Susan simultaneously cringed and craned forward. “Why?”
“I have no idea. It happened several days before we got to him. That’s about when she dressed the wounds. He was well taken care of.” He paused, catching himself, and ran a hand past his forehead. “You know, from that point on. Clean bandages. Every wound stitched. She’d had him on intravenous fluids, given him blood. But there was nothing she could do at that point about the infection. She didn’t have the proper antibiotics, or the equipment to keep his organs functioning enough for them to work.”
“Where’d she get the blood?”
Fergus shrugged and shook his head. “We have no idea. It was O-negative, a universal donor, and it was fresh, but it wasn’t hers. And the man she killed in front of Sheridan was AB.”
Susan wrote the word blood in her notebook, followed by a question mark. “You said his tox levels were high. What was he on exactly?”
“Quite a little cocktail.” Fergus glanced down at a page in his file. “Morphine, amphetmines, succinylcholine, bufotenin, benzylpiperazine. And that’s just what was still in his system.”
Susan was trying to figure out how to spell succinylcholine phonetically. “What would have been the result of all those drugs?”
“Without knowing the order in which they were given, I have no way of knowing. Varying degrees of insomnia, restlessness, paralysis, hallucinations, and probably quite a nice high.”
Susan tried to imagine what that would be like. Alone, in pain. So high that your mind isn’t functioning. Completely dependent on the person who is killing you. She examined Fergus. He wasn’t exactly chatty. But she liked him for being protective of Archie. Jesus, someone had to be. She tilted her head and flashed her most radiant tell-me-anything smile. “You like him? Archie?”
Fergus pursed his lips. “I’m not sure Archie has friends anymore. But if he did, I think he’d count me among them.”
“What do you think of me doing this? Writing this story? Writing about what happened to him?”
Fergus leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. The mountain sparkled in the sunlight behind him. After a while, you probably stopped noticing it. “I tried to talk him out of it.”
“How’d he react?” she asked.
“I was unable to sway him,” Fergus said.
“But you’re not being entirely open with me, either?”
“He never said I had to tell you everything. He is my patient. And I will choose his well-being over your newspaper story. Regardless of what he thinks he wants. We had a lot of press crawling all over this hospital in the weeks after Archie was found. My staff referred them all to the hospital PR department. Do you know why?”
Wait, Susan thought, I know this one! “Because reporters are vultures who will print anything without a passing thought to its relevance, significance, or veracity?”
“Yes.” Fergus glanced at his five-hundred-dollar watch. “If you want to know more, you can ask your subject. I’ve got to go. I’m a doctor. I’ve got patients. I’ve got to see about treating them. The hospital gets testy if I don’t at least make an effort.”
“Sure,” Susan said quickly. “Just a few more questions. Is Detective Sheridan still on any medication?”
Fergus looked her in the eye. “Nothing that would interfere with his ability to do his job.”
“Great. And just so I understand, you’re saying that Gretchen Lowell tortured Sheridan, killed him, and then resuscitated him and took care of him for a few days before calling nine one one?”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Fergus said.
“And Sheridan confirms this?” Susan asked.
Fergus leaned farther back in his chair and interlaced his fingers over his chest. “He doesn’t really talk about what happened to him. He claims not to remember much.”
“You don’t believe him?”
Fergus looked deliberately at her. “It’s bullshit. And I’ve told him that to his face.”
“What’s your favorite movie?” Susan asked.
“Excuse me?”
Susan smiled pleasantly, like it wasn’t a strange question. “Your favorite movie.”
The poor doctor seemed a little bewildered. “I don’t really have time to see movies,” he said finally. “I ski.”
“At least you didn’t make something up,” Susan said with a satisfied nod. People lied all the time about movies. Susan told people that her favorite movie was Annie Hall, and she’d never even seen it. “Thanks for your time, Doctor.”
“It’s been a pleasure,” Fergus said with a sigh.
CHAPTER
24