Night Of The Living Dandelion Part 15

"Dana and I had just returned from a trip to Australia. It was a long flight, and she'd complained of leg pain during the last several hours, but once we were home and she'd taken aspirin, she said it felt better. That evening her pain intensified, and nothing helped it. Her leg was swollen and hot to the touch, too, making me think she'd developed deepvein thrombosis. I rushed her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with DVT and admitted.

"Willis was the nursing supervisor on Dana's floor, and took control of my wife's case. I knew Willis as a regular customer at Dugan's and thought Dana was in good hands. But that night, Willis injected Dana with heparin in a dose ten times what the doctor had prescribed. The heparin caused her to have a ma.s.sive stroke-"

Trumble broke off. He dropped his head and shaded his eyes, as though he didn't want us to see him tearing up. Marco picked up his coffee and took a swallow. I swirled the chocolate in my cup, mixing in what had settled on the bottom, giving him time to pull himself together.

When the pharmacist looked up again, he wore an expression of sadness, yet he was dry-eyed. "Dana died before I could get to the hospital. I didn't even get to say good-bye." He sighed heavily, as though still burdened by grief. Then I saw him turn his wrist to check the time, a gesture that struck me as being at odds with his emotions.

Immediately my antennae went up. Was his grief genuine or an act? Still, at the thought of him not being with his wife at the end, my eyes filled with tears. All I could think of was how I'd feel if I got a call saying that Marco had died in battle far away. "How do you deal with your grief?" I blurted.

"I have a seven-year-old boy to raise," Trumble said, as though reciting facts.

Between working at the pharmacy, jujitsu training, and late-night coffee stops, when did he find time to raise his son?

"Was it proven that Willis injected the heparin?" Marco asked.

"She was Dana's night nurse," Trumble said tersely. "She was responsible for Dana's care. The hospital was more than willing to settle. I'd call that an admission of guilt."

He was wrong. I knew from working as Dave Hammond's law clerk that a more likely scenario was that the hospital had decided it was cheaper to settle the suit than to waste a lot of time and money fighting it in court. Surely Trumble's lawyer had advised him of that.

"Was it a fair settlement?" Marco asked.

"I received a lot of money," Trumble said. "It'll take care of my boy's schooling. All in all, I'd rather have my wife here."

"That's perfectly understandable," Marco said. "Were you satisfied with the outcome?"

"Satisfied? Are you kidding? My wife is dead. How do you satisfy that?"

Killing the nurse who attended her would be one way.

"I tried to make it a condition of the settlement that the hospital fire her," Trumble said. "Unfortunately that wasn't something they were willing to do. I'll never understand why they protected that woman. If Willis were my employee and had caused a customer's death, she'd be terminated. It wouldn't matter how good she was. The last thing I'd do would be to let her keep ministering to patients."

Maybe the last thing Jerry Trumble did for Willis was to make sure she was terminated.

"Here's the real irony," Trumble said. "She not only kept her job at County, but she ended up with a better position at Parkview. How's that for justice?"

"Isn't it possible Willis earned that position?" Marco asked. "My research indicates she had an unblemished record until the tragedy involving your wife."

"Forget your research. Lori Willis did not get to be director of nursing on her merit."

"How do you know that?" Marco asked.

"After my wife-" The next word seemed to catch in his throat. Trumble shook his head and started again. "After I lost Dana, someone from the hospital came forward to tell me things about Willis."

"Such as?" Marco asked.

"That she wasn't opposed to elbowing coworkers aside or using blackmail to get where she wanted to go. So if you're looking for a person with a motive, start with her coworkers."

"Are you talking about a doctor? A nurse? An aide?" Marco asked.

Trumble toyed with his cup, as though deciding whether to cooperate. "A nurse from County introduced herself at Dana's funeral. She's the one who tipped me off about the heparin. I didn't know anything about the error until then."

"Why do you think she tipped you off?" Marco asked.

Trumble shrugged. "She didn't say, but I got the feeling she wanted to see Willis go down in flames."

If Trumble was telling the truth, then somewhere out there was a tattletale nurse with her own ax to grind. She must have been delighted when Trumble filed the lawsuit, then ultimately disappointed when Lori Willis wasn't fired. And when Lori took a better position at Parkview, who knew what that could have sparked?

"Do you believe this nurse wanted you to sue?" Marco said.

"She encouraged me to sue." Trumble sat back, looking pleased with himself.

"Will you give us the nurse's name?" Marco asked.

Trumble finished his coffee, then crushed the cup in one hand. "I don't care to have it get out that I was your source."

"It won't go any further than the three of us sitting here," Marco said.

Trumble glanced at me. I caught myself before making the motion of zipping my lips and gave him a single nod instead.

He studied Marco for a long moment, as though debating. "Her name is Diane Rotunno."

It was one of the names Nikki had given me.

Marco took out a notepad and wrote it down. "I'd like to ask you a few personal questions now. They won't take long."

"No problem." Trumble crumpled the crushed cup into a wad. "I don't have anything to hide."

Whenever anyone said that, I always suspected the opposite was true.

"What's your educational background?"

"Degree in pharmacology from Purdue."

Marco wrote it down. "Any other medical training? Lab work, CPR course?"

Trumble scratched his chin. "Nope."

He seemed to have forgotten his job with a veterinary clinic.

"Did you learn how to draw blood in your pharmacology program?" Marco asked.

"No."

"Have you ever drawn blood?" Marco asked.

Trumble glanced at his watch, then looked at Marco as though distracted. "I'm going to have to cut this off now. But to answer your question, pharmacists don't draw blood."

Except that wasn't Marco's question.

That made two lies you told, Purple Belt. Kind of odd for a man who claimed to have nothing to hide.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

"My babysitter's due to leave shortly," Trumble said, pulling out his car keys.

"Just one more question and we're done," Marco said. "What were you doing Tuesday evening?"

The pharmacist smiled as though it amused him. "Ah! The alibi question. I figured you'd get around to that eventually. Let's see. Tuesday evening, I worked at Dugan's until ten o'clock. Then I stopped here for my coffee and went home to my son, same as every night. You can check with any clerk at Dugan's or the barista over there, or my babysitter."

"And Friday evening?"

"Same answer. My life is very routine, Mr. Salvare." I saw a slight smirk on his face as he stood up, as though he had put one over on us, so I made a quick decision to try to rattle his cage.

"I have a question," I said. "Were you and your wife happily married?"

"Absolutely."

I raised one eyebrow to show my doubt. "Are you sure?"

Trumble's expression turned to stone. He sat down and leaned toward me, saying in a harsh whisper, "Yes, I'm sure! What the h.e.l.l kind of thing is that to ask?"

"Okay, that'll do it," Marco said, standing. "Thanks for taking the time to talk to us."

Trumble gave me a dark look, then got up and strode toward the door, dropping his mashed cup in the trash can on his way out.

Marco sat down and put his notepad and pen away. "I'm curious. What was the point of that last question?"

"I was testing him."

Marco folded his arms and leaned back. "Did he pa.s.s?"

"No, for several reasons. I'll start with the smirk on his face after he presented his well-rehea.r.s.ed alibi. And I don't know about you, but I wasn't totally convinced by his portrayal of a grief-stricken husband. As for his babysitter verifying his whereabouts, he said she leaves at ten thirty. If Lori was killed after that, who's going to verify his alibi? His sleeping son?"

"But he admitted he got a fair settlement. Why would he go after her three years later?"

"That's where my question about his marriage comes into play."

"I'm not following you."

"For Trumble to kill Lori three years after the fact, she would've had to learn something recently that made her a threat. For instance, that he was selling drugs on the side or that he killed his wife. And since Lori was there when his wife died, I'd opt for the second reason."

"Whoa, Sunshine. That's a big leap. You just turned Dana's death into a homicide."

"Before you discount it, Marco, go back to when Dana was admitted to the hospital with a blood clot. What if Jerry had just learned that Dana was about to leave him? What if he was the kind of guy who couldn't let go? It'd be easy for a pharmacist to get his hands on heparin, and he'd know what size dose would do the trick."

"Your theory hinges on trouble in their marriage, and we don't have any proof of that."

"We can talk to Dana's friends and family and see what they say. Maybe Lori had suspected that Trumble murdered Dana, but just discovered a way to prove it. Maybe she was blackmailing him, and he was finally tapped out. Killing her would solve his problem."

Marco pursed his lips, thinking. "We'd have to find out if it was proven that Lori injected the Heparin. I'm a.s.suming there's some kind of sign-off a nurse has to do after administering a drug, but I don't really know how that works."

"If you think it's worth pursuing, I'll see if Nikki can find out."

"I think you're making it more complicated than it needs to be, but since you raised the question, I'll let you locate the right people to interview. Fair enough?"

"Fair enough. And something else I noticed about Trumble is that he's really ripped. He wouldn't have any trouble subduing a woman Lori's size. Then there were his lies about not having any other medical training and never learning how to draw blood. I'm surprised you didn't call him on them."

"I wanted to keep the first interview friendly. No doubt we'll have to question him again, and when we do, I'd like to catch him off guard. That's when I'll turn up the heat." Marco tapped the side of his head. "It's a good tactic. Store that away."

He stopped short of saying for the future, but it was implied. "I appreciate all these tips, Marco, but you don't need to keep reminding me to memorize them."

Marco reached for my hand and traced the lines in my palm with his thumb. "You don't get it, do you?"

"Apparently not, but I'd like to."

"Teaching you the tricks of the trade helps me, Abby. It makes me worry a little less to know there's a plan in place."

"That's thoughtful, Marco, but you don't have to make plans for me. I have Bloomers."

"Stores go under all the time. You can't count on that." Nothing like giving me a new reason to worry.

"Listen to me, Sunshine," he said, gazing into my eyes. "I'd like to think that if something happened to me, you'd be fine."

He was upsetting me now. If something happened to him, there was no way on earth I'd be fine. I'd just make do. Why did he have to keep talking about it?

"I want you to apply for a PI license."

That came out of the blue. "Why?"

"It would be something for you to fall back on-just in case."

Just in case my flower shop folded? Just in case Marco died? Just in case the earth collided with the sun?

I pulled my hand away, blinking angry tears from my eyes. "Nothing is going to happen, so let's stop talking about it. I need to go home now. My ankle is throbbing."

Translation: I'm scared to death and it's your fault!

I had horrible dreams that night of being chased through a big house with a maze of connecting rooms, never seeing who was after me but knowing I was in mortal danger, and of losing my way home. I woke sobbing and was immediately pulled into Marco's strong arms.

"What is it, baby?" he said, his lips against my hair.