The EMTs had whisked Imogene away on a stretcher almost forty-five minutes ago while Rainwater examined the scene and directed his officers for the next steps. He spun around. “We’re going to the hospital to check on Imogene’s status.”
Officer Wheaton nodded. He was wearing gloves and weeding through papers on the small table. Every few seconds, he stopped to take a photograph with a digital camera.
“I want that swab and the entire kitchen tested for penicillin. Call in a favor and see if it can be done tonight,” Rainwater said.
Two more officers arrived to help Officer Wheaton process the scene.
“I’ve used up all my favors with the lab, Chief,” Wheaton said. “I don’t think it will do much good for me to say that.”
Rainwater rubbed the back of his neck. “Tell the lab director that his New Year’s Eve drinks are on me.”
“Okay, Chief.”
“And find her cell phone,” Rainwater said.
“Did she have one?” one of the other officers asked. “By the looks of it, there is no modern technology in this room at all.”
“It’s hard to believe that she didn’t have a cell phone,” Rainwater said. “I suppose that’s possible, but let’s assume she did. I want to know everyone she spoke to recently, who knew she was living out here, and how she got that DNA kit.”
The three officers nodded and then got back to work searching and processing the cabin. It wouldn’t take them very long. There was very little there. If Imogene had wanted to live the simple life like Thoreau had on Walden Pond, she’d certainly accomplished that.
Rainwater turned to me. “You ready to go?”
I nodded, and as we went out the cabin door, I took one last look at the family tree on the wall. Henry David Thoreau’s austere face with his mutton chops looked back at me with a mild introspective expression. What would he think of all this? What would he think of someone trying to kill a woman because of him one hundred and fifty years after his death? That certainly wasn’t living simply.
Rainwater was quiet on the way to the hospital. We were in one of his officer’s cruisers who’d arrived at the scene. He had said he didn’t want to waste time going back to Charming Books to collect his car. The officer promised to bring his SUV to hospital when they were done at the scene.
The closest hospital to Cascade Springs was in Niagara Falls. The tranquility of the village fell away as we merged onto the highway and drove toward the bright lights of the city.
Under normal circumstances, being this close to the falls, I would have wanted to stop and see them. There was something magical about Niagara Falls at night in the winter. The colored lights for the evening shows reflected off of the ice. Snow fell, and you felt like you were inside a snow globe made just for you.
When we arrived at the hospital, Rainwater parked the cruiser in the first available spot and didn’t waste any time going into the ER. Inside, the waiting room was busy.
He went to the desk. “I’m Chief David Rainwater from Cascade Springs. I had a victim come in here a little while ago. Imogene Thoreau.”
“Yes, she’s already been moved to a room on the second floor.” She glanced at her computer screen. “Room 212.”
“Can we go up?” he asked in a businesslike voice.
The woman at the desk eyed me.
“She’s with me,” Rainwater said.
She pursed her lips. “You can go up to the floor, but you will have to stop at the information desk to see if you can enter her room.”
Rainwater strode directly to the elevator as if he were afraid the receptionist would change her mind if he didn’t leave just then.
When we were in the elevator, I studied him. His jaw was locked and tense.
I put a hand on his arm. “David, what’s wrong?”
He looked at me and his usually sparkling eyes were clouded with emotion. His face muscles were tight. “This is my fault. If I had listened to you and taken this case more seriously, Imogene wouldn’t be lying in a hospital bed right now. We would have found her book, and she would have gone back to her life. Instead, I was just so focused on going on vacation and escaping the stress of the job that I pushed your warnings aside.”
I grabbed his hand. “That’s not true. It’s not your fault. We don’t know who did this to Imogene, but you’re wrong. She wasn’t just going to go back to her life even if she had the book. Proving her story was her life. You saw the inside of that cabin. It is all she thinks about.” I paused. “If anyone is to blame, it’s me. I’m the one who told her to get a DNA test to prove once and for all that she was related to Thoreau. Maybe she reached out to the wrong person after that to get a test.” I looked down at my boots. “I wish she would have asked me. Maybe she didn’t because I’d warned her that the test was meaningless if there wasn’t any DNA for Thoreau on record. I mean, I didn’t think that any library or museum with a his lock of hair or something like that would just hand it over to her.”
The elevator doors opened, and we stepped out only to find Imogene’s son, Edmund Thorne, pacing in front of the elevator.
Edmund glared at me. “What have you done to my mother? She told me that she spoke with you today, and you gave her the ridiculous idea of taking a DNA test. Now I get a call that she had an allergic reaction to the test! Are you trying to kill her?”
I opened and closed my mouth.
“Mr. Thorne,” Rainwater said. “I know this is upsetting, but we don’t believe a DNA test could do that to her. It had been tampered with. That’s our suspicion. We will know more when the lab results come back.”
He pointed at me. “Then she put something on it to poison my mother.”
I held up my hands. “I didn’t. I didn’t even know that she was planning to take the test. I don’t know where she got it. She certainly didn’t get it from me.”
He threw up his hands. “This has gone too far. I have tried to be a good son, but how can I keep this up when she continues to tell this ridiculous story about Thoreau? When it started, it was just a bedtime story that she told me at night as a child. I thought it was neat to imagine that I was related to someone famous, but I never really believed it. I don’t even know if she believed it then either.” He took a ragged breath. “Over time, it became an obsession that put a wall up between her and everyone else in her life, including me. I didn’t abandon her like others would have and did. She is my mother. I couldn’t do that, but I’ve finally had enough. I can’t keep taking care of her if she takes this so far that she almost dies because of it.” His chest heaved.
A nurse pushing a medical cart walked by and raised her eyebrows as if to ask if we needed help with the unruly man in front of us. I shook my head ever so slightly.
“Mr. Thorne,” Rainwater said in a measured voice. “I have to ask you to take a moment and calm down. Violet is not responsible for what happened to your mother. We understand that you’re upset.”
“Of course you would say that Violet wasn’t responsible. She’s your wife. No one wants to know they just married a killer.”
“Sir,” Rainwater said, all business now. “We can continue this conversation at the station, if you prefer?”
Edmund backed off and cast a guilty glance at me. I didn’t think he really thought I was a killer. He was scared and upset, and his relationship with his mom was a mess.
“Have you been in to see your mother?” Rainwater asked.
“No, they wouldn’t let me,” Edmund said in a quieter voice than before.
“Have they told you her condition?”
“She’s stable and sleeping,” he said. “The nurse told me that she’s out of danger. That’s all I know.”
“All right. I will go find out what is happening with her. Why don’t you sit in the waiting room across the hall?”
Edmund looked over his shoulder at the empty waiting room. He turned back as if he was going to argue, but then his shoulders sagged. “All right.”
Rainwater looked at me after Edmund went into the waiting room.
“You go,” I said. “I’ll stay here with Edmund.”
“Are you sure?” Rainwater asked in a low voice.
I nodded. “I’m sure. He needs to vent. It’s better if he does that to me than to his sick mother when he can finally see her.” I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Edmund had not overheard me. The man was on a short fuse and just about anything was bound to set him off.
Rainwater patted my arm and then walked down the hallway toward the information desk.
Edmund sat in the waiting room, bent at the waist, cradling his head in his hands. He was a man who had run out of patience.
I sat in the chair farthest away from him in the small room. I wanted to help him, but I didn’t want to be within striking distance in case he lost his cool. He had proven just a few minutes ago that he was teetering on the edge.
“Edmund?” I asked.
He didn’t lift his face from his hands. “Why are you still here?”
“Because I’m worried about your mother.” I paused. “I’m worried about you too.”
He lifted his head, and his eyes were clear. “Why on earth would you be worried about me? You don’t even know me.”
“That’s true,” I said softly. “But we have a friend in common. You’re important to her, so that makes you important to me.”
He frowned. “And who is that?”
“Renee,” I said.
His face softened. “That’s right. Renee mentioned the two of you were friends.” He dropped his head into his hands again. “I can’t imagine what she thinks of me now. We’ve only been dating a short while, but my family history has been exposed.”
“Everyone has something about their family that they’d much rather keep secret.” I thought of my own family and the birch tree. I was certainly speaking from personal experience in this case.
“That may be true, but it’s sure to chase Renee away.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe that. Renee likes you, and she’s a lot tougher than you are giving her credit for.”
He looked me in the eye for the first time that night. “Maybe you’re right. Her self-assuredness and practical nature is what drew me to her in the first place. It’s so different than what I’m used to.”
“You mean different from Imogene.”
He stared at his folded hands again. “I’m not sure my mother even knows what being practical means.” He straightened up in his seat. “In any case, you don’t have to worry about me. I can assure you of that. This is not the first time my mother has put me in a spot like this. I doubt that it will be the last.”
“You’ve been your mother’s guardian a long time.”
“My whole life. I don’t know if I can do it anymore. When the hospital first called me to tell me what had happened, I thought she was dead. I was heartbroken, but a small part of me was relieved. I wouldn’t have to do anything for her anymore. No more checkups to see if she’d showered or eaten or left her home. I was relieved that that wouldn’t be something on my daily agenda any longer. I felt horrible that the thought even crossed my mind, and I feel worse now repeating it to you. My façade has crumbled. I’m not a successful civil engineer. My true self is an ungrateful son.” He covered his face with his hands, and his shoulders shook.
“I don’t think Imogene would believe that about you. She’s told me that you are a good son, and she knows you care about her.”
He studied my face as if to gauge if I were lying.
“She needs help,” I said.
“Don’t you think I know that,” he shot back. “If you know so much about my mother, why don’t you try to help her? I’ve tried too many times to count. I’ve spent too much money on it and too much time. There has to be a point in life when you let the other person lie in the bed they made, no matter what that bed looks like.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I know you think I’m awful for saying that, and maybe I am, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s how I feel. I just need to get away from it. I took this job to rebuild the village hall as a break, and through me working for the village, she learned about the cabins in the woods and believed it was her calling to live like Thoreau—the real Thoreau, not the false name that she gave herself.
“Do you know how many strings I had to pull to convince the parks department to let her rent one of those cabins for the winter? She said that if I did that, she would lead a quiet life. She just wanted a quiet place to be for a few months like Thoreau. She promised that she would stop trying to prove her false story. She lied to me!” His face morphed from an angry grown man’s to a hurt little boy’s.
I didn’t know what to believe. I didn’t know if I should feel sorry for Imogene for the son that she had or for Edmund for the mother that he had. Maybe I needed to pity them both. Maybe they both were to blame for the fractures in their relationship.
Rainwater stepped into the waiting room, followed by a doctor and another police officer. They all looked so serious that Edmund and I both jumped to our feet.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Mr. Thorne, Officer Cutler and Dr. Ramer are going to ask you a few questions about your mother and her allergies. Imogene is doing better. I was able to speak to her for a minute.”
“What did she tell you?” I asked.
Rainwater pressed his lips together. “Not much. She was too groggy and said she doesn’t remember how she got the test,” he said, as if he wasn’t completely confident that Imogene was telling the truth.
I wanted to ask him more about it, but I thought it was best not to do that in front of Imogene’s son.
“Now,” Rainwater went on. “I have to leave, but Officer Cutler should be able to answer any questions you might have. I promise you that we will find out what happened to your mother.”
Edmund sat back down. The doctor sat next to him and they spoke in low tones. Rainwater nodded to Officer Cutler, and the two stepped out of the waiting room.
I didn’t know what to do. I was torn between wanting to know what the doctor had to say about Imogene’s condition and wanting to hear Rainwater and Officer Cutler’s conversation. In the end, I stepped out of the room too.
The two police officers were standing by the elevator.
“I want a guard posted outside her room. No one goes in to see her without being cleared.” Rainwater’s voice was tight.
Officer Cutler nodded. “We will get her phone to the tech team. They should be able to get into it and see her call log. We also have a judge subpoenaing her phone records. One of those will come through soon, and we can find out who she’s been in communication with.”
“You found Imogene’s phone?” I asked.
Officer Cutler looked to me and then to the chief. She swallowed. “We did. The EMTs found it in her pocket when they were in the ambulance. It’s password protected, and we can’t get into it. We should be able to soon though.”
“Can you use fingerprint or facial recognition?” I asked.
“No,” the officer said. “It’s a very old phone. It doesn’t have biometric technology. It’s just a passcode.”
“Can I see it?” I held out my hand.
Officer Cutler looked to Rainwater, and my husband gave a slight nod. Officer Cutler reached into her pocket and pulled out an old smartphone. I tapped the screen, and it asked for a seven-digit passcode. I tapped in 7-1-2-1-8-1-7. The phone unlocked. I handed it back to Officer Cutler. “There you go.”
She stared at the phone in her hand. “How…?”
“I read somewhere that people use important dates as passcodes. The date that I thought would be most important to Imogene is Henry David Thoreau’s birthday, which is July 12, 1817.”
Officer Cutler shook her head and started to flip through the phone. “Her most recent calls were to the same local number. My guess is it’s in Camden by the first three numbers after the area code.”
“Can I see that again?” I asked.
“Sure,” the officer said with a sigh. She wasn’t even hiding the fact that she was irritated with me for upstaging her in front of Rainwater.
I didn’t touch the phone this time but looked at the number. It looked familiar.
I removed my own phone from my coat pocket and typed the number in. It was what I had suspected. When I pulled the number, it was for Tattered Spine, Heath Howell’s rare bookshop. I showed Rainwater the phone.
“Looks like we need to get over to Tattered Spine and have another chat with Heath,” he said.
“Yes, we do,” I said.
Rainwater pressed his lips together. I knew he didn’t like the idea of me going with him.
“I know Heath,” I said. “Remember his reaction when Hank the delivery man revealed that you were a cop? He might be more willing to talk to another bookseller than a police officer.”
“Fine,” Rainwater said. “I don’t have time to take you home anyway.” He turned to his officer. “Is my car here?”
“It’s out front, sir.” The officer gave a brisk nod.
“No one goes into Imogene’s room. Do you understand me?”
Beads of sweat gathered on the young officer’s face. “Yes, sir. I won’t let anyone in.”
“And if she wakes up, and the doctors let you speak to her, see if she can remember when she took the test. Also if she can remember what she ate or drank. Any of those things could have been tampered with. We can’t assume that she had an allergic reaction to the DNA test until we get some results back.”
Officer Cutler’s head bobbed up and down. “Right.”
“Violet, let’s go.” Rainwater headed down the hallway.
I tripped down the hallway after Rainwater. I had worked on cases with him in the past, but none of them were this intense. I had a sense that Rainwater was expecting something else to happen, and whatever it was, it wasn’t good.