Day 1 – Friday afternoon
Forbes residence
With a huge gasp, Ginny came awake, sitting bolt upright in bed, staring into the darkened room. She was sweating and shaking, struggling to breathe and despising herself for it. She wasn’t the target this time. What did she have to be afraid of?
She pushed her hair back from her face, then relaxed onto the pillows, trying to talk herself down. Phyllis. It was Phyllis who was dead, strangled, in the ladies’ room at the hospital. Not just any ladies’ room either, the one inside her Intensive Care Unit. Ginny swallowed, allowing herself to remember what she’d seen.
Cyanosis—the bluish tinge that meant no oxygen was getting to the victim’s brain. Swelling—as the blood fought to overcome the stricture around her neck it had spread to the surrounding tissues. Filmed eyes—like cataracts, except for the broken blood vessels. Protruding tongue—a gargoyle on the roof of a medieval cathedral. Blood—on her hands and neck where she had torn her own flesh as she fought for life. A wire—like some grotesque parody of a twist tie, clamped in place and impossible for her to remove, not alone. She had died alone. Unless her killer had stayed to watch her die.
Did murderers really return to the scene of the crime? Or insert themselves into the investigation? Had the murderer stood and watched as they tried to resuscitate Phyllis?
The faces surrounding the scene had been stiff with horror and grief and fatigue. A few were openly curious. Most were silent.
Ginny shivered. Who could have done such a thing? She closed her eyes, but could not dismiss the image of that death.
* * *
Friday evening
Cooperative Hall
The next item on the ceilidh program was Waverley and the assembled clan evidently approved the choice. As soon as announced, the dancers raced across the floor, grabbed their partners, and skidded gleefully into position in the set. Those not dancing tapped their toes on the wooden floor or clapped their hands in time to the music. The fiddler added a jigging movement to his bowing and smiled and smiled and smiled.
Ginny smiled, too. Her eyes followed the dancers as they chased each other across the set (kilts and tartan sashes flying), weaving in and out of the line of standing dancers (an illegal move, but who was there to stop them?), then dashed back to place, arriving just in time to burst into laughter as the dancer at the bottom of the set inevitably got left behind at the start of the new rotation. Scottish Country Dancing had the power to make the heart sing, most of the time.
They were only halfway through the evening, but Ginny had opted to sit out the rest of the dances in favor of talking over the murder. Her best friend, Caroline, was across the table from her, Jim was on Caroline’s right, the Laird of Loch Lonach sat beside Ginny. They all looked worried.
“They cannot be serious!” Caroline shoved her blonde curls back from her face and nailed them in place with a headband. Ginny had seen that gesture before. Whenever she was agitated, Caroline took it out on her hair.
“The Medical Examiner puts the time of death between three and five a.m. Phyllis hadn’t done any of the four o’clock vital signs, so she was probably already dead by then. Everyone who was in the unit during that timeframe is a suspect.”
Jim had already heard the story, extracted from Ginny on the way home. It was Caroline asking the questions.
“How did you find her?”
“When she didn’t show up for shift change, we starting hunting. The break room was an obvious place to look.”
“I thought she was in the ladies’ room?” Jim asked.
Ginny nodded. “Both of the restrooms are accessed through the break room. I did the ladies’ while Peter checked the men’s. The handicap stall was locked. I peeked underneath and saw her slumped in the corner. I had to wriggle under the door to get to her and the police are mad at me for messing up their crime scene, but I thought she was just taken ill or something.”
“Understandable.” Caroline nodded. “The bathroom is inside the breakroom, which is inside the ICU, right?”
Ginny nodded.
Caroline raised one eyebrow. “I expect the police think that narrows the field very nicely.”
“If they do, they’re wrong. Normally the ICU is badge-only, but they had the doors propped open last night because of the heavy traffic.” She looked across at Caroline and raised both eyebrows. “Don’t let anyone tell you a full moon doesn’t make a difference. It does!”
Jim nodded. “Someone could have gotten in and out again without being noticed.”
“Bonnie Prince Charlie could have shown up in full Highland dress, with a piper, and we wouldn’t have noticed. We were too busy.”
“Ye had four admissions, I think ye said.” Himself had turned his chair so he could face the group, his feet solidly on the floor, his walking stick planted between his knees, brushing the hem of his kilt. His hands, one on top of the other, lay on the knob of his cane.
Ginny nodded. “Two of which were mine, and two Code Blues. On top of that, we had the photographer from Human Resources. He told us he was assigned to get pictures of the night crews with the Christmas decorations and was going from unit to unit collecting images to use in marketing and advertising. The Night Supervisor introduced him and stayed long enough to make sure she was in some of the photographs, then disappeared. We had to order him out of the way at least twice. He wanted action shots. I don’t know when he gave up and left.”
“Ye knew th’ dead lass, I think?”
“We were friends in school.” Ginny’s face clouded. “Two boys at home, ages three and five. Whoever did this should be strung up!”
They all nodded agreement.
“What happens next?” Jim asked.
“We wait for the police to finish processing the body and the scene. They closed the Unit, moved all the patients, and sent us home with instructions not to leave town.”
“But surely you have an alibi! All those witnesses!”
Ginny gave Caroline a pitying smile. “Without turning around, can you tell me who is dancing at the moment?”
“Well, no, of course not.”
“You know the dancers. You see them every week. Did you notice if anyone was missing tonight?”
Caroline shook her head.
“It wouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes to kill Phyllis and hide the body. Whoever did it probably can produce witnesses who would swear she—or he—was right there, in plain sight the whole time.”
“What about the cameras and that photographer fellow?”
“The police are looking at the images. Let’s hope they find something. In the meantime, all we can do is wait.” She looked across the table at Jim. “At least you’re off the hook.”
“Why is he off the hook?” Caroline asked.
“Because he wasn’t on the Code team last night.”
Jim nodded. “I had my hands full, though. We had the usual drug overdoses and schizophrenics and someone who wanted to save our souls, plus four car wrecks, a venomous snake bite, two anaphylaxis, one corneal abrasion, two heart attacks, and at least a dozen viral illnesses with no primary care provider. No gunshot wounds and no sexual assault last night, which is a surprise, but we did have one person who ‘accidentally’ sat on a foreign object.”
Ginny snickered. She was fully aware of what oddities could come through the doors of a big city Emergency Room, especially at night, on a full moon.
Caroline turned to Jim. “Did you have to go up to the ICU and pronounce death?”
He shook his head. “Day shift got that honor. I was in the back, catching up on charting.”
“Well,” Caroline continued, “the obvious thing to do is solve the crime as soon as possible, so you can all go back to normal.” She looked significantly at Ginny.
“Who? Me?” Ginny shook her head. “No, thank you.”
“You solved the last murder that happened at Hillcrest.”
Ginny shifted in her seat. “Not exactly.”
“You and Jim.”
Ginny exchanged glances with Jim. It was true. Between the two of them, they had caught a murderer, but it had come at a price.
“I think we should give the police a chance to do their job,” Jim said. “If they need our help, we can step in later.” He came around to Ginny’s side of the table. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”
Her mother let them in. Ginny said goodnight to both, climbed the stairs, and slipped into her bedroom. She dropped her purse on the chest of drawers and sat down on the end of her bed. There ought to be a law, she thought to herself. Unless you choose to be a policeman, one murder per lifetime, no more. She could hear Jim and her mother murmuring, discussing her, no doubt, then Jim’s footsteps on the stair. He tapped on her door.
“May I come in?” He stuck his head around the edge of the door and she nodded.
“I have a favor to ask,” he said.
“What is it?”
“I want to spend the night in your guest room.”
“There’s no need.”
He took a step toward her. “You know your mother talks to Himself?”
She nodded. The Laird had been acting in loco parentis to her and her brother ever since their father had been killed.
“She told him you were having nightmares.”
It was inevitable that the Laird’s acknowledged heir, Jim, would be included in the confidence.
“It occurred to me that discovering a murdered woman in the bathroom might trigger one.”
Ginny rose and stepped toward him. He opened his arms to her, enfolding her in a warm hug.
“I’ll be all right,” she said.
He kissed the top of her head. “I know you will. I just want to be close tonight.”
She sighed, then broke out of his arms, and pushed him toward the door.
“Go home, Jim.”
“I can’t help if you won’t let me.”
“We’ll talk tomorrow.” They had a date to meet for lunch.
He turned at the head of the stairs, slipping a finger under her chin and lifting it until she could not avoid looking into his eyes.
“Call me, if you wake in the night.”
She nodded, then watched him descend the stairs and be let out by her mother. He cared and he wanted to help, but it was time he stopped treating her like an invalid.
The sight of her friend, dead, could easily have triggered a breakdown, but it hadn’t. The professional in her had surfaced, calmly in control after months of being gone. She had turned a corner at last, and all it had taken to do it was another murder.
* * *