Dying for Compassion (The Lady Doc Murders Book 2) by Dr. Barbara Golder

Author:Dr. Barbara Golder [Golder, Dr. Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: FQ Publishing
Published: 2017-06-08T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

January 15

“Father Matt!” I shook his shoulder gently, and his brown eyes struggled open.

He was draped across a green chair in the waiting room of the clinic, his long legs sprawled out before him and his head tipped back at an impossible angle, snoring. He must have been exhausted.

He sat up rubbing the back of his neck; it had to be sore. “Jane? What are you doing here?”

“I heard Monsignor was sick.” I refrained from explaining that I heard from my office staff; I had gone home after settling Mike at the Center, still in a sour mood from my discoveries about Sadie and in no mood for company, not even the children who were the usual antidote to my bad temper. I ate a solitary dinner in the kitchen and retreated to my study with apologies to all. I was into my fourth hour of cooking competition shows — having temporarily given up on the idea of sleep as a bad business — when I got a text from Lucy to meet her at the office. Given the hour, a few minutes before midnight, I figured it must be important. She met me at the door with the news that they had a drug screen from the Center, positive for barbiturates, prescribed by Dr. Brownmiller according to the submission slip. The patient was one Augustine Jamais.

It was a clear violation of privacy laws that could cost me and my staff a great deal of money and aggravation should any of the local A.C.L.U. types with an attitude get wind of it, which is why she told me in person. Lucy knows when and how to play fast and loose with the rules, especially mine. It was what I expected from my staff. Medicine — even the forensic kind — runs on the fuel of judicious gossip. As, I suppose, does life.

It also concerned me that he had taken the same sort of pill found in Proserpine’s literature and prescribed by a physician I had seen at the Proserpine open house. Just too odd to be mere coincidence, though I rationalized it by reminding myself that an unsettling percentage of my medical colleagues supported what they called “assistance in dying.” And given that there were so few physicians in Telluride, was it really that surprising to see one at Proserpine? And that didn’t necessarily mean support for their program; after all, Father Matt and I had been there, too.

My mental contortions left me reeling, but in spite of them, I supposed that the same sense that told Lucy that Monsignor’s overdose wasn’t what it appeared to be made me worry it wasn’t so simple, either.

Father Matt’s face contorted. “I think he overdosed on sleeping pills. It’s my fault, Jane.” I watched him will himself out of his sleepiness to speak. “It was my fault,” he repeated.

I doubted that but said nothing.

“I lost it with him, Jane. He’s just so impossible. I came home and he’d eaten my dinner, and I…” He paused again.

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