by Ross Pennie
“Or more,” said Hamish.
“Can we apply the five-second rule?”
Hamish crouched beside him and started gathering the dozens of overpriced capsules. “We may have to.”
Todd crept forward on his haunches, scooping up the pills. A crunch came from beneath his shoe. His ears turned crimson. He knew he’d just crushed fifty dollars’ worth of medicine under his heel. He slowly stood up and eased backwards.
Hamish struggled to hold his tongue. It was going to be quite a production to get the insurance company to pay for more vancomycin. He looked at the five splintered capsules on the linoleum. There was something strange about them. No mess. No white powder. He picked up the fractured shells and held them in his palm. “Hey, look at these.”
Todd lifted one of the broken capsules and pinched it between his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t believe it.” He took a second one and eyed it closely. “Holy shit.”
“Holy shit, all right,” Hamish said. “They’re blanks.”
Hamish drummed his fingers against the nursing station counter. He’d been forced to listen to three levels of phone-attendant automatons at Steeltown Apothecary, and a gum-chewing clerk had put him on hold until the boss was free.
He hadn’t seen Viktor Horvat since the man had tried to strangle him from his intensive-care bed. His stomach churned as he pictured the man’s powerful, stubby fingers counting Betty’s pills.
“Can I helping you, Dr. Wakefield?”
There was no mistaking that voice, that accent, but Hamish had to be sure. “Is that Mr. Horvat?”
“Yes, this Vik.”
“I’m calling from Camelot Lodge.” Hamish could feel his vocal cords tightening. The best he could manage was a dry croak. “There’s a problem with the . . . with the vancomycin capsules you sent over.”
“Sorry. I not hearing.”
Hamish repeated himself.
“Problem?” Horvat said.
“They’re empty.”
“Bottle not empty. I count myself.”
“Not the bottle. The capsules. Not a thing inside them.”
“I not understanding, Doctor.”
What was there not to understand? Was Hamish’s croaky whisper too much for Horvat’s limited English? Or was the man playing dumb on purpose?
Hamish passed the phone to Todd. “Here, you tell him.” He pointed to his throat and shook his head. “This always happens when I get upset. He’ll understand you better.”
Todd introduced himself and told Horvat about the capsules getting accidentally crushed, then found to be empty. He also explained how he and Dr. Wakefield had opened up twenty more vancomycin capsules and found every one of them empty.
Todd passed the phone back to Hamish. “He says it’s not his fault. He didn’t open the capsules.”
Hamish scanned the counter. Sometimes a glass of water or juice soothed his voice. Nothing in sight, of course. The infection- control measures on the Mountain Wing had put food and drink under strict control. “Of course, Mr. Horvat,” he said, forcing out the words, one by one, “it’s not your fault. But you did send us dummies. No medicine inside.”
“What you want I should doing?”
“Send me another bottle as soon as you can.”
“I am needing permission from insurance company.”
“Call your supplier, tell them what happened, and get them to send a replacement right away. They’ll be happy to do what it takes, even send it by taxi.”
“Taxi? From Toronto?”
“Sure. It’s their fault. They sent you the empty capsules.” Hamish had no idea where the empty capsules had originated — from Horvat himself or from a legitimate supplier. But this was no time to get the man’s back up by accusing him of fraud. Especially a guy with an ugly temper. He glanced at the clock. Four-thirty. Horvat’s drug wholesaler should still be open. They’d be mortified that a batch of empty capsules might have left their warehouse. And they’d move heaven and earth to deliver a new set today. They could get them here in an hour.
“And Vik?”
“Yeah?”
Hamish wanted to tell him that if he got the vanco delivered to Camelot by six o’clock this evening, they’d be even. But Horvat wouldn’t remember him from the ICU. All Hamish could bring himself to say was, “Um . . . thanks.”
At five-fifty-five, Todd dashed out of the stairwell and into the Mountain Wing nursing station. “Here you are,” he said, handing Hamish a white paper bag with Steeltown Apothecary printed in large blue letters.
“Did you see Horvat?” Hamish asked.
“No. Some other guy made the delivery.”
“What a royal screw-up. I hope he gave his wholesaler you-know-what.”
Hamish washed his hands at the sink, then opened the bag and lifted out the white pill bottle inside it. He unscrewed the lid, pulled out the useless cotton batten that always found its way into medicine bottles, and peered at the two-toned capsules. They seemed darker in colour than the first lot of vancomycin.
He shook four capsules into his palm. “Wash your hands, then examine these carefully. Compare them with the others.”
Todd washed and dried his hands, then shook out two capsules from the first vancomycin bottle, now marked with an X. He looked from his palm to Hamish’s, examining the two sets of capsules. “The blue is the same, eh? But the brown looks darker.”
Hamish rolled two of the new capsules in his fingers and held them up. “These have ‘125 mg’ printed on them. And the brand name. Is there any printing on yours?”
“No.”
“Put the imposters away, then do the honours with a few of mine.”
Todd looked puzzled for a second, then said, “You mean, open the new ones?”
“Just a few.”
“But they’re so expensive.”
“And useless, if they’re empty.”
Todd took one of the new capsules and tried to pull it apart. It wouldn’t budge. “Is there a knife around here somewhere?”
Hamish opened a couple of drawers before finding a pair of bandage scissors. “Try these.”
Todd snipped through the middle of a capsule, then inverted the two open halves. A tiny mound of white powder glinted on the countertop.
“That’s more like it,” Hamish said.
“Should I try a couple of others?”
“Before you do that, let’s make sure they all look alike.”
Hamish looked around for a dish. On the far end of the counter he spotted a plate under a bedraggled geranium. He washed the plate with soap and hot water, dried it, and lined it with a fresh paper towel. He dumped the sixty new vancomycin capsules onto the paper and raked them with his fingers.
“What do you think?” asked Hamish.
“They all look identical to me.”
“Open two more.”
Todd took the scissors, picked two capsules at random, and snipped them open. White powder puffed out of both of them.
“Should we taste it?” Todd asked.
“You can if you like, but I’ve got no idea what vancomycin is supposed to taste like.”
“Never mind.” Todd looked pensive for a moment, then walked over to the medicine cart and rummaged through its drawers. “Geez, where are they?” he said, after opening the fourth drawer. “The girls here are sloppy with their meds. Every drawer should be labelled.”
“What are you looking for?”
Todd grinned in obvious satisfaction as he lifted a bottle of pills from the lowest drawer on the cart. “Here they are. Left over from a previous patient.”
“What?”
“Metronidazole capsules,” Todd said. “I know what this drug tastes like. Bitter as hell.”
“We’re not using it. Not worth a damn.”
Todd took one metronidazole capsule from the bottle and snipped its green and grey shell across the middle with the scissors. There was a puff of white powder. As Hamish watched, Todd opened three more capsules.
&n
bsp; White powder in all of them.
Todd licked his finger, dipped it in the powder, then touched it to the tip of his tongue. “Yup. This is bitter all right.”
Hamish felt a hot wave of understanding rise from his gut into his throat. The empty vancomycin capsules were no mistake. Horvat had dispensed them on purpose. He hadn’t wasted his time supplying fake metronidazole because the real thing only cost five cents a capsule. But at ten dollars each, vancomycin capsules were well worth faking.
Todd had come to the same realization. “If Horvat has clients all over the city,” he said, “he’s making some serious coin.” His eyes grew distant, as though conjuring some half-forgotten image. He scratched his ear. After a moment he said, “Do you read the Spectator?”
Hamish shook his head. “Afraid not.” He didn’t have time to read newspapers. Not even the hometown rag.
“There’s been quite the story lately about a local pharmacist — Viktor somebody. He’s trying to get his son freed from a prison in Mexico.”
“So?”
“He claims the charges — drug trafficking — are trumped up. Just a way for the Mexicans to make money out of an unsuspecting Canadian tourist.”
“Extortion?”
“I guess. This Vik guy claims the Mexican judicial system is in the business of legalized kidnapping — charging him half a million dollars in lawyers’ fees to spring his son from a rat-infested prison in Juarez.”
“And . . . you think the Vik in the Spectator is our Vik from Steeltown?”
“Being held to legalized ransom would be one hell of a motive for selling fake drugs at ten dollars a pop.”
Todd’s eyes widened. He rose from his seat and began rifling through the medication cart again. He grabbed three patients’ blister-packed medication cards and tossed them on the table.
“What?” Hamish said.
“Somebody needs to take a good look at these. Not the cheap generics, but the expensive brand-name meds. These packs could be full of counterfeits.”
Hamish walked to the sink and turned on the faucet. He closed his eyes and splashed cold water on his face. He was way beyond his comfort zone.
CHAPTER 20
Shortly after six-thirty that evening, Zol hung up the kitchen phone and turned to Colleen. “Hamish is in a flap,” he said. “He’s coming right over.”
Colleen frowned at him. “Oh no. Is it Betty?”
“No, she’s just the same. Something else has got him worked up.”
“Does he know about Earl?”
“Not yet.”
Colleen touched Zol’s arm and gave it a squeeze. He knew she shared his anxiety about Betty’s condition and his anger that no hospital would let her in the door. Earl was lucky he’d collapsed at the health unit. The ambulance had no choice but to take him directly to Emergency at Caledonian.
Colleen smiled, her earrings glinting in the flood of the ceiling halogens. She turned to the stove and stirred the risotto. As with most things, she had just the right touch. A heavy hand could pulp risotto into ponderous porridge. “There’s plenty of risotto,” she said. “He can stay for dinner. Did he say what’s wrong?”
“You know Hamish. He prefers the drama of the face-to-face disclosure. And when his voice gets like that, you can never tell on the phone whether he’s angry or excited.”
“The poor fellow has been cooped up in that residence all week.”
Zol pulled the wide chopping blade from the rack, then opened the refrigerator for salad fixings. The sky was dark and wintry gusts were rattling the windows, but with the kitchen pot lights turned up high you could pretend it was spring in the Mediterranean. Greek salad, Italian risotto, and chicken roasted à la Française with plenty of garlic would do the trick.
When Hamish arrived half an hour later, stone-faced and subdued, he apologized for being late. He’d stopped at the car wash, which Zol knew was as much Hamish’s meditative haven as a place to buff the salt and slush from his ever-shiny Saab. At the front door, Hamish performed his ritual alignment of his shoes against the wall, adjusted his tie in the mirror, and ran his hand across his flat-top. In the kitchen, he lathered his hands at the sink with the diligence of a brain surgeon.
When Hamish had finished washing and drying, Zol handed him a glass of wine. Hamish seldom drank a full glass of anything alcoholic, but maybe it would throw a little colour into his cheeks. Zol closed the door of the computer room where Max was absorbed in his thirty-minute ration of pre-dinner video games. Whatever was bothering Hamish wouldn’t be suitable for nine-year-old ears.
Hamish gulped the Chenin Blanc without showing any sign of tasting it, then he dropped onto a chair and blurted out the story of finding the empty capsules. He wasted no time in preambles, and his right hand was so busy clutching his wineglass that the professorial finger had no chance to make its appearance.
“You mean, nothing in them at all?” said Colleen. “Not even salt or sugar?”
“Nothing,” said Hamish.
“Unbelievable,” Zol said. “The guy’s either incredibly bold or mighty desperate.”
The flush was returning to Hamish’s cheeks. “But . . . but what do we do?”
“Extraordinary,” Colleen said. “Sounds like a matter for the police. But it’s anyone’s guess which force has jurisdiction — the city? the OPP? the RCMP?”
Zol shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. It’s impossible to get guys like these on criminal charges and make them stick.”
“Come off it, Zol,” Hamish said, his face crimson. “People have probably died because of those fake capsules. Betty’s can’t be the first case of C diff treated with Horvat’s bogus vanco. He’s got to be locked up — for fraud and murder.”
“Attempted murder, or manslaughter, at the least,” Colleen said.
“You’d think so,” Zol told them, “but the RCMP — and the courts — were useless the last time. There were deaths then, too.”
“Last time?” Colleen said. A pensive look came over her face. “Oh yes. That pharmacy in the north end. What was it they were dispensing?”
“Counterfeit antihypertensives,” Zol said. He pushed out of his chair and retrieved his briefcase from the living room. It was loaded with dozens of reports he was supposed to read and digest — whenever he got the time.
He heaved a stack of papers onto the table. Halfway through the pile, he found what he was looking for: Pharmacy Connection, the official publication of the Ontario College of Pharmacists.
“It’s all in here,” said Zol, holding up the colourful journal. “Trinnock insisted I commit the circumstances to memory in case it happened again. Looks like the old bugger was right.” He flipped to the dog-eared page he’d been reading before he was distracted by something more pressing.
He took a gulp of wine, read the summary, and paraphrased it for Hamish and Colleen.
After an alert from a sharp-eyed customer, the RCMP and a private investigator determined that a pharmacy in the north end of Hamilton was dispensing counterfeit high-blood-pressure tablets. The RCMP forensics laboratory established that the counterfeits, not quite identical in appearance to the real thing, contained no active ingredients. The brand-name manufacturer, a pharmaceutical giant, recalled and tested its tablets from pharmacies throughout the province but found no other counterfeits. The only fakes were in that pharmacy in Hamilton. The wholesale distributor was off the hook.
“It had to be an inside job,” said Zol. “The two pharmacists involved were charged and taken to court. And you know what? They got off. Found not guilty of anything.”
“You’re kidding,” Hamish said.
To drive home the point, Zol read word-for-word from the publication in his hands. “‘The judge concluded that the Crown had not demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the pharmacists actually knew they were selling counterfeit drugs.’”
“Horse feathers,” said Colleen. “Of course they knew.”
The wine’s blush drained from Hamish�
��s cheeks. Beads of sweat glistened on his brow. “What about the College of Pharmacists?” he asked. “Didn’t they conduct an investigation? Subject the pharmacists to disbarment, or whatever they call it?”
Zol scanned the final paragraph of the case summary. “The pharmacists received an official reprimand and were ordered to take remedial training. They didn’t lose their licences.”
“How long was the pharmacy closed?” Colleen asked.
“One day,” said Zol, “while the wholesaler cleared the entire inventory and restocked it with new.”
“Outrageous,” Hamish said.
“And it’s happening again,” Colleen said.
“Pretty good scam,” Zol said. “Nicely lucrative, and only a slap on the wrist if you get caught.”
Hamish, too edgy to stay seated, wiped the counter with a tea towel and leaned against the granite.
Colleen narrowed her eyes and ran her finger around the rim of her wineglass. She hadn’t taken a sip since Hamish had started his account. “But still, it is a bit risky. After all, the pharmacists did get caught. What’s Vik’s motivation? It’s got to be more than simple greed.”
“Can I use your computer for a sec?” Hamish asked. “I want to Google a story that’s been running in the Spectator.”
Zol checked his watch. It was time to get the chicken out of the oven. “Sure,” his said, pointing to the family-room door. “And tell Max I said it’s time to get cleaned up for supper.”
By the time Zol and Colleen had four dinners plated and on the kitchen table, Hamish was back. A look of satisfaction replaced his earlier outrage and dismay.
“Found something?” Colleen asked.
“I believe it’s called a hat trick,” Hamish said, holding up three fingers. “The same Viktor Horvat owns Steeltown Apothecary, nearly strangled me in the ICU, and has been raving in the press about his son being held for ransom in a Mexican prison.”
Zol took a slug of his Chenin Blanc. “There must be a lot more to Vik than a bottle of empty capsules.” He opened the side pocket of his briefcase and pulled out the medication survey that Phyllis and the group had presented that afternoon. “Look at this,” he said, pointing to the bolded rows at the bottom of the page. “How do we explain the link between Camelot’s gastro and these two arthritis drugs — Xanucox and Durimab?”