Dennis sparred with Dr. Kelsey until she forced him back to the waiting room so that she could see her patient. Dennis gave in, not because he had to, but because he was getting nowhere with the doctor. Dennis needed time to think, and he needed to talk to Woody. Since Woody wasn’t picking up, he was left with thinking. He paced while the doc did whatever it was she did. One of her patients murdered the other and then faked her own death. Must be some magic going on behind that door alright.
Dennis did ten laps and tried Woody again but just got his voicemail. He kept walking back and forth, thinking about Lisa O’Brien and putting the whole thing together. Lisa and Julie were both mentally ill. Both were pregnant too. Julie was farther along than Lisa, and she was mentoring the other woman because she was more stable. Lisa, who had already had a series of miscarriages, must have had another and gone off the deep end—something she had also done before. So, she lost the baby and went across the hall to kill Julie and take hers. Why? Dennis rubbed his chin as he passed in front of the receptionist’s desk again. Murder wasn’t complicated. It never had been. Even in Biblical times, it was for the same reasons as murder today. Cain killed Abel, Joseph’s brothers tried to off him by throwing him down a well, God even got Abraham to go after his own kid. All of it was for the same reason: jealousy. It usually boiled down to someone wanting something bad enough to kill for it. Sure, there were the occasional blind-rage cases, but this felt like old-fashioned, Old Testament jealousy.
Thinking back to the night of the murder, Dennis remembered Lisa pushing against his questions. Finding Julie had hit her hard, and she didn’t want to talk about it, or so he had thought. It had been hard to get anything out of her at first, but then she opened up. Just like that, she started blabbing about her stupid pictures and her fucking cats. Ash and— Dennis couldn’t remember the name of the other cat.
“Goddamn it, there was no cat.” Dennis shouted the words at the empty waiting room.
When Dennis was in the apartment the second time, he saw an empty cat dish in the kitchen. Just one cat dish. There was no other cat. Lisa talked because she wanted to keep him away from the bedroom. He had heard Julie’s daughter that night. Dennis swore out loud. Lisa had said Julie was going to have a baby girl, but Julie’s mother had no idea about the sex of the baby. Lisa had slipped up and Dennis had missed it. She was two for two against him. He kicked the nearest chair and sent it to the floor.
“Everything alright?”
Dennis turned and saw Dr. Kelsey’s head in the doorway. She was looking at the chair. Dennis righted it and said, “Fine. Everything’s fine.”
Dr. Kelsey let Dennis know that she didn’t believe him with a raised eyebrow. She was holding a slip of paper and she used it to gesture towards a chair. “Please have a seat and try to keep your voice down. I’m with a patient.”
Dennis stared at the slip of paper. “What is—”
“I will talk to you after my appointment.”
“That piece of—”
Dr. Kelsey turned with a hand on the door. She said, “I will talk to you after my appointment,” and shut the door.
Dennis got to his feet and swore under his breath as he stomped to the door. When he opened it, he noticed that the slip of paper had changed hands.
“What do you have there?”
“Excuse me?” the bed-wetter said.
“In your hand. What is it?”
Dr. Kelsey slammed a hand on her desk and stood. “Detective, this is so inappropriate.”
Dennis held up a hand to silence Dr. Kelsey. “I’m a police officer, sir. What is that?”
“It’s a prescription.”
“Where do you fill it?”
“Detective!”
Dennis didn’t take his eyes off the patient. “Shut up. Where do you fill it?”
“Thomas,” Dr. Kelsey said. “You don’t have to speak to this man.”
“Yes, he does,” Dennis said. “Where do you fill it?”
“At the pharmacy near my house.”
Dennis looked at Dr. Kelsey. “Could you check if he filled it?”
“What?”
“Could you find out if he filled her prescription?”
“Yes, if I called the pharmacy.”
“You need to reschedule,” Dennis said.
Thomas looked at Dr. Kelsey. Dennis stepped in front of him and blocked his view. Dennis stepped to the chair and placed his hands on the armrests. When he spoke, his face was inches away from the other man. “Get up and leave right now.”
Thomas moved to stand and Dennis gave him just enough room to get to his feet. Thomas wouldn’t meet Dennis’s eye as he attempted to pass by him.
“Thomas.”
Thomas spoke over his shoulder as he walked out. “It’s okay, Dr. Kelsey. We can reschedule.”
“Thanks, Thomas,” Dennis said.
“Do you mind telling me what the hell that was?”
Dennis was behind Dr. Kelsey’s desk, moving the mouse to rouse the computer from sleep mode.
“I think you should leave, Detective.”
Dennis nodded. “In a minute.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m checking for pharmacies near Lisa’s apartment.”
Dennis opened a browser and searched for pharmacies in Hamilton. The search returned numerous options and Dennis used geography to narrow the possible stores she could have used.
“Why would you need to do that?”
“I’m guessing that when Lisa lost her baby she went bat shit like she did in the past. She went across the hall, killed Julie, and took her child.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I think I heard the baby,” Dennis said.
“Heard it?”
“Lisa said it was the cat. She said she had two, and she had to separate them. I went back to her apartment before I came here.” Dennis held up a single finger. “One cat dish.”
“My God.”
“Me coming into her apartment was a close call. It spooked her, and she decided to run. She knew we’d look at her, so she took herself off the board by calling you. The call wasn’t planned, it was a last-minute thing. I’m guessing the idea to mention the prescription came to her because she was planning on filling the prescription. She knew that she would be away from home for a while and would need her medication to keep her mind in check.”
Dennis turned the monitor towards Dr. Kelsey and tapped the screen. “Try calling this one.”
She didn’t fight him. Dr. Kelsey just picked up the phone and dialled. Listening to the doctor speak, Dennis knew that it wasn’t the right place. He turned the monitor back and clicked on his second choice. Dr. Kelsey dialled the number and gave Dennis a thumbs up after a brief exchange with the pharmacist.
“She’s on the computer, but she hasn’t filled anything lately.”
Dennis nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose. Suddenly, a thought came to him. He said, “See if they can check other branches.”
Dr. Kelsey asked and there was a long pause while the pharmacist gave an answer. Dr. Kelsey snapped her fingers and mouthed, “pen.” Dennis passed her one from the desk drawer and she wrote down the address on her prescription pad. Dennis took the pad while she thanked the pharmacist and was surprised by the address. Lisa had gone to ground in Port Glen. It was a small town on the shore of Lake Erie. There were tons of little summer towns along the lake and most people chose Port Dover as a summer destination. Port Glen was a little farther south than Port Dover and a hell of a lot less popular. This time of year, it was a good place to hide out.
“It was filled yesterday,” she said after she hung up the phone. “You were right.”
Dennis smiled. He was going for a cool grin and hoping it didn’t show as relief. “I was.” He nodded goodbye and walked out of the office. He was a fucking detective. Thing might have looked bleak for a minute, but he pushed through and solved the case. He was a lone wolf. A hunter of men. Dennis howled to himself in the stairwell as he hustled to the car.