Page 69 of Trick of Light
“My mother might faint to hear you say that. See you in a flash.” She hurried onwards, while he followed the scent of baked goods and coffee to an area where tables and chairs were set up around a Green Mountain Coffee kiosk. He picked the quietest spot and opened up the file.
He hadn’t expected the rush of emotion that came over him at the sight of his mother’s name written in official hospital records. Sophia Marianna Brown. Age twenty-four. My God, so young. She’d come in with a healthy pregnancy and no known pre-existing conditions. A nurse’s note said that she had no previous medical records at all. That was probably because she’d spent her life on Sea Smoke Island being treated by Tamara for anything that might ail her.
The day of her death was recorded as one day after his birth. That seemed like a discrepancy, but not a big one. Someone could die “in childbirth” even if they technically were declared dead the next day. The strange thing was that no cause of death was noted.
He carefully scanned the list of medical professionals who had been involved in his birth. None of the names were familiar to him. He pulled out his phone to see if any of them still worked there. Only one did, Angus Telford, an orderly who was now a physician assistant. That was disappointing. What would an orderly know about a cause of death? They just cleaned up, for the most part, as far as he knew. Still, maybe he’d seen something. It would be worth checking in with Angus Telford.
He next checked the visitors’ logs for the three days that Sophie Brown had been at the Maine Medical Center. They weren’t very complete, since not everyone had written down who they were there to see. But he was lucky these logs had even been retained, so he wouldn’t complain.
Tamara Brown was at the top of the list. She’d stayed with Sophie until the baby—Barnaby—had been born. She’d left the next morning, before Sophie had died.
Would she have done so if she’d thought Sophie was in any kind of danger? Hell no.
John Carmichael III was on the logs too, but he was the only Carmichael to be found. That was a relief. Tamara and John were the only two people to specify they were visiting Sophie. He ignored the folks who had visited other patients, and focused on the people who had left that box blank. There were five of them. None of those names meant anything to him, although one of them rang a very distant bell. Elle Evans.
He didn’t know an Elle Evans, but damn, that name did mean something to him. He just couldn’t pin it down.
Frustrated, he closed the folder and pushed it aside just as Gabby dropped into the chair he’d reserved for her. Her eyes shone like someone on a mission. “I found something interesting.”
He straightened up. “What does it say?”
“Here’s the thing. The first tox screen doesn’t show anything. There’s nothing about ‘inconclusive’ here. Whatever she’d taken had been cleared from her bloodstream by the time they did the test. But, they did run another test, specifically requested by the doctor, apparently at the suggestion of the police. See this note? PD req.”
He scanned the report. “Positive for ricinine?”
“Exactly. I did a quick little Google and ricinine is an alkaloid that’s a biomarker for ricin. Standard tests don’t detect ricin, you have to do one of these specialized tests that only regional labs or the CDC perform. It takes longer to get the results.”
This didn’t seem like good news at all. “So they did find proof it was castor bean. That’s not good for Tamara.”
“But look.” She pointed to the date on the report. “This says the ricinine test was requested the same day Safiya went to the hospital. Before anyone else got sick, before Amelia was found, before the police even searched Tamara’s house or had a reason to think it was a toxic plant. Doesn’t that seem weird to you? Who was it that suggested it was castor bean?”
“The Harbortown police.” He shrugged. “I can’t remember which one it was, Chen or Hooper. I think probably they both said it.”
“Well, I don’t know where they got that idea. It wasn’t in the initial tox screen, because it came up negative. They wouldn’t have had the ricinine test result until much later. It probably just came in. To me, it looks like they wanted an excuse to arrest her, so they fudged the report.”
He loved her fiery indignation. She looked almost as angry as he felt. “So someone is framing her.”
“Bingo. The question is who.”
A few options came to mind. “It could be Amelia’s killer, trying to deflect attention to someone else. Or it could be the police just being lazy. They always want to close cases as fast as they can.”
“This goes beyond laziness. Someone lied about Safiya’s tox screen report.”
“But who? Either someone lied to the police, or the police lied. I don’t see any other options.”
“Wonderful.” Gabby heaved out a breath of pure resignation. “I guess the time has come to call my mother.”
“Right now?” He made as if to leave the table to her.
“No no, I need to gear up for it. Sit back down.” He sat, amused by her bossiness. “I want to know what you found in the files you strong-armed from that poor nurse.” Gabby asked. “Anything interesting?”
“One local lead. An orderly who still works here called Angus Telford. Does that name mean anything to you?”
She shook her head.
“Everyone else is long gone, and none of them are familiar to me. I’ll have to get on the computer and try to track them down.”
“Can I see the names?”
