“Okay, let’s go through this again. An elderly lady, Ms. Cerro requires a sizable blood transfusion for her surgery. Her blood group is A+, but her report is labelled AB+, which was incredibly dangerous because AB is the universal recipient. Essentially, they thought she could accept blood from almost everyone. No one realized the mistake until Cerro developed an autoimmune reaction and died a week later.”

I shook my head. “Look, I get all that. But why’re we getting involved?”

“Well,” The sheriff called out with a smoker’s rasp, leading two people into the room. “Mrs. Cerro’s company was the biggest in the county. Whoever inherits it will be rich as Croesus. And Mrs. Jameson over here was both her niece, and working in the donation lab. She had the blood test report with her the whole night before the surgery.”

“And no one realized what could happen?” I asked. “I mean, I know it’s a small town and a big coincidence, but…”

“I wrote A!” Mrs. Jameson cried, her whole body trembling. Her husband wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “A! Not AB! I write dozens of those reports each week! I always take them home to check! Nothing like this has ever happened before. I…” A deeper and more insidious fear entered her expression. “I wrote A," she whispered to herself.

My brother gave her a brisk, reassuring nod. “Surely this mistake could occur in the lab itself, Sheriff? In any hospital vials can get mixed up. The equipment could be faulty.”

“Hah.” The sheriff coughed loud and hard. “Ugh, That, son, would be one hella coincidence. It’s her responsibility to be sure. It’s her head on the chopping block either way. Only question is whether she’s a murderess or an imbecile.”

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive,” I observed. “Here, especially. Fingers were pointed at her immediately, after all.”

“Y’all crazy to think Tess guilty.” The husband said, kissing her cheek. Having him here really wasn’t appropriate. Then again, all this struck me as closer to a firing squad than an inquiry. “She loved her auntie. Besides, the Cerros are all over town. No doubt there’s a few others working in the hospital.”

“I see.” My brother said, standing up. “Let’s take a step back and actually discuss the inheritance itself. I assume any distribution of Ms. Cerro’s wealth would be heavily contested?”

The sheriff nodded. “Everyone’d be up in arms trying to eke out their own share. Everyone is right now. Course, most of them’re having to get their lawyers from out of town. Must be hard enough as it is, specially seeing as not many inheritance lawyers are from our neck of the woods.”

“Hmm. I thought so. But there is at least one in town, correct? Other than the lawyer holding the will?”

Mrs. Jameson spoke up. “There’s… Mr. Hoy. A bit new in town, but he is the only inheritance lawyer other than Mr. Vernon.” Nothing could mask the puzzlement in her tone. What about this could possibly be relevant? The sheriff looked ready to voice out an objection.

For my part, I finished my coffee.

“Very well then.” My brother said, “Sheriff, do you know where I can find Mr. Hoy’s phone number?. But before that, one thing needs clearing up: Ms. Jameson, based on the hospital records I went through, is it true your aunt went through multiple operations over the last year?”

The woman nodded. “Yes, yes. She needed multiple bone marrow transplants. Nothing like this has ever happened before!”

“Well, I believe you.” Ryan sighed. “But you agree that this operation gave no cause for concern beforehand? Or immediately after, when the faulty blood transfusion was given? You told me the autoimmune reaction took over a week to take effect. Are you sure there were no symptoms?”

She hesitated, then shook her head. “No. I’m sure the reports’ll back me up on that.”

For the first time, Ryan’s gaze slid off Ms. Jameson and onto the man beside her. “So if I call Mr. Hoy and he tells me someone tried to put him on retainer just after the operation, no doubt in order to get in before all the other irritating relatives, that would be quite strange, don’t you think? Now a woman with your expertise, Ms. Jameson, would certainly know that while rare, it’s not impossible for such a negative reaction to be delayed. You’d wait, to make sure you didn’t look too suspicious. You’d know any such mistake would be immediately blamed on you rather than a surgeon or nurse. But what if there was a person with just enough access to modify your report when you brought it home? Just clever enough to know the wrong blood group can kill?”

“That old woman was sick! Sick, damn you!” The husband cried in a bleating voice. “Just because I called that lawyer doesn’t mean I knew she’d die!” Mrs. Jameson edged herself away from her husband, craning her neck to stare at him.

Ryan shrugged. “True enough. But you’re suspicious enough that I can probably convince a judge to issue a warrant. Because I do wonder…” His mouth twitched, almost approaching a smile. “If, after seeing how ineffective the transfusion was, over the course of that week, you started brainstorming other ways to get rid of such an obstacle. Maybe we’ll find evidence of those plans. What do you think?”

Mr. Jameson leapt out of his chair and ran towards the door. But the sheriff was old and grey enough to know such tricks. Jameson wasn’t fast enough.

“Good thing he confessed to putting that lawyer on retainer.” Ryan remarked afterwards, groping around for his coffee cup and finding it empty. “There’s a decent chance Mr. Hoy would’ve invoked lawyer-client confidentiality, and that would’ve dragged things out.”

“You were bluffing?”

“Of course I was bluffing. Ignorance is contagious, you know; if it decides on one choice, you can count on it deciding more.”