by Patti Larsen
“What are they after?” Someone had to know. Someone willing to talk, that was.
But Dr. Aberstock was shaking his head, with that same tired look he had in his office. “I wish I knew, Fee. I’d love to find a way to make sure they never, ever achieve it.”
Well, now, who knew Santa could be so vindictive?
“Lloyd.” Bernice poked him. “Tell the girls. About your suspicions.”
He looked uncomfortable then, Jill on alert, while I waited it out. It didn’t take Dr. Aberstock long to cave, to grunt softly and shrug.
“I don’t have solid proof. I was trying to find some, to give to Crew. Probably the reason they fired me, ultimately. They must have found out I was suspicious.” He set his mug down, voice deep and serious, the most serious I’d ever heard him. “I have reason to believe our local hospital is being used to funnel illegal prescriptions into the black market.”
Wow. That was huge. “No proof?”
“Not yet.” Dr. Aberstock’s frustration was clear on his face. Those two cherry points on his round cheeks had nothing to do with cold or good cheer and everything to do with anger. “I’ve been hearing rumors, though, for months and when I went snooping, Barry caught me. Acted very suspicious.”
“As if he knew about it,” I said.
The doc nodded heavily. “I’m positive he’s in on it, Fee. And might even be the one who is physically transporting the misappropriated drugs out of the hospital to wherever they are going.”
“Is the prescription drug market a big one?” I glanced at Jill who nodded.
“In the billions,” she said simply. “Doc, you need to be really careful.” She met my eyes, hers worried. “The black market is huge, and the people selling fake and misappropriated opioids are as dangerous as any organize crime outfit.”
He shifted in his seat while Bernice looked uncomfortable at last.
“I know, Jill,” he said. “But I couldn’t just let it happen under my nose. This is my home, my town and I won’t let the Pattersons turn it into some kind of shiny on the outside, black as the pit of despair on the inside cesspool.”
He might have been too late for that, but I admired his determination.
“This changes things.” Surely this had nothing to do with the murder, or did it? “Let’s talk about Thea Isaac. She had old track marks on her body, Doc. Which means she was a recovered addict.”
He perked at that. “I didn’t get to examine her that closely,” he said. “Thea was certainly an enthusiastic supporter of drug and alcohol programs aimed at young people.”
“Could she have found out about the trafficking and was killed for what she knew?” I was reaching, wasn’t I? And yet, stranger things had happened in my cesspool.
Dr. Aberstock stroked his white beard a moment. “I don’t know, Fee,” he finally said. “I honestly didn’t have enough contact with her to tell you. But it’s possible, I suppose, she somehow found out because of her past and was killed for it.”
“Much more likely,” I answered my own question, “it was someone in her life, someone close to her. But thanks for the info anyway.” One more mark against the Pattersons I could maybe, hopefully, use against them when the time came.
I had a momentary start of concern, though, when I flashed back suddenly to the car that swerved at me last night. Was I closer to the illegal drug laundering scheme than made Reading’s ruling family comfortable?
“I can tell you,” the doc said, “I ran across an awful lot of letterhead lately that had nothing to do with the hospital, and everything to do with that corporation that’s been poking around Reading.” My body chilled, my skin prickling. I knew what he was going to say before he said it and held my breath as he did. “Blackstone.”
So, the friendly neighborhood corporation no one seemed to be able to pin down not only ruined towns and bought up property to do it, they sponsored golf tournaments, provided security for weddings (I was sure those black-ops boys at Alicia and Jared’s nuptials were Blackstone) and, apparently, were dabbling in funneling prescription medications into the black market.
Awesome.
“Was I right about the murder weapon?” He seemed eager for an answer and I let Jill tell him what Barry and the lab uncovered while I sank into my own head and felt the slow spin of my crazy, obsessive brain take me down paths I could do nothing about, all leading to a black background and a giant gold B.
I returned to the conversation when Jill fell silent, finding Dr. Aberstock focused on me, anxious expression making me sit up a little taller.
“Please be careful,” he said then, a slight catch in his voice while Bernice patted his shoulder. “Both of you.” He swallowed. “All of you, that includes Crew, your folks. Fee.” He met his wife’s eyes for a moment before returning his attention to me. “Something has changed, kick started a shift. Almost like they’ve been sleeping, their plans on hold. Whatever’s happening now, it feels like we’re coming to some kind of reckoning.”
Oh, there would be a reckoning, all right. I’d take the Pattersons down or die trying.
Whoops, terrible choice of words.
***
Chapter Twenty One
Jill and I left the Aberstocks with thanks, hugs and the firm assurance we’d do everything we could to reinstate the doc as soon as possible.
Neither of them commented on it, though as I climbed into Jill’s cruiser, I couldn’t help but feel like they only humored me, that they didn’t believe I could follow through. I just hoped they were wrong because I had to have him back in the morgue.
I needed all the allies I could get.
Why did Jill have to take the route past Petunia’s and make me think about what I didn’t want to think about? Namely, how much work lay ahead to get my house sorted, make sure Robert paid for what he’d done in the most painful way possible (hello, vengeance, there you were, I missed you), let alone the delay in my wedding. Crew and I hadn’t decided last night what we were going to do and Mom had been oddly silent on the issue despite her previous spiral into control freaking over every detail, so our pending marriage was up in the air for now. Maybe it was better to wait until this investigation was over…
“Do you mind dropping me off?” It would be so much easier if I had my own car.
“Sure.” Jill pulled into the parking lot between Petunia’s and the annex, reaching out for my hand before I could get out. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I heard what happened. I have no idea how someone like him can just get away with what he did. What he does.” Jill swallowed hard, stared out her window a moment. “It’s like we’re living in some kind of alternate reality or bubble where normal doesn’t apply, you know? And yet, we’ve normalized it.” She turned to face me, then, grim and angry and looking like she was ready to take some kind of action she would likely live to regret. “We’ve made it okay to look the other way, to shrug off events because we’ve been led to, by inches, until it seems as if there’s nothing we can do about it so why bother fighting anymore.” Okay, Jill was going deep and I considered stopping her but didn’t, let her run on in the hope she’d expend the energy she’d held pent up (for how long exactly?) on this conversation and have nothing left to use in, say, shooting someone in the face. “But it’s not right, Fee.” She tightened her grip. Did she know she was grinding the bones of my wrist together? I doubted it and hissed softly at the pain. Jill let me go immediately, face full of regret now, but she wasn’t done. “Someone has to do something. Don’t you think?”
She had to ask me that question, point blank and all. “We are doing something,” I said. “Jill, promise me you won’t try some stupid plan and sacrifice yourself or another ridiculous idea that might get you fired.” I didn’t say “or worse, killed” because, frankly, after the talk we’d just had with Dr. Aberstock, I felt like that was implied, thanks. And didn’t need to be spoken just in case.
I’d have hated to think I jinxed someone I cared about.
Jill sagged but let m
e go and I left her there, shivering while I climbed into my own car, pulling out behind her, heading for the sheriff’s office. Maybe I should have stayed with her and left my vehicle home. Maybe I should have stayed at Petunia’s and tackled the mess. And maybe I should have stopped second guessing every single detail of every single decision I was making lately and just trust things were going to work out.
I was really tired of doubt.
Despite the age-old town parking ban, I pulled up in front of the office and left my car there. Just let Robert try to ticket the sheriff. I’d love that. As I stepped out and slammed my door, I heard my phone ping, incoming text. When I checked it, I was surprised by the sender, though I supposed I shouldn’t have been because it had been that kind of day.
Need to see you ASAP. Malcolm Murray’s typing might have come out in flat English but I read it with his Irish accent lilting each syllable.
Argh. I didn’t have time for him right now and was about to send a brushoff text when the door to the office opened and two people descended the steps to the sidewalk, totally shattering my calm, cool collection into a million jagged pieces I hoped they choked on.
It was the matching smirks on Rosebert’s faces that did it. I might have been able to ignore them and soldier on like a good Fleming if it hadn’t been for their smug disdain and hideous amusement. Obvious why they were feeling oh so superior, wasn’t it? Their attitude told me everything I needed to know. How assured they were there would be zero consequences, that they had the support of those who could smooth things over, that their actions, destructive and vindictive, would stand and I couldn’t do a thing about it aside from shout empty threats and fume.
The frustration of having to tolerate what they’d done, that they would have an excuse for their actions, that it would be my insurance footing the bill and that the Reading Sheriff’s Department might get a light slap on the wrist if I was lucky? Intolerable in a wave so sudden and hurtful I choked on it.
I knew they had to be expecting a blow up, public and messy, for what they’d done to Petunia’s. And the fact they’d exited the office together, in tandem, struck me as on purpose, with purpose. The fact I was alone, Jill as yet not returned to the station, only had to make their glee all the more fulfilling. Like a pair of jackals circling a wounded lioness.
Well, they were about to see despite my injuries I still had claws and teeth and the ability to bring them both a world of hurt.
So, what unfolded next? I’m not proud of it. Nor do I remember most of the details, to be completely honest. I know I launched into a tirade about Petunia’s that devolved into firing them both multiple times while they stood their ground and yelled back at me. All the while the lovely townsfolk and tourists visiting our darling little berg stared and avoided us and whispered. How do I know? I didn’t even have to guess.
This was Reading, Vermont. Of course they were staring and whispering.
Jill’s arrival was the undoing of the messy public display that might have ended in me shrieking like a banshee while the pair of despicable human wasteicles wandered off and my deputy held me back, talking low and fast to keep me from rupturing a blood vessel in my brain.
How did Crew do it? My love’s level patience was lost on me, his ability to contain his rage to the pulsing vein in his forehead and the tic under one blue eye. Me? Totally unable to keep my crap together though, when they were out of sight and Jill had me back inside the station, I panted myself into some semblance of control while Toby stood behind her desk with both hands over her mouth and her eyes huge and staring at me.
Like I was dangerous or something and might attack at any moment. Well, I was dangerous, damn it. Just try me.
A quick drink of hot coffee and a few pacing circles around my office and I was ready to take the reprimand Jill was definitely going to hand me. I’d lost my cool at the worst possible moment with the two people who I needed to keep my crap together around and made a public idiot of myself all for what? A mess at Petunia’s. Big deal.
“Only it is a big deal, Jill.” I snapped that out, forgetting I had been running a conversation in my head she couldn’t hear with her side and mine already underway. She didn’t seem to mind I’d clearly lost all my wits and nodded as I raged on. “It’s a big deal because it’s not just Petunia’s. It’s all of it. Crew’s job, the Pattersons, my wedding.” I choked on that last. “Dr. Aberstock and Blackstone and, and…” I wanted to throw the coffee mug in my hand across the room and restrained myself with the ultimate effort that left me shaking. Instead, I set it very firmly and carefully on the top of the desk before turning my back on it like it represented everything that had ever done me harm and hurt, including this latest assault on my heart and soul. “I’m this close to done.” Fingers pinched together created a clear illustration. “And so, so close to just quitting.”
Jill sighed. “Didn’t we just have this conversation?”
Damn it. Only it had been her—infinitely more under control though she hadn’t had Rosebert in her face, so I gave myself a pass while, ironically, also kicking myself for being such an idiot—talking and me listening.
Whatever.
“Can I make a suggestion to both of us?” Jill held out a file to me and I stared at it, for a brief moment having trouble even registering what it was. I snapped out of my fugue and took it from her as she went on, taking my acceptance of the papers as my willingness to try it her way. “Let’s focus on the case and deal with everything else later.”
Ah, the good old bait and switch, deflect and distract. Perfect. I flipped the cover of the file open and read a bit about isopropanol while Jill spoke again.
“According to research, it has a variety of uses,” she said. “And several of our suspects had access.”
“We already know about Andrew,” I said.
“He uses it in his business,” Jill confirmed. “Cleaning and restoring old electronics, wood furniture, that sort of thing. And, according to the supplier he uses, he just bought a fresh case a week ago.”
“So lots of access to what he needed,” I said. “Traceable?”
“Not sure,” she said. “Forensics said if we can get them the exact bottle the poison came from they should be able to match the chemistry.”
“So we confiscate all of Andrew’s supplies,” I said, “and go through his trash.” Because it was likely he’d tossed the bottle after the fact. Crap, when was garbage day? Would the evidence be long gone at the dump by now? Or incinerated?
Only one way to find out.
***
Chapter Twenty Two
As it happened, Andrew was in the middle of cleaning a wooden table when we arrived at his small shop. He’d converted part of their garage into his own space. Tidy but cluttered, stacked with old electronics, real wood furniture and a variety of tools, it reeked of the nasty concoction that had killed Thea.
“Katelyn told me you think it was murder.” Whoops, I guess I’d failed to mention that to him though, in all fairness, I hadn’t had absolute confirmation until after I spoke to him. He wiped aggressively at the surface of the small table he was refinishing, a bottle of rubbing alcohol beside him, pale blue latex gloves protecting his hands.
“We believe she was poisoned,” I said, “with that.” I gestured at the bottle beside him and he flinched, staring at me with wide eyes as he took in my meaning and the long pause after.
“I didn’t kill my wife.” Now he was angry, really angry. “I can’t believe you’d even think it.”
The door to the house opened and Katelyn stood at the top of the steps to what looked like the kitchen, arms crossed over her chest again (did she know what it did to her abundance and did she use it for a purpose?), glaring at us as we questioned her father in the faint chill of his workspace.
“Please believe we are pursuing every avenue, Andrew,” I said. “We’re doing our jobs. We have to ask. You must know that, if only to eliminate you as a suspect.”
Katelyn huffed sof
tly and slammed the door. I nodded to Jill as subtly as possible and she nodded back before heading for the house door, leaving me alone with the grieving widow.
“I have no idea how this,” he jabbed his rag at the bottle beside him, “could have ended up anywhere near Thea.”
“It was in her juice bottle,” I said.
He blanched. “She didn’t have a cold, did she, or the flu?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, no. It was a physical reaction to the additives they put in the rubbing alcohol to keep people from drinking it. Even a small amount is toxic.”
Andrew sank suddenly and heavily to the surface of the table, sitting on it with so much pressure it tipped slightly but didn’t go over. “I can’t believe this is happening.” He met my eyes again, tears returned as he tossed his rag aside and wiped at his nose with the back of one glove. “Thea kept her juice at the church,” he said. “Katelyn hates the smell of citrus, so Thea had a small fridge installed in her office and that’s where she kept her bottle, too.”
Good to know. “May I please take a sample from your supply?”
He grabbed the top and the bottle and sealed it before handing it to me. “Take it,” he said, voice cracking. “Take it all.”
Okay then.
“Who else knew Thea had no sense of smell, Andrew?” And had a grudge against her, but that would come later, once I had a chance to stop being so freaking distracted and could sit with Crew, Dad and Liz and find out what they’d dug up on the suspects. Because everyone was still a suspect at this point, as far as I was concerned.