Dying to Tell (14 page)

“What is it?” Jake asked. “You made it sound as if you found something important, something abnormal.”

Dr. Bullock adjusted his goggles. “I don’t know exactly what happened to this woman, Sheriff Blackwood, but judging from the samples and tests I’ve run so far, there is nothing normal in what I’ve found.”

“What do you mean by that? What was the cause of death?”

“That’s complicated.” Bullock led him over to a series of metal trays lined up on a table, then gestured toward a computer screen and a series of X-rays. “Certainly Grace had problems stemming from her head injury, but everything I’ve discovered so far only raises more questions.”

Jake scrubbed a hand through his hair. He’d yet to finish his coffee and hadn’t had a shower, and this man was talking in circles. “Just get to the point, Dr. Bullock. What happened to Grace Granger?”

“She sustained several broken bones over the years.” Dr. Bullock pointed to the series of X-rays. “Bone breaks start healing immediately. There’s a rounding or blunting of the edges of fractures that occurs as early as a week after a break. A callus begins to develop six weeks after injury to cover the broken ends. It’s irregular in shape, raised, with a disorganized surface. A healed bone never looks the same as the sleek, smooth unbroken bone. It will always look different on X-rays. It has a mild lumpiness where the break was.” Dr. Bullock lifted his gaze to Jake. “It makes me wonder if there might have been some family abuse.”

Jake frowned. “Her mother mentioned that she had broken her wrist and ankle in the hospital.”

“That might explain the broken bones, but there’s something else that disturbs me.”

“What is that?”

“There are also scars on the cranial skeleton that indicate that she was subjected to severe shock treatment, and there are surgical scars indicating that she had a lobotomy.”

Jake grimaced. “I thought that happened only in science fiction novels.”

“No, at one time the lobotomy was practiced to treat patients with aggressive problems and other disorders. But”—Bullock paused—“most states banned its use in the 1970s.”

Jake contemplated Bullock’s comments. If the lobotomy had been banned, why had it been used on Grace?

Anger mounted inside Sadie as she realized the implications of the letters she’d found. Poor Amelia had tried to reach out to her, tried to tell her that something wasn’t right in the hospital.

But she’d been selfish, lost in her own world of pain and shame, and had trusted the adults around her to take care of her sister.

Had Papaw seen these letters?

Probably not. They had been in Amelia’s treasure box. She’d have to ask Amelia about them. Why had no one mailed them for her? Or why had Amelia never mailed them herself?

A noise sounded outside, limbs cracking beneath the weight of the wind. She stuffed the letters back inside the box. She hadn’t read them all, but she would.

But first she wanted to see her sister.

She wondered if Ms. Lettie knew about the letters.

Ms. Lettie had worked at the sanitarium as a nurse before retiring to tend to Amelia. The first part of Amelia’s therapy had focused on the doctors earning her trust and making her feel safe. For some reason, Amelia had latched onto Ms. Lettie as that safety net. Since then, she’d been like family.

And Dr. Tynsdale had treated Amelia since she was a child. He and her grandfather had been good friends long before he’d taken Amelia on as a patient.

If someone had mistreated her, one of them might know.

Although if they had detected foul play, why wouldn’t they have reported it or told her?

Because you were a child. And as soon as you came of age, you ran...

She knotted her hands together. Well, she wasn’t a child anymore. And she didn’t intend to run.

She had come home for answers, and she refused to leave until she got them.

Tucking the box beneath her arm, Sadie strode to the door, but she paused to study Amelia’s dark, morose painting. Maybe there were clues in her sister’s artwork. Some piece Amelia had painted recently that would give Sadie an idea what had gone on in her sister’s head when she’d taken Papaw’s gun and pulled the trigger.

If she’d hidden this box, there might be other things hidden in the house, too.

Curious, she quickly searched the kitchen, then the bedroom and closet, but she didn’t find anything unusual. Just more paintings that her sister must have painted when she was depressed.

Knowing that Amelia needed her, she closed and locked the door, then hurried over to the main house, raced inside, and placed the box on the desk in the den. Then she threw on a pot of coffee and jumped in the shower.

Her cell was ringing by the time she dried off, the screen displaying her work number. She ignored the call, dressed, then sent her boss a quick e-mail, telling him she needed at least a couple of weeks at home to sort through her grandfather’s affairs.

Her clients and patients would have to wait. Parker, her coworker, had offered to take over her caseload. She had hedged before she’d left, but she sent him an e-mail asking him to cover for her.

Anxious to leave, she ran a brush through her hair, tucked a couple of the letters in her purse to show Amelia, then hurried out to her rental car. As she started the car, she surveyed the property, the driveway, the woods beyond, in case someone was watching.

Early-morning shadows flickered in the trees, winter setting in.

Mentally, Sadie ticked off her tasks for the day.

After she met with Amelia, she needed to go to the funeral home. Sometime today she’d stop at the grocery store and stock the cupboards as well. Most of the canned goods her grandfather had stockpiled had expired.

She also wanted to find out what Jake had learned at the autopsy. If Grace’s autopsy proved suspicious, then Amelia’s mindless rantings might have held some truths.

The problem would be sorting them out from the delusions.

Her phone buzzed again, and this time she saw Brenda Banks’s name on the screen. She was not going to answer that and give Brenda fuel for the fire. God knows she’d been misquoted enough in her work to be wary of any reporter. They could twist your words and give them an entirely different meaning, especially when they were taken out of context.

The sun struggled to fight its way through the gray clouds as she drove to the sanitarium. Winter was definitely making its arrival; the dismal chill of an impending snowstorm lurked on the horizon. The bare branches of the trees swayed, the last leaves drifting down to create a blanket of brown, orange, and red.

She passed a few cars, but once she turned off toward the sanitarium, the road was virtually deserted. Towering trees shadowed the road, giving her a chill as she crossed through the security gates. Barbed wire topped the fence surrounding the property, again making her think more of a prison than a hospital, the spiked turrets of the ancient stone building adding to its gloomy, ghostly look.

As a child, she’d heard rumors that those who’d died within these walls haunted the place, and she’d been terrified to visit Amelia. She’d begged Papaw to bring her sister home, but he’d promised her that the doctors were helping Amelia.

After seeing those letters, she wondered if that was true.

She tugged her coat tighter around her as she strode up to the front door. When she entered, the sound of heels clicking on the floor echoed. Then she heard someone crying down the hall.

Tension thrummed through her, but she crossed to the nurse’s station and asked to see her sister.

The nurse glanced at the visitor log, then stood. “Dr. Tynsdale is supposed to check on your sister this morning, but he hasn’t arrived yet.”

“Good—I’ll stay with her until he gets here,” Sadie said. “I need to speak to him about my sister’s condition.” If anyone knew about Amelia’s treatments, he would.

The nurse escorted her down a hallway into a more secure ward where an armed security guard stood watch. Sadie assumed this was where the dangerous patients were kept, and noted that three of the rooms were empty, two locked and dark.

“This is your sister’s room,” the nurse said.

Sadie braced herself as the door opened. Ms. Lettie was sitting by the bed in a recliner, her head lolled to the side as she snoozed. Amelia’s arms and legs were in restraints, her face pale as she writhed in her sleep.

Ms. Lettie stirred, lifted her oval wire rims and rubbed at her eyes, then adjusted her glasses and looked up at Sadie. “Mornin’, child.”

“Good morning. Did you rest at all?”

The little woman nodded. “Some. Amelia settled down and slept a good bit, too.”

“Good.” Sadie turned to the nurse. “I’d like the restraints removed so I can visit with my sister.”

“We’ll have to get Doc Tynsdale’s permission.”

Sadie nodded. The nurse left, and Ms. Lettie pushed herself from the chair. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Sadie removed two of the letters from her bag. “Last night I found a box of letters under Amelia’s bed. They were addressed to me, but they were never mailed.” She showed her the envelopes. “Did you know about them?”

Ms. Lettie rubbed at her lower back as if it was aching. “No, darlin’. Maybe it was just something she wrote for herself, for therapy.”

“I thought about that,” Sadie said.

“Anyway, if your Papaw had seen them, he wouldn’t have sent them to you. He wanted you to have a good life, a normal one.”

While her sister suffered in silence.

Had Amelia thought Sadie’d deserted her?

Sadie chewed her bottom lip. “Amelia made some accusations in the letters that worry me.” Of course, that was the perception of a confused mind.

“What kind of accusations?”

“That she was given some strong psychopharmaceutical drugs.”

“Well, hon, of course she was. She was exhibiting signs of schizophrenia.”

“But it sounds like more than that.” Sadie hoped she was wrong. “In one letter she describes being in pain, as if she was subjected to shock treatments.”

Ms. Lettie sighed. “It was a long time ago, Sadie. Doctors don’t know what they do now. They were desperate, trying new things.”

Sadie frowned. “What are you saying?”

“That they did try electroshock therapy.” Ms. Lettie took Sadie’s hands in hers. “But, honey, they had to. Your sister was lost, and your papaw was desperate.”

“So he knew about it?”

She nodded. “Yes. You know ECT is still used today in certain cases.”

“Yes, I know.” Although she wasn’t sure she agreed with the practice.

She stroked her sister’s hair, brushing it away from her cheek. The treatments sounded radical, but her grandfather wouldn’t have agreed if he hadn’t believed Dr. Tynsdale was trying to help Amelia.

Maybe her sister had been getting closer to unification.

But would her grandfather’s murder set her back?

Someone was asking questions. Questions none of them wanted to answer.

He let himself inside the doctor’s custom-designed cabin, pausing to listen. Sanderson had done well, had accumulated wealth and success.

All thanks to their arrangement.

But he’d called in a panic last night because of Grace Granger.

Because of Amelia.

Irritation needled him. Damn doctor. Death had been knocking at his door for months, but the fucker had hung in there. Even worse, he’d decided to grow a conscience.

Opening old wounds wouldn’t help anyone. They’d done what they had to do back then.

And he would do the same now. He would protect their secrets.

He slid the knife from his pocket and tiptoed toward the man’s office. Relying on years of training, he knew how to move silently. How to carry out orders.

He knocked, then let himself in, a smile creasing his face when Sanderson pivoted in his desk chair.

Sanderson had aged dramatically since their last meeting. Lines fanned his eyes and mouth, his yellow-tinted skin was sagging, and his breathing sounded labored. He was on his deathbed...or close enough to it that a few days or weeks wouldn’t matter.

“What are you doing here?” Sanderson said, then broke into a cough.

He gave a nonchalant shrug. “I came to make sure you kept our agreement.” Thankfully, the other doctor involved, Jonas Coker, had already succumbed to dementia.