Peggy Sue Got Murdered

by Tess Gerritsen

  "There's your answer."

  "Here's the problem. It's a weird peak, biphasic. Not quite an opiate, not quite cocaine. I've never seen it before."

  "Impurities. Someone cut two drugs together."

  "Maybe."

  "Wait till the state IDs it. It'll just take a week."

  "And in the meantime?"

  "You've only got two victims."

  She leaned forward, on his desk. "Davis, I don't want any more victims. And I'm afraid we're about to get more."

  "Why?"

  "After the second woman rolled in, I got on the phone. Called around town to all the hospitals. I found out Hancock General admitted three ODs yesterday. Two were obviously suicide attempts. But the third was a young man brought in by his parents. He had a cardiac arrest in the ER. They managed to pull him back. He's in the ICU now, still unconscious and critical."

  "Hancock's a busy ER. You'd expect ODs to show up there."

  "I spoke to the hospital lab. They ran a routine gas chromatography on the man's blood. It turned up a biphasic peak on the narcotics screen. Not quite an opiate, not quite cocaine."

  Wheelock said nothing. He simply sat there, frowning at her.

  "Davis," she said, "We're seeing the start of an epidemic."

  3

  Wheelock shook his head. "It's too early to call," he said. "Too early to go to the press. You've only got three vics-"

  "Guess where the young man lived? South Lexington. Within five blocks of where the two women were found. I'm telling you, there's something new, something that's killing off junkies. And South Lexington seems to be its point of origin. Here's what I think you should do, Davis. Get on the phone to the mayor. Call a joint press conference. Get the news out before we get more John and Jane Does cluttering up my basement."

  "I don't know."

  "What don't you know?"

  "It could be a single batch. Maybe that's all it is."

  "Or maybe there's a whole ton of the stuff sitting in some pusher's warehouse."

  Agitated, Wheelock sat back and ran his hand through his gray hair. "All right. I'll talk to the mayor. It's a bad time to be bringing this up, what with the city bicentennial and all. He's launching his campaign this week-"

  "Davis. People are dying."

  "All right, all right. I'll call him this afternoon."

  Satisfied that she'd made her point, M. J. left Wheelock's office and headed down to the basement. In the corridor, two of the overhead fluorescent lights flickered like a strobe flash. Everything seemed to be wearing down, wearing out. The building. The city.

  And there they were, celebrating the bicentennial. What are we celebrating exactly, Mr. Mayor? Two hundred years of decline?

  Back in her office, M. J. considered drinking the last dregs of the coffee pot. No, she wasn't that desperate. Two files lay on her desk, files she couldn't complete, perhaps would never be able to complete. One was Jane Doe's. The other was for Xenia Vargas, the second woman from South Lexington. She, at least, had been found with ID in her purse, though they hadn't yet confirmed Vargas was really her name. Nor had they been able to contact any relatives.

  Two dead women. And no one who could tell her how-or why-they had died.

  Off in a corner of her desktop was a notepad, with the name Dr. Michael Dietz scribbled on it. He was the ER doctor she'd spoken to earlier, the one who'd admitted the male overdose victim at Hancock General.

  It was five o'clock; she could hear the evening morgue attendants laughing in the prep room, enjoying the brief and blessed lull before the madness of nightfall.

  M. J. changed into her street clothes, pulled on her coat, and left the building.

  She didn't drive home. Instead, she drove to South Lexington, to Hancock General Hospital.

  It sat like a fortress in a war zone, its parking lot surrounded by a barbed wire fence, the front entrance overhung by surveillance cameras. The ER clerk was sitting behind glass-bulletproof, M. J. surmised. He spoke through a microphone; the tinny voice coming through the speaker made M. J. think of a McDonald's drive-through. "How can I help you?" he asked.

  "I'm Dr. Novak," she said. "ME's office. I want to see a Dr. Michael Dietz. It's about a patient of his."

  "I'll page him."

  Dr. Dietz emerged a few minutes later, looking like some weary veteran of the trenches. A stethoscope was looped around his neck, and his scrub pants were splattered with blood. "You just caught me," he said. "I was going off shift. You're from the ME?"

  "We talked earlier. About that overdose."

  "Oh, yeah. He's up in Intensive Care. Geez, I can't remember his name…"

  "Can we go up to the Unit?" she asked. "I'd like to look over his chart."

  "I guess it's okay. Seeing as you're official and all."

  They headed to the elevators. The hospital looked the same as M. J. remembered it, dingy linoleum floors, halls painted a bizarre aqua color, gurneys shoved up against the walls. Through the doorway on the right was the cafeteria, with its echoes of clinking dishes and scraping chairs. On the overhead paging system, a bored voice read out a list of doctors' names and extension numbers. Dr. Dietz moved like a sleepwalker in tennis shoes.

  "I see the place hasn't changed any," said M. J.

  "Did you used to work here?"

  "No. I did my residency over at St. Luke's. But I knew a patient here. A relative."

  He laughed. "I'm not sure I'd want any of my relatives here."

  "Didn't matter to her. She didn't know where she was, anyway."

  They stepped into the staff elevator and crowded in beside nurses and orderlies. Everyone stared straight ahead, as though mesmerized by the changing floor numbers.

  "So are you from the city?" asked Dietz.

  "A native. And you?"

  "Cleveland. I'm going back."

  "Don't like it here?"

  "Let's put it this way. Compared to this town, Cleveland is the Garden of Eden."

  They got off on the third floor and headed into Intensive Care.

  The Unit was set up like a giant stable, with stalls marked out by curtains. Only two beds were empty, M. J. noted; not much preparation for an unexpected disaster. And there was a full moon. That was always a harbinger of a busy night.

  The patient was in Bed 13. Only comatose patients went into that bed, Dietz said. Why scare some conscious patient? When you're fighting for your life, even dumb superstitions take on frightening significance.

  The man's name was Nicos Biagi. He was a husky fellow, about twenty, with biceps and pectorals that had obviously done time in weightlifting salons. There were seven tubes snaking out of various parts of his body-a grim prognostic indicator. He lay utterly flaccid. According to the chart, he was unresponsive to even the most intense of stimuli.

  "Twenty-four hours and not a twitch," said the nurse. "Plus, we're having trouble stabilizing his pressure. It goes haywire on us, shoots up, then bottoms out. I'm going crazy, juggling all these meds."

  M. J. flipped through the chart, quickly deciphering the hurried notes of the ICU resident. The patient had been found unconscious in his car, parked outside his parents' apartment. He'd been sprawled on the front seat. Beside him on the floor had been his kit: a tourniquet, syringe and needle, spoon, and cigarette lighter. Somehow, during the frantic rush to stabilize the patient and transport him to the ER, the EMTs had lost track of the syringe. They thought the family might have it; the family claimed the EMTs had it. The police said they'd never even seen it. In any event, the blood toxicology screen would provide the answers.

  At least, it should.

  They'd found out a few things. A 0.13 ethanol level proved the man was legally drunk. Also, he'd been pumped full of steroids-something M. J. could have guessed, judging from those bulging biceps. What the tests hadn't answered was the primary question: Which drug had put him into the coma?

  All the usual medical steps had been taken. Despite a treatment of glucose, Narcan, and thiamine, he hadn't awak
ened. The only therapeutic strategy left was supportive: maintain his blood pressure, breathe for him, keep his heart beating. The rest was up to the patient.

  "You have no history at all?" asked M. J. "Nothing about what he shot up? Where he got it from?"

  "Not a thing. His parents are in the dark. They had no idea their kid was a junkie. That's probably why he did it in the car. So they wouldn't know about it."

  "I've got two women in the morgue. Both with the same biphasic peak on gas chromatography. Like your man."

  Dietz sighed. "Terrific. Another wonder drug hits our streets."

  "When will your final tox report be done?"

  "I don't know. It's been twenty-four hours already. If this is something new, it may take weeks to identify. I tell ya, these pharmaceutical whizzes out there crank out drugs like new shoes. By the time we catch up with the latest fad, they're on to something else."

  "You agree, then? That it's something new?"

  "Oh, yeah. I've seen it all come down the pike. PCP, tropical ice, fruit loops. This is something different. Something bad. I think the only reason this guy's still alive, and your two women aren't, is that he's a big fella. All that muscle mass. Takes a bigger dose to kill him."

  It still might kill him , thought M. J., gazing at the comatose patient.

  "If this goes to the media, can I use you as a source?" she asked.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I think a warning ought to go out on the streets. That there's bad stuff making the rounds."

  Dietz didn't answer right away. He just kept looking at Nicos Biagi. "I don't know," he said at last.

  "What do you mean, you don't know? It'd just be to voice your opinion. To confirm my statement."

  "I don't know," he said again. He was gripping the IV pole. "It's not as if you need me. You've got the authority."

  "I could use the backup."

  "It's just… the press. I'm not crazy about talking to them."

  "Okay, then just let me cite you by name. Would that be okay?"

  He sighed. "I guess so. But I'd rather you didn't." Abruptly, he straightened and glanced at his watch. "Look, I have to get going. I'll catch you later."

  M. J. watched him walk out of the ICU, his shoulders hunched forward as though his whole body was straining to break into a sprint. What was he afraid of? she wondered. Why wouldn't he talk to the press?

  She was on her way out of the ICU when she spotted the Biagis, coming in to visit their son. She guessed at once who they were, just by the grief in their faces. Mrs. Biagi was dark-haired, dark-eyed, and her face was seamed with worry. Mr. Biagi was much older and bald; he looked too numb to be feeling much of anything at the moment. They went to Nicos's bedside, where they stood for a moment in silence. Mrs. Biagi stroked her son's hair and began to sing softly, something in Italian. A lullaby, perhaps.

  Then she faltered, dropped her head to her son's chest, and began to cry.

  Mr. Biagi didn't say a word.

  M. J. walked out of the ICU.

  In her haste to leave behind that scene, she took a wrong turn in the hallway. Instead of heading to the elevators, she found herself in a different wing, a part of the hospital she hadn't seen before. White walls and gleaming linoleum told her this was a new addition, constructed only recently. Behind a glass case on the wall were displayed various mementoes of the wing's opening: photographs of hospital officials at the ribbon cutting. Shots of a celebrity black-tie dinner. A bronze plaque, engraved with The Georgina Quantrell Wing. And a newspaper article with the headline: "Cygnus president dedicates multimillion-dollar drug rehab addition." The accompanying photograph showed a sober-faced Adam Quantrell, posing beside the plaque.

  For a long time, M. J. stood by that case, studying the photos, the news articles. Drug rehab? A surprising crusade for a man who made his fortune from drugs. Her gaze traveled the length of the case, paused at a teaching display of commonly abused drugs. Mounted on the board was a multicolored variety of capsules. And below it was the label: "Display courtesy of the Cygnus Company."

  That's when it clicked in M. J.'s head. Dead junkies. A new drug on the street. Cygnus Pharmaceuticals.

  And a matchbook with Adam Quantrell's phone number.

  She immediately went to a pay phone and called Beamis in Homicide.

  He was just leaving for home and did not seem particularly eager to prolong his work day.

  "Let me put it this way, Novak," he said. "In the grand scheme of things, drug ODs are not high on my list of priorities."

  "Think about it, Lou. What's an addict doing with Quantrell's personal phone number? Why was Quantrell so eager to look at the body? He's hiding something."

  "No, he's not."

  "I think he is."

  "They were junkies, Novak. They lived on the edge, they fell off. It's not homicide. It's not suicide. It's stupidity. Social Darwinism, survival of the smartest."

  "Maybe that's what you think. Maybe that's what Quantrell thinks. But I've still got two dead women."

  "Forget Quantrell. The man's into drug rehab, not drug pushing."

  "Lou, this is a new drug. I spoke to an ER doctor here who says he's never seen it before. To cook up a brand new drug, you need a biochemist. And a lab. And a factory. Cygnus has it all."

  "It's a legitimate company."

  "With maybe an illegitimate branch?"

  "Christ, Novak. I'm not going to hassle Quantrell."

  "I heard you did a favor for him. On the side."

  There was a pause. "Yeah. So what?"

  "So what were you doing for him out in South Lexington?"

  "Look, you want to hear the details?" Beamis snapped. "Then you talk to him." He hung up.

  M. J. stared at the dead receiver. Well, maybe she had pushed Lou too far on this one. My big mouth, she thought. One of these days it's going to get me into trouble.

  She hung up. Turning away from the phone, she saw Mr. and Mrs. Biagi walk out of the ICU. They were leaning on each other, holding each other up, as though grief had sapped all their strength.

  M. J. thought of their son Nicos, with the seven tubes in his body. She thought of Jane Doe and Xenia Vargas, both relegated to the approximate level of primordial muck in Beamis's scale of social Darwinism. Something was killing these people, something that had sunk its evil roots into the Projects.

  Her old neighborhood.

  On her way back to the freeway, she drove up South Lexington. In the last few years, nothing had changed. The seven Project buildings still looked like prison towers, the playground still had a bent basketball hoop, and teenagers still hung out on the corner of Franklin and South Lexington. But the faces were different. It wasn't just that these were different people. There was a new hardness to their gazes, a wariness, as they watched her drive by. Only then did the thought strike her.

  To them she was an outsider. Someone to be watched, someone to be guarded against. Someone not to be trusted.

  They don't know I'm one of them. Or I was.

  She continued up South Lexington and took the freeway on-ramp.

  Traffic was still heavy moving north. It was the evening exodus to the suburbs, a daily hemorrhage of white-collar types to Bellemeade, Parris, Clarendon, and Surry Heights. Those who could afford to flee, fled. Even M. J., a city girl born and bred, now called the suburbs home. Just last year, she'd bought a house in Bellemeade. It seemed a logical move, financially speaking, and she'd reached the point in life when she had to make a commitment-any commitment, even if it was only to a three-bedroom cape. Bellemeade was a hybrid neighborhood, close enough to town to make it feel like part of the city, yet far enough away to put it squarely in the safety of the suburbs.

  On impulse, she bypassed the Bellemeade turnoff and stayed on the freeway. It took her a half hour to drive to Surry Heights.

  Along the way, the traffic thinned out, the scenery changed. Cookie-cutter houses gave way to trees and rolling hills, newly green from those proverbial April showers. W
hite fences and horses appeared-a sure harbinger of old money. She took the Surry Heights exit onto Fair Wind Drive.

  Fair Wind sounded a bit yachtie, she thought, but it was a nice name for a road, and appropriate, as the owners of the mansions she drove past no doubt also owned major yachts.

  Two miles down the road she came to the Quantrell residence. There was no mistaking the place. Two stone pillars flanked the driveway entrance; the name Quantrell was spelled out in wrought iron lettering mounted on one of the pillars. The gate hung open to visitors. M. J. drove through, and followed the curving driveway to the house.

  There were three cars parked out front, a Jaguar and two Mercedes. She parked her five-year-old Subaru next to the Jag and climbed out. Nice paint job, she thought, eyeing the Jag's burgundy finish. The interior was spotless, with not a clue to its owner's personality in sight. No bumper stickers, either, though one that said Let them eat cake would have been appropriate.

  She went to the front door and rang the bell. It pealed like a church chime in a cavern.

  The door opened, and a man wearing a butler-type uniform gazed down at her. "Yes?" he said.

  M. J. cleared her throat. "I'm Dr. Novak. Medical examiner's office. I wonder if I could speak to Mr. Adam Quantrell."

  "Is Mr. Quantrell expecting you?"

  "No. But I'm here on official business."

  For a moment the man seemed to consider her request. Then he opened the door wider. "Come in."

  Surprised at how easy that was, she stepped inside. In wonder, she gazed up at a crystal chandelier. It was just a modest little entry hall, she thought. Nothing you wouldn't find in a typical castle. The floor was gleaming terazzo, and a massive banister traced a staircase to a second-floor gallery. Paintings-mostly modern, vaguely disturbing, wild blots of color-hung in various places of honor.

  "If you'll wait here," said the butler.

  He disappeared through a side door. She heard the distant sound of a woman's laughter, the strains of classical music. Oh, great. He's got a party going, she thought. Terrific timing, Novak.

  She turned as she heard footsteps. Adam Quantrell emerged from the side room, quietly shutting the door behind him. He was dressed formally, black tie, ruffled white shirt. He did not look pleased to see her.