Title: Gold, Frankincense, and Morphine
Series: Mary Grey Mysteries #5
Author: Winnie Frolik
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 12/02/2025
Heat Level: 1 – No Sex
Pairing: Female/Female
Length: 246
Genre: Historical Mystery, Genre/lit, historical, crime, seasonal cozy mystery, hospital, nurse, private detective, murder, Christmas
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Description
December 1938. Mary Grey is now working at St. Stephen’s hospital in Rosby. But when a patient dies unexpectedly following a routine operation, she suspects something far darker than unforeseen complications. Soon she and Shaefer are swamped with a rising tide of bodies as they investigate a most cunning and ruthless killer. Matters are complicated even further when Mary’s longtime paramour Harriet West impulsively takes in a child refugee who has arrived on the Kindertransport from war-torn Germany. Can the murderer be unmasked before all the joy is stolen from the Christmas season?
Gold, Frankincense, and Morphine
Winnie Frolik © 2025
All Rights Reserved
As Mary went about the ward, she was almost surprised to see how quiet it all was. Everyone was doing fine. Even the devilish Patty Hagen was, for a change, perfectly quiet. Mary had only one last patient to check on: Rhoda Bisbee. Carefully, she crept into Rhoda’s room so as not to wake her, but Rhoda didn’t stir. Good. She was getting her rest. Then Mary frowned. Rhoda was lying very still indeed. And Mary saw no signs of breathing. With a measure of alarm, she decided to check Rhoda’s pulse. She put her fingers to Rhoda’s neck. Not only was there no pulse, but the skin was ice cold.
Rhoda Bisbee would not be going back to her bakery ever again. Nor would she ever celebrate another Christmas. She had clearly been dead for some time.
Mary walked quietly down the hall. Dr. Tennant was engrossed in conversation with Dr. Owens who was forming an hourglass figure with his hands.
“Splendid figure. And pneumatic too! Very pneumatic. Eh?” He looked at Mary inquisitively.
“Miss Bisbee is dead. I need a doctor to certify it.”
The two men looked at each other.
“Your turn, Tennant,” Owens argued. “I did the last one.”
Tennant grudgingly followed Mary to Rhoda’s room and examined the body.
“Death confirmed,” he pronounced with a sigh. “Gone for hours clearly. Looks like she had a cardiac episode in her sleep. Probably never felt a thing.”
“But she was only here to recover from an appendectomy!” Mary objected. “How could that have triggered a heart attack?”
“Appendicitis doesn’t preclude heart trouble,” Tennant pointed out. “She’s probably had issues with her ticker for years. Just a spot of bad luck it happened to give out here. Have a gurney sent up to take the body to the morgue. Is there any family to notify?”
“There’s a niece. Lizzie.”
“I’ll be the one to notify her then. God, I hate this part of the job,” he muttered, twisting his finger through his hair at a rate that would soon make him bald.
Mary hesitated a moment, then spoke up. “Dr. Tennant, are you sure?”
“Sure of what?”
“That this was just a heart attack? Nothing else?”
“Of course I’m bloody sure!” Tennant snapped. “What else could it be possibly be? Except maybe a stroke?”
Mary didn’t answer but simply left to call out time of death.
“Oy there!”
She heard the unwelcome voice of Patty Hagen cry out and turned with a sigh to see him now out of bed and leaning up against the doorway.
“Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping right now?” Mary asked crossly.
“I told you I can’t sleep a wink without me whisky or morphine,” Patty retorted. “Now what’s going on? Did that other lady die or something?” He widened his eyes at Mary’s expression. “She did?” He let out a low whistle. “Well, I’ll be buggered!”
“Please return to your bed,” Mary hissed. “Before you wake up the entire ward.”
Patty grumbled but obeyed, much to Mary’s relief. Matron soon came along, just as Tim and another attendant wheeled the gurney out. “Lost another one, have we?” She shook her head. “At least it was quiet this time.”
“Yes, it was,” Mary echoed thoughtfully. Hospitals, by definition, are places where people die all the time. Rhoda Bisbee was by no means the first person Mary had seen die or even the first person at St. Stephen’s. And as deaths go, Rhoda’s had indeed been a peaceful, even gentle, one. Nor was it at all unheard of for patients to survive perfectly routine surgical procedures, then have unexpected complications. Mary had seen it happen plenty of times before; the universe, she knew all too well, was quite unfair.
So why then did she feel so uneasy? Perhaps because Mary had come in contact over the years with an inordinate number of persons who’d died from unnatural means as well. And a voice inside her head was telling her that she had inadvertently stumbled upon another one.
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Born and raised in Pittsburgh, the Carnegie Library in Oakland was always my second home. I was diagnosed as being a high functioning autistic in college. I hold a useless double major in English literature and creative writing. I’ve worked at nonprofit agencies, in food service, and most recently as a dog-walker/petsitter but the siren song of writing keeps pulling me back into its dark grip. I have co-authored a book on women in the US Senate with Billy Herzig, self-published The Dog-Walking Diaries, and in 2020 my first novel Sarah Crow was published by One Idea Press. I live in my hometown Pittsburgh with my better half, Smoky the Cat. Visit Winnie on Facebook.
