theory to the case, which dealt with likely other characteristic patterns between the three that would crack the case. I had noticed that the incidents had occurred to people in reverse time order from their last appointment. If there were enough patterns between the victims, then I would be able to figure out the motive and the killer. I put that thought aside. I wondered if that could have had anything to do with their appointments.

Agatha Christie had suggested a motive via her ABC Murders. In that book, only one of the victims was the intended target. The other victims had merely been camouflage, innocent bystanders who had created a confusing pattern to cover the true motives.

This plot was going to require some digging into the various people in the lives of each of the victims. I had no idea if they were rich or poor, or if they were cheating or some other glorious motive that might lead them to want to kill someone. This was also the most heartless of the plots, since innocent people were going to die needlessly in order to mask the real crime. I had to admit that it had been successful so far, as the police were utterly stumped and couldn’t even investigate two of the cases openly.

There was always the possibility that it could have been random coincidence as well. I didn’t have the odds of someone getting murdered in Toledo, but I did know that 18 people had been murdered last year in Toledo. Certainly at least someone had known more than a few of the people who had died. It was conceivable that this was just a freak chance. It seemed the least likely, but I had to keep it in mind as well.

Veterinarians come into contact with hundreds of people, and I thought it likely that she attended pet events like I did. There were any number of people she met in a year, and out of those a few had passed away. The police were suspicious of two of those cases, but in stark reality, she’d only knew one person who had been murdered. It wasn’t that much of a coincidence in the grand scheme of things.

All of this thinking was getting me nowhere. I had several lovely theories that I could look at but I needed more information before I could rule out any of them. Since the Adamsons had not called back, I decided to do the next best thing. The house next door to them was abandoned, so I decided to see for myself what Detective Green had talked about regarding the access issues.

I drove out the Adamsons’ house, which was in the Westmoreland part of town. Westmoreland had been supposed to be the “new” home of the Toledo Zoo back in the 1930s, but that had never happened. Instead, the University of Toledo had moved here, and that had cemented its reputation for being well-off. The area had several mini-parks and all types of architecture, mainly from the 1930s and 1940s.

I made it there in about 15 minutes. I parked the car across the street from the Adamsons’ house. I wanted to make myself as visible as possible here, hoping to get an interview with the Adamson family. I looked around. Detective Green had told me that the house next door was abandoned. I took that to be a relative term and not a precise location, so I scanned the houses on all sides, looking for a shabby house. There was an older Colonial-style home on the corner. It was three-stories and had the look of disrepair. A ragged for sale sign stood in the overgrown yard. I suspected that it had been abandoned after the last recession where many homes and some neighborhoods had been abandoned, since the home prices were less than what was owed on the homes.

It actually reminded me a bit of my own house, which didn’t make me feel better. I wondered again about my own decisions, when the lack of grass cutting and repair made the house stand out more, not less. Given my own desire to blend in and not be vivacious in any way, I thought perhaps I needed to work on my place.

I didn’t see anyone else around, so I walked through the home’s yard and made a loop around the home itself. I saw no visible way into the building at ground level, so if Mrs. Adamson had wanted to go into the house, she would have had to go higher.

I remembered that Detective Green had indicated that Mrs. Adamson had gained entrance to the building from the third floor. I walked around the building again, looking for windows or openings that might have allowed her to get inside. In the back were two tall, thin windows on the third floor. It appeared that one of them might be broken. That was my guess for where Mrs. Adamson had entered the home.

On the bright side, the windows were not clearly visible from the streets, so there would be some privacy to attempt the climb to the third floor. The house had a rickety fire escape, which Detective Green had mentioned. Some of the older homes of many stories had fire escapes, even though they weren’t required at the time. The upper floors typically held the bedrooms, and jumping from that height might result in serious injuries.

The ladder started just off the ground. I pulled it to within stepping distance. I started climbing. I’m not a big guy, but I could feel the metal ladder sway as I put my weight on it. I had to suppose that Mrs. Adamson was smaller than I was, so it might not have been as big as issue for her.

I made it to the second floor and looked up. The structure seemed sturdier as I climbed, so I went up another level. At this point, I could see the two narrow windows up close. One of the two windows had been shattered and a piece of plywood blocked the way. So that much of the story seemed to be true. However, even if someone had killed Mrs. Adamson, they would have still needed to do the same thing, so the killer would have broken the window instead to get in. They could have left and locked the door on the way out. It proved nothing, one way or the other.

I looked in the other window and saw the carpeted floors. So there would be no footprints in the dust here. That line of forensics was out. I looked at the railings, but there were no marks or scratches that might have told me something about what had happened. I sighed. I liked it better when there were plenty of clues to go around.

I started making my way back down the stairs. I hadn’t planned on actually going into the house. Despite Detective Green’s tacit approval of asking questions, I didn’t think that her permission came with the right to break into people’s homes. I gladly put my feet on solid ground again. I looked down the length of the back of the house and saw a door that had to belong to the garage. It had a steel frame, but two panes of glass. I looked into the upper window and noticed quite a few sets of footprints in the dust. These were probably from the police and their investigation, but since it had been ruled a suicide, there was no indication of police tape or requests not to disrupt the site.

Still I didn’t want to mess things up. The last thing I needed was to prove that it was a homicide and then learn that I’d also destroyed any potential evidence by my own carelessness. So I stayed outside looking in. Detective Green was right about one thing. There was no sign of a ladder here, but perhaps the rickety fire escape would work for entrance. If you were planning on killing yourself, would you worry about falling off the fire escape and hurting yourself? I wondered.

I had about turned the corner to move to the far side of the home when I heard a voice shout, “Hey!”

I turned around and saw a larger man walking towards me. He was about six feet tall with a beer gut that hung over the front of his pants. He looked angry and I just stood waiting for him to come over.

“You’re trespassing,” he spat out as he approached me.

“Is this your property?” I asked mildly. I had a plan that would only be upset if the property owner showed up.

“No, I live next door, and you’re not the neighbor.” He stood with his arms folded over his chest so that they rested on his belly. He had narrowed his eyes to slits, but I could see enough of them to know that he was angry.

“I’m interested in buying the place. The realtor said that I could stop by and look around. We have a formal review of the property with an inspector next week.”

My words stopped him. He didn’t have a response for that, but he didn’t move. He continued to stand there with his arms crossed over his chest. I just ignored the attitude. “So do you know anything about this place? Its history?”

“It’s not a good house. It’s dangerous. People die here.” His tone was calm and level, but the words freaked me out a little. They were the words of a child who was superstitious, not an adult.

“Do you live next door?” I asked, ignoring the warnings like the hero of a horror film.

He uncrossed his arms long enough to point to the Adamson house. “Right there.”

“So we’d be neighbors. My name is Givens, Griffin Givens.” I watched him carefully as I extended my hand. His face had no reaction, so he either had not heard of the Givens family or he was a damned good actor. It was hard to tell which at this point.

“Jack Adamson,” he said finally and shook my hand. “I’m not wild about you being here without an escort. I would think that the realtor would want to be here with you too.”

“I’m only in town for a few hours today, and she had a closing. It was either let me look at it by myself or lose the sale completely. I think she chose wisely.” Now that I had him hooked, I continued to walk along the back side of the house that didn’t face the street. He followed along, presumably to keep an eye on me as I looked.

I checked meters and other things that I knew about the home, but honestly I had no idea what I was really supposed to be doing. I looked up to look at the roof. “Do you know how old the roof is?” I asked.

“No clue. I don’t think it’s been replaced since I’ve lived here.” He looked up at the roof as if it might give him some answers, but nothing was forthcoming.

I turned to face him. “This sounds like a really odd question, but I have to ask. My girlfriend has this weird superstition. She doesn’t want a house where someone has died. The realtor had no idea, but just wanted me to tell her ‘no.’ Can you help out here? It would be great to be able to reassure her.”

I had planned this question on the drive over. I had needed a way to broach the subject without making it seem like I already knew what had happened. This route seemed the safest to me – slightly odd, but safest.

He didn’t speak for a minute. His face looked whiter than it had when he approached me. He finally stammered, “Yeah, someone did die in here.”