“Thank you, but Jules drove my vehicle over from the arena.” She thought a moment before asking. “Will Reilly’s belongs go into evidence?”
“Yes.”
“The doctor said they took his body for autopsy.” Beneath her coat sleeves, Harley’s pulse began to pound. “How long before I’ll be able to plan his funeral?” Harley asked.
“Let the department handle the arrangements for you,” Burns said. “We’ll want to do the end of service ceremony.”
“I think he would appreciate that,” Harley whispered. Wiping tears streaming down her cheeks.
“It may take a few days for the ME to make his findings,” Burns continued. “Our bereavement coordinator will reach out.”
“Hawkeye,” Brand called, walking toward them, urgency tightening his expression. “The Medical Examiner would like to speak to you.”
Burns signed and said, “I’m sorry, Harley. If you’ll excuse me.”
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll be waiting with the others.”
She went back to the group, surprised to see they’d been joined by several more uniformed officers as the hour indicated shift change had occurred. They many men and women clustered around her, before she was able to sit, offering their condolences and describing her brother as the best of the best. But all she wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed with the covers over her head. Instead, she graciously listened to the many tales about Reilly and his accomplishments as an officer, smiling and nodding where appropriate.
Half an hour passed before she saw Commander Burns and Brand coming back to the waiting area. The frown on their faces told her something wasn’t right. She excused herself from the officer who was speaking with her and hurried over to them.
“What did the Medical Examiner say?” she demanded.
“Was your brother on a blood thinner for any reason?” Burns asked.
Harley scrunched her nose and shook her head. “Blood thinner? No. He was as healthy as a horse except for his addiction to eating peanut butter.”
Burns looked at Brand and then back at her. “Then why would his blood screen be positive for Warfarin?”
CHAPTER 3
Harley staredat the commander dumbfounded. “It isn’t possible.”
“Could he simply have not told you he was not on it?” Burns asked.
“We live together, Commander,” Harley explained. “We share our grandmother’s three-story brownstone. I’m upstairs and he is downstairs, but we share the common area of kitchen and formal living and dining rooms on the main floor. There is a small cabinet in the kitchen where we store the OTC drugs, vitamins, and supplements for when one of us is ill. If Reilly were taking a medication, he would have stored it there.”
“I see,” Burns said. “Can you provide me with his primary care physicians’ information and pharmacy?”
“Of course.” She pulled out her cellphone and showed him Reilly’s medical information and contacts, including his pharmacy. “I’m…I mean was Reilly’s emergency contact, so I have all his other medical contacts if you need them.”
Burns snapped a photo of her screen. “I’ll reach out to his doctor tomorrow and confirm that he wasn’t on Warfarin since you weren’t aware of it.”
“What does Warfarin in his blood show?” Harley asked.
“It means his blood was unable to clot and we think– or the doctor thinks–that’s why he bleed out,” Brand explained.
“So the cut on his neck isn’t what killed him?” Harley asked.
“It contributed to it, but if the ME is correct, then the fact that his blood wasn’t able to clot was the cause,” Burns added.
Harley rubbed her temples to slow her tumbling thoughts. “What does this mean?”
“It changes the cause of death from accidental to suspicious if he wasn’t taking the prescription drug.”
“Suspicious?” Harley said softly. “As in someone was trying to kill him? Who would want to kill him?”
“That’s the question we have to answer,” Brand said.
