Page 29 of Shattered Fate

“Thank you. That’s kind. Syd Miller,” he says, holding out his hand. “And you are?”

I grasp it without hesitation. “Zarah Maddox.”

“Miss Maddox. I apologize. I had no idea you would be here tonight. Can I ask why you want this particular photo?”

I look at Gage when I speak. “Because one day I want what she has. Excuse me, gentlemen.”

I find Tate and we join Zane and Stella, and no one knows that because of Gage, I’ll remember this night for the rest of my life.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Gage

Pop and I have an appointment to talk to the medical examiner at King’s Crossing Regional Hospital. This isn’t my first foray into the hospital’s morgue and it won’t be the last, but I’ve never witnessed an autopsy and I’ve never had to identify anyone. Mom and Rourke claimed Max’s body and chose what to bury him in. Fortunately, I didn’t have to make any decisions. I didn’t know him well enough to know what he’d want.

The coroner’s office smells sterile, maybe even a little dusty. It’s clean, and bookshelves full of medical textbooks line the walls.

I like reading thrillers and mysteries, and almost always the coroner and the detectives are at odds. Either the detectives want too much information and the coroner doesn’t have it, or the detectives think the coroner has made a mistake, which usually isn’t the case. The tension creates conflict and doubt, but there are only straightforward answers here.

“JodiAnne Donnelly’s cause of death was cardiac arrest, simple as that,” Dr. Krout says, leaning back into his chair, and the thing squeaks like crazy. He’s not a big man, but his chair doesn’t appreciate the weight.

“Is that common in someone so young?” Pop asks.

It’s a valid question.

“You’ve seen the list of medication she was on, haven’t you?”

Pop nods. So have I, and apprehension slithers over my skin and suddenly Dr. Krout’s little office is too hot.

He sighs and scrubs a hand over his tired eyes. “The human body isn’t made for that. You can call me a granola-guy, crunchy, a tree-hugger, or simply a nutcase, but the human body wasn’t created to withstand that kind of assault. Those drugs, prescribed over such a prolonged period of time, wore out her heart’s interior walls and when she attacked Mrs. Donnelly, the exertion was too much. Her heart stopped beating, and there wasn’t anything anyone could do. If it hadn’t been her heart, it would’ve been her liver. There has to be other ways to treat the human body...the human mind. I believe it and I’m called a crackpot, but the evidence is there. Look at JodiAnne Donnelly.”

I swallow hard and start thinking about Zarah’s health. She, too, has been on shitload medication, meds she didn’t need, Ash Black bribing a doctor to treat an illness she didn’t have.

Everyone talks about Zarah’s mind, her wispy memory, but I haven’t heard anyone say anything about her heart.

“There isn’t any indication that it was a homicide?” Pop asks.

I need to keep my head in the game. I try to shove Zarah’s heart, and other body parts, out of my mind. It doesn’t work. She looked good last night in a little slip of a bronze dress that matched her skin. I caught a glimpse of her date, too, after Zarah purchased that photo from a stunned Syd Miller. He looked steady. Her date, I mean, not Syd. Would glance at her with realaffection as far as I could tell, and I like to think I’m a pretty good judge of character.

The doctor’s words snap me back. “The family can sue Quiet Meadows all they like. They might have a case. You’d have to talk to the woman’s psychiatrist—I don’t know if all the medication was necessary. Prescription drugs is a billion-dollar industry in this country, gentlemen, and I doubt you’ll find any psychiatrist who would admit that a natural approach could work just as well. I could go on and on about the benefits of Vitamin B12, but no one wants to hear it because, you know,vitamins, and I go back to being called a crackpot.”

“But Mrs. Donnelly specifically thinks someone killed her daughter. Not it being a byproduct of her treatment,” I say, and hey, I sound coherent after thinking about Zarah’s legs. I need to get laid.

“Do you have motive?”

“Not at this time.”

“Then I’d have a hard time believing someone induced cardiac arrest in a twenty-seven year old woman just for the hell of it. If that’s all, I have work to do.”

Dr. Krout shows us the door, but through the glass window of his office we watch him pour a cup of coffee and pick up the phone. I guess he was done and wanted us out. Suits me just fine. I didn’t have any more questions. Pop and I knew when we took this case there wasn’t much to go on, but we still have her nurse to talk to, and her psychiatrist, for all the good it will do us.

Pop buckles his seatbelt and cranks the heater in the truck. The temperatures dipped overnight, and we’re colder than we’re used to. “Now where?”

“The nurse has another gig not far from the Donnelly’s. We’ll be early but that’s not a bad thing.”

Noon hour traffic slows us down, and we drive at a snail’s pace across the city. Pop fills the time with idle chitchat. “What’d you do last night?”

“Sierra and I went to a photography showing.”

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