Total Sarcasm

by Dan Ames

  She opened the envelope and pulled out a medical file that had a header noting it came from the office of Dr. Frank Fallon.

  There was a yellow Post-It Note on the front. It read:

  Ms. Cooper,

  I finally got access to Craig’s file from Dr. Fallon. I didn’t read it because I don’t really want to know what he talked about with his shrink. I did make a copy just in case, which you now have. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.

  Sincerely,

  Jenni Mulderink.

  Mary drank from her beer and read the report.

  One phrase was used repeatedly.

  Sex addiction.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Mary had no trouble tracking down Derek Pitts, thanks to her handy access to the Los Angeles County jail’s database. She logged in, searched under his name, and found that he had done plenty of time, several three-year stints, with an arrest record two pages long.

  There was also a recent entry with the name and telephone number of his parole officer.

  Mary loved parole officers, had done a lot of work with them during her career, and knew exactly how to impersonate an employer calling to verify a job applicant’s address.

  It took her less than five minutes to get in touch with the PO, give her spiel, and get a current address for one Derek Pitts.

  She jotted down the address and looked it up on Google maps.

  It was a rough area in Los Angeles proper.

  Mary went to the gun safe in her office, located inside a supply closet, put an extra clip for her .45 in her pocket, and strapped on an ankle holster which held her 5-shot .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson.

  A girl could never be too careful these days, Mary figured.

  She locked up the office, got into the Accord, and headed out for the last known address of Derek Pitts. On the way, she called Alice.

  “I’m headed into the ghetto,” Mary said. “If I don’t make it out, sell my condo and buy yourself a Porsche.”

  “The hell with that,” Alice said. “I’ll buy myself a Bentley. Porsches are passé these days.”

  Mary laughed. “Just don’t let Sanji get his hands on the money.”

  “Oh, his hands are full, believe me,” Alice said, then giggled.

  Mary disconnected, and ten minutes later she was driving down a street that bore the name of Derek Pitts’ last address.

  She found the house and saw that it was collapsing on its foundation. The window was broken, an empty bottle of malt liquor sat on the porch.

  She parked the car, locked it, and walked to the front door.

  In the distance, she heard a dog barking, and a rank, sour smell assailed her nose.

  Knocking on the door seemed silly, so she walked down the length of the porch and peered inside the broken smashed window.

  It showed a living room in serious disarray.

  And an object in the middle of the floor.

  It was a body.

  She stepped through the window, careful not to snag her clothes on the shards of glass. Mary went to the body and looked at the face.

  No doubt about it.

  The man was dead.

  He was naked, except for a baby’s milk bottle jammed into his mouth.

  And he was Derek Pitts.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “I’ve got a cold one for you,” Mary said into her cell phone. Jake was on the other end of the line.

  “Perfect, I’m dying for a beer.”

  “No beer, Jake. I’ve got a body.”

  “Don’t tease me like that.”

  “I’ll tell you where the body is if you can run down a name for me.”

  She heard him sigh on the other end of the line.

  “Why do I want to know where this body is?”

  “Because it has to do with your case, I’m fairly certain.”

  “Which case is that?”

  “Craig Locher and Valerie Barnes.”

  “Craig Locher and Valerie Barnes are most certainly not my cases,” Jake pointed out.

  “Well they should be if you want to close them and take credit for all of my brilliant detective work,” Mary said.

  There was a pause.

  “Give me the address,” Jake said.

  She read off the address and ended the call.

  It was amusing how easily she could manipulate him.

  Her phone rang and she wondered if Jake was going to refuse to come out to the crime scene. But the number on her screen wasn’t Jake’s.

  It was Ann Budchuk’s.

  “Ms. Cooper, it’s Ann Budchuk, I’m having an emergency, I need to see you as soon as possible.”

  “Do you need to call 911?” Mary asked.

  “No, it’s not that kind of emergency,” the woman said. “Look, it’s just really urgent that I talk to you at my house as soon as you can swing by.”

  Mary told her she’d be there in less than thirty minutes, depending on traffic, and hung up.

  She texted Jake that she had to leave, and then got in her car and drove to Budchuk’s place in the Pacific Palisades, just across San Vincente Boulevard.

  Budchuk’s home was a cozy Cape Cod, painted an unusual dark blue, with white shutters and a one-car garage detached from the main house at the end of a gravel driveway.

  Mary found a parking spot halfway down the block, then walked back to the house. She went to the front door.

  It was partially open.

  Mary slid her .45 from its shoulder holster.

  She slipped in through the door and found herself in a tiny foyer with a coat closet to the left and an old radiator heater on the right. A door with thick glass squares faced her and it, too, was ajar.

  Mary listened, heard nothing, then moved forward, nudging the door open with her shoulder.

  To her right was a living room with a simple sitting area facing a flat screen television. To her left was a dining room with a pass through window. Kitchen cabinets were visible through the opening, as well as a kettle that still had steam rising from its spout.

  Mary walked down the hallway between the two rooms and stepped into the kitchen.

  Anna Budchuk was on the floor, on her back, with her eyes wide open staring at the ceiling fixture. Green vomit ran from her mouth down the side of her neck and pooled on the floor.

  The rest of her body was covered with baby powder. The smell of the powder and the vomit combined to make Mary feel ill.

  She then noticed a collection of pill bottles on the kitchen counter next to the sink.

  Mary stepped over the dead woman, turned the stove off, then studied the bottles before slipping one into her pocket.

  She took out her cell phone and dialed Jake.

  He wouldn’t be happy about another body.

  Chapter Thirty

  The pharmacy was a Rite-Aid on Lincoln. Mary went to the counter and stood in line behind a guy with a walker. She assumed it was going to take awhile.

  Fifteen minutes later, a woman peeked around a different window and called Mary over.

  Mary took out the bottle of pills.

  “I was wondering if you could tell me what these pills are and who prescribed them.”

  “Are you the patient?”

  “No, they’re for my grandmother. She is having trouble speaking and I can’t find records of these pills anywhere.”

  Mary had studied the bottle, seen that any information on the medication and the prescriber was missing. The question was, was it on purpose or a flaw in some printer?

  The woman glanced at Mary.

  “I don’t see a prescribing physician, which is very unusual.”

  “I thought so, too.”

  “Let me ask the pharmacist, I’ll be right back.” She slid the window closed as if she didn’t want Mary to hear the conversation.

  She wasn’t worried, there wasn’t anything illegal about asking about pills. Trying to fill them, now, that would be illegal.

  After a few minutes, the man in
line started talking to himself about his favorite Dirty Harry movie and Mary wondered if the woman had gone on break.

  But then the window slid open.

  “I don’t know if this helps or not, but the medication is something we’ve never seen before. If you can’t find the doctor who prescribed it, you would have to send it to a lab for analysis.”

  Great, Mary thought. A dead end.

  “But we were able to search through our system and although we couldn’t find a physician, we did get the name of the company who manufactured the pills,” the woman said.

  Mary sighed. That would probably do her no good, but she said anyway, “Sure, what do you have?”

  “The company is called Synergy Labs.”

  The woman handed the pills back to Mary.

  “I’ve never heard of them, but that’s not totally uncommon. There are a lot of new ones out there. It’s probably just a division of one of the big ones like Merck or Pfizer.”

  Mary nodded.

  “Thanks.”

  She left as the man with the walker began telling the free blood pressure machine to ‘make his day.’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Although Synergy Labs seemed to keep a relatively low profile online, it didn’t take Mary long to find its headquarters.

  It was located in Pasadena.

  She had been surprised by the lack of a website for the company, as well as any press releases, news stories, or even mentions of Synergy Labs online.

  It made her wonder if the company even existed. Maybe the gal at the Rite-Aid was having some fun with her. Then again, were pharmacists known for their senses of humor?

  Mary ran through the options in her mind. It was too late to drive out to Pasadena now. She would have to wait until morning, which would also give her enough time to call around and see what else she could find out about the company. She also had to find out how and why Ann Budchuk had a bunch of medications with no labels, but that apparently came from Synergy Labs.

  She glanced at her watch. Mary hadn’t heard yet from Jake and she was curious to see what he had found at both the Pitts crime scene and the Budchuk murder. Yes, Mary thought of it as murder, not suicide. These cases were all related, and not just because of the infantilism angle. Someone was killing all of these people who had been going through psychological therapy.

  But why?

  And who was killing them?

  This case was really starting to get under Mary’s skin. She hated not knowing the answers. She took the situation as a personal insult.

  She had told Jake she’d meet him for a drink at Skivvies, a dive bar not far from Budchuk’s residence. Once he had finished at the crime scene, he would head there.

  Mary got there first and the place was crowded, but Mary was able to wrangle a table in the back corner by flashing her private investigator’s badge and saying she was with the health department.

  A half hour and a beer later, Jake walked in and she waved him over to the table.

  “What the hell is going on with you, Mary?” he said, sliding his chair out and taking a seat. “Two bodies in one day? That’s a record – even for you.”

  “What can I say? I’m on a roll,” Mary said. A waiter brought another beer for Mary and a beer she had ordered for Jake.

  Mary drank and enjoyed the taste of an ice-cold pilsner.

  “So what did you find?” she said.

  “Whoa, whoa,” Jake said, sipping his beer. “I’m not your errand boy. Send me over there and then drill me for information.”

  “Since when aren’t you my boy?”

  “Since now.”

  “Ok, what do you want from me?” she said. Mary understood he was making a point so she decided to let him. Once the little drama was over with, she would get what she wanted.

  “First, tell me how you wound up there,” he said.

  Mary brought him up to speed with meeting Budchuk, her telling Mary about Pitts, then finding Pitts. She also went ahead and connected the call from Budchuk and subsequently finding her dead, too.

  “Someone’s really on this one,” Jake said. “They’re killing faster every time. They must be desperate for something.”

  “Okay, prissy boy,” Mary said. “Time to share.”

  Jake took a long pull from his beer, set it on the table, and looked Mary in the eye. “The dead man was, in fact, Derek Pitts. Examiner estimated he’d been dead for about eight hours or so.”

  He turned his pint glass in his hand.

  “That’s it?” Mary said.

  Jake shrugged his shoulders. “What can I tell you? He was dead, we’ll get ballistics back eventually but I can tell you there’s not a big rush on this one. No one is convinced it’s related to Craig Locher. Even with the baby bottle. Could be a coincidence, is what someone said.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  Jake waved the waiter over and ordered two more beers.

  “What about Ann Budchuk? Got just as little information on her, too?” Mary said.

  “Even less,” Jake admitted. “Definitely her house, her pills. We’re leaning toward suicide.”

  “Even with what I told you?” Mary said.

  “We need proof, Mary.” He smiled at her. “You know I always believe you. It’s those others who need more proof.”

  Mary rolled her eyes. “Now you’re just trying to sweet talk me.”

  “Is it working?”

  Mary watched as the waiter put another beer in front of her.

  “The beer is, but you’re not.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Alice was watching a reality show where aspiring singers audition for judges.

  “Why are you watching that?” Mary said.

  “I like to watch people trying to get their career off the ground. They remind me of you.”

  Mary went to the kitchen and grabbed a cookie from Alice’s fridge. On second thought, she took two.

  She went back into the living room and sat on the couch.

  A scruffy looking guy with a guitar was butchering a Bob Dylan song.

  “You take a lot of drugs, don’t you?” Mary said to Alice.

  “Used to,” Alice said. “Back when I was a hippie, I took all kinds of stuff until I wound up on the back of a Hell’s Angel’s bike headed for Temecula and an initiation. I lost him at a rest stop and never took drugs after that. Except ones prescribed by my doctor.”

  Alice went to the kitchen and came back with a glass of Coke. It probably had Crown Royal splashed in there, too. Alice called it her vitamin.

  “Why do you ask?” she said to Mary. “Looking for a new dealer for your female Viagra?”

  “Very cute, Timothy Leary,” Mary said. “I’m talking about prescription drugs.”

  “Well, I’ve been able to cut back on some of my medications now that I’ve lost some weight working with Sanji.”

  She shot a wink at Mary.

  “Of course, the money I’ve saved has all gone to buying more lube.”

  “Please stop,” Mary said. “So have you ever heard of someone getting drugs from a manufacturer and not a doctor?”

  “Can’t say that I have, Mary. Why? Are you looking into Botox? I hope for your sake?”

  “No, afraid not.”

  “You pay for your own health insurance, don’t you?” Alice said.

  “Sure do.”

  “That has to suck.”

  Alice drank from her glass and Mary popped the last of the cookie into her mouth. Damn, it was hard to beat a good cookie.

  “It does suck sometimes, Alice,” Mary said. “But back to the topic at hand. How would a woman get a bottle of pills directly from a manufacturer?”

  “How do you know she did? Did she tell you?”

  “No, she’s dead.”

  “I see. What if the manufacturer didn’t give them to her?”

  “I see where you’re going with that,” Mary said. “Maybe she stole them.”

  “Or maybe she was part of an exp
eriment. Don’t drug companies test drugs all the time?”

  “Yeah, but they usually do it overseas. For legal reasons, you know. Not a lot of tort lawyers in Mongolia.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “And the truth.”

  “Something tells me they aren’t trying out drugs in Beverly Hills.”

  “Unless there are volunteers.”

  “I know plenty of women who would volunteer for drugs that made them lose weight, or wrinkles, or perk up their girls.”

  Mary thought about that.

  “Another possibility is that drug companies send their stuff to doctors, and the doctors give the stuff out, sort of as trial runs.”

  “I could see that happening,” Alice said. “Did you see in the news about that one doctor who just got arrested for billing hundreds of dead people? Some of those guys have no conscience. Like most private investigators.”

  Mary knew she had to talk to a doctor she could trust. But first, she wanted to scope out this drug company.

  Right after another cookie.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Mary loaded up on Peet’s Coffee then guided the Accord out of Santa Monica toward Pasadena. She had waited until she was confident the office was open.

  She dialed the number, got an operator, and asked for the CEO’s office. She was transferred to a secretary, who answered the phone by saying, “Mr. Ward’s office.”

  “I’d like to make an appointment to see him this morning, preferably at about 10 a.m.”

  “So you don’t have an appointment?”

  “No.”

  “May I ask what this in regard to?”

  “I’m a venture capitalist interested in investing in one of his new drugs. I’ve got about a billion dollars to burn through by the end of this month. That’s why I’m personally calling.”

  “I see,” she said.

  Mary knew she didn’t buy it.

  “Usually this kind of thing is handled by submitting your proposals in writing…”

  “Look, I’m not a venture capitalist. I’ve been seeing Mr. Ward for several months and I have some important news for him of a very intimate nature, if you know what I mean by ‘intimate.’ But he’s not returning my calls which means he’s either not horny, which I find hard to believe, or he’s avoiding me, which is much more likely. I will be at your office at ten o’clock. I’m a gorgeous blonde woman. My name is Cary Mooper.”