Chapter 8 - The Veterinary Supply
By sunrise on Sunday, St. Elizabeth had moved me to the secure intensive care wing on the eighth floor. A uniformed police officer sat stationed directly outside my door twenty-four hours a day.
My lower legs were screaming with a relentless, throbbing fire.
"That's neurogenesis," Dr. Thorne told me during morning rounds, shining a penlight on my foot. "The nerves are waking up. The Prussian blue is clearing the thallium from your soft tissues. It's going to hurt, Judith. It's going to hurt terribly for weeks."
"Good," I whispered through gritted teeth. "Let it hurt."
At 11:00 AM, Detective Miller returned, accompanied by a tall, lean man with a graying crew cut and cold, steel-gray eyes.
"Judith, this is Special Agent Carter from the Kentucky Attorney General's Special Investigations Division," Miller introduced him. "Given the interstate elements connecting to Clara Bennett's death in Georgia, the state has taken over the joint prosecution."
Agent Carter pulled up a chair and opened a thick leather briefcase.
"Mrs. Santana," Carter began, his voice gravelly and direct. "We spent the last twelve hours dismantling your husband's business warehouse in Independence."
"Did you find the poison?"
"We found an entire apothecary of death," Carter said bluntly. "Thallium sulfate, carbamate pesticides, concentrated potassium chloride vials stolen from an equine veterinary clinic in Lexington where his mother worked as an office manager until last year."
The puzzle snapped together with brutal clarity.
"Freya worked at an equine clinic?" I asked.
"For nearly seven years," Carter confirmed. "She was fired in October for inventory discrepancies involving euthanasia solutions and concentrated cardiac medications. The clinic chose not to press charges at the time to avoid a scandal. They assumed she was selling them to local racing trainers."
"She wasn't selling them," I said, cold bile rising in my throat. "She was supplying Leo."
"Exactly," Agent Carter nodded. "And that brings us to the financial trail. When Leo's business began failing eighteen months ago, Freya took out high-risk merchant cash advances against her condo to keep his company afloat. They were paying thirty-five percent weekly interest. They were facing complete financial ruin, asset seizure, and potential prison time for commercial fraud."
"So they chose me," I whispered.
"They chose you because you were quiet, dependable, and had clean credit," Carter said. "Leo took out that insurance policy using your personal data, which he accessed through your tax returns. But here is the critical piece, Judith: we found a ledger in Freya’s home safe."
Carter pulled out a laminated photocopy of a lined notebook page.
It was Freya’s handwriting—ornate, cursive, and meticulous.
*11/14: Dose 1 - 0.5 mg. Chamomile disguise successful. J complained of headache.*
*12/02: Dose 2 - 1.0 mg. Slight gait instability noticed. L diverted attention with holiday stress excuse.*
*01/15: Dose 3 - 2.0 mg. Sensory loss in feet confirmed. Began social prep: informed Tara and neighbors of J's 'hypochondria'.*
*02/28: Final phase delayed. J scheduled independent doctor visit. L neutralized by intercepting insurance card.*
I stared at the paper. Tears threatened to burn my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.
It was an execution log. A clinical, mother-and-son schedule of my slow, deliberate murder.
"They were planning the lethal dose for this week," Agent Carter stated, his voice flat with disgust. "The birthday party collapse was unexpected. Leo increased the dosage on Friday night because he thought you were getting too close to discovering the insurance papers. But your liver processed the thallium slower than they anticipated, causing acute motor paralysis instead of systemic organ failure."
"They wanted me dead in my bed," I said. "Not on the driveway."
"Precisely," Carter said. "On the driveway, in front of thirty witnesses, Tanya Eastman asked the right questions. She broke their timeline."
"Where is Leo now?"
"He's in solitary confinement at the Boone County Detention Center," Miller said. "And after his mother's stunt in your room last night, neither of them will ever see the outside of a maximum-security prison again."
"Don't be so sure," I said, looking out the hospital window at the gray Kentucky skyline. "Freya hired Richard Vance. He's got connections across the state."
Agent Carter offered a grim, razor-thin smile.
May you like
"Richard Vance dropped them thirty minutes ago," Carter said. "When we executed the federal warrant on their safe deposit box in Cincinnati, we didn't just find insurance policies, Mrs. Santana. We found personal lockboxes belonging to three other people."
***
