Beach Blanket Homicide (Lucy McGuffin, Psychic Amateur Detective 1)
Page 78
A younger Jim Fontaine appears on my screen. “Detective Fontaine, what do you think the Angel’s motive was to commit murder?” asks the show’s host.
Jim rubs his jaw thoughtfully. “That’s a question I’ve asked myself a lot over the past year, and honestly, the only thing I can come up with is that she or he thinks that what they’re doing is for the victim’s good. It’s what I refer to as a God complex. The Angel thinks that they’re helping ease a patient from their suffering, but no one has a right to take anyone’s life. Not under any circumstances.”
They show some pictures of the Dallas hospitals where the Angel struck.
“Our killer may or may not have been a nurse, but they definitely had enough medical knowledge to know how much morphine to use to overdose a patient, and how to administer it,” Jim says.
As I’m watching, something Deborah Van Dyke said flashes through my head. She said she was grateful that her sister died quickly of a heart attack instead of lingering with the pain of cancer. It seems oddly similar to these cases. Only a morphine overdose wouldn’t cause a heart attack. Would it?
And then I’m reminded of something else she said right after I told her that Abby had passed.
I had no idea Florida was so dangerous.
At the time I thought it was just a boorish observation, but now…
Both Abby and Susan died of heart attacks less than a week apart. Both women knew each other. And both women had links to Cornelius.
She was on all sorts of pain killers for her cancer. Aurelia was a wonderful nurse. She handled all of Susan’s home regimen…
This was never released to the press or featured in the T.V. show, but our Angel left a note each time they struck… R.I.P…
Yes, poor lamb… She makes the sign of the cross… May her soul rest in peace…
Rest in peace?
Could Aurelia be some sort of copycat killer?
Only Jim said that the police never revealed the R.I.P. notes, so that part doesn’t jibe.
My mind is whirling with a million possibilities when my cell phone rings. It’s the Gulfside Veterinary Clinic. Shouldn’t they be closed by now? Then I remember it’s a twenty-four-hour emergency facility.
“Hello?”
“Is this Lucy McGuffin?”
“Speaking.”
“Hi Lucy, this is Emily, I’m the night receptionist at the veterinary clinic. I was just going over today’s charges when I saw that we accidentally sent your receipt to another account. But no worries, your credit card number wasn’t on the statement. Just your name and address and the final
amount.”
“Oh. That’s weird.”
“Yeah. I’m so sorry. This has never happened before, but since the dog was in just last week, we assumed the account was the same.”
I still. “You mean, Paco was at the clinic last week?”
“Yeah, only his name wasn’t Paco then. But it’s definitely the same dog. Those I.D. chips don’t lie.”
“His former name was Cornelius.”
“Mmmm, according to our records the dog was named Fido.”
Fido? “Can I ask who brought the dog in?”
“The name on the account is Jane Smith.”
“Let me get this straight. A woman named Jane Smith brought a dog named Fido into your clinic. Doesn’t that sound strange to you?”