Claws For Concern

I set the phone aside for the moment and got up to refill my water glass. That done, I looked through the fridge to see what my options were for dinner. Sandwich, salad, some hard-boiled eggs. No, I wanted a more substantial meal, although I probably should have gone with a couple hard-boiled eggs and salad. I opened the freezer to find one of Azalea’s casseroles and discovered only one left. Chicken and rice. I took it out and set it on the counter to thaw for an hour or so before I put it in the oven. Casserole plus salad would make a satisfying meal.

In the meantime I decided a small snack wouldn’t hurt, so I peeled a banana. Diesel knew I was eating so he perked up and became interested in my snack. I pinched off a piece of banana and gave it to him. Cats can’t taste sweet so fruit generally doesn’t interest them. Diesel sniffed at the banana for a moment, then he gulped it down. He looked up at me, obviously wanting more. I gave him one more small piece and ate the rest of the banana myself. I sometimes thought the fact that I shared my food with him was more important than the taste of the food itself.

I discarded the banana peel and washed my hands. I had barely finished drying my hands when my phone emitted the new text alert sound. I read Stewart’s response to my message. Evidently Haskell was on duty tomorrow, so Stewart was planning to spend the day at home. I texted back to ask if he would mind babysitting Diesel for a while, and he quickly responded that he’d be happy to. After a quick Thanks back, I put the phone in my pocket.

“Come on, Diesel, let’s go to the den,” I said. “Time to check e-mail.” He ambled along beside me as we left the kitchen.

A few minutes later we were comfortably settled on the sofa in the den. Diesel lay stretched out beside me, his head against my leg. I had the laptop open, waiting for my e-mail to finish loading. The process was taking a little longer than usual because Jack had evidently sent me several large files.

Finally the last of them loaded, and I opened the one that had arrived first. Jack had written a brief explanation of the contents of the file, in this case scans of all the newspaper articles he had been able to find about the Barber case. I opened the file and discovered that there were nearly sixty pages of scans. If the other files were this big, I would do well to read them all and digest the information before our meeting tomorrow.

I heard a beep that alerted me to a new incoming message. From Jack again, this time marked with a red exclamation point, denoting that it was sent with high importance. I opened it to find out what was so urgent.

Managed to track down Elizabeth Barber’s best friend from high school. Girl she spent the night with the night her parents and siblings were murdered. Turns out she’s a doctor and lives in Athena. Leann Finch. Know her?

TWENTY-ONE

The ER doctor, Leann Finch, was Elizabeth Barber’s best friend in high school. What an odd coincidence, I thought, like my son-in-law turning out to be related to the Barber family. Frankly, it wasn’t all that unusual in Mississippi to stumble over connections like these. At least, I thought so, after all those years in Houston where the population of the metropolitan area was more than twice as large as that of the whole state of Mississippi. Since I moved back to Athena, I had encountered this phenomenon more than once.

My thoughts focused on Leann Finch. If she and Elizabeth Barber had been such good friends, would Leann have known the Barbers’ hired man, Bill Delaney? In light of this new information, I considered the scene in the emergency room. I never saw any sign that the doctor was acquainted with her patient, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of his connection to the Barbers.

The connection might mean nothing at all, at least in terms of solving the murders. Jack and I couldn’t ignore the possibility that it did, however. We would have to talk to Dr. Finch about the case. We definitely had to go to the hospital tomorrow afternoon, and if Dr. Finch wasn’t there, we would have to track her down somehow.

I fashioned a quick reply to Jack’s e-mail to explain how I knew Dr. Finch and share the rest of my thoughts about the connection. Jack responded a few minutes later, saying that he agreed with me.

With that out of the way I could focus on all the reading material Jack sent. I was tempted to print it all because my eyes tired more quickly from staring at a computer screen than from reading hard-copy printout. I decided, after considering the advantages of having a more portable paper copy as opposed to having to use the laptop, I would go ahead and print.

The process took twelve minutes to complete. One file was sixty pages, another ten, and the final one eight. I put the laptop away and settled down with the pages. I decided to start with the largest one first, all the scans of the newspaper coverage.