Death by Request (Caribbean Murder #11)

“Well, I wasn’t happy,” Ralph’s eyes narrowed as he turned his bloated face towards Jenna. “From the very beginning Owen was always one upping me, making sure everyone knew that he gave Tara more than I could.”


Isabelle closed her eyes. “Why are we going into this again, Ralph,” she begged, “why?”

“You’re upsetting mother,” Jenna interjected.

“And Owen made your husband feel pretty inadequate, too, didn’t he, Jenna?” Ralph continued.

“This isn’t the time for casting blame,” Jenna became upset. “Owen made Tara happy.”

“Oh yeah? How do you know that?” Ralph wouldn’t be mollified. “You think it’s just money that makes someone happy? There was no reason for the boating accident, none at all. Tara was a good swimmer. Owen was just careless; careless with my daughter’s life.”

“It was an accident, dad,” Jenna interjected. “The wind blew up suddenly.”

“There’s no such thing as suddenly,” Ralph barked. “You check the weather before you go out on the water.” Then turned to Mattheus. “Tara’s life was over after the accident, she was a vegetable when they brought her to the hospital.”

“She wasn’t a vegetable, Ralph,” Isabelle’s eyes filled with tears. “She was alive in a coma. We all had time with her before she passed.”

“What kind of time?” Ralph yelled. “You sat there talking to a vegetable.”

“No, we didn’t,” Jenna spoke over her irate father. “Tara heard us, she responded.”

“Oh brother, brother,” Ralph made a fist and banged it on a small table. “Once they’re in a coma they don’t respond. It’s just the body twitching, making it look like smiles and nods.”

“My father has a limited view,” Jenna insisted to Mattheus.

“I see it as it is, and I tell it as it is,” Ralph thundered.

“Stop it, Ralph,” Isabelle called out over the fray. “You’re upsetting Hank.”

Cindy looked over to the corner of the room, where the young man had doubled over in his chair, his hands over his head.

“Hank’s a grown man,” Ralph said, “he’s got to grow up and take what life brings.”

Jenna turned to Cindy, distraught. “My father always blamed Owen for everything, and now this horrible accident.”

“Tara didn’t officially die as a result of the accident,” Cindy interjected, “she died as a result of active euthanasia. There were toxins injected into her bloodstream. Owen is being held for that.”

“We know all that,” Jenna grimaced, “but Owen doesn’t deserve to be held. It’s crazy.

Owen loved Tara all their life long; he took wonderful care of her and of all of us,” Jenna’s eyes filled with tears. “From the second this happened, he didn’t leave Tara’s side.”

“So what? So what?” Ralph burst out. “What was the good of her living like a vegetable for two months? A person’s better off dead then. No one deserves to be kept alive by tubes. Your sister wasn’t coming back, and everyone knew it.”

“Who knew that, exactly?” asked Cindy.

“There were different viewpoints about it,” Isabelle broke in, desperate to establish balance. “There are plenty of cases of people coming back even after two months in a coma, Ralph.”

“But what did Dr Padden tell you?” Ralph inched closer to his wife as she backed away from him. “Padden said the chances of Tara’s coming back and living a normal life were not good.”

“Not good, but possible!” Jenna interjected.

“And, Dr Padden isn’t God,” Isabelle shot back.

“And where was God when Tara was laying here?” Ralph demanded.

“You exhaust me, Ralph. You exhaust me,” Isabelle called out loudly then.

“It’s enough,” Jenna burst in between them, looking at Cindy. “My mother doesn’t believe in euthanasia, my father does. He felt we should take Tara off life supports almost right from the start.”

“It’s a sin to take a life,” Isabelle started crying then. “Only God decides when life ends. Now Tara didn’t die naturally and that has to be answered for.”

“Answered for, by whom?” asked Cindy.

“Do you think Owen did it?” Mattheus quickly joined in.

“I can’t imagine such a thing,” Isabelle’s tears deepened into sobbing.

“Who else could have?” Ralph barked loudly then.

“What do you think, Jenna?” Cindy turned to her. “If Owen took such good care of your sister why would he want her to suddenly die?”

“That’s the real question, isn’t it?” said Jenna. “I have no idea who ended my sister’s life, but I’m sure it wasn’t Owen. Whoever did it was merciful, though. I disagree with my mother about that. My husband agrees with me, too. He kept saying it was wrong to let Tara live like that for so long.”

“There are laws about ending a life,” said Mattheus. “The family can decide to withhold food and water, that’s passive euthanasia, not as serious as actively injecting a toxic substance into her IV.”

“Withholding food and water can take a long time though,” Hank finally piped up from behind. “That’s cruel. It can be painful to die of hunger and thirst, the person lays there silently suffering.”