A Discount for Death pc-11

by Steven F Havill

  “That’s exactly right!” The woman chuckled. “Now I’m really impressed with myself for making it look so good.” She rubbed her hands together. “But you didn’t come over to admire my computer’s screen saver.” She turned the chair toward Estelle. “Sitzen,” and she heaved her bulk onto the drafting stool, planting one large elbow on the slanted surface. “So. May I be so presumptuous as to say that you look exhausted, young lady.”

  Estelle smiled faintly. “I am. It’s been a long, long night, Leona. And bound to be longer before we’re through.” She saw the engineer rear back as if marshaling her considerable forces and held up a hand to stop the flow before it started. “I need to ask you a favor, but first, I need to make something really clear, Leona.”

  “Of course.” Leona’s eyebrows furrowed, one of them rising a bit.

  “What we talk about can go no further than this room,” Estelle said.

  Leona nodded eagerly. “I may be a flake, Undersheriff, but I’m no gossip.”

  “All right. I’d like you to do a little undercover work for me, if you think that’s possible.” She watched the woman’s heavy face, and this time the left eyebrow twitched several notches higher.

  “Me?”

  “Yes.” Estelle could imagine Sheriff Robert Torrez’s swarthy face melding to brick red as he asked, “You asked Leona Spears to do what?”

  “Of course it’s possible,” Leona said briskly.

  “Well, wait,” Estelle said. “I need to ask you a couple of personal questions first, and then you decide.”

  Leona’s eyes narrowed, and her head turned sideways so that she was looking at Estelle out of the corner of her eyes. “Personal like how?”

  “And don’t feel you have to answer,” Estelle said. Leona nodded slowly. “Who’s your family physician?”

  Leona visibly relaxed. “Here I thought you were going to ask me something terribly clandestine, something from the seamy side.” She smiled broadly. “That one’s easy. Dr. Grona. He’s over in Deming.” She immediately frowned again, prepared for the next challenge.

  “No one here in town?”

  “Noooo,” she said carefully. Her face flushed beet red, from the lace collar of her muumuu to her hairline. “Your husband is way too good-looking for me to be comfortable with, Miss Estelle, and Alan Perrone reminds me of a corpse. Hugh Clausen is a good Swede, but he drinks. And Kurt Baylor is in the process of moving his practice to Grants.” She shrugged. “Besides, I’ve been going to Dr. Grona for eons and eons. I’m in Deming half the week anyway, so it’s no inconvenience.” She flashed the broad smile again. “And all that is probably way more than you wanted to know.”

  Estelle nodded. “Actually, it’s helpful. My next question is absolutely none of my business…not that the first one was.”

  She hesitated, and Leona leaned forward on the stool. “My dear, if you’re here in the middle of the night asking, then you have your reasons. Shoot.”

  Estelle fished a slip of paper out of her pocket and handed it to Leona. The woman scanned down the list of eight prescription drugs, frowning.

  “And so? What’s this?”

  “Do you currently take any of those medications?”

  “Interesting, interesting. What are you in the middle of, dear girl?”

  “Please.” Estelle nodded at the list.

  “Well, let me see. I used to take Petrosin, up until about a month ago. And then Dr. Grona switched me to something else, I don’t remember what.”

  “You were having some kind of reaction to Petrosin?”

  “No. It just wasn’t working for me. Let me tell you, I wish I didn’t have to take it, but sometimes it’s just not possible to face the day without it. May you never suffer from depression, Estelle Guzman.” She scanned the list again. “None of the rest. Not just now, anyway. I had some Daprodin a month or so ago for a bladder infection. Great big horse pills.”

  “Large price tag, too.”

  “Oh, of course. Thank God for insurance, though. Still, the co-pay is enough to land you on your back.”

  “Where did you go to have the prescriptions filled?”

  “I’ve been using Trombley’s for years and years.” Leona lowered her voice as if in mid-conspiracy. “And he’s so thoughtful, you know. Like with the Daprodin? He would give me a few extra, in case the infection flared up again. That way I wouldn’t have to go through the whole rigmarole again. In some ways, old Doc Grona is kind of a fuddy-duddy. He wrote a thirty-day prescription for the Daprodin, instead of the normal ten. So I just saved the rest for another day.” She beamed smugly.

  “So you still have some of the Daprodin, then?” Leona nodded. “May I see it?”

  “Well surely.” The woman heaved herself upright. “And I’ll make the tea. Any special favorites? I have everything on the planet.”

  “Actually, I’m fine, Leona. Really.”

  “You don’t look fine. How about a little cup of Earl Grey? That cures all ills. And it’s scads cheaper than Daprodin.”

  Estelle grinned with resignation. “Okay.” She felt a stab of affection for this lonely Brunhilda.

  “Cream and sugar?”

  “No, thanks. Just Daprodin.”

  Leona burst out with a hearty laugh. “Ah, yes. All right. Let me fetch that.” She left the room and was gone for no more than two minutes, long enough for Estelle to read the two diplomas from UCLA, one of them a doctorate in civil engineering. A framed photo caught the former governor of New Mexico shaking Leona’s hand at what was obviously an awards dinner of some sort, with I appreciate all you do!!! written across the top corner of the photo in heavy black marker.

  “Here we are,” Leona said, and handed the small bottle to Estelle. “And I’ll be right back with the tea. Cookies? I’ve got some of those wonderful little lemon things from Denmark.”

  “No, please. But you go ahead.”

  “Well, I’ll bring enough, in case you change your mind.” She hustled out of the room. Estelle rolled the prescription bottle between her fingers, then popped off the top. She shook one pill out into the palm of her hand and pressed the lid back in place. She regarded the pill for a moment, reading the DAPRODIN DG on one side, the 500 on the other-identical in appearance with either set of pills she’d taken from Louis Herrera’s pharmacy. Quiero o no quiero, she thought, and popped the pill into her mouth, letting it rest on the front of her tongue. The taste, if there was any at all, was bland and chalky.

  Estelle deposited the capsule into a small evidence bag and slipped the bottle and remaining medication into another, marking them carefully. She was putting the cap back on the pen when Leona Spears returned with a tray and cups. She saw her medications now secure in the plastic bags and stopped short.

  “Leona, this last batch of Daprodin DG that you purchased from Guy Trombley is a placebo,” Estelle said. “That’s what we’re investigating at the moment.”

  “You’re kidding.” The large woman set the tray down carefully on the computer desk.

  “No.”

  “How do you tell, then? That it’s fake, I mean.”

  “The taste, for one. The real medication has a tart, stringent taste, like quinine.”

  “I’ve had some that does and some that doesn’t,” Leona said. “Now what about the Petrosin?”

  “That I don’t know. It’ll require a lab analysis.”

  “I have some, you know.”

  “Petrosin?”

  “Yes. You remember I said that Dr. Grona changed my prescription? I kept the medications.” She scrinched up her face like a guilty child. “I keep things, you know.” It took her only a moment to produce the bottle, still containing two dozen or more tablets.

  “Also from Trombley’s pharmacy,” Estelle said, looking at the label.

  “Now surely, he wouldn’t…” and Leona let the sentence trail off. “What was it that you wanted me to do?”

  “Leona, may I take these with me?” She held up the two evidence bags.
/>   Leona Spears snorted. “I don’t have much choice there, now do I.” Then she smiled eagerly. “Whatever you want to do. I have other prescriptions from Trombley’s as well…would you want those?”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  In another moment, Leona had assembled a row of nine bottles, some out of date by more than a year. She watched with satisfaction as Estelle nudged them into another plastic bag. “I hope that helps,” Leona said. “If this is all you wanted of me, it’s the easiest thing in the world.”

  “I think this will serve the same purpose, Leona,” Estelle said. “I think it will. Do you understand that if this ends up in court, you’ll be asked to testify about the circumstances of your acquiring these medications? And that you received them from Guy Trombley?”

  Leona nodded. “I’m no stranger to the courtroom, my dear. It doesn’t frighten me one little bit. And now a fair trade, Mrs. Guzman. What,” and she leaned heavily on the word, “is going on? I’ve known and trusted Guy Trombley for just years and years. I just can’t imagine…”

  “We have reason to believe that counterfeit pharmaceuticals are being brought into the country, Leona. There is evidence that some of them were dispensed at local pharmacies, including in Posadas.” She smiled ruefully. “That’s all I can really tell you at this point.”

  The engineer’s eyes narrowed, and she leaned back against the slanted surface of the drafting table. “Oh, my. Don’t tell me that the new place is involved, too. Your husband must be just beside himself.”

  “Leona…”

  “What else can I do?”

  “Sit tight. Do not discuss this with anyone. No one. That’s really important, Leona. You really need to keep this to yourself.”

  “When you first came, you mentioned something undercover,” Leona said.

  “With what you’ve been able to provide,” and she lifted the bags, “you’ve given us a valuable shortcut,” Estelle said.

  Leona’s eyes twinkled craftily. “You were going to ask me to try and purchase bogus drugs from the store, weren’t you?” She glanced at her watch as if coordinating the time for an assault. “I could go down in the morning and ask for something. I think half the time Mr. Trombley is convinced that I’m just a hypochondriac anyway.”

  “The thought had crossed my mind. But with this, it’s not necessary.”

  “I’ll be happy to help, if that’s what you need to do.”

  “And we appreciate that. But the results would be the same, either way.” Estelle rose. “I’ll be in close touch.”

  “Do you have time for tea?”

  Estelle sighed. “Some other time, thanks.” After sidestepping four or five other conversations, she made it to the front door. The cool air outside felt wonderful.

  Chapter Forty

  Settled into the Expedition, she found her cell phone, pressed in the number, and waited.

  “Yep,” Robert Torrez said after a moment.

  “Bobby, I just came from Leona Spears.”

  “You what?”

  “Leona supplied the missing link. I need to wake up Judge Hobart for a search warrant for Trombley’s Pharmacy. And an arrest warrant. I’m pretty sure how the whole scam worked. We nailed Louis Herrera and Owen Frieberg a few minutes ago.”

  “So I understand,” Torrez said. “We’re runnin’ a little short-handed around these parts.”

  “Frieberg implicated Trombley, and now we have the proof of that.”

  Silence followed, and she could hear voices in the background. “Who pulled the trigger on Enriquez?” the sheriff asked.

  “Frieberg wouldn’t come out and say it, but he implied that Guy Trombley did.”

  “Maybe once he hears a cell door clang shut, it’ll loosen his tongue. Works wonders sometimes.”

  “We need to move on this, Bobby. Tonight.”

  “Well, we’re tryin’ to move…about eight directions at once. Before you do anything else, stop by here. And by the way, the district attorney would like to talk with you.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time to waste, Bobby. I don’t want Trombley slipping away.”

  “Talking to me isn’t a waste of time, Estelle,” Dan Schroeder said, and his voice startled her.

  “Sir, we have to move on this.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” the district attorney admonished, and she heard a car door close out the background noise. “Look, I need to talk to you.”

  “I understand that, sir.”

  “It’s not a ‘it can wait until tomorrow’ sort of thing, Estelle.”

  “I understand that, too, sir. If we move on this, it isn’t going to take long.”

  “I have a couple of questions that I need to run by you, for one thing. We need to know what the little boy told you while it’s still fresh in your mind.”

  “He didn’t tell me anything, sir. He’s too frightened.”

  “You talked to him?”

  “There’ll be time for that later.”

  “Maybe so. Something else more immediate, though. There’s a fair-sized crowd of oglers here, including Frank Dayan. I figured you’d want to talk to him yourself.”

  “Bobby can do that,” Estelle said.

  “Please,” Schroeder said. “Dayan’s not going to settle for monosyllables, and the whole damn situation could use your touch.”

  “That’s not a real high priority for me just at the moment, sir.”

  “Well,” Schroeder said, “Dayan aside, I’ve got some questions that I’m not going to hash over on the telephone. You’re heading in?”

  “Yes, sir. We really need the search warrant.”

  “We’ll get it, trust me. But will you humor me in this?” Schroeder’s tone didn’t leave much room for discussion. “You and the sheriff and I are going to meet for a few minutes, and you’re going to lay all this out for us, one step at a time. You’re going to bring us all up to speed. All right?” Before Estelle could answer, the district attorney added, “And then we’re going to secure a warrant, because I have no doubt that you’re exactly right. Then we’re going to have a couple of well-rested, cool heads bring in Guy Trombley. Not you. Not Bobby. Not anyone who’s worked thirty hours straight. All right? That’s the way I want it to work.”

  When Estelle didn’t answer promptly, Schroeder added, “Look, I talked to Bobby, and he agreed with me. We both know you’re concerned about your husband and what this whole damn mess is going to do to his name. And that puts you too close, Estelle. I understand that. But I don’t want mistakes. And neither do you.”

  “Sir,” Estelle said, “if you and the sheriff want to send someone else to arrest Guy Trombley, that’s fine with me. I just want it done. I don’t care who does it. In fact, that’s probably the best thing to do.”

  “I just think it’s best if the whole town doesn’t end up thinking this was some personal vendetta, Estelle.”

  “Which it was,” she said, and almost managed enough energy to laugh.

  ***

  Three hours later, Deputy Jackie Taber’s voice on the radio was calm. “PCS, three oh three is ten fifteen, one adult male.” Estelle Reyes-Guzman leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. That may have been a mistake, since it then took considerable effort to open them again. She looked across the conference table, across the sea of paperwork, at District Attorney Daniel Schroeder.

  “Take a break,” Schroeder said. “I know you’d like to be there.”

  “I don’t know if I want to be or not,” Estelle said, but she was on her feet and headed toward the door almost before the sentence was out of her mouth. She stepped into the short hallway between the conference room and Dispatch. Through the glass partition around the Dispatch Center, she saw Frank Dayan in earnest conversation with a state policeman. The publisher caught sight of Estelle and gesticulated urgently.

  The undersheriff tried her best to keep her expression sober.

  “Do you know what day this is?” Dayan asked.

  “I have no idea,�
� Estelle replied. “I’ve lost all track.”

  The newspaper publisher shook his head sadly. “You arrest practically the whole town the day after my paper hits the streets.”

  “What can I say.”

  “Well, for one thing, you can tell me what the deal is with Owen Frieberg. I caught sight of him being brought in. I saw the handcuffs.”

  “I’ll do better than that,” Estelle said, and then held up a hand. “Can you give me just a couple minutes?”

  “I’ve given you the whole darn week,” Dayan said. “What’s another minute or two now?”

  “Do you have your camera with you?”

  “Sure.”

  She pointed at the hallway, beyond Dispatch. “Go wait in the doorway of my office, Frank. Guy Trombley is going to be coming through into booking in about,” she glanced at her watch. “A minute. You might get a shot.” She smiled. “Scoop time.”

  “You’ve got to be shitting me. Guy Trombley? What…?”

  “Stick around,” Estelle said. She patted Dayan on the arm and left him standing in the hallway, groping the camera out of his coat pocket. She knew he might have five seconds to snap a picture, during that brief moment when Trombley was led from the garage to the booking room. She guessed that if Trombley saw the newspaper man, he’d have a second or so to try and hide the handcuffs from view. In any case, the fuzzy photo would run on the front page of the Posadas Register in a week’s time.

  Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman met the group in booking, out of the range of Dayan’s camera or hearing. Trombley regarded her silently, his icy blue eyes holding hers while the officers loosened the shackles. “I’m sure you’re happy now,” he said.

  She ignored him and instead turned to Deputy Jackie Taber. “Thanks, Jackie.”

  “You can go home now,” the deputy said, and smiled.

  “I’ll get Frank Dayan squared away, and then that’s exactly what I’ll do,” Estelle said.

  “The sheriff can talk to Frank,” Jackie suggested.

  “Oh sure,” Estelle laughed. “That’s going to happen in this lifetime.”

  ***

  At twenty minutes after five that morning, Estelle pulled the county car into her driveway on Twelfth Street and switched off the engine. She sat for a long time, half expecting the radio or the cell phone to interrupt the silence.