Time Release

by Martin J. Smith

  She set the apple on the counter and opened a nearly empty silverware drawer. The knife she chose was better suited for an infantry charge, a black-handled job with a blade a foot long and a point like a bayonet. Downing tensed, pure instinct, but then relaxed as she quartered the apple and dropped the knife into the sink. It clattered onto the crusty dishes. She found her only clean saucer in a cupboard crowded with medicine bottles, then arranged the apple slices on it with elaborate care, like the pattern was her way of communicating with her home planet.

  “My husband ran off,” she said. “Dr. Root says he was sick. I don’t think he was sick. He didn’t look sick. But Dr. Root says he shouldn’t have hurt me and the boys. Sometimes I miss him, though. Sometimes he was nice. Funny, you know? You like Gatorade? I have Gatorade. Both kinds, the red and green. I like the red.”

  She carried the plate to the small kitchen table, sat down, and started to eat with an exaggerated politeness Downing found odd, especially since she was eating the core, seeds and all.

  “He never calls?” he said. “You haven’t kept in touch at all?”

  She chewed slowly, deliberately, then swallowed. “He ran off,” she said.

  Not far, Downing thought; Outcrop couldn’t be more than thirty miles from here. But she probably wasn’t lying. Sonny told him once that he’d got a birthday card from his dad when he was about fourteen, but that was it. Ron Corbett wasn’t the sentimental type.

  “Mrs. Corbett, I know this is a personal question, but we’re still interested in why your husband left so suddenly way back when.”

  Downing watched her nibble off the end of an apple quarter, oblivious to the stem. She chewed the woody thing for a long time. He couldn’t be sure she was crying, but her eyes got wet and even more vacant.

  “Mrs. Corbett?”

  “He just ran off,” she said. “He didn’t like us. The boys either. Too bad, too. He was a funny man.”

  Funny? Downing tried to fit the word to the croaking scumbag with the shotgun.

  “Know what?” she said. “He had a nickname for everybody on our street. The Inspector. Odd Todd. Miss Clairol. There was this nun from the church he called Sister Teresa Lambada. Oh, he made us laugh sometimes.”

  “I had no idea,” Downing said.

  “That was fun, laughing.”

  Downing watched her work on the apple stem for a long time. “Mrs. Corbett, do you remember if anything happened that day, or that week, when he left? Was there something you or the boys said that set him off, or did he say anything when he left?”

  “The dog died,” she said.

  “That day?”

  “No. My husband left a few weeks after. But he didn’t like Trooper much anyway, so that’s not why. I remember the boys were so sad. They cried. About Trooper, I mean. Not about their dad. Maybe they were sad about him leaving, too.”

  Her gaze drifted back across the room to the refrigerator door handle. “You know Sonny, don’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I know you do. He comes here sometimes.”

  “A very nice young man.”

  She looked away again. “I had two boys. David died.”

  “I know he did. I’m sorry.”

  “You have boys?’

  “One girl, but she’s off on her own now. Grow up fast, don’t they?”

  “Some don’t grow up at all,” she said. She bit into another apple quarter and chewed until it was gone. Downing felt like a shit.

  “Mrs. Corbett, we’re still looking into a series of killings that happened back in 1986, right around the time your husband left. Do you remember when we talked about that before?”

  “Terrible thing,” she said. “All those people.”

  “Do you remember how it happened? With the poison in the headache capsules?”

  “We were so scared.”

  “Everybody was. It was a scary time because product tampering is so hard to control. Now there’s a couple of cases down in Greene County that are a lot like it, and that’s got everybody scared again. Because we never caught anybody.”

  She shook her head. “Terrible.”

  “Thing is, Mrs. Corbett, the latest killing was in Waynesburg, just a few miles down the road from where your husband’s been living since 1986. And the first time around, if you’ll recall, the poison was sold at stores that were all within a couple miles of your house down on Jancey Street.”

  He waited for a reaction. Nothing.

  “There’s been other incidents, too. I’m sure you heard somebody put poison in some sample packages. Killed two people and burned a bunch of others. We don’t know if it’s the same person, but you can imagine how anxious we are to find out who’s doing this stuff.”

  “Why would somebody do that?” she asked.

  “Exactly, Mrs. Corbett. Any ideas?”

  “We don’t watch much news here.” She smiled. “You want this last slice of apple?”

  “No, but thanks.”

  “I don’t think I want this last piece. This wasn’t a very good apple.”

  This was going nowhere. “Mrs. Corbett, do you have any reason to believe your husband was involved in any of these incidents, either in 1986 or recently?”

  She traced the edge of her plate with the apple slice. “I think I’ll fix a grapefruit. You want a grapefruit? The man at the store told me they’re from Texas. I’ve never been to Texas. You ever been to Texas?”

  Downing reached across the table and lightly touched her hand. “Mrs. Corbett, I asked you a question about your husband. Do you have any reason to think he put the poison in those headache capsules ten years ago, or in any of the other stuff in the past few weeks?”

  She pulled her hand away and shoved it into the peacoat pocket. “Why would he do that?” she said.

  “That’s what we’re wondering, too. Did he ever say anything to you that made you think he was involved? Or did you ever see him do anything? Because if he was loading capsules in 1986, he probably would have done it at the house.”

  “He’s a pharmacist.”

  “We know that, ma’am. But it’s not something he would have done at work where somebody might see. And we found some things at your house that made us wonder if—”

  “He sent money for a while,” she said.

  Ron Corbett had fallen off the state unemployment dole after a year, then tried twice to claim disability. Turned down once, according to state records, but the second time was a charm. From what Downing could tell, Corbett hadn’t worked since 1986. Real father-of-the-year type.

  “He stopped sending it after Peebo Balkin nearly drowned,” she said.

  “Peebo who?”

  At the sink again, she wedged the saucer among the other plates, then swept into the other room without another word. When he heard the creak of her wooden chair, Downing moved to the cupboard for a peek. An old investigator’s habit, but one he’d found worthwhile over the years—the contents of a medicine cabinet read to him like a personality profile. Hers was mostly over-the-counter stuff: cold remedies, vitamins, laxatives. The prescription stuff was predictable, especially the full bottle of lithium. If she was like this medicated, he wondered, how much more crackers would she be without it? A few expired bottles of antibiotics. A roll of Tes-Tape for checking sugar in the urine, a glucometer for testing blood sugar, a jar of hard candy for quick sugar fixes, a bottle of rubbing alcohol—a diabetic’s tools for living. The chair creaked again. He closed the cupboard quietly and followed into the other room.

  She was back at the TV. No sense wasting more time. Unless she had home movies of Ron loading the capsules, nothing here would be of any use.

  “I’m going now, Mrs. Corbett. Thanks for taking the time.”

  She pointed at the tiny TV. “Look! That lit
tle tornado, he’s really that Tasmanian Devil guy.” She seemed transfixed.

  “One of the great ones,” he said. “Take care, Mrs. Corbett.” She didn’t move, hands in the pockets of her heavy coat, watch cap pulled down tight over her ears, eyes glued to images of cartoon mayhem. He left her there, wondering if she had always been that pathetic or if life with Ron had just taken a toll. He pulled the front door shut behind him.

  The snow from the midweek storm was nearly gone. All that was left were little drifts in the building’s shadow and under the cars that hadn’t been moved. The road back into town would be clear, maybe even dry. But while he was inside, the clear sky had turned gray and the temperature had dropped. He buttoned his coat as he moved down the steps. Spring was a hundred years away.

  Chapter 17

  Somewhere past the two secretaries, down the carpeted hall, and behind the sturdy walnut door, the chief of police for the city of Pittsburgh was roaring, a bellowing sound Downing hadn’t heard in the three months since Kiger took over. The secretaries looked at each other, and he knew they couldn’t stand their new boss.

  “He’ll just be a few more minutes, Grady,” the older one said. He could never remember her name. “Coffee?”

  “Sure. Great. Freeze-dried?”

  “Nope. Fresh pot,” she said, getting up.

  “Oh. No thanks,” Downing said. She stared. He shrugged. “I like freeze-dried.”

  Another roar. Laughter? Shouting? Downing had no idea why he’d been summoned. He wished he had a better handle on the man he was about to see. Patrick B. Kiger came to the city from Memphis, where as chief he was known as a savvy cop within the department, and as a brutish Neanderthal with the press. What killed him there, Downing heard, was his appetite for publicity and his sarcastic overuse of the word “alleged” during bust announcements. “Mr. Bowling became our prime suspect because he allegedly can be seen on a videotape bringing the alleged fire extinguisher down onto the skull of the alleged victim, Mr. Phong…”

  The sort of stuff cops loved, the sort of stuff that made newspaper editors and ACLU lawyers swallow their tongues.

  Kiger’s looks didn’t help. At 5-foot-8 and pushing 200, he was a gritty hamburger of a man with a Beelzebub beard that followed his jawline to his chin, where it arced into an evil goatee. A smile led to a squint, which led to the general impression that Pittsburgh’s new police chief was capable of eating his young.

  With the unexpected rise in Pittsburgh’s gang and drug hostilities, Kiger seemed the perfect choice. His first week on the job, he had laid out his style during roll-call meetings at each precinct: You got a problem, come to me. Be prepared to lose every argument, but I’ll listen and look you in the eye before I throw your sorry butt out of my office. Forget that community-based policing crap that’s turning good cops all over the country into school crossing guards and parking-squabble umpires. My cops are good guys with guns. Convictions count, arrests don’t. You want my attention? Work your ass off, plain and simple. Don’t fuck up.

  Downing wiped his palms on his pants, shifting Ron Corbett’s file from one knee to the other.

  The door suddenly swung out like there’d been an explosion. Kiger plowed through, full speed, followed by J. D. Dagnolo, the district attorney. Papers clenched between his teeth, Dagnolo was wrestling his open briefcase as he walked.

  He was probably the most powerful man in the city. Knew so much about so many people that a lot of cops called him J. Edgar instead of J. D. But never to his face. Scrambling in Kiger’s wake, he seemed more like the spineless toady he was. Kiger peeled off into the copy room halfway down the hall without a word. Dagnolo pulled the papers out of his mouth. “So long, chief!” he said, the words bouncing off Kiger’s back. Downing tried hard not to snicker as the DA passed, then nodded and said, “J. D.”

  “Grady.” Dagnolo kept walking, past the secretaries, through the glass doors, toward the elevators.

  First words in years. What did Dagnolo say the last time they’d talked? “You just fucked up the biggest homicide case in the city’s history, Grady. Where you going now? Disneyland?” Took three uniforms to pull him off the son of a bitch, or so Downing heard later.

  “Get that a-hole’s fax from Washington, Jude?” Kiger drawled from the copy room. His Tennessee accent oozed through the office.

  “On your desk.”

  Jude. That’s the name. Jude the Prude.

  “You expect me to find it there?” Kiger said, rounding the corner from the copy room. As the chief lumbered toward him, Downing realized Kiger was much shorter than he remembered. But wide. All solid shoulders and belly, a beer keg with legs. And probably under more pressure.

  Downing stood. “Got a message you wanted to see me, chief,” he said, extending a hand. Kiger’s grip was noncommittal.

  “Who are you again?”

  “Grady Downing,” the Prude said before he could answer. “Homicide. The letter from Musca, Hickton?”

  A flicker of recognition. “Right,” Kiger said. “Primenyl.”

  What letter?

  Kiger’s office was about as organized as a tossed salad. Books stacked on chairs. Family pictures still in boxes. The only thing on his desk not issued by the city supply clerk was a round, brown needlepoint pillow. The word “Bullshit” was stitched on it in white thread, block letters.

  “Mail call,” the chief said, collapsing into his leather desk chair. He handed a photocopy across the desk, then picked up the pillow, cocked it behind his head, and waited.

  Downing took one of the straight-back wooden chairs on the other side of the desk and opened the envelope. He unfolded it and read the letterhead: Musca, Hickton & Cook. The letter was signed by an attorney, Cheryl M. Musca, addressed to Patrick B. Kiger, Pittsburgh’s Chief of Police. It began: “We are the law firm retained by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to represent the interests of outpatients currently under the care of Borman State Hospital. This letter carries our concern about the recent interrogation of Sandra Preston Corbett, a patient of Dr. Douglas L. Root, by your detective, Grady Downing.”

  Downing looked up.

  “Read the whole thing,” Kiger said.

  He scanned the two-page letter. Downing had entered her home without an invitation. His intrusion caused her great personal distress. He was insensitive to Mrs. Corbett’s condition and ignorant of the preferred techniques for dealing with individuals who suffer depression and dissociation. A photocopy of a newspaper clipping was stapled to the letter’s last page, and Downing felt his gut clench when he recognized the headline. It was part of the Press’s recent Primenyl retrospective, and it quoted unnamed department sources and FBI officials who blamed the inves­tigation’s failure on “sloppy police work” and “inexplicable errors of judgment” by investigators. The story also noted, without comment, that “veteran detective Grady T. Downing was in charge of the original investigation.”

  “Before we get to that,” Kiger said, “you mind telling me why it was too inconvenient for you to let me know you were reopening the biggest fucking homicide case ever?”

  Downing felt sick. “It’s preliminary work. I mentioned it to DeLillo, and he didn’t have a problem with it.”

  The pillow hit Downing in the forehead, crushing the wave of hair he’d combed into place ten minutes before. Kiger leaned forward. His forearms looked like legs of lamb.

  “Bullshit?” Downing said. He shoved his hair back with his hand.

  “You told Lieutenant DeLillo you were checking to see if the Greene County case was relevant. You didn’t tell him you’d be reinterviewing possible witnesses to the 1986 killings. I like your initiative. Your methods suck.”

  Downing kept quiet. There was an agenda here. Kiger pushed away from his desk and retrieved the pillow from the floor. He carefully picked off a dustball and returned to his chair, a
gain cocking the pillow behind his head.

  “Mind filling me in?” Kiger said.

  “From the beginning?”

  The chief shook his head. “I read the goddamned file. Tell me what’s not in there.”

  Downing took a deep breath. “Apparent homicide in Greene County a few weeks back. Female, thirty-nine. Looks like product tampering. Lab reports indicate hydrogen cyanide, the liquid form. The methods were different, but it was all there. Same attention to detail. Same weird silence afterward. No notes. No barroom bragging. Just did the deed and gone. Same with the more recent cases.”

  “I watch the news,” Kiger said. “Tell me what I don’t know.”

  Downing tried not to squirm. “With the yogurt and the Squeezie Pop, local cops found sealed pinholes, probably from a syringe. We’re not sure yet on the free-sample stuff.”

  “What makes you think it’s related to Primenyl? That investigation went belly-up five years ago.”

  Did Kiger notice him cringe?

  “The Greene County cases happened in a rural area, maybe ten thousand people in a twenty-mile radius. One of them’s a guy named Corbett. Ron Corbett. Name ring a bell?”

  Kiger leaned forward, tight grin, a remember-what-I’m-about-to-tell-you look. “I’ve read the file.” The chief picked up a thin, plastic-bound report that had been at a far corner of his desk. Downing recognized the cover as standard FBI, suspected what it was. This was no spur-of-the-moment meeting. This guy was loaded for bear.

  “Wait a minute, detective,” Kiger said, flipping it open. “Corbett’s not the name the feds fingered in … What was it?” He checked the report’s date. “In 1988. Some guy named Griffin the drug company fired about the time the killing started. Confessed to the whole thing in a suicide note in early ’88, then bit the pipe, right?”

  Downing tried to wring the anger from his voice before he replied. “Got nine more written confessions in my Primenyl files, sir, but I’m not much for fairy tales.”

  “So you’re not buying it?”