“So?”
“The front tail on the left side was tucked up underneath her bra when I found her, exposing her abdomen. I’ve never seen a woman do that before.”
“The police didn’t tell me that. You’re sure?”
“I am.”
“That’s interesting. Hannah was a Type 1 diabetic-she was insulin dependent. She usually injected into her abdomen. Rather than unbuttoning her shirt, she had this habit of just tucking it up under the front of her bra to get it out of the way. Did the police find a syringe close by? Had she just taken insulin?”
“I didn’t see a syringe, but I suppose it could have been beneath her body.”
“Have you seen the results of the autopsy? How was her sugar?” Mary asked.
“I assume it was within normal limits; nobody mentioned it as an anomaly.”
“If her shirt was tucked under her bra, then she was preparing to take insulin. There’s no other explanation.”
“But in your office?”
“That part doesn’t make any sense. She kept the insulin in back, in the kitchen. She would load the syringe back there. But she injected herself in her own office. Hannah was modest, and she was very private about her illness.”
“Always?”
“Always.”
After a poignant pause-I suspected she was still debating whether or not she really wanted to know precisely where Hannah had died-Mary stepped toward the built-ins. “The file is in here.”
The key was secreted on the shelves above the cabinets in a ceramic jar, something small and celadon. Mary retrieved the key and unlocked the middle cabinet. She chose a pillow from the sofa and threw it on the floor before she kneeled down, slid out the top drawer, and began searching for the file. She fingered the brightly colored tabs sequentially, her middle, ring, and index fingers running after each other as though they were skipping over hurdles. After one time through the area that marked the center of the alphabet, she retraced her work.
That’s when she found it.
In a calm voice she announced, “It’s here. I almost missed it, but it’s here.” She pulled the dusky red folder and held it up for me to see.
My voice every bit as level as hers-we were both therapists, after all-I suggested, “Why don’t you take a few minutes and make sure that it hasn’t been… I don’t know, tampered with.”
She crossed her legs and sat on the pillow on the floor. Slowly, she made her way through the inch-and-a-half-thick pile of pages of scrawled notes and medication records and hospital admission papers and discharge summaries.
“It all seems to be here, Alan. I can’t be a hundred percent sure, but everything seems to be here. It looks just the way I left it.”
I sighed involuntarily. Relief? Disappointment? I wasn’t sure.
She gazed up at me. “You thought someone stole it, didn’t you? That someone was in my office that day, that Hannah heard them in here, came in to see what was going on. And that’s why she was killed.”
“It was one thought. It all depended on what was in that file.”
She closed the file and stood. “I can’t tell you what’s in it. You know how this works.”
“If it’s a consultation you can.”
“What good will that do? You can’t tell anyone what I tell you. It won’t help.”
“I’ve been looking for Diane all week. I already know other things. Every piece helps. If I can put it all together, I may be able to find her. I’m terrified that time is running out.”
“You won’t divulge what I tell you?”
I said, “No,” and I hoped that I wasn’t lying. Was I willing to be lying if it would help Diane?
Yes. Mary had to know that.
“I wouldn’t treat her the same way today. Probably wouldn’t even diagnose her the same,” Mary said remorsefully, while giving Rachel’s file a little shake. “We know so much more now, don’t we? Take me out for coffee, Alan. I’m dying to sit down with an adult for coffee.”
I made an apologetic face. “Grace will be coming with us.” Grace would be thrilled to go out for coffee; she thought a petite espresso cup full of steamed milk foam with shaved chocolate on top was as good as life got.
Mary deflated, took a step, and slumped down on a nearby chair. “I forgot. She’s a sweet kid, but she’s not an adult.”
“Not the last time I looked, no.”
A strong wind exploded out of Sunshine Canyon ten blocks to the west. Had the Chinooks arrived? The whoosh shook the house, the naked tree branches squinted together and bent to the east. Debris and dust filled the air.
I excused myself and stepped out into the waiting room to check on Grace. She seemed oblivious to the gales; in fact she was so busy coloring that she didn’t notice my arrival in the room. A second blast put the first to shame-the century-old glass began to hum in the window at the front of the house. After one more selfish moment observing my daughter’s concentration, I returned down the hallway to Mary’s office.
She’d moved to the couch, pulled her legs up under her, and tugged a pillow to her chest. She asked, “Did Bill Miller ever mention to you that he’d done something he wasn’t proud of? Something that was eating at him?”
“No, doesn’t ring a bell. Should it?”
“I’m thinking maybe it might be important. He never really explained it all to me, but it had something to do with a traffic accident he witnessed. A young woman died. He was torn up about it.”
I surprised myself by remembering. “She was an orthodontist,” I said.
The winds had quieted. Strange.
Mary said, “Yes.”
50
Mary had to get back to the demands of the triplets, and the clock said it was almost time to get Grace home for some lunch and a nap. But something Mary had said convinced me to risk squeezing one more errand into our outing. I didn’t even try to explain to Grace exactly what business was conducted at the office of the Boulder County coroner; all I told her was that Daddy had another short meeting.
Years before, during my brief stint as a coroner’s investigator, my supervisor was a good man named Scott Truscott. I’d always liked Scott and had felt that once I wasn’t working for him he’d grown fond of me, too. Grace and I tracked him down at his desk in the Justice Center on Canyon Boulevard. I introduced him to Grace and he and I spent a moment catching up before he asked, “So what’s up?”
“I’m hoping I can help you a little with the Hannah Grant thing.”
“Yeah?” He seemed interested, but just the slightest bit skeptical. “I’d love to get that one out of the ‘undetermined’ column.”
The words he used-genteelly chosen without overt reference to death or murder-told me that he was happy to edit his part of the conversation for Grace’s tender ears.
He added, “Why me and not the detectives handling the case?”
I could’ve finessed my answer, but with Scott it wasn’t necessary. “I have issues with Jaris Slocum.”
“Gotcha.” Scott wasn’t surprised, obviously.
“Will you answer some questions for me, too?” I asked.
“Depends what they are.”
That was fair. I said, “Hannah was a diabetic. Type 1. We both know that. How was her blood sugar when, you know?”
“Blood doesn’t actually tell us anything about sugar level during a post; natural autolysis renders the numbers meaningless. But because we knew she was insulin dependent, the coroner checked the vitreous fluid.”
“From her eye?” I asked, a shiver shooting up my spine. I didn’t know what autolysis was, natural or otherwise, but feared that asking would either tug Scott down a blind alley, or leave my daughter with nightmares.
“It’s the only way to get a reliable post mortem sugar. I don’t have it memorized, but she was within normal limits.” His hand reached for his computer mouse. “You want me to check for the exact number, I can pull the labs.”