Swallowing down the vision from his past, Zach focused on the swirl of activity before him and the information Officer Van Taylor, a young Freemont cop who had checked Zach’s identification, was continuing to provide.
“Her name’s Ella Jacobsen.” Taylor, tall and lean and midtwenties, pointed to the woman sitting on a straight-backed chair.
“She runs the clinic?” Zach asked.
The cop nodded. “She bought the three-bedroom ranch and attached a clinic to the side of the residence. Local families and some of the Amish who’ve settled in this area appreciate having a doc close at hand.”
An older police sergeant, probably fifty-five, with a receding hairline and bushy brows, stood near the woman. Zach read his name tag: Abrams. The sergeant held an open notebook in his hand.
Zach couldn’t hear their conversation, but he recognized the ashen paleness of the doctor’s face and the bloodstains that covered her blouse and the slicker that lay next to her on the floor.
“She’s a northerner,” the younger officer explained. “Moved here from Pennsylvania and opened this clinic for kids five months ago.”
All of which sounded admirable. “So what happened tonight?” Zach asked.
“The power went out, only it wasn’t the storm that caused the failure.”
Zach raised his brow. “Someone tampered with the line coming to the clinic?”
“Seems that’s what happened. He also fiddled with the spark plug on the generator the doc couldn’t get to start. One of our men got it working until the repairman from the power company restored the main feed.”
“I call that good customer service this far from Freemont.”
Taylor leaned closer and lowered his voice. “The guy on call from the power company is married to Sergeant Abrams’s daughter, so he rushed here to help.”
“Keep it in the family, right?”
The young cop smiled. “In case you’re interested, we took the doc’s prints and collected samples from under her nails.”
Which meant she had tried to defend herself.
Taylor pointed to his supervisor. “Looks like the sergeant is ready to wrap up his questioning, sir, if you want to talk to Dr. Jacobsen.”
Zach nodded in appreciation.
Abrams closed his notebook, said something to the woman and then headed across the room. As he approached, Zach extended his hand and stated his name. “I’m with the Criminal Investigation Division at Fort Rickman, Sergeant Abrams. One of your men notified our office that active duty military personnel were involved in the case.”
The sergeant returned the handshake. “Good to see you, Special Agent Swain. What we know so far is that an intruder attacked Mary Kate Powers, whose twin girls were being treated by the doctor. The woman’s a military spouse. She suffered a gunshot wound to her side and is being transported by ambulance to the hospital at Fort Rickman. Doc Jacobsen tended to her injuries before the EMTs arrived. Saved the woman’s life, according to our emergency personnel.”
Zach glanced again at the doc’s scraped face and disheveled hair. “Looks like the assailant took out his anger on the doctor, as well.”
“She claims to be all right, although she can’t remember much. Probably due to shock.”
“Do you have a motive?”
The sergeant shrugged. “Could be drugs. The doc doesn’t keep much on hand in her clinic, but dopers don’t make good choices.”
“Was the assailant able to access the meds?”
“Negative. Still, that seems the most logical explanation at this point.”
Logical or convenient? Zach wasn’t as easily convinced as the sergeant. “Mind if I talk to her?”
“Be my guest. Corporal Hugh Powers, the wounded woman’s husband, is in one of the treatment rooms. You’re welcome to question him, as well.”
Zach appreciated the cop’s openness to having a military presence in the investigation. As the sergeant and Taylor stepped outside, Zach grabbed a chair and placed it next to the doctor.
She glanced up. Blue eyes rimmed with dark lashes stared at him. Her brow furrowed, and her full lips drooped into a pronounced frown. She scooted back in her chair warily.
Zach introduced himself. “I’m from Fort Rickman. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“I don’t understand.” Her hand went protectively to her throat. “Why would Fort Rickman be interested in what happened at my clinic?”
Zach eyed the dark mark under her ear and the hair on the side of her head that was matted with blood. “The Criminal Investigations Division is called in when military personnel are injured or involved in a crime.”
“You’re referring to Mary Kate?”
“That’s right. Mary Kate Powers. You were treating her daughters?”
The doc nodded. “They were suffering from a gastrointestinal problem and became dehydrated. I administered IV fluids to rehydrate the girls.”
“Were they in the clinic at the time of the attack?”
“They were asleep, as was their mother.” Ella pointed to the hallway. “The girls were in the first treatment room, on the left. Their stepfather got here before the ambulance. He wanted to check on his wife, since she and the girls had been gone quite a while. He was distraught when he saw her, of course, and called the grandparents. They arrived not long ago and took the children home.”
“Am I correct in assuming the girls weren’t injured?”
“Thankfully, they slept through their mother’s attack.”
“Could you start at the beginning, ma’am?”
She glanced down at her scraped hands. Dried blood stained her fingers. Rust-colored spatters streaked across her shirt. “I’ve been treating the girls for a debilitating disease, called CED, or childhood enzyme deficiency, for the last few months. They’ve improved, but when the gastrointestinal problems started, their mother was concerned. She called and asked if I could see them tonight.”
“Was this a normal occurrence, Doctor?”
She narrowed her gaze as if she didn’t understand the question. “If you mean do I see patients at night, then no, it’s not the norm. But the girls are five years old, Mr. Swain. Their physical and fine motor abilities had been compromised by the disease. Less than two months ago, I was worried about their failure to thrive.”
“You didn’t expect them to live?”
She nodded. “They were becoming increasingly compromised.”
“But you recognized the symptoms and started them on the proper medication?” Zach asked.
“More or less.”
Now he was the one to pause and raise an eyebrow. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning my husband led the team that first identified the condition. I called the research center where he had worked to ensure the protocol he established almost a year ago was still the treatment of choice.”
“And was it?”
“Yes, so after talking to the head of the Harrisburg center, I made changes in the girls’ diets, prescribed the enzyme needed to overcome their deficiency and checked on their progress repeatedly.”
“The girls improved?”
The doc nodded. “Improved and indeed began to thrive.”
“Yet they got sick with the stomach ailment.”