A Discount for Death

Chapter Thirty-two

“You look exhausted,” Francis said. “For three months, nobody in town so much as double-parks, and then all of a sudden the whole town dips into the funny water.” He frowned at Estelle, taking her chin in his hand so that he could turn her head gently this way and that.

Estelle opened her mouth wide as if waiting for the tongue depressor. “Ah.”

Francis laughed softly. “That’s just the way it goes, I guess,” he said. Estelle watched his handsome face as his eyes read hers. Hours and hours ago, during the late-night walk home after arresting Perry Kenderman,Padrino had given her one of his rare bits of advice, and so far, she’d done a good job of ignoring it. But she knew that Bill Gastner was right.

“What’s aching to come out?” her husband asked. The index and middle fingers of each hand rested on her temples, a featherlight pressure that prompted her to close her eyes. For a long time, she didn’t say anything, as if satisfied that her thoughts could simply flow through barriers of bone and tissue, to be absorbed by her husband’s fingertips.

“I’m that transparent, Oso?”

“Si.”

She reached up, sliding a hand around each of his wrists, glad that they were alone in the hospital hallway. Behind her husband, the door to radiology stood open, and she heard the abruptly truncated swish and snap as one of the technicians stabbed an X-ray film up into the light board for viewing. Quiet voices drifted out to them as the technician and radiologist conferred.

“My pictures are ready,” Francis said, but she didn’t release his wrists. If the bruised and battered college student waiting in the emergency room was lucky, the X-rays would show nothing more than a badly sprained ankle. That wasn’t a bad price to pay for falling asleep while driving on the interstate. Her car had drifted across the shoulder, then battered back and forth between the concrete overpass barriers like a pinball. “Can you wait a few minutes?” he asked.

“Sure.” Any excuse to put off heeding Padrino ’s advice was welcome. The doctors’ lounge was quiet, and she curled up on one of the overstuffed couches, feet under her, head back against one of the cushions, eyes closed. She forced her mind to sift through what she knew, to look for connections and links. No matter what path her thoughts took, she found it inconceivable that Francis knew anything of George Enriquez’s activities.

Each one of the faces of Enriquez’s friends and family in Connie Enriquez’s kitchen looked back at her passively. She found herself asking each one the hopeless question: What do you know? And each face turned away.

Something light touched the side of her face, and she jerked awake. Her husband settled onto the couch beside her. “I probably shouldn’t have disturbed you,” he said. “You were just settling in to a pretty good session blowing z’s.”

“That’s okay,” she said. She stretched her arms straight out and rested her hands on her knees. “How’s the ankle?”

“Sprained,” Francis said. “Really sprained. It might have been less painful if she’d broken it. A few cuts and bruises otherwise. She’s a lucky kid. And by the way, Tom Pasquale said that he’d be staying central if you needed anything.”

She nodded absently. “I need to talk with you, Oso.”

“Here I are.” He turned sideways on the couch with his right elbow on the backrest, head resting in his hand. He reached out and touched her cheek again, just a tiny, single stroke with the back of his left index finger.

Estelle sat upright and shook the sleep away. She glanced at the lounge door to make sure that it was closed. “Last Sunday evening, George Enriquez called the district attorney. He offered information in exchange for a plea bargain that would get him off the grand jury’s hooks.” She turned and looked at her husband. His expression was patiently expectant. “Enriquez wanted to set up a meeting with Schroeder for Monday afternoon, to discuss what he knew. Or supposedly knew.”

“And that would be?”

“We don’t know.”

“Because he never showed up for his meeting,” Francis said.

“Correct.”

“He never told the D.A. what sort of information he had? When they were talking on the phone?”

Estelle hesitated. “Not directly, no.”

“Well, indirectly, then.”

“A hint.” Estelle shook her head in disgust that the words refused to tumble out without a struggle.

Francis cocked his head sympathetically and waited.

“According to Schroeder, George Enriquez told him on the phone that, quote, I can give you Guzman, unquote.”

The physician’s face was blank. “What’s that supposed to mean? Give you Guzman how?”

“I don’t know, Oso.” She held up a hand, but the words that would have accompanied the gesture stuck in her throat. After a moment, she said, “We’ve found evidence that indicates that George Enriquez might have been involved in bringing bulk prescription drugs into the country from Mexico. That’s just a guess. We don’t know for sure.”

Francis Guzman’s head tilted back as he mouthed a soundless ah. “The top best-sellers we were discussing earlier,” he said, and Estelle nodded. “That’s what you were looking at with the drug reference guide.”

“That was George’s book, Oso. He marked a total of eight drugs-the ones you and I talked about. Now why would he do that?”

“Maybe he kept a tally of what pills he popped,” Francis said. “There’s nothing illegal about that.”

“We think that he picked up something during the school trip to Acambaro at Christmas time. Perhaps at other times as well.”

“Last year, you mean.”

“Yes. And perhaps again in May, when the school attended the Cinco de Mayo festivities there. Maybe others.”

“How’d you find that out?”

“Well, that’s the trouble. At this point, it’s nothing more than a wild guess on my part. I know that something was brought back into the States during that trip. We’ve got video evidence that’s the case.”

“But you don’t know what it is.”

“No.”

“It could as easily be heroin or cocaine or Christmas tree ornaments.”

“I suppose.”

“Except when Enriquez told the D.A. that he could hand over information about the nefarious Guzman, that kind of leaves out the ornaments,” Francis said.

“The prescription drugs make sense to me,” Estelle persisted. “Whatever he had was packed into neat little white cardboard containers and stowed under the seat of the van. I can’t imagine him trying to move hard drugs that way. And there’s the book.”

“Shipping prescription drugs is not necessarily a crime, is it?”

“No. Not if there’s appropriate paperwork to cover the shipment and all the proper fees and so on are paid at the border. But that’s not what happened. And we’re talking boxes and boxes of the stuff. Cases. And if the drugs are fake, or counterfeit, that’s a whole new game.”

Francis regarded her silently. “You’re wondering what happened to them after they reached the U.S., right?”

She nodded.

“There are two logical paths, as far as I can see,” Francis said. “They could peddle the drugs on the street, and that would be sort of dumb, I would think. Certainly not very efficient, anyway. I can’t imagine anyone paying much for a hit of Petrosin, or whatever. The logical thing to do would be to find a pharmacist who would dispense the meds as prescriptions call for them.” He shrugged. “Buy the drugs for a reduced, bargain price in Mexico, jack up the retail, and you’ve got a good profit margin.” He frowned. “And you know, one of the trouble with drugs from some fly-by-night outfit south of the border is that there’s no FDA controls…no quality assurance that you’re getting what you paid for. Talc and sugar pills for a penny apiece, sell ’em for whatever you want.”

He tilted his head, trying to assess the expression on Estelle’s face. “And we’re back to what Enriquez told the D.A., aren’t we.” He leaned back and put his arm on the couch behind Estelle. “Let’s cut right to the chase, then. If the drugs were going to our pharmacy, and someone turned us in, we’d be nailed,” he said.

“What if George Enriquez was selling bulk Mexican pharmaceuticals to Louis,” Estelle said. “Would he do that?”

“Would George do that? Or would Louis, you mean?” She nodded. “I would hope not.” His eyes narrowed. “We might as well go all the way, and assume that if George was dealing prescription drugs, he was hitting both pharmacies in town. Louis and old man Trombley, too. Why not, querida. Bulk prescription drugs from Mexico don’t bother me half as much as the idea of fakes…that would be where the money is. And there are lots of other drugstores around the area, too-not just the two in Posadas. Maybe he wasn’t crapping in his own nest, so to speak.”

“Oso, the implication was that George could turn over evidence that the D.A. would be interested in, something that had to do with Guzman, ” Estelle said. “That wouldn’t point to a drugstore in Las Cruces. Guzman means you or me.”

“And you’re thinking, Why didn’t Enriquez just say ‘I can give you Herrera,’ if he knew my pharmacist was caught up in something.”

“Yes.”

“Because I’m the one who runs the clinic,” Francis said. He shrugged. “Alan Perrone and I. Alan isn’t married to the leadoff witness in a grand jury investigation. If Enriquez thought he had information that would make your life miserable, then it’s logical that he might use it to save his own sorry hide.”

“Well, I’m miserable. He succeeded.”

Francis reached out and gently massaged the back of her neck. “Do what you always do, querida.”

“I’m finding that hard.”

“Just turn over all the stones. All I can tell you is this: I went to school with Louis, and I think I know him pretty well. I can’t imaging he’d risk something so stupid. But,” and he shrugged helplessly.

“We don’t know, do we? I don’t pay attention to how he runs the pharmacy, any more than he watches over what Alan and I do down the hall. Too trusting, I suppose.”

“There was an understanding between the three of you that you’d sell prescriptions as inexpensively as you could.”

“Yes. And there’s a fair-sized clientele that pays nothing at all, for drugs or services, either one…or maybe a few token pesos. But we knew that would happen going in. That was part of the deal.”

Estelle fell silent.

“By the way, I don’t know anything about Guy Trombley, other than what the rest of the town knows: He and his drugstore have been here forever. I’ve never had a patient complain to me about anything he does…except once in a while about the price of things. On a few occasions, I’ve been a little irritated with his second-guessing the doctor’s orders, but there’s probably not a pharmacist on the planet who doesn’t do that once in a while.”

“That’s not what worries me,” Estelle said.

“It sure worries me, querida. We have a lot to lose.”

She turned and looked at her husband. “George Enriquez knew something. We don’t know what. He contacted Dan Schroeder. And then someone blew George’s brains out. It’s not about the drugs, Oso. It’s about murder.”

“You’re telling me that somehow Louis Herrera might be involved in Enriquez’s death?”

“I don’t know what I think.”

“You could as easily imagine that Dan Schroeder is involved.”

Estelle’s face went blank. “Why would I think that?”

“Enriquez called him, then ended up dead. It’s a fair assumption.”

“The district attorney did not kill George Enriquez,” Estelle said.

“And how do you know this?”

“I just do.”

“Ah. La intuicion femenina. But remember, he had a great alibi. In court, busy with the grand jury that was supposedly seeking an indictment against Enriquez…”

“Oso, get a grip. If that were the case, there would have been no reason for Enriquez to call Schroeder, or in the bizarre event that he did, no reason for Schroeder to tell me about the call in the first place.”

“It was just a thought.” He held up both hands. “What do you want to do, then?”

“I’d like to look through the drug inventory down at the clinic.” She watched his left eyebrow drift upward. “Will you help me do that?”

He shook his head wearily. “This is really scary, querida.” He drew in a deep breath and glanced at his watch. “This is in the category of ‘no good deed goes unpunished.’ ”

“I need to know,” Estelle said.

“We’ll do whatever you have to do,” Francis said. He reached out and squeezed her leg just above the knee, rocking her gently back and forth. “This is going to work out, one way or another. We do what we have to do. You want to focus on the drugs that Enriquez marked in the book?”

“I think that was his study guide,” Estelle said, nodding. “That’s a good place to start. That will tell me if I’m crazy or not.”

“Louis should be there, you know. The pharmacy is his bailiwick. But I guess that’s not what you had in mind.”

“No.”

Francis smiled and held up a hand. “Which prompts a question. I have a key that will get us into the pharmacy, no problem. Should you then decide to go through all of Guy Trombley’s stock, too, how are you going to do that? He’s not going to be overjoyed at that prospect.”

Estelle pushed herself up off the couch and straightened her suit. “I hope it doesn’t go that far, Oso. I have no connection with Guy Trombley. I do have a connection with Louis Herrera. That’s why I want to start there. If it does go further…that’s the nice thing about a warrant. It won’t matter if Trombley is overjoyed or not.”