Board Stiff (Mattie Winston Mysteries) (15 page)

We find Frank Dudley reclining in his bed watching TV. His status as an amputee is glaringly obvious given that his right leg ends just above the knee, and an artificial leg, complete with sock and shoe, is propped up against the closet door on one side of his bed. He has the look of a lifelong farmer, with skin that appears to have a permanent tan, precancerous spots on his face and arms, and large calloused hands that look like they’ve hauled a lot of hay bales in their time.

“Mr. Dudley, my name is Steve Hurley and this is Larry Johnson. We are detectives with the Sorenson Police Department. This is Mattie Winston from the medical examiner’s office. She’s here to assist me. We’re looking into the death of Bernard Chase and would like to ask you a few questions. We’d also like to take a look around your room.”

“Why do you want to do that?” Dudley asks. “Do you think I killed the son of a bitch?”

“Did you?” Hurley asks.

“I would’ve been happy to, but I didn’t. If I’m not mistaken, you can’t search my room unless I give you permission, or you have a search warrant.”

“As it turns out, we do have a search warrant,” Hurley says. “Detective Johnson here will be happy to show it to you.”

Larry takes a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket, unfolds it, and shows it to Frank Dudley.

Dudley looks at it for about two seconds and then shrugs. “Do whatever you have to,” he says with irritable resignation.

Larry refolds the search warrant paper and tucks it back inside his pocket. Then he moves the artificial leg to one side, opens the closet door, and starts digging around inside.

“I didn’t kill the guy,” Dudley says, “but I can’t say I’m sorry he’s dead.”

“Why is that?” Hurley asks.

“Because it’s that bastard’s fault that I’m even in this place,” Dudley grumbles. “He and them damn kids of mine are all in cahoots together. They lied to me. When I lost my leg, the kids told me they would take over running the farm, and that taking care of me on top of that was going to be too much for them. So I let them talk me into coming here to stay for part of the year, so that they could have their time freed up to do the planting and harvesting. They were supposed to check me out of here in the wintertime and let me go back home. But that bastard Chase talked them into making this permanent. He convinced the kids that they deserve better than to be stuck on some old farm trying to eke out a living. Since I’d given the kids power of attorney so they could handle the farm business, they were able to sell the farm right out from under me. My kids took half the money and ran off with it, and that greedy bastard Chase got the rest.” Dudley pauses and shakes his head wearily. “I’m glad Dora is dead. It would probably kill her if she knew what her kids had done.”

“Have you ever been in Mr. Chase’s office?” Hurley asks.

“Can’t say that I have been,” Dudley says.

“Then you won’t object to us fingerprinting you to make sure your prints aren’t found anywhere in that office.”

“Actually, I do object. I have diabetes and those damned nursing assistants are in here poking my fingers all the time. The last thing I need is a bunch of dirty ink on my fingers that might give me an infection. Those of us with diabetes get infections really easy and we can’t fight them off very well, you know.”

Hurley looks at Dudley with a smug smile. “That won’t be a problem. We have a new toy we’re using now.” He holds up the fingerprint scanner tablet. “No more ink. All you have to do is set your fingers on the screen here. Very clean and very painless.”

Dudley frowns, but makes no further objections. As Hurley goes about getting Dudley’s fingerprints scanned in, Larry Johnson starts going through Dudley’s bedside table. In the bottom area he finds a plastic washbasin filled with rolled up socks. He pulls it out and sticks his hand into the pile of socks to root around, and then stops suddenly.

“Whoa. What’s this?” He pulls out one of the sock rolls and squeezes it. Then he unrolls the socks and removes a small syringe with a capped needle attached to it. He starts to hand it to me, but I stop him.

“I’m not wearing gloves. Stick it in an evidence bag.”

Larry doesn’t have an evidence bag with him, so he leaves the room to go next door where his helpers do have some. He returns a minute later with the syringe safely bagged. He sets the bag down on top of the bedside stand and proceeds to label it. When he’s done, he hands me the bag with the syringe inside.

“This is an insulin syringe,” I say. “Don’t the nurses administer all of your insulin, Mr. Dudley?”

Frank Dudley folds his arms over his chest and sets his jaw. He looks away toward the wall and I can tell he’s not going to answer me.

I tap the side of the basin with the socks in it. “Check all of these,” I tell Larry. “See if there’s anything else in there.”

He does so and it isn’t long before he finds two more syringes and a vial of insulin. These are bagged and tagged like the first syringe.

“What are you doing with these in here?” I ask Dudley.

“I told you, I’m diabetic. Diabetics take insulin.”

“The nurses are supposed to be in charge of administering your insulin.”

“Yeah, somebody in this damned place is in charge of everything about me,” Frank snaps. “I managed my own blood sugars for fifteen years at home and did a better job of it than they’re doing here.”

I look over at Hurley and give him a little head nod toward the hallway. The two of us leave the room and meet just outside the door. “An injection of insulin in someone who isn’t a diabetic, or even too much insulin in someone who is, can cause what we call insulin shock. The symptoms of insulin shock are disorientation, hypotension, diaphoresis, and eventually death.”

“Lay terms, Winston. I know what hypertension is but I don’t know what di . . . dia . . .”

“Diaphoresis,” I say. “It means a cold sweat. Insulin shock doesn’t cause hypertension, or high blood pressure, it causes hy
po
tension, or low blood pressure. Based on what Bjorn told us about Bernie’s behavior in the bathroom, it fits.”

“Are you suggesting that Frank Dudley injected Bernard Chase with a dose of insulin?”

I think about this for a moment, with all the logistics that would be involved, and realize it would be very difficult. “It’s possible, but I have to admit it wouldn’t be easy. Even though the needles on those insulin syringes are very small, it would still be difficult to stick one in someone and have them not feel it. You would have to create some sort of a distraction, or some other reason for the pain.”

“The guy does have motive,” Hurley says. “Can Izzy tell if someone received an overdose of insulin?”

“I don’t know, but I can find out.” I take out my cell phone and call Izzy’s number. I can tell when he answers that he was asleep. “Hey, Izzy, it’s Mattie. Sorry to wake you. We’ve come across a situation here in our investigation and I need to ask you a question.”

“Not a problem,” Izzy says. “I hadn’t gone to bed yet. I just dozed off on the couch watching TV. What’s your question?”

“Could an injection of insulin have caused the symptoms that Bjorn reported in Bernie?”

“Hmm, interesting idea. And yes, it certainly could.”

“Then my next question is can you test for it?”

“I can, but it’s not a simple test and it’s not one that we can do here. I’ll have to send it off to Madison. The problem is, insulin is rapidly metabolized, so a postmortem level may not be helpful. Diabetics typically have anti-insulin antibodies, which is why they end up with the disease. Since Bernie wasn’t a diabetic, if his serum and free insulin levels are elevated and there are no anti-insulin antibodies present it would certainly indicate that he received a dose of exogenous insulin. But even if I put a rush on the test, we probably won’t have an answer for a couple days.”

“What about a basic blood glucose level? Can we do that here to give us some idea of whether or not this theory is even viable?”

“We can, but we have to be careful where the blood came from. It’s a known fact that people who go through what we refer to as death throes will have high glucose levels in blood taken from the right side of their heart due to glycogen breakdown in the liver. Of course, the other thing I can do is take another look for an injection site. If the needle used was the type that comes on an insulin syringe, it will be extremely small so I might’ve missed it when I looked earlier today.”

“Which reminds me, I meant to ask you whether or not you found any bruises on Bernie’s body.”

“As a matter of fact, I did. It was on the back of his right arm and I assume it came from him hitting the edge of the sink when he collapsed in the bathroom. Of course, that would be a perfect injection site as well. I’ll take another look first thing in the morning.”

“Thanks, Izzy. I’ll let Hurley know.”

“You know, it may prove to be serendipitous that Bjorn was in the bathroom when he was today.”

“Why is that?”

“Because if he hadn’t been there, Bernie’s body could have lain there all weekend before anyone found it. If that had happened, any traces of insulin would have probably disappeared.”

“Interesting,” I say. Hurley is giving me impatient looks, eager to know what Izzy has told me. “Let me go so I can fill Hurley in on what you just told me. I’ll let you know if anything else comes up. Otherwise, we’ll check with you in the morning to see if you found anything that looks like an injection site.”

“I’m curious. Is your suspect a patient or a staff member?”

“It’s a patient. I’ll fill you in on the details in the morning.” I disconnect the call and then tell Hurley what Izzy has just told me.

“Damn,” he says. “I hate waiting, but I don’t suppose we have any choice. Since the insulin theory fits what we know about Bernie’s death, we will definitely have to keep Frank Dudley on our list of suspects. It will be interesting to see if we can find his fingerprints anywhere in Chase’s office. In the meantime, we need to continue with the investigation as planned.”

“So what do we do next?”

“Since none of the employees are talking, we might as well finish up over in Bernie’s office.” Hurley takes a moment to give Larry a quick update, and tells him to let us know if they find anything else in the rest of their room searches.

On our way to the administrative wing, we check on Emily, who is seated at a table in the dayroom. Hoover is curled up under the table at her feet, sound asleep. Seated with her are half a dozen residents, all of whom appear to be very interested in her drawing. There is the vague shape of a face on the paper, but Emily has yet to give it any detail. Hurley tells her where we will be, listens as the residents at the table assure him that she is in good hands, and then he returns the fingerprint scanner to Richmond with instructions to upload Frank Dudley’s prints ASAP.

With that done, he and I head for the administrative wing via the outdoor route. The exit door is locked, but Hurley raps on the door three times and a moment later a uniformed police officer opens it.

“Have any of the staff or board members tried to come back here?” Hurley asks the officer.

“No, the only person who was back here is that guy from the medical examiner’s office.” It’s the new officer on the force, the one I don’t know. According to his tag, his name is P. Foster.

I wonder what the P stands for and then ask, “You mean Arnie?”

“Yeah, that was it. He spent some time inside the victim’s office dusting for fingerprints. He left about half an hour ago and said he’d be back in the morning to finish up.”

Someone has left two boxes of gloves on the floor outside Bernie’s office and Hurley is donning a pair when Officer Foster says, “Pardon me for saying so, Detective, but you threw me a bit of a curveball earlier. Was that some kind of test or initiation rite?”

Hurley gives him a puzzled look. “What are you talking about?”

“Earlier when I told you I was going to call for another on-duty officer to roll by because I needed to take a bathroom break, you were here in this office. You told me to go ahead and that you would keep an eye on things until I came back. But when I came out of the bathroom the person at the desk said she just saw you and the lady here go running out the front door of the place. I figured you must have had someone else come by to stand watch, but when I came back there was no one here.”

“Damn!” Hurley says with a grimace. He gives himself a literal and a figurative slap on the head. “That was when I got that panicked phone call from Dom about Emily. I completely forgot that I was supposed to be covering for you. I’m sorry.”

“No harm done,” Foster says. “It was totally deserted when I came back. That Arnie guy showed up a minute later. He was ticked because someone took out the rock he had used to prop open the end door.”

“That was me,” I say, knowing I’ll owe Arnie an apology tomorrow.

I put on a pair of gloves, flip on the light switch in Bernie’s office, and step inside. Evidence of Arnie’s presence is everywhere in the form of fingerprint dust on nearly every surface. The desk and the chair behind it are covered, as are all the items on top of the desk, including the coffee mug and the tax papers. I’m guessing Bernie’s CPA won’t be pleased.

Hurley walks over to a filing cabinet behind the meeting table. It has four drawers and Hurley opens the top one. “Might as well see what’s in here although I don’t expect to find any smoking guns.”

I see Arnie has left his processing kit along with several empty boxes, packs of various-sized evidence bags, two large rolls of evidence tape, and several empty collection jars over by the couch. I turn to Hurley. “You said you were using an ultraviolet light on the couch earlier. Did anything light up?”

“Hell, yeah, the whole thing did. I wouldn’t sit on it if I were you. It looked like a hotel bedspread.”

“So Bernie was enjoying some hanky-panky in here?”