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The ER doc diagnosed Sandra with dehydration.
“I’d better not get a bill for this. I could’ve told you that I was dehydrated.” She was certain that she would get a bill, but she didn’t mind. She was happy to be alive.
He told her that he wanted to keep her for a few hours, just for observation, and to get some fluids into her, but that she could go home after she got some rest. She didn’t argue with that. She’d never been so tired in her whole life. In fact, she didn’t know it was possible to be as tired as she was and still be awake.
She wasn’t awake for long. Despite the bright lights and shouts and alarms of the ER, she conked off as soon as her head hit the pillow, and she wasn’t pleased when Detective Chip and Detective Slaughter woke her up.
“What?” she said, her voice thick with sleep.
“Sorry to disturb you, but we’ve just got a few questions.” He asked them, and she answered them to the best of her ability. Chip gave her a good belly laugh when she described her toilet tank cover maneuver, and she found that rewarding. Even Slaughter curled up one corner of her mouth.
At one point, Chip said, “You’re lucky you got away when you did.”
“I don’t feel all that lucky.”
“No?” Chip raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you just tell me that Wilfredo abruptly dropped his gun?”
“Wilfredo? Who on earth is that?”
Chip smirked. “Mike’s son.”
“Oh.” She thought Junior was a better fit. “Yes, he just dropped it.” She wished she could tell him more, but she knew she wasn’t supposed to. “I think he had a seizure or something.”
“Or something,” Slaughter repeated.
“What did Mike do?” Sandra asked. Then she realized that was a bit ambiguous. “I mean, other than taking money to fix high school soccer games. I’m assuming he was involved in larger crimes?”
“He sure was. He fixed college games too.” Chip laughed at his own joke. Then he added, “He was mostly into drug trafficking, but we’re finding evidence of all sorts of related crimes. There’s evidence to suggest he’s already killed some people.”
Sandra’s breath caught. That was scary. “That explains why he owns a funeral home. How convenient ... I wonder why he was a soccer ref at all. Sounds like he had enough other stuff to keep him busy.”
“According to his son, he just really loves soccer.”
Even bad guys had to have hobbies. “Has anyone told Frank’s widow, Isabelle? She should know that Mike’s been caught.”
“I don’t know if that’s happened, but we’ll make sure that it does.”
“And there’s no evidence that Frank was mixed up in any of this, right?”
Chip shook his head. “No, why? Do you think he was?”
“No, no,” Sandra said quickly. “But someone broke into Frank’s house. Really trashed the place looking for something. I think Isabelle was a little worried that Frank had crossed over to the dark side.”
“We are aware of the break-in,” Chip said.
“You are? I didn’t think Isabelle wanted to report it.”
“She didn’t. Frank’s son did. Apparently, Mike thought Frank had some evidence. According to Wilfredo, Frank gave Mike a week to turn himself in and resign or he was going to blow the whistle on his scam—”
“The reffing scam?”
“Yep. Apparently, that’s all Frank knew about. But if Frank reported that one relatively small crime, and the police got to poking around in Mike’s affairs, imagine what they would’ve uncovered. Mike couldn’t have that.”
“So he had his son poison him?”
“Yep. Gave them a game together and told Wilfredo to take care of it.” Chip shook his head, disgusted.
“Make sure Isabelle knows all this, okay? It’s important that she knows what a good man her husband was.”
Chip lowered his notepad and looked at Sandra curiously. “You seem to be excessively involved in this whole thing, Mrs. Provost. It’s almost like you were trying to do some amateur investigating.” He raised his voice at the end of his sentence.
Was that a question? If it was, was she supposed to answer it? She chose not to.
“If that was the case,” Chip said slowly, “I hope you’ve learned how dangerous that can be.”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Absolutely. I’m all done getting stuffed into trunks.”
“Good. That’s good to hear.” Chip turned to go. “You take care of yourself, Mrs. Provost. Feel better soon.”
“But I did sort of help, didn’t I?”
Chip chuckled, but he didn’t give her the satisfaction of turning around.