Free Monument to the Dead by Sheila Connolly Page B

I shut the door behind me and went to my office and shut that door,
     too. I took a deep breath and picked up the phone. “James? Is . . .”
    “Is anyone else dead? No. But I wanted to pass on one piece of news. The three people
     who died? In each case, the cause was an overdose of a medication that had been prescribed
     for them. But the numbers don’t match up.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You know when you pick up a prescription, you get a certain number of pills, and
     the pharmacy keeps a record of that?”
    “Sure, and that’s why I get reminders from them that I’m running out, as if I can’t
     tell by just looking at the bottle. So?”
    “In Adeline Harrison’s case, she had called in her prescription but hadn’t picked
     it up yet. The bottle she had at home should have had only one or two more pills in
     it, but her blood level showed far more. Where did those pills come from?”
    I turned that over in my mind. “Did the pharmacy say that she was scrupulous about
     refilling her prescription on schedule?”
    “They did, and all her other prescriptions tracked closely. That’s why this one stood
     out. The one that killed her is the only anomaly.”
    “Could she have been hoarding them, planning on using them to kill herself?”
    “Interesting theory, but in this case, unlikely. She’d seen her doctor recently, and
     he’d given her a clean bill of health, as far as possible for someone of her age.
     No terminal illnesses, not even arthritis. She took a number of medications for various
     complaints, but none of them was life-threatening. Adeline Harrison took good care
     of herself.”
    “What was she taking medication for?”
    “Low blood pressure. Not unusual in older people, and she wasn’t taking a very large
     dose. Doubling it unexpectedly could cause real problems.”
    “And you think that means . . . ?” I waited almost breathlessly for his answer.
    “That somebody else gave her those pills. Someone brought enough to do the job. That
     person hadn’t counted on the refill still sitting at the pharmacy.”
    I felt both glad and saddened at the same time. It was progress, at least. “So does
     that mean you’re officially on the case now?”
    “Not yet, but it’s a step closer. I’ll still need more. How’s your meeting going?”
    “Marty and Shelby have whittled things down to a short list of other possible names
     who fit the victim profiles, but it’s still got close to forty people on it. James . . .
     maybe I shouldn’t tell you, but I think Marty’s scared. She’s on that list.”
    “Because she’s connected to so many things? Maybe she’s right to be scared. Tell her
     not to accept candy from strangers.”
    “James, this is serious!”
    “I know,” he said gently. “I care about Marty. I’m doing the best I can. Tell her
     to be careful, will you? I’d prefer you didn’t tell her and Shelby about the pills,
     but you can tell them it wasn’t suicide. That’s the best I can do at the moment.”
    “It may help. Wait—do you know how the pills were administered? Orally, by injection,
     inhaled?”
    “Not yet. I’ve got friends at the labs where the analyses were done, so they tipped
     me off. But I didn’t get the full reports, or maybe they haven’t finished the analyses.”
    “Okay. Look, I think we can clean up the spreadsheets and get them to you later today.
     That is, if you still want them?”
    “I do. I promise I won’t blow your chances of fundraising.”
    “You’d better not, or you’ll have to write a check to make up for it. Do you have
     six figures in the bank?”
    “Uh, no comment. Can I come by around five and pick them up?”
    “Sure. Give me a call when you arrive downstairs so I can let you in.”
    “Will do.”
    After we’d hung up, I went back to the conference room. Both women looked up at me
     with fear in their eyes.
    I hurried to fill them in. “No, it’s not bad news. James said I could tell you one