by Maggie Bruce
“Then let’s go back to the drugstore. Mr. Kim’s going to know in ten minutes, I can feel it. He said it would take two hours, but he’s going to know sooner.”
Relieved, I grabbed my purse, threw a five and two ones on the table, and followed her out into the gray and chilly drizzle. I’d learned not to question Karen when she knew something.
“You know, the sidewalks have that smell. Dampness and dust. When I lived here, that’s what rain smelled like.”
Karen frowned. “Well? That’s what rain does smell like. Oh, wait, I forgot. You’re a country girl now.”
“Earth and grass, right? I can tell you what ugly smells like.”
She practically growled her agreement as she pushed open the door to Kim’s Pharmacy.
I followed her inside.
“You back too soon.” Mrs. Kim shook her head. “He say three o’clock.”
I pivoted and grabbed the door handle, but Karen tugged at my sleeve.
“I know, but I had this feeling that—”
Like magic, Mr. Kim appeared from the back of the store. I felt like a defendant when the head juror first files back into the courtroom. His face gave away nothing at all, and I couldn’t find my voice to ask what he’d found.
“So, Mr. Kim, what did you find?” Karen asked sweetly.
Mr. Kim pushed his glasses up so that they rested on his shiny bald spot and he thrust his clenched fist forward. “Phony,” he declared.
Even after the room stopped spinning, I was dizzy. Dizzy with anger and disbelief. Dizzy with questions. I was only vaguely aware of Mrs. Kim’s warm hands on my arm, leading me to a chair beside the counter.
“Here,” she said as she handed me a cup that was warm to the touch. “Drink this. Go ahead, won’t hurt you. Tea. Green tea. Good for you.”
Karen knelt beside me. “You okay?”
I nodded and sipped the tea, then took a long swig and swallowed. “He’s killing her,” I whispered. “I have to do something. I have to get back there. Mr. Kim, do you know what it is?”
“Baking soda and something to make it hold. That’s all.” Splotches of red dotted his cheeks and he shook his head. “What I can do—what else? That’s so bad, bad. I can’t believe. A pharmacist to do such a thing? I can’t believe.”
“If it’s the guy I think it is, then you’d never guess. Mr. Perfect Upright Pharmacist. Head of the town council. Used to be on the school board. His wife volunteers at the local nursing home, reading to the old folks. A pharmacist, for crying out loud.” It was still hard to wrap my mind around the possibility.
I held onto the counter to keep from zigzagging all over the store. Slow down, I warned myself. There was nothing to be gained from driving back into town in my blue charger with sixshooters blazing unless I could prove my theory.
What if Connie wasn’t the only one Joseph Trent was tricking?
Other people might be in danger. I had to go slow in order to do this right. If I rushed, I’d make mistakes. Besides, I couldn’t go accusing Trent of anything to anyone until I knew more. I didn’t want to forever be snickered at—there’s the crazy woman who made up a story about the head of the town council being a murderer, they’d whisper to their children.
“You can write a note on your stationery saying what you found. I’ll need the rest of these, so that I can turn them over to the police.” Of course I had to call the police. I couldn’t, shouldn’t wait until I got home to keep Trent from poisoning another victim. The first step would be to call B. H. Hovanian. As soon as I could stop my hands from shaking.
Joseph Trent’s mild features swam before me, a little disapproving, a little tense with annoyance when the crowd wouldn’t quiet down in response to the pounding of his gavel. How could he possibly have done such a hideous, unthinkable thing?
“Here, take another sip.” Mrs. Kim guided my hand, and I drank the tea. “You are smart girl to figure this out. You maybe save some people. But you have to have your head screwed on right to do right thing.”
I laughed, at her knowledge of street slang and at the sentiments she’d expressed. I did have to be thinking clearly, or I could still blow this.
“Thanks, Mrs. Kim. You’re right. I don’t even know if it was the pharmacist, for sure. Maybe someone at the drug company switched pills.” I thought about Tony Caterra’s worker, inadvertently using materials intended for the Smith job, creating a kind of havoc that nearly resulted in a court case. This switch, intentional or not, had consequences that bore so much more weight, that changed the basic foundations of so many assumptions about the world.
“Drug companies probably have all sorts of safeguards against tampering, wouldn’t you think?” Karen frowned and shook her head. “Maybe it wasn’t your Mr. Trent, but it sure seems that way from here.”
“At least two other people that I know about died recently. People who probably were getting their drugs from Trent. I wonder if he . . . I have to make a quick phone call.” I punched out B.H.’s number and got only a recorded message. Annoyed, I said, “This is Lili Marino. I’ve got information that Mr. Hovanian needs to know. It really is life and death stuff. Please have him call me right away.”
As soon as I clicked off, Mr. Kim handed me a note reporting that he’d tested the pills I gave him and had found them to contain no Xeloda. Baking soda, he’d written and underlined the words with three slashing lines. The note would do. I folded it and slipped it into my wallet just as my cell phone rang.
“Life and death?” B.H. sounded impatient. “What’s up?”
I told him the whole story, from Connie’s suspicion to my confirmation with Mr. Kim. “I didn’t want to have the pills checked locally because if they were legitimate, then I’d be damaging Mr. Trent’s reputation—and my own—for nothing. Look, I don’t know who else might be getting bad medicine, that’s one of the things I’m really worried about. Can you do anything to stop him?”
I heard his breathing, slow and deep, and finally he said, “You get back here with the rest of those pills. Come right to my office. I’ll call you if there’s anything else I need from you. And don’t say anything to anyone.”
I crossed my fingers and yesed him. Mel and Connie Lovett had every right to know what was going on.
“This is a small token of my appreciation for taking the time to help me,” I said as I pulled a small gourd ornament from my pack and set it on the counter. “I really do thank you.”
Mr. Kim’s delighted smile confirmed that I’d done the right thing. Mrs. Kim picked up the gourd and cooed over it, then grabbed me in a hug.
“You be careful,” she said. “Lotta bastids out there.”
Karen hooked her arm through mine and we headed toward the door, then paused. “I told you he’d know. You have to drive back right away. Want company?”
“I have to make another phone call first. And, yes, I’d love company. You have anyone in mind?”
She laughed. From Mr. Kim’s window, I watched the traffic roll down the wet street and pressed the Lovetts’ number. Connie answered on the second ring.
“You were right. The pills are baking soda. I’m so sorry, Connie. You have to go see your doctor. But don’t say anything to anyone else. I called B. H. Hovanian and he made me promise not to tell anyone. I’m sure he’s going to contact the sheriff ’s office. We don’t know for sure that it’s Joseph Trent yet, but if it is, it would be a shame to have him walk away from this because he got an early warning. So keep it quiet, all right?”
She didn’t answer immediately. Finally she said, “I’m not going to tell Mel. I’m afraid of what he’d do to the man. I’ll wait until afternoon to call Doctor Axelrod and see what he wants me to do. Thanks, Lili. I . . .”
I waited while she blew her nose. “Connie, listen, you just take care of yourself. I’ll talk to you later.”
Karen looked at me, then shook her head. “I can understand a kid from the ghetto thinking it’s okay to mug some suit who’s making more money than he c
an spend in this lifetime. I can even get it why some of these corporate jerks thought it was okay to cook books so that they could have pretty cashmere throw pillows for their personal jets or something. But why would a supposedly nice guy play with the lives of people he knows this way? How could he sleep at night?”
“Valerian,” I said. “Or Ambien or something. I wonder if the pills he gave me were the real stuff. Not the same thing, of course, not nearly the profit involved.”
“Whoo boy, when the town finds out about Mr. Model Citizen, there’ll be—”
“That’s it!” I shouted. “That was the secret that Marjorie found out. Oh, man, of course it is. She found some papers, something, that showed Trent was making the switch. I don’t know what or how, but that’s what she found.”
We were both silent as the meaning of it all sank in.
Joseph Trent had murdered Marjorie Mellon. He’d nearly killed Connie, probably been responsible for the deaths of Aunt Bernie, Rod Phillips, and who knew how many others.
But the fact that the pills were phonies didn’t prove anything yet.
“This doesn’t do it, Karen. I wish I could figure out a way to prove what Trent was up to. Without more proof, he can just throw up his hands and say that this was what the drug company sent him. I don’t want that miserable excuse for a human being to walk away on this. The cops will do their thing, and I’m sure they’ll get what they need. But jeez it would feel good to nail him to the ground myself.”
Karen’s thumbs up was permission enough to go ahead.
“Mr. Kim, I need the name and the telephone number of the company that makes the drug. The billing department if you can get it for me. I’m going to tell them that I need to straighten out a bill for Xeloda.”
“Tell them they didn’t charge enough,” Karen said. “That’ll get their attention.”
He smiled, bowed his head, and then went into the back of the store. The bell above the door tinkled and two women in their seventies walked in, chattering away about their aches and pains and complaining about the rain. Mrs. Kim smiled, a different expression than when Karen and I walked in. A good businesswoman, she sweetied one and honeyed the other, asked about their grandchildren, got their prescriptions, and handed them over with a cheery thank you.
I scanned the vitamin shelves, pretending not to be impatient, pretending not to be ready to burst into laughter when the taller woman said, “She speaks a very good English for a Chinese.”
Korean, I wanted to say.
But Mr. Kim appeared just as the two women left and he handed me a slip of paper. “You ask for Mary. You tell her you do my books and you do Trent books. She will take care of you,” he said. “When you talk to her, you ask about an order for a box of fifty units of your drug. That’s how they sell it.”
“You’re the best.” I squeezed his hand, kissed Mrs. Kim on the cheek, and grabbed Karen’s hand.
“You call, tell us what happens.” The furrow between Mrs. Kim’s eyes deepened as she frowned. “You get the bastid.”
Chapter 26
It took a couple of minutes of sitting quietly in my car, eyes closed and breathing into my diaphragm, for me to get it together to make the call. Karen sat beside me, hands in her lap, head bobbing slightly as she went deeper into her meditation. My voice would disturb her, but I could wait no longer.
I punched in the numbers from Mr. Kim’s note and tapped my finger on the dashboard as the phone rang. Two, three, four rings. My anxiety level rose with each ring. Five, six. Where was the answering machine? On the seventh ring, an impatient voice said, “This is Mary.”
“Hi, Mary. My name is . . .” Not Lili Marino. I couldn’t chance Castro finding out. I fished around in my brain and grabbed the first thing that floated by. “Rhonda Fleming. I’m a bookkeeper. I do some work for Mr. Kim in Brooklyn and also for Joseph Trent up in Walden Corners.”
“Rhonda Fleming? You’re kidding me.” Her giggle segued into a booming laugh. “Tell me you have red hair and a cute nose and—”
“I know.” Let me get out of this one without blowing it, I prayed. “My mother was a fan of movies from the forties. Most people don’t even get the reference. You like those old movies?”
“Are you kidding?” Mary sounded as though she was getting ready to list every black-and-white movie she’d ever seen. Then I heard the telltale click of another call coming through on her line. Sighing, she said, “Would you hold on for a minute?”
“Sure, no problem.”
Karen quirked an eyebrow. “Tell her your boss is shouting at you. Something. Anything to cut to the chase.”
Just then, Mary returned.
“Sorry about that. So anyway I was gonna say—”
“Okay, Mr. Garner. As soon as I finish this call.” I waited a beat and then said, “Sorry, my boss needs to see me in his office two minutes ago. Listen, I’m trying to get some billing stuff straightened out. I’m looking at Trent Pharmacy’s purchase order from back in March. You know, the one for a box of fifty capsules of Xeloda? Mr. Trent thinks you undercharged him. I know that would mess up your books so I wanted to clear it up.”
Mary’s laugh boomed across the line. “Goddamned pharmacists. They’re the most honest people I ever met. Hold on, let me check the computer.”
Honest. Not the word I’d use to describe our Mr. T. A burly man passed by, tugged along the sidewalk by a corgi whose short legs windmilled forward. Two kids on scooters whooped as they flew past the car. Karen had resumed her meditation. Through the outside noise, I listened as Mary tapped away on the keys. I thought I heard a muttered “Huh” and then more tapping, following by a loud exhale.
“March? I don’t see anything on my computer from March. Or February. Or January. Are you sure you didn’t get it from one of the—oh, wait, none of the distributors carries this. Are you sure about the name of the drug?”
As sure as I was that my name was Lili Marino.
“You know, maybe he wrote down something else and I didn’t read it right. He’s almost as bad as some of those doctors. Wait a minute, that’s probably what happened.” I was winging it here, and I had to keep her from worrying over this after we’d hung up. “He makes his l’s look like d’s and his o’s and a’s are hard to tell apart. Of course, how dumb of me. Listen, I’m sorry to take up your time. He’d kill me if he knew I was bothering you about something I should have read correctly in the first place.”
“Oh, honey, don’t worry about that. I like having an excuse not to have to call people and tell them that they’re late paying their bills. You gave me a little break. So you’re all set now?”
“Yes, all taken care of. Thanks, Mary. You’re the best. Talk to you later.”
So Joseph Trent had never ordered a single dose of Xeloda. And Connie had paid him eighty dollars for each of those pills pressed out of baking soda. Two a day for three weeks. That was over three thousand dollars in his pocket each month. Two months for Connie, and who knew how many more for other unsuspecting customers. I felt sick to my stomach and at the same time filled with a rage I’d never known before.
“You look green.” Karen’s voice was soft, and when she touched my arm I nearly jumped out of my seat.
“I’ll feel much better when this is all over and Joseph Trent is in prison where he can’t hurt anyone else. God, I couldn’t stand it if he managed to get away. Strap yourself in, baby, this bucket is about to take off.”
We were sailing past the Poughkeepsie turnoff when I nearly ran us off onto the side of the road.
“I know what it is!” And this time, it really was the key that would make everything fit together. It would be part of the proof, one of the bricks that would seal Mr. Joseph Trent’s fate so that he could never hurt anyone ever again. “We have to make a detour before we hit the lawyer’s office. And if I’m right, then Marjorie Mellon will have been instrumental in nailing her own murderer.”
Linda answered the bell, a frown wreathing her face. “She’s r
esting,” she said.
Karen stood beside me as I leaned against the door so that Linda couldn’t close it on my foot. I pushed my way into the house. “I only need a second of her time. This is critical. Someone’s life may be at stake. And Marjorie’s murderer might be the guilty one. Two minutes. If she can put this whole episode to rest, maybe she’ll be able to sleep without drowning her pain in a gallon of vodka every day.”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to put it to rest.” Linda glared at me. “Our Anita loves drama, and this one can last the rest of her life, if we’re careful.”
“But not the rest of mine. I’m going up there.” I was ready to get physical, if that’s what it took, but with perfect dramatic timing, Anita Mellon appeared at the top of the stairs.
She tugged at the sash of her peach satin robe and then wobbled to the first step. “What’s all the noise? Linda, I thought—oh, it’s you.”
Great. Now I’d have to convince a drunk that something she’d packed away—or maybe even thrown away—was of critical importance to me.
“Hi, Anita. Listen, I just found out something that I think is the key to catching the person who killed your mother. If I’m right, you’ll play a huge role in this.”
Karen ran a hand over her spiked hair. “Who knows, maybe it would even be something you could sell to a movie company. You know, daughter helps catch mother’s killer. Great movie of the week stuff.”
Linda tsked and started up the stairs. “You think you’re going to get a piece of that? No way, honey. This is Anita’s. I’ll make sure her interests are protected.”
The guard dog needed a bone.
“My main interest is making sure that I’m no longer a suspect. And there’s something else, too. The person who I think killed Marjorie might be responsible for the deaths of at least three other people. That would make it even a bigger story. But I need something, proof of what was going on. I believe your mother found papers or a notebook or something that we need to turn over to the police.