Claws And Effect Part 27

"The only reason the sheriff and I noticed these particular invoices, and it took time, I might add, was we crawled over the hospital, over billings, maintenance bills, you name it, but what finally caught our eye was that these bills were so neat."

"What do you mean?" Laura was curious.

"Well, they have a receipt date, as you can see." Coop pointed to the round red circle in the middle of each bill. "They have a pay date." She pointed to another circle, this one in blue with a date running across it diagonally. "But the invoices are so white and crisp."

"What do you mean?" Laura picked up an invoice.

"The other bills and invoices had gone through a couple of hands, a couple of shufflings. Fingerprints were on the paper, corners were a little dog-eared. These are pristine. It was a long shot but it was just peculiar enough for me to come up here."

"I'm glad you did." Joe, upset, looked into the young officer's eyes.

"Is there anyone who stands out in your mind at Crozet Hospital?" Coop had been making notes in her notebook.

"No. Well, I met the director and the a.s.sistant director, that sort of thing. I talked to a few of the nurses. The nurses are the ones who use the infusion pumps. That's why the simpler the model, the better it is. You can make these devices too complicated. Nurses have to use them, they're overburdened, tired-keep it simple." His voice boomed.

"How serious would a malfunctioning unit be?" Coop asked.

"Life and death." Laura folded her long fingers together as if in prayer. "An improper dosage could kill a patient."

After they left Salvage Masters they drove east on Route 50, ten miles into Middleburg. Harry took her chaps to Journeyman Saddlery to have them repaired, since Chuck Pinnell in Charlottesville was off to another Olympics. As he was one of the best leatherworkers in the nation, with a deep understanding of riders' needs, he had been invited to the Olympics to repair tack for all the compet.i.tors, not just Americans.

"Coop, look at these neat colors and the trims you can get, too."

Cynthia felt the samples, played with putting colors together. "It really is beautiful."

"They can put your initials on the back or on the side. They can make leather rosebuds on the belt or whatever. It's just incredible."

"I can see that."

"Mine's a plain pair of pigskin chaps with cream trim and my initials on the back, see?" Harry showed her the back of the chaps belt.

"Uh-huh." Cynthia was gravitating toward black calfskin.

"You know, if you had a pair of chaps made to your body, you might even learn to jump. I'd let you ride Gin Fizz. He's a sweetie. Then, too, chaps have other uses." She had a devilish glitter in her eye.

Coop weakened, allowing herself to be measured. She chose black calfskin, smooth side out, no fringe, and a thin green contrasting strip down the leg and on the belt, also calfskin. She had her initials centered on the back of the belt in a small diamond configuration. The waiting period would be three months.

All the way back to Crozet the two women discussed uses for the chaps as well as the pressing matter at hand: how to trap the killer or killers into making a mistake.

It only takes one mistake.

39.

The two cats and the dog had heard about the trip to Upper-ville and Middleburg. They huddled in the back of the post office by the animal door. Outside a hard frost was melting as the temperature at ten in the morning was forty-five degrees and rising quickly. February could run you crazy with the wild weather fluctuations.

"That's what those machines are we found. The pumps that should have gone to Salvage Masters." Pewter held her tail in her paw. She'd meant to clean it but in the excitement of the news she'd forgotten.

Mrs. Murphy, already one step ahead of her, replied, "Yes, of course, but that's not the real problem. You see-" As the two animals drew closer to her she lowered her voice. "Those machines have to be rehabbed. That's why they're down there. Whoever is stas.h.i.+ng them can't put them back into use without cleaning them, right?"

"Why not?" Tucker asked.

"Either they won't work or they'll work improperly. Which means complaints to Salvage Masters and the game is up. Whoever is doing this has to crawl down in that s.p.a.ce and clean the pumps. I should think that part wouldn't be too hard. Well, the person has to get in and out undetected. What's difficult is if a machine needs more work than just cleaning. See?" Mrs. Murphy swept her pointed, refined ears forward.

"No, I don't see," Pewter confessed.

"I do." Tucker licked the gray cat's face. "Someone has to understand these machines."

"Oh." Pewter's face brightened. "I get it."

"Think it through," Murphy counseled patiently. "The infusion pumps are small. One person, a small person, a child even, can pick them up, roll them, move them around. The hospital routine isn't ruffled. For years these pumps have been removed for cleaning. Right?" The dog and other cat nodded in agreement. "Whoever picks them up is in on it."

"Not necessarily," Tucker contradicted her. "An orderly or janitor could pick them up and take them to the bas.e.m.e.nt for s.h.i.+pping out. Then they could be removed to where we found them."

"True." The pretty tiger was getting excited because she felt she was getting close to figuring this out. "That's a good point, Tucker. The fewer people who know, the better. And someone has to run off the fake invoices. H-m-m."

"Okay, let's review." Tucker caught Murphy's excitement. "We have a person or persons good at using a computer. It sounds easy, copying a bill, but it isn't and the paper matches, too. So they're pretty good. We have a person or persons with mechanical skill. Right?"

"Right," the two kitties echoed.

"And there has to be someone higher up. Someone who can cover for them. Someone very, very smart because the chances are, that's the mastermind behind this. That person recruited the others. How often does an employee woo the boss into crime?" Tucker stood up, panting from her mental efforts.

"Well done, Tucker." Mrs. Murphy rubbed along the dog's body.

"How can we get a human to the hidden room?" Pewter c.o.c.ked her head, her long whiskers twitching.

"We can't," Mrs. Murphy flatly replied. "First off, anyone we might lure there in the hospital could be in on it. We'd wait downstairs and who is downstairs but the plant crew, as Sam Mahanes calls them. You know one of them has to be in on it. Has to be. We'd be toast."

"Hank Brevard." Pewter's green eyes grew large. "He was the one. And he had his throat slit."

"Maybe he got greedy. If he'd kept at his task why kill him? Think about it. Whoever is on top of this sordid little pyramid is creaming the bulk of the profits. Hank figured out somewhere along the line that he was an important person in the profit chain and he wanted more. He asks for more or threatens. Sayonara." Murphy glanced at Miranda and Harry sorting out the parcels, tossing them in various bins or putting them on the shelves, numbers like the postboxes.

"Which means if the money is to keep rolling in, our Number One Guy will soon need to recruit someone else." Tucker was getting an uneasy feeling.

"He might be able to do the work himself," Pewter said.

"That's possible but if he's high up on the totem pole he isn't going to have the time, number one, and number two, he isn't going to be seen heading to the bas.e.m.e.nt a lot. Eventually that would be a tip-off, especially after Hank's death." Mrs. Murphy's mind raced along.

"When Mom got clunked on the head-it must have been him." Tucker hoped Harry wouldn't go back to the hospital but she knew her mother's burning curiosity, which was why she'd been feeling uneasy.

"Everyone knows that Harry is both smart and curious. Smart for a human. I hope as long as she stays away from the hospital, she's okay, but she's friends with Coop. If I were the killer that would be worrisome. Look how fast he struck when Larry was finding discrepancies, and they probably weren't critical yet because if they were Larry would have gone straight to Sheriff Shaw. He wouldn't have waited." The tiger began to pace.

"If it were just one person . . ." Pewter's voice trailed off; then she spoke louder. "We've got at least two. Mom might be able to handle one but two-well, I don't know."

"And no bites yet on Bristol, the missing dog? We've got to find out who that is," Mrs. Murphy fretted.

"Mim would tell Rick if anything had happened," Tucker said.

"Well, nothing's happened on that front yet." Murphy sighed. They were wrong about that.

40.

Fair stood at the divider counter sorting out his mail. "You know Dr. Flynn's got two gorgeous stallions standing at Barracks Stud."

"Yeah. I thought I'd breed Poptart in a few years. She's still pretty young and I need her. If she's bred . . ." Harry's voice trailed off as there was no need to say she'd be out of work for at least the last three months of her pregnancy and then out of work until the foal was weaned.

"I like Fred Astaire, too." Fair mentioned a beautifully bred Thoroughbred stallion at Albemarle Stud.

"Doesn't everyone?" Harry smiled as she threw metered mail in one pile, since it needed a second hand-cancellation for the date.

"Now's what's the difference between one stallion and another?" Mrs. Hogendobber, not a horse person, asked.

"Kind of the difference between one man and another." Fair laughed.

"Don't get racy. I'll blush." Miranda's cheeks did turn rosier.

"It depends on what you're looking for, Miranda. Let's say you have a good Thoroughbred mare, she's well bred and she has good conformation. She didn't win a lot of races but she's pretty good. You'll search around-and you can do this on the Net, by the way-for a stallion whose bloodlines are compatible and who also has good conformation. You might want more speed or more bone or more staying power. That's in the blood. Breeding is as much an art as a science."

"Don't forget luck." Harry pressed the heavy rubber stamp in the maroon postal ink.

"There sure is that," the tall blond man agreed. "Miranda, if breeding were just a matter of study, we'd all be winning the Triple Crown. So much can happen. If you get a live foal-"

"What do you mean, a live foal?" The older woman a.s.sumed they'd all be live.

"A mare can slip or not catch in the first place." Noticing the puzzled look he explained, "A mare can not get pregnant even though you've done everything by the book. Or she can get pregnant yet abort early in the pregnancy. Strange as it may sound, it isn't that easy to get mares pregnant. A conception rate of sixty percent by a vet specializing in breeding is respectable. There's a vet in Pennsylvania who averages in the ninety percent range, but he's extraordinary. Let's say your mare gives birth. A mare can have a breech delivery the same as a woman but it's much worse for a mare. If those long legs with hooves get twisted up or tear her womb you can imagine the crisis. Foals can strangle on the umbilical cord or be starved for oxygen and never be quite right. They can be born dead."

"It sounds awful."

"Most times it isn't but sometimes it really is and your heart sinks to your toes. You know how much the owner has put into the breeding both financially and emotionally. Around here people are attached to their mares. We don't have huge breeding establishments so just about everything I see is a homebred. Lots of emotion."

"Yes, I can see that. Why, if Mrs. Murphy had kittens I think I'd be so concerned for her."

"Thank you." Murphy, half asleep in the mail cart, yawned.

Pewter, curled up next to her, giggled. "Some mother you'd be."

"Look who's talking. You selfish thing, you'd starve your own children if there weren't enough food. I can see the headlines now. 'Cat starves kittens. Is fat as a tick.'"

"Shut up."

"You started it."

"Did not," Pewter hissed.

"Did too."

"Not."

"Too." Murphy swatted Pewter right on the head.

"Bully!" Pewter rolled over to grapple with the thinner cat.

A great hissing, growling, and flailing was heard from the mail cart. Harry and Miranda tiptoed over to view the excitement. Fair watched from the other side of the counter.

Tucker, on her side, lifted her head, then dropped it. "Cats."

"Fatty, fatty, two by four," Murphy sang out.

"Mean. Hateful and mean!" Pewter was holding her own.

The mail cart rolled a bit. Harry, devilish, gave it a shove.

"Hey!" Murphy clambered over the side, dropped to the ground, put her ears back, and stomped right by her mother.

"Whee!" Pewter crouched down for the ride.

Harry trotted over, grabbed the end of the mail cart. "Okey dokey, smoky. Here we go." She pushed the mail cart all around the back of the post office as Pewter rose up to put her paws on the front. The cat loved it. Murphy sulked, finally going over to Tucker to sit next to the dog, who wanted no part of a cat fight.

"It's a three-ring circus around here." Miranda laughed.

"You look good in hunter green. I meant to tell you that when I walked in." Fair complimented her dress.

"Why, thank you, Fair. Now where were we before Mrs. Murphy and Pewter interrupted us?"

"Mares. Actually once you deliver a healthy foal life begins to s.h.i.+ne a little. There are always worries. The mare's milk could be lacking in proper nutrition. The foal's legs could be crooked although usually they straighten out and if not then I go to work. Nothing intrusive. I believe less is more and let nature do her work. But short of a foal running through a board fence in a thunderstorm, once you've got a healthy baby on the ground, you're doing great."

"What about diseases?"

"Usually protection comes in the mother's milk. In that sense it's like kittens or puppies. They receive immunity from the mother. In time that immunity wears off and then you need to be vigilant. But nature truly is amazing and a foal arrives much more prepared to negotiate the world than a human baby. With both babies, the more they're handled the better they become. I think, anyway."

"You're the doctor." Mrs. H. smiled.

"Here, why don't you take these back?" He shoved bills across the counter.

"Happy to." She playfully grabbed them.

"Want mine, too?" Harry usually got to her own mail last.