What am I looking for, exactly? The notebook of course, but something else too. Something that might prove Dr. LeVine cares more about his daughter than he does his reputation.
Whatever clues I’m looking for, I’m not going to find them standing in the doorway, am I? I take a deep breath and step into the office.
A knock sounds on the front door. I slam my hands over my mouth to squelch my scream.
I take a deep breath. My heart drums so loudly, it’s hard to think. No one from the family would knock, right? I’ll very quietly go to the front door and see who it is.
I peek out the parlor window and sigh with relief. Only the gardener. He whistles something jaunty as he starts trimming the shrubs.
Not a threat. But, still, I shouldn’t dally about.
Dr. LeVine keeps his desk very neat. I carefully leaf through a small stack of folders and papers—a medical magazine, several files for patients I don’t recognize. Nothing that seems significant. But, of course, I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for.
I pull open the top drawer. Pens and pads of paper. The second drawer is full of used medical instruments—vials missing stoppers, stethoscopes without various parts. Nothing of interest. I tug at the third drawer, but it doesn’t budge.
Because it’s locked. Hmm.
Where would I keep a key to a locked desk drawer? With sinking disappointment, I realize that I would keep it on my person, along with my house and automobile keys.
But I also might hide a spare in my office. Just in case.
Where, though? I pick up the framed photographs on his desk, flip them around. Nothing. Of course, putting it with something that Tabitha would routinely pick up and dust wouldn’t be a good choice. I turn in a full circle. The bookshelf alone creates hundreds of hiding places.
I heave a sigh and pull out volume after volume of medical textbook. Nothing.
I stick a hair pin into the lock and jimmy it around, like they do in movies. Nothing.
I feel around under the desk for anything that might be taped there. Nothing.
I look on the backs of his framed art. Nothing.
I pull up the rug under Dr. LeVine’s desk. Noth—
Something.
My fingertips brush against cool metal, and I peel the rug back farther. The key is brass and shaped differently than keys to doors or cars. Indeed, it makes a beautiful clicking sound when I stick it inside the desk lock and turn.
The drawer slides open.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Mariano looks up from my hastily scribbled notes. “I would ask how you came by this information, but I’m not sure I want to know.”
The spark in his eyes, however, tells a different story.
I lean back in the chair that sits by Mariano’s desk and cross my ankles. “I happened to find myself in the right place at the right time, is all.”
“How interesting.” His voice is flat, his expression unreadable. He rests his elbows on his desk. “I was pretty sure I had voiced some concerns about you visiting with the family.”
“Well, I didn’t visit them in the traditional sense of the word.”
Mariano continues to look at me. His mouth is a line and his gaze sharp. Even though heat creeps up my neck and face, likely staining my cheeks red, I refuse to look away.
The detective department is a blur of life around us. Cigarette smoke casts a haze over the room of ringing telephones and scraping chairs. The air tastes of burned coffee and pencil shavings. I don’t know how Mariano manages to think in an office that feels like a train station.
Mariano looks away first, down at the notepad on which I’d spent as much time as I dared writing notes. “So, tell me what I’m looking at.”
I scoot up against the desk, where I can see my scribbling. “There was a bundle of correspondence with a doctor friend at the Mayo Clinic, the one he planned to take Lydia to. I documented anything that seemed important in those letters on the next page. There was also the diary of Lydia’s episodes. That’s what I went in there for.”
I swallow back the emotion that clogs my throat. “You can read the list for yourself, but he talks about all the different doses of medication he tried and how she reacted.” I run my finger down the list. “Feeling like she had bugs all over her, hearing sounds nobody else did, paranoia about being followed or people talking about her, excessive sleepiness. I witnessed a lot of that.
“But the most interesting thing, I think”—I flip away the diary of Lydia’s reactions for another page—“was a patient file on Margaret Finnegan.”
Mariano’s dark eyebrows arch.
I nod. “When I realized that she was one of the Finnegans—you know, like the Irish gang family—I thought it was worth paying attention to. The notes are all there, but the gist is that six months ago, Margaret was treated by Dr. LeVine for an infected gall bladder. Directly after, she came down with a different infection and died. Her brothers pressed charges, but there wasn’t enough evidence to convict Dr. LeVine of malpractice. And the Finnegans were . . . well, I copied down some of the correspondence. They were upset.”