He glanced toward Gideon.
“I don’t believe an ordinary childhood infection explains everything I’m seeing.”
Rosalie translated the statement into the notebook.
Gideon read it.
His jaw tightened.
For twenty-nine years, people had told him there was nothing to investigate.
Now a doctor was telling him the opposite.
Whitcomb walked toward a cabinet.
“Who treated him originally?”
“Dr. Bell.”
The glass bottle in Whitcomb’s hand stopped moving.
Rosalie noticed.
“You knew him?”
Whitcomb carefully returned the bottle to the shelf.
“Everyone knew Elias Bell.”
“Was he a good doctor?”
A long silence followed.
“That depends on whom you ask.”
Outside the surgery, Rosalie caught Whitcomb before Gideon reached the wagon.
“What aren’t you telling us?”
The doctor looked toward Gideon.
“Mrs. Rook—”
“Rosalie.”
Whitcomb sighed.
“Dr. Bell left Coldwater suddenly in 1871.”
