Page 36 of Two Kinds of Stranger (Eddie Flynn #9)

Eddie

It was a busy morning.

Tricky Dicky had come through, as good as his word, and the release papers were en route to Rosie’s for processing. Kate and Bloch were on their way to meet Elly coming off the prisoner transport from Rikers.

Lake was out pounding the sidewalks, looking for our missing homeless veteran, Joe Novak, the only living witness who had seen Elly and the man with a scar on his chin and his leg in a cast, the man who called himself Logan.

Denise was typing up legal briefs for Kate. Harry and Clarence were in his office, and as usual Harry was glued to his phone watching TikTok.

Bloch had told me we would get some analysis results this morning.

First, DNA results – we needed to know whose body fluids those were we’d found on the floor.

I guessed it was vomit, from the pattern and the odor, but we needed to be sure.

Then a more detailed analysis: whatever unusual chemical or compounds that were in the staining on the floor of Elly’s apartment would be picked up by the lab tech.

With any luck, the poison used would be exotic – something we could use to help track down the man with the yellow suitcase and the cast on his leg.

Until then, there wasn’t much I could do but worry.

‘Eddie,’ cried Denise, ‘email hitting your inbox right now. It’s Elly’s medical records from the hospital.’

‘Just print them for me,’ I said.

The printer beside Denise’s desk hummed into life and began spitting out warm pages. I heard Harry coming out of his office, and the little bell on Clarence’s collar jangled. The dog followed Harry into every corner of the office.

I grabbed some pages from the printer, read them and, when I’d done so, held them out for Harry while I grabbed more records hot off the printer. He stood beside me. The only sound was the crinkle of paper in our hands and the buzz and mechanical whirr from the printer.

As if on cue, the printer stopped. I took the last page.

Read it.

Gave it to Harry.

‘Where’s the rest of it?’ I asked.

‘That’s it,’ said Denise.

‘There’s nothing in Elly’s toxicology report,’ I said.

‘I wasn’t expecting anything,’ said Harry. ‘Unless they test for a specific type of toxin, most won’t show up on a standard blood screening. Still, we’ve got something to start with here.’

‘What? What have we got?’ I asked.

‘We have her symptomology. She had nausea, vomiting, drowsiness and dizziness. When the paramedics picked her up, she was fully unconscious. Her blood pressure was really low. She came round in the hospital enough to vomit, but couldn’t answer any questions or give a history to the treating medical team.

Even though she was vomiting, her heart rate never got above fifty-two beats a minute.

They had to shock her heart and give her a clot-buster injection, IV fluids and ACE inhibitors.

Strange that they gave her ACE inhibitors. ’

‘What are they?’

‘They open up the blood vessels, allowing the heart to work a little less hard, but her heart wasn’t working overtime at all. I don’t understand. You should speak to the doctor who treated her. Something’s not right here.’

The name of the treating doctor was Ted Jones. I asked Denise to try to get him on the phone. It was already close to noon.

Denise called out, ‘Doc Jones on line three.’

I took the call in Harry’s office and put it on speaker.

‘Doctor, thank you so much for taking the call. I’m here with my colleague Harry Ford. We were just looking over our client’s medical records and we had some questions.’

‘Any questions about your client’s treatment should be addressed to the hospital’s legal department. I can’t discuss this . . . ’

‘No, you misunderstand. This isn’t a lawsuit. The release our client signed for her medical records states that we are not seeking these documents in contemplation of litigation,’ I said.

‘Wait a second – let me check that.’

He put us on hold.

Came back after thirty seconds.

‘I see the release here on her file. How can I help you?’

‘Our client believes that someone spiked her water with some kind of poison. Something that would cause the symptoms she was treated for. I don’t know if you are aware, but her husband and her best friend were murdered some time just before Elly was admitted to hospital.

We’re not sure when they were murdered, but we believe they may have been poisoned too.

We were wondering if you might have an opinion on Elly’s condition and if it’s possible she was poisoned? ’ I asked.

‘Oh, she definitely had some kind of toxin in her body. A healthy female of that age does not present with those symptoms without something being introduced to her system to cause it. You know, I’ve been in the ER six years now.

When I first started, I thought I’d be dealing with stab wounds, gunshot wounds, broken bones from falls and all the usual illness and disease.

I never thought I’d be treating ten, sometimes fifteen young women a week who are brought in because some asshole spiked their drink. ’

‘Do you know what the drug might have been?’ asked Harry.

‘We screened for the usual date-rape drugs, but didn’t hit a match.

Thing is, these assholes are using ever more exotic cocktails to drug these young women.

Unless we screen for a specific drug, we’re not going to know, and you can only take so much blood for screening.

In this case, like many others, we find that it’s better just to treat the symptoms and if the patient shows signs of recovery then that’s about all we can do. ’

‘I noticed Mrs. Parker was given ACE inhibitors, but her heart rate was fairly low. Would you mind explaining that?’ asked Harry.

‘Her blood oxygen level was eight-five. We had to increase her SATS. The ACE inhibitors worked. They opened up her veins and her SATS returned to normal very quickly.’

‘Doctor, do you have any idea what kind of drug she might have been given to induce those symptoms?’ asked Harry.

‘Hard to tell. Like I said, it could have been a cocktail of drugs, maybe a vasoconstrictor of some type, which would account for the narrowing of the blood vessels – maybe epinephrine, and, again, that could have been cut with Fentanyl, PCP or something else. Whatever it was, unless she got treatment for those symptoms she would’ve died. ’

We both thanked the doctor and I hung up the call.

Harry took out his phone, and started working on a search.

‘Holy shit,’ said Harry.

He gave me his phone.

He had been googling Vasoconstrictors .

He showed me one of Elly’s social media videos.

She had been to CVS for all the essentials a young woman needs. L’Oreal shampoo, Colgate toothpaste, nail clippers, make-up, eye drops . . .

‘What am I watching?’ I asked.

I heard footsteps on the stairs leading up to our office.

Harry took his phone back and paused the video.

Kate and Bloch came in, Elly followed behind wearing the clothes Bloch had picked up from her apartment. She looked as if she had lost ten pounds and hadn’t slept in days. Kate introduced her to Denise and the three of them went to the kitchen.

Bloch came into Harry’s office holding her phone.

‘My lab guy came back. That stain on the bedroom floor is vomit. There was enough saliva to do a DNA comparison – he believes it’s a strong match for Harriet Rothschild. And there’s something else. The vomit residue contained high levels of . . . ’

‘Tetrahydrozoline,’ said Harry and Bloch, simultaneously.

‘How did you know?’ said Bloch.

‘It’s a vasoconstrictor,’ said Harry. ‘We got Elly’s medical records and talked to the doctor. He thinks at least one of the drugs she was given was a vasoconstrictor. Look at Elly’s Instagram . . . ’

Harry wound the video back on his phone, and hit play.

Elly’s voice resonated from the speakers on Harry’s phone. Bloch and I stood beside him to watch the video.

‘ Everybody needs a good toothpaste. Turns out they’re pretty much all the same so I just buy one with a flip top so I don’t lose the cap.

Next, eye drops. If you’re living in a city like New York, yes you will have an amazing time, but air quality is just not great and my eyes tend to dry out.

These eye drops, just once or twice a day, total game changer.

No point in having gorgeous eye make-up if your actual eyes make it look like you’re in a zombie movie. Moving on, facial wash . . . ’

‘I don’t get it. What am I looking at here?’ I asked.

Harry sighed, said, ‘You’re looking at evidence that will convict Elly of double homicide.’