Healed to Death, page 21
“Well… there may be some more coming.” This whole thing was going to shine a lot more light on the Jack Lane case and some of the problems inherent in the current system.
“What’s going on?”
Kenzie steeled herself. She would have to tell him the details and stop dancing around it.
“It wasn’t natural causes. I got lab tests back today showing it was medical malpractice.” Kenzie sighed. “The doctor who treated him—or former doctor, as he’d had his license revoked—definitely caused his death.”
“You are sure of that?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. The name of the doctor—former doctor—who administered this treatment?”
“Evan Hartfield.”
Campbell repeated the name as he wrote it down. “And you know that for sure?”
Kenzie thought of everything she had. “I have a witness, or apparent witness, who said she saw him administer the treatment. And there were others there at the time. He treated a number of different people.”
“Of course he did. Why would the man stop seeing patients just because he’d had his license revoked?” Campbell questioned, his voice heavy with sarcasm.
“Yes. Apparently, he had a differing opinion on the matter.”
“I’ll make sure Samuels got your message and looks into it on Monday.”
“Well… actually, there have been developments. Dr. Cook knows Hartfield personally, and he thought he might be able to talk him into turning himself in.”
“Well, it’s always nice when they police themselves. I’m sure someone can take his statement.”
“As it turns out, I think Hartfield caught wind that we were coming to talk to him, or at least that we were getting closer to the truth.”
There was a silent pause from Campbell. “And what exactly has happened?”
“He is on his way to Clintock. There now, actually. We think he has the witness who talked to us about him, and… we’re worried she might be in danger.”
“Does he know she told you what she saw?”
“I don’t know. … when we saw her a few days ago, she was quite paranoid and thought he was following her. But I don’t think he was at that point; I think it was just… a break. But she was seen talking to him earlier today and might have said something to tip him off.”
“And he’s with her now? How do you know that?”
“Zachary has a tracker on her. We’re following it now, and she is back in Clintock.”
“And how do you know she is with Hartfield?”
“Well… that part is just speculation, I guess,” Kenzie admitted. “They were together earlier and then both dropped out of sight. Maria rides a bicycle, but we found her bike still in Roxboro, so someone else gave her a ride. There is no guarantee it is Hartfield… but we’ve been looking for him all day, and we think he’s brought her to Clintock.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Well… he’s pulled into a self-storage lot. I’m worried that…”
Campbell did not stop at “dang.” Kenzie grimaced and waited to see what he had to say about it. He clearly was following the same line of thinking as they had.
“Have you had any contact to indicate what kind of shape she’s in?”
“No. We haven’t been in contact with either one.”
“Does your witness have a cellphone?”
“She might, but I don’t have her number. Dr. Cook has Hartfield’s number and tried to reach him, but he didn’t answer.”
“Dr. Cook is there with you?”
“He’s following in his car.”
“How close are you to this self-storage lot?”
Kenzie looked at the ETA on the phone. “Twenty minutes out.”
“We’d better get some cops from Clintock out there. Have you called them? Tried 9-1-1?”
“I didn’t know if they would take me seriously.”
“You’re the assistant medical examiner. I hope they would.”
“I hope so too, but it’s kind of a scattered story. I wasn’t sure anyone would think it was anything serious.”
“Well… maybe if I didn’t know you, I wouldn’t be sure whether to be concerned. You’ve made a lot of assumptions in your chain of logic. But better to take it seriously and find out you were wrong than to do nothing and let this woman be harmed.”
“So you’ll get someone from Clintock over there?”
“Yes. Give me the address and a description of your parties. Do you have pictures of either of them?”
“I have one of Hartfield. Maria is an older Black woman with cornrows, not exactly a common demographic here in Vermont.”
“Send me the picture. I’ll get someone on this, and I guess… I’ll hear from you later.”
45
“Campbell is going to get some cops over there,” Kenzie confirmed to Zachary. “They’ll probably get there before us.”
Although she probably should not take the ETA on Zachary’s map as gospel, since he was going significantly over the speed limit. Zachary saw her looking at the speedometer and touched the brake, slowing slightly.
“I figured it was an emergency,” he defended himself.
“Well, it sort of is, but let’s get there in one piece.”
He grinned and didn’t comment. Zachary always thought he could get away with breaking the speed limit without fear of tickets or accidents. And so far, she had to admit he’d been correct on that score. As fast as he drove, she’d never seen him come close to having an accident. It was one of the ways that his ADHD was beneficial. He could be totally focused, his reflexes like lightning. He saw and processed everything around him instantly and responded accordingly.
“This might be a case that calls for a little more speed,” Zachary suggested.
“I don’t think we should get there ahead of the police. It will take a few minutes for Campbell to convince them to get people over there, and time for them to arrive and assess the situation.”
“If we get there first, we might have everything under control by the time they do.”
“I’m not willing to bet Maria’s life on it. Are you?”
His smile disappeared. “No. I guess not.”
Kenzie looked over her shoulder at the black SUV following them.
“I’d better talk to Dr. Cook about what is going on,” she told Zachary.
He glanced at her and then back at the road. “You don’t think he will be happy about it?”
“Uh, no. Hartfield is his friend. He was hoping to talk to him before the police got involved.”
“Well, that was before things escalated and Maria was apparently taken.”
“Yeah. He probably won’t be happy that I called the police without discussing it with him.”
“Probably best that you did. Better not to give him a chance to talk you out of it.”
Kenzie grunted an acknowledgment. She considered her phone for a minute before putting the call in. It would be easier to just continue on to the storage lot and let Cook find out what she had done when they got there, but she couldn’t treat him that way. They had been working together for several months, and Kenzie respected the serious young doctor. He didn’t deserve to be ambushed.
She took a deep breath and tapped his number on her phone.
“Kenzie,” Dr. Cook sounded both amused and out of breath. “Zachary’s a bit of a speed demon there.”
“Uh, yeah, sorry about that!” Kenzie glared at Zachary, and he touched the brake, slowing the car just slightly. “I thought I’d better fill you in on developments.”
“Developments? What happened?”
“It looks like Hartfield is going into a self-storage lot. We are concerned about Maria’s safety and what he has in mind. He could… intend to harm her and leave her there, where no one would know what happened to her.”
“Evan wouldn’t do something like that. I’m sure he has a good reason for taking her to a storage unit. You don’t know what supplies he has there that she might need.”
“Have you been to it before? Do you know what he keeps there?”
“No, but he must have a place to keep medical supplies handy. He doesn’t have an office. And I know from working with the mobile clinic that it’s hard to keep everything you need in a van. We have to restock every day.”
Kenzie hadn’t thought much about the logistics. It was possible that Hartfield simply needed to get medical supplies to treat Maria. If so, Kenzie’s call to Campbell might have been entirely unnecessary.
“Well… yeah, I guess that’s possible. But it is also possible that he is planning to do something we might regret. We felt it was necessary to get the police involved in… making sure that no one comes to harm.”
“You don’t know Evan.”
“No, we don’t. So, we need to treat this as a volatile situation. No one wants Maria to get hurt.”
“Of course, but I don’t think you need to involve the police when we don’t know anything yet.”
“I’ve already called them,” Kenzie disclosed.
Cook’s growl of frustration was audible over the phone. “Dr. Kirsch, I expect you to consult me before—”
“This is not a situation in which you have any authority over me,” Kenzie cut him off. “I have responsibilities to see that the public is not put at risk and that the law is enforced. I am a medical doctor, and that means I have a code of ethics to follow. I can’t ignore the possibility that Hartfield could hurt Maria, or might have already.”
“I know Evan. This is ridiculous. I know that he wouldn’t hurt anyone. He has always been very focused on helping those who are… part of vulnerable populations that slip through the cracks here. Do you really think he would do anything to hurt someone in one of those populations?”
“I don’t know what he would do. I just know where he is, and that worries me. Things could go terribly wrong at this point, and I don’t want to take the chance.”
“You’re wrong, Dr. Kirsch. You’ve got it completely backward.”
“If it turns out to be a mistake, I’ll happily admit it.”
46
Zachary and Kenzie were quiet as they approached the location on the phone screen. Zachary slowed down when he took the ramp off the highway and navigated through the side roads, going past various warehouses, car lots, and other light industrial buildings on their way there.
Kenzie heard the distant wail of a siren. She looked in her mirror, and then turned to look back over her shoulder. It was a minute before she could see the lights of a couple of police cars as they approached. The road was quiet with no other traffic, so it seemed a fair conclusion that they were the cops sent by Campbell. As the cars approached, Zachary slowed and pulled to the side of the road to let them pass. He never actually stopped the car, but kept traveling at a slow speed, even while they passed him. Then he pulled back in behind them and hit the accelerator. They were over the speed limit, but what were the police going to do about it? Stop and pull them over? Their eyes and minds were ahead, focused on the man who might have taken a hostage or have a dead body with him that he had intended to conceal.
She and Zachary would probably face some opposition when they got to the site. At least Kenzie was nominally involved in law enforcement. But the cops would certainly not want to have anything to do with Zachary, a private investigator. He would have to do some pretty quick talking to get them to listen to anything he said or allow him close to the crime scene or suspect.
Zachary had been detained or arrested in the past for showing up at a crime scene where the police didn’t want him or were worried he might interfere with a situation.
They didn’t need the GPS of the locator app anymore, but just followed the police in. Kenzie kept an eye on the app, in case it had gotten Maria’s location wrong while they were still a distance away, and she was actually in a warehouse next to the storage unit or some other nearby location that they would be able to identify now that they were close by.
The police cars pulled into the front of the storage lot, where there was a small parking lot and a business office. An electronically controlled security gate kept them from driving into the lot. The woman at the business office came out, frowning.
Zachary grabbed his phone and hopped out of the car, not hesitating about whether to jump directly into the midst of the situation. That was Zachary. What was it he always said? Impulsivity was the hallmark of his ADHD. That was what the psychologist’s report had said when he was first put into foster care, and the family and school were trying to determine what was wrong with him and how to manage his erratic behavior.
As if they had not been able to figure out that a child raised in an abusive home, who had just been through the horror of his house burning down and being separated from his family might have been traumatized and have difficulty sitting still and focusing on the work at school. But there had been additional problems; they had been right to do a psycho-educational assessment when one had not previously been done for Zachary. ADHD, dyslexia, PTSD, and probably a smattering of other issues that were not yet fully understood but would continue to plague him throughout his life.
Kenzie wasn’t quite as quick to jump into an unfamiliar and potentially explosive situation as Zachary. She got out of the car slowly and watched the police to make sure they did not object to her movements. Behind her, she heard Dr. Cook’s car door slam.
Zachary held the phone flat in front of him to show the cops the map showing where Maria was in the storage lot.
“Do you have surveillance cameras?” he asked the woman from the office. “Something that would show what is going on in this aisle?”
“Well, we don’t have anything that points inside the storage units. We try to give clients their privacy about what is stored in their units. You don’t want staff getting curious about what is in the units or its value. Sometimes people are storing things worth tens of thousands of dollars. We had one client who stored his Lamborghini…”
So much for not knowing what was in the units. Kenzie could understand wanting to avoid tempting staff with what looked like an easy score. A pair of bolt cutters on a night when the surveillance video mysteriously blinked out would make it simple. The theft might not be discovered until weeks or months later when the owner of the unit came around and found the hasp of the lock on the unit severed.
“What cameras do you have in that aisle?” a mustached cop asked the owner firmly, undistracted by the tale of the Lamborghini and what else might be stored in the units.
“Uh, come into the office.”
The woman led them into the business office. It was a tiny, cramped room, which would have been full with just two people inside. Kenzie and Dr. Cook stood outside the open door, not speaking to each other, behind two of the cops. The room was extremely crowded with the employee, Zachary, the mustached cop, and his partner. They huddled around a computer while the employee went through the feeds to find the one pointing at Hartfield. Kenzie was not in a position where she could see what was on the screen or hear what they were discussing.
47
Eventually, Zachary, the woman, and the mustached cop came back out of the office, leaving the other cop stationed in front of the computer, watching the surveillance camera.
“Hartfield and Maria,” Zachary confirmed succinctly to Kenzie. “She’s alive and appears to be unharmed. The police are going to get close and then walk in, hoping to catch him off guard and not escalate the situation.”
“Is he armed? What’s going on with him and Maria? Are they fighting?”
“Ma’am?” Closer to him, Kenzie could see that the mustached cop’s name was Bleaker. “Sorry, and you are…?”
Zachary opened his mouth to answer, but Kenzie raised her hand to stop him. She needed to be independent, for Bleaker to see her as a separate entity, capable and professional. A member of the law enforcement team. Not associated with the private investigator who would probably get kicked off the scene now that they knew where Hartfield was.
“Dr. Kenzie Kirsch,” she pronounced slowly, putting her hand out to shake. “Medical Examiner’s Office in Roxboro. All of this…” She motioned toward the storage lot, “is related to a death I am working on.”
Bleaker raised an eyebrow. “How?”
“Dr. Hartfield’s actions resulted in the death of the victim.”
“He killed your victim?” The cop looked toward the other two who were getting ready to enter the lot, frowning. Walking up on a suspect who might have coerced an old woman was different from approaching someone they knew had violently murdered someone.
Dr. Cook shook his head. “No!” Kenzie could see by his scowl that he wanted to tell her this was exactly what he had been talking about. He didn’t want his friend getting hurt or killed because the police thought he was dangerous.
“Not like you are thinking,” Kenzie explained. “Not violently. Medical malpractice. But he still defied authority when he had been told he was not allowed to practice anymore, and continued to treat people when the medical board had decided he was a danger to them.”
Cook continued to glare, but didn’t say anything else.
Bleaker nodded, looking a little more relaxed about this. He headed toward his car.
“No one else is to get any closer than they already are. We don’t want any civilians getting close to the subject.”
Kenzie nodded. She had no intention of following them into the lot. She hung on to Zachary’s arm, trying to get his full attention while his eyes followed Bleaker.
“Tell me about what is going on,” Kenzie urged. “You could see him on the camera? Was he armed? Was he threatening? Could you tell what was going on? Why are they here?”
Zachary’s eyes were slowly drawn back to her face, and his smile grew as her questions continued. “I can’t answer most of those. Couldn’t see any weapon, but also couldn’t tell what was going on between them. Hartfield was unlocking and opening his unit. They don’t look like they’re arguing, but they don’t exactly look happy, either.”
