Trip to Murder 25

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A soft knocking was heard at the furnace room door and Sean swiftly stepped over and opened it. A gangly young man with a mop of cotton colored hair and light blue eyes stepped inside with a grin.

"Sean!" He exclaimed. "Where ya been? Owens is been looking for ya somethin'…" His words died on his lips when he noticed Matt across the small room standing next an obviously ill woman on the cot. "What the…?"

"I don't have time to explain, Timothy." Sean said urgently and quietly. "I need help." He glanced over at Matt and Kitty. "We need help. That woman is sick, desperately sick and she needs a doctor."

"Well, there's a doctor upstairs." Timothy answered with a shrug. "Owens has got him in one of the rooms asking questions about…" He stopped speaking again when the enormity of the situation hit him. "They're the ones he's looking for, aren't they?" He asked, his eyes growing wide with the realization.

Sean ran a hand across his unshaven face and nodded. "Yeah, they are, Timothy." He studied his friends face intently for several seconds before saying more. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, he gave a curt nod. "I don't have time to explain everything to you right now, Timothy. But like I said, we need help." He nodded over towards Kitty. "She could die if she doesn't get a doctor soon and, for obvious reasons, we can't take her to a hospital."

Though Timothy, slight of build, despite his height, and bland of expression, appeared to be fairly dimwitted in looks, he grasped the situation fairly quickly. "I think I can get that doctor down here." He told Sean in his high tenor voice. "Won't be easy, but I'm pretty sure I can. We'll have to be awful careful though."

Sean nodded gratefully. "I know and I appreciate this, Timothy."

Timothy merely nodded and disappeared back through the door.

"You sure you can trust him?" Matt whispered looking back down at Kitty. "I mean, if he goes and gets Owens instead of…"

"He won't." Sean stated with conviction. "Timothy and I grew up together. He's as sturdy as they come and just as honest. He won't."

Sean's faith in his friend proved to be justified as, within an hour, he returned; Dr. Sheridan and his medical bag right behind him. "Owens is gonna be madder than all get out." Timothy whispered to Sean. "I sneaked the doctor there out when the captain took a break."

"No one saw you, did they?" Sean whispered back.

Timothy shook his head with a slight scowl. "I'm not as dumb as I look."

Despite his rumpled suit and disheveled graying hair, Sheridan looked every inch the professional physician as he came into the room and made his way over to the small cot where Kitty lay. Quickly he checked her pulse and pupil reactions. Reaching inside his worn leather bag, he pulled out his stethoscope and listened to her heart and lungs. Finally he pulled aside the bandage on her arm and checked the condition of her wound. "How long has she been this way?" He looked at Matt, his brown eyes reflecting his concern.

"Most of the day." Matt answered. "I think she was poisoned, Doctor. That arm doesn't look infected and she got sick really quick."

Sheridan nodded. "I think you may be right. We're going to need to empty her stomach." Lifting up his bag, he rummaged around in it but came up empty. For a moment, he sat blank faced considering his options, before it dawned on him. Rising back to his feet, he stepped over to Sean and Timothy. "I need some salt and mustard."

"For what?" Timothy wanted to know.

"We have to get that poison out of her system." Sheridan told him. "That's the only thing I can think of that you could get, without drawing attention to yourself. We need quite a bit of it and we need it now."

Timothy gave the doctor an uncertain look then glanced over to the woman in the cot. Giving a small nod, he turned for the door. "I'll be back shortly."

"You sure that will work?" Matt asked, keeping his eye trained on Kitty's pale features.

Sheridan studied Matt's face, seeing the love and worry. Shrugging he sat back down beside Kitty. "I hope so." He said softly. "It depends on how much poison she ingested and what kind and a number of other factors. But right now it's the only thing I can think of without taking her to my clinic or the hospital."

"Well, we sure can't do that." Matt sighed.

Sheridan checked Kitty's pulse again and then turned to Matt. "The good captain upstairs told me you two are wanted for murder." He watched Matt's face closely. "He thought maybe I could tell him where you were. He said someone reported that I had treated her for a gunshot wound, which I, of course, denied doing. Since you and the young patrolman are here with her, I assume that 'someone' was Mr. Schneider."

Matt nodded. "Probably was. I also think he's the one that poisoned her, put it in a bottle of water, I think. I figure he meant it for the both of us, but she's the only one that drank any of the water."

"I thought you all trusted Mr. Schneider?" Sheridan questioned.

"We did," Sean spoke up as he stepped up next to them. "But I have a feeling, Owens got to him through his son."

"His son?" Matt looked up sharply.

Sean nodded. "Yeah, his son Wilhelm. Will was always a wild kid. Always sneaking out of the house. That room you all stayed in at Herman's house? It was Will's. Herman had the windows put up high, like that, so Will couldn't easily sneak out. But it never worked. Will was sent to prison a couple of years ago for armed robbery. From what I've heard he's not had an easy time of it in there. I don't know for certain, but I have a feeling Owens either offered to make it better for Will or worse to get Herman's cooperation. It's the only thing that makes sense. Since Herman's wife died, Will is all Herman's got left and he'd do anything, including murder, to help that boy."

"But why warn us in the first place if he intended to kill us?" Matt asked. "Wouldn't it have been better to just let Owens come and get us?"

Sean shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe he felt guilty for giving you all up and decided at the last minute to help you, figuring he wouldn't ever see you again. I guess when you two showed up at his restaurant; he decided to take drastic measures to ensure he wouldn't. I've been thinking he's probably also the one that told Owens about me."

While Matt and Sheridan sat digesting that piece of information, the door opened and Timothy came back in carrying a bag. "Got what you asked for." He told Sheridan. "I also brought some chalk and milk. My ma always gave that to us as kids to make our stomach feel better. If you're going to give her that mustard and salt, I have a feeling she's gonna need something to soothe her stomach afterwards."

Sheridan smiled at the young man and nodded. "I hope we're in time for her to need the chalk and milk." He said softly as he took the bag and set to work.

To Matt's mind, the cure was almost worse than the poisoning as he had sat helplessly beside Kitty, holding a basin, while she endlessly emptied the contents of her stomach. She had seemed sicker than before but the doctor had constantly assured him there was no other option.

Forcing her mouth open, he had poured copious amounts of the dirty yellow colored mustard/salt concoction down her throat, holding her nose and mouth to force her to involuntarily swallow it. The resultant vomiting had not been pretty but it had done the trick.

She was now lying quietly on the cot, having nothing left on her stomach to give up, nor the strength to do anything about it, if she had. However, her color was better, she was no longer fevered and her sleep was now restful instead of fitful.

As Matt sat on the cot beside her, he looked across at Sean lying on the floor next to the furnace and then up to Sheridan who'd just checked on Kitty. Fugitives from the law, all of them. And not a one of them had committed a crime.

Laying a hand on her forehead, the physician gently took her wrist, checking her pulse. "She's much better." He whispered as he laid her arm back down and wearily sat down by the desk. "She's going to be weak. But I'm pretty sure we got most of the toxins out of her system."

"Then she's out of danger?" Matt asked before cringing at his own words. "I mean, from the poisoning?"

Sheridan nodded. "Yes. But of course, I'll stay with her. Doesn't seem like there's much else I can do."

"Yeah, well." Matt got up and paced over to the door and back. "Might not be much more you can do, but there's something I can do."

"You mean "we" can do." Sean spoke up from his place on the floor. "I told you before, Matt. What you're planning won't work with you alone. It'll take two of us."

Matt knew Sean was right. "Alright," He sighed. "Then we'd better get to it."

TBC