First Do No Evil: Blood Secrets, Book 1 (29 page)

Her initial working hypotheses had been thus: Following the administration of Bella, Edmond’s patients had developed Guillain-Barré. A mysterious syndrome characterized by severe muscle weakness leading to paralysis, and on occasion, death.

Though rare, Guillain-Barré may be associated with the administration of certain vaccines. So…applying Occam’s razor, the diagnosis
seemed
to fit.

Amanda, Henrietta and Livy died from an adverse reaction to the Bella vaccine: Guillain-Barré Syndrome. That would account for all the salient facts.

Shoving the papers aside, she lowered her head to the desk. The cool oak of the breakfast table soothed her cheeks, and the Advil finally kicked in. Her headache was fading, and her thoughts started to sort themselves into a different configuration.

Maybe the problem was that she persisted in starting off with the same old working hypothesis:
Bella caused the patient deaths
. But suppose she started with a new hypothesis instead:

Bella did not cause the patient deaths
.

If her new hypothesis was correct, and she stuck to Occam’s Razor, that meant she hadn’t truly accounted for all the salient facts. Bolting upright, she reached for Edmond’s private notes. In his search for answers, Edmond had written down, in minute detail, everything he knew about the women and the course of their illnesses. Like Edmond, she needed to broaden her definition of salient. Perhaps there were other, seemingly unimportant, clues in his notes that would turn out to be the key to solving the riddle. What other common factors were at play here?

As she studied Edmond’s writings, one thing jumped out at her immediately. She was amazed she hadn’t noticed it before. The patients received the Bella vaccine in different months, but they all died in the same month: September. She grabbed a note card, wrote down the word,
September
, then resumed scanning the pages.

Here was something else interesting. The vast majority of clinic patients were from a “notch group” of individuals who made too much money to qualify for state funded healthcare and too little to afford private insurance. But these three women all had private health insurance with excellent coverage. Edmond had originally treated Amanda, Henrietta and Livy in his upscale practice near Country Club Estates. When he’d given up that practice to start a nonprofit clinic with Sky, the women had followed him. Seemed like a pretty big coincidence. But she wasn’t sure how it signified.

Guillain-Barré didn’t choose its prey based on social status. The poor were as likely to fall victim as the rich. Her fingers tapped the tabletop. A contagious disease, on the other hand, might cluster by social status, if the women traveled in the same circles, attended the same parties. She added the words,
contagious disease
, to her note card.

Her eyes landed on the three face sheets laid out above the progress notes. Each woman listed two different addresses. One in Flagstaff, the other in Phoenix. They were all snowbirds. Retirees who migrated between the diverse Arizona climes. She didn’t see how that could be relevant, but she added the words,
snowbirds
and
Phoenix,
to her list anyway.

The light in the kitchen was growing dimmer by the minute. She switched on the table lamp and reread her notes. Her fingers worked a long tendril of hair into a sloppy knot. Danny would most likely be back from Page this evening. Time was running short, and she was getting nowhere fast.

When she’d spoken with her attorney, he’d said the women hadn’t known one another, that it was their attorney who’d aggregated the suit. The women had never met. And the clinic records showed no appointments on the same date. So, if they didn’t hang out together, and they never sat next to each other in the clinic, it seemed unlikely that they had all contracted the same contagious disease. The odds of three strangers being in the same place at the same time and infecting each other with a communicable disease was a long shot. A clear violation of Occam’s razor. A contagious disease was out.

Her eyes burned, and her shoulders ached as she scratched out the word,
contagious
and stabbed the card with her pen. But…if her hypothesis were true, and Bella wasn’t responsible, the disease
had
to be infectious. Stubbornly, she rewrote the word,
contagious.
Each letter left a visible indentation in the note card. With her elbow, she shoved her hair off her forehead, and then she sighed. She seemed to be going in circles.

Maybe if she read the list aloud… “September. Snowbirds. Phoenix. Contagious. September. Snowbirds. Phoenix. Contagious.” As she chanted, a soft tickle drew her attention to her forearm, and she swiped away the offending gnat. “September. Snowbirds. Phoenix. Contagious. September. Snowbirds. Phoenix. Contagious.”

The gnat buzzed about her face. As she batted it away, her knees banged up and down under the table. The women hadn’t been in each other’s company, therefore they couldn’t have infected each other with a contagious disease. But if Bella didn’t cause their deaths, it
had
to be a contagious disease. How could both those statements be true?

She became acutely aware of her heart drumming in her chest.

Of course. Why hadn’t she seen it before?

And for this she smiled and blessed the little gnat: A contagious disease was out. Unless…

The vector wasn’t human
.
What if the vector was an insect?

Chapter Twenty-Two

“The boy was such a tragedy.”

Yesinia Martin’s voice had a ground-glass undertone that Danny associated with long-time smokers. Allowing the living room curtain to fall back against a fiery sunset, he turned to face the matriarch of Garth Yoblanski’s final foster family. Her skin, deeply lined and cooked to the doneness of jerky, gave testament to the perils of mixing bad habits with exposure to the merciless Arizona sun. Whereas Flagstaff was a cool piney oasis, Page could reach near kiln temperatures in the summertime.

“Here you go, detective.” Mrs. Martin handed over a white plastic cup, stamped with the Arby’s logo and filled with sweet tea. She’d taken the trouble to add a sprig of mint as well, a surprisingly thoughtful touch.

“Thank you kindly.” He followed her to a plastic-protected floral couch, gave her a chance to arrange herself comfortably on the cushions, and then sat down beside her. After waiting all day for Mrs. Martin to return home from her housekeeping job, he’d anticipated a chilly reception. After all, he wanted to discuss Garth Yoblanski, a boy who’d been removed from her home after allegations of child abuse. He’d expected her to slam the door in his face when he mentioned Garth, but instead, she’d invited him in and offered him refreshment.

Perhaps she had something to get off her chest, or perhaps she was just lonely. Either way, Danny was in the house, and sweet-tea-no-lemon in hand, he was about to squeeze all the answers he could from Yesinia Martin.

Time was short, and he was anxious—more than anxious—to return to Flag. Even though Danny had Scotty Humphries tailing Sky, he couldn’t help thinking that he should be home right now, watching over her. But he couldn’t leave Page until he knew just what kind of a childhood Garth had lived. “How do you mean, Garth was a tragedy?”

Mrs. Martin puckered her lips and cast a sideways glance at him. “Garth? He weren’t no tragedy. He was real cultured like and smart. Always had his nose stuck in a book. And even though you’d think a boy like that would get picked on, it was the other way around. I never seen nothing like the way Garth Yoblanski could get a bunch of boys spellbound and jumping to his ‘frog’.”

“But you just said he was a tragedy.”

“Not
Garth
. Garth is a big success. Haven’t you heard? He invented a cure for breast cancer. I bet he’s richer than God, and when he gets to the pearly gates, he’ll be on St. Peter’s VIP list.”

“You’re right.” Danny kept his voice respectful. “Only Garth didn’t invent a cure for breast cancer. I believe what he invented is a vaccine that prevents a particular form of breast cancer, the type caused by a broken gene.”

“Exactly right. That boy is a flat-out genius.” Protecting her coffee table with a crocheted coaster, she set down her Arby’s cup. “I sure wish I could get that vaccine. But I don’t got insurance.”

“I’m sorry.” Looking at Mrs. Martin, Danny couldn’t help but think of Sky and everything she’d worked to accomplish. Now her clinic was gone. And under these suspicious circumstances, the insurance company would likely impound the funds she needed to rebuild. His hands trembled a little as he combed them through his hair. People like Mrs. Martin needed clinics like Sky’s. They needed doctors like Sky.

Shifting his long legs, he scooted back on the plastic, and tugged on his collar. He was here to get evidence that implicated Sky’s brother in multiple murders, and if he succeeded, Sky might never speak to him again. But he couldn’t change the facts of the case any more than he could put her life at risk just to keep in her good graces.

Sky
alive
and permanently pissed at him was far preferable to the alternative. And if Sky didn’t recognize her brother’s flaws, well that was both understandable and forgivable. But Danny had neither the excuse nor the inclination to overlook Garth Novak as a suspect in the murders of Edmond Guerretin and Nevaeh Flores.

Mrs. Martin was gazing out the window, off in her own world, just as he’d been off in his. The sun was below the horizon now, and soon, very soon it would be dark. If he was going to get back to Sky anytime soon, he needed to stop thinking about her and just do his job. “Mrs. Martin?”

Yesinia didn’t look away from the window. He cleared his throat, and when that didn’t work, leaned over and waved his palm in front of her face. “Mrs. Martin?”

“What?”

“You said, ‘The boy was a tragedy’.”

“I was talking about poor Timmy.
Timmy
was the terrible tragedy.”

Getting Mrs. Martin to focus was going to be a challenge. “The boy I’m interested in is Garth.”

Wiping cloudy blue eyes with the back of her hand, she said, “Oh, sorry. It’s just that every time I think of that poor little Timmy I just can’t help but worry if maybe I had some part in his death.”

On the other hand, sometimes you learn a lot more when you let the interrogation wend around the bend. He pulled his chin back to correct the revealing slackening of his jaw. “A boy who lived here—in your home—died?”

“Uh-huh.” She blew her nose on the sleeve of her soiled T-shirt.

“Was Garth living here at the time?”

“Uh-huh. Garth and Timmy and four other boys…oh and my son, Robert Jr., of course.”

“But that’s seven boys.”

“Uh huh.”

By his estimation, the Martin home was around one thousand square feet, more likely a bit under. How this woman had gotten the okay from the state to house that many foster boys was a mystery, and literally a crime. “You remember the names of all the boys?”

“Let’s see.” On arthritic fingers, she ticked off the names. “There was the Regan brothers, Steve and Carson. Joe Kennedy…”

His head jerked up, and his heart somersaulted in his chest. Steve Regan was the man who’d murdered Sky’s father. He didn’t know who Joe Kennedy was, but if he was a betting man, he’d lay odds it was the man who’d attacked him last night.

“Oh, and the orneriest one was called Jack…Jack…” To assist her memory, she snapped her fingers.

“Spurlock?”

“Yes. That’s right. Joe, Jack, Garth, Timmy, Steve, Carson, and my boy…Robert Jr.” She grinned triumphantly, as if she’d just managed
peterpiperpickedapeckofpicklepeppers
.

Good God. A rivulet of sweat trickled between his shoulder blades as a snippet of forgotten conversation wormed its way to the surface of his consciousness:
He’s not my boss
.
We’re like sleepers
. That’s what last night’s would-be assassin had said. At the time, it seemed nonsensical. But now, Danny got it. Or at least he thought he did.

Sleepers.

That old Kevin Bacon movie about a group of friends, kids bound together by hardship and abuse. Kids who started out good, and then took a really wrong turn…
together
. His thighs tightened and his body lifted slightly on his haunches. He was poised like a raptor ready to seize his prey, but something about the way Mrs. Martin’s voice had changed when she said her son’s name warned him to go easy.

“This is good,” he said, swigging down his drink with noisy bravado. “Thank you for the mint, it makes the tea.”

Obviously gratified by the compliment, Yesinia smiled. “I bet you wonder how I got mint sprigs in winter time. Were you wondering that?”

He returned her smile. “Yes ma’am. That’s just exactly what was on my mind.”

With a puff of her chest, her posture improved, and she beamed proudly at her guest. “I grew that mint myself. I got my very own
indoor
herb garden. Would you like to see it?”

“I sure would.”

He followed her into a small bedroom and over to a peeling window sill, in front of which, one of the most carefully tended indoor herb gardens he’d ever laid eyes on, flourished. Cocking his head, he surveyed the woman at his side and was struck by the realization that he would never know all the hidden facets of Yesinia Martin.

Wanting to make contact with that hidden part of her, he reached out and touched her shoulder gently, and then withdrew his hand. “How did Timmy die?”