Chapter 5 - The Toxicology Call
The medical examiner called four days later.
Dr. Leonard Ames spoke carefully.
Toxicology detected the same sedating medication in both twins.
It was not prescribed to either child.
He would not discuss concentration or speculate about how much had been administered until confirmatory testing and complete case review were finished.
“Can it be dangerous for infants?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Did it kill them?”
“We are not ready to give you that conclusion.”
I pressed my fist against my mouth.
He continued.
“The presence is medically significant. Investigators need to determine how it entered both children.”
Both.
Same substance.
Same night.
That fact ended the possibility that Emma’s bottle story could be dismissed as fantasy.
Police executed the search authority for Margaret’s suitcase and personal property.
Inside a toiletry bag they found a bottle containing the same type of sedating medication detected by toxicology.
That still did not establish when she used it.
The bottle could have belonged to her legally.
So investigators looked for timing.
Our pharmacy records showed none of that medication purchased on my account.
Margaret’s store loyalty history, obtained later with appropriate legal process, showed repeated purchases over several months.
The most recent was two days before the twins died.
Again, not proof by itself.
Then came the feeding log.
I kept a spiral notebook beside the formula station because exhaustion had made my memory unreliable.
Margaret mocked it constantly.
“Your babies aren’t a science experiment.”
The notebook now became evidence.
On several nights when I wrote:
MARGARET DOING 10PM FEED
the next morning’s entry read:
BOTH SLEPT LONG / HARD TO WAKE.
I had written the pattern myself without seeing it.
Trevor looked at the notebook in Detective Benton’s office.
His fingers trembled.
“Why didn’t we notice this?”
“I did.”
He looked at me.
“I told you they were too sleepy.”
“I thought you were anxious.”
“No. Your mother told you I was anxious.”
He closed his eyes.
That was the first moment he understood something I had learned years earlier.
May you like
Margaret did not need to prove I was wrong.
She only needed to make Trevor tired of hearing me.
