Red, Green, or Murder

Chapter Twenty

“So,” Estelle mused, “if tests confirm the presence of excessive histamines in Mr. Payton’s body that match the source in the wine, we’re left with some interesting questions.”

“You think there’s any doubt?” I paused. “Okay, after listening to Louis, I’m convinced. Either there was chemical added to the wine, or there wasn’t. It’s that simple, it seems to me. The questions are who…and when.” I took a deep breath. “And why.”

Pharmacist Louis Herrera shifted uncomfortably in his chair, as if just knowing about histamine diphosphate made him somehow guilty by association.

“Ricardo Mondragon delivered the food from the restaurant to Payton’s house,” Torrez said. He rested his elbows on his knees, his left hand supporting his head, and stared at the floor. “He says that when he got there, the old man was up and around, drinkin’ wine.”

“Ricardo isn’t capable of any of this,” I said. “And if someone intercepted his delivery, he would have told us.”

“You think?”

“I know,” I said. “For one thing, he would have no reason to hide that bit of information if he was privy to it. And regardless of what else might or might not go on in his head, Ricardo has his loyalties to the Don Juan and its customers. That job is his life.”

Torrez straightened up and continued his examination of Pat Gabaldon’s cell phone through the plastic bag. “Somebody stopped by Payton’s after that. Enough time to distract George for a few minutes with something, enough time to spike the wine. I mean, how long would that take? A few seconds?”

“I have no brainstorms at the moment,” I said, and turned to Estelle. “Do you?”

“No, sir. You were supposed to go over to his house, but didn’t. From the moment Ricardo delivered the food, at about 11:50, until Phil Borman found the body around one-thirty or so gives us a considerable window of opportunity.”

“And that’s assuming that Phil Borman ain’t lyin’,” Torrez interjected.

“The histamine could have been put in the wine at any time…not even today, necessarily.”

“Come on,” I said, feeling miserable. “Maggie or Phil wouldn’t…” and I interrupted myself, knowing I was just talking to make noise. We all knew that there was no accounting for people’s motivations, no matter how affable, or good natured, or altruistic they appeared to their neighbors and business associates.

The room fell silent, and I could hear the hum of the little electric clock on the wall above the phone.

I broke the silence. “Where would I buy some of that?” I asked Louis, nodding at the histamine.

“Well, you wouldn’t,” he said. “Someone with an appropriate license would buy it from a pharmaceutical supplier.”

“Then where would I get it? Where would I steal it, if I had to?”

Herrera hesitated, turning the bottle this way and that. “Well, I suppose it depends on how desperate you were. We…I mean here at the hospital…we store it in the compounding room behind the pharmacy. That’s secure, but it isn’t Fort Knox. There are times when someone could walk in. If they knew just what they were looking for, and where to look, it would only take a second to snatch the bottle.”

He brightened at a memory. “In fact, I worked at a place when I was in college where a back door from the pharmacy opened right into the alley. Lots of times in the summer, they’d keep it open for the air.”

“You use it often? That stuff, I mean.”

“Ah, no. In all honesty, I haven’t used it since I started here. That’s a year and a half.”

“But if you did…” I primed.

“The only use that I’m familiar with is the compound where we mix histamine diphosphate with-well, basically, caffeine. Pharmaceutical caffeine, of course.” He grinned. “We don’t just dump a tablespoon of this into black coffee.”

“And used for what?”

“Well, it’d be helpful to talk with Doctor Guzman or Perrone, but basically it’s used as a treatment for multiple sclerosis patients. The histamine-caffeine combination acts as some sort of neural trigger.” He laced his fingers together around the little bottle. “That’s the theory, anyway. The compound somehow establishes the neural pathway that the MS destroys.” He shrugged. “I don’t think anyone actually knows how it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. But when it does, the results can be pretty spectacular.”

“Multiple sclerosis,” Estelle repeated.

“Right.”

“That’s all the histamine diphosphate that you have?”

“That’s it.” He hesitated. “Here in Posadas, I’d think that there are only two places to get this. One is here. The other is over at Posadas Pharmacy. Gus Trombley would have some, certainly. You might want to talk with him. That’s kind of an old-fashioned store, and he’s an old-fashioned kind of guy.” He paused, and I wasn’t sure that he’d meant the comment as a compliment. “He doesn’t think much of us.”

“That’s because you’re the new kid on the block,” I said. “He’s had Posadas County to himself for thirty-five years.”

“And he’s had his way of doing things for that long, too,” the young man said diplomatically. He held up both hands helplessly. “I’ve told you the sum total of what I know about this stuff. Like I said, I’d be happy to do some more research on it. See what I can come up with.”

“We appreciate that, Louis,” Estelle said. “Anything at all beyond what you’ve already told us.”

He looked at his watch, and then heavenward. “If there’s nothing else…”

Estelle reached across and extended her hand, shaking his warmly. “Thanks, Louis. Thanks for dragging out so late.”

“I’ll survive,” he laughed. “Now that I’m here, what I should do is spend a few hours in my office. I’ve got a stack of inventory control forms about like this,” and he held his hand two feet off the floor. “Get a head start.”

“We’d appreciate your keeping all of this confidential.”

He frowned at her in good-natured reproof. “You don’t need to tell me that, ma’am.” He shook hands with Bobby and me, and closed the lounge door behind him as he left.

“So we have the means,” I said. “That’s if the blood work corroborates the idea. Mix some histamine diphosphate in the wine, and there you go. That would take just a few seconds.” I took a deep breath. “And that means that someone is a real opportunist.”

It would be midnight by the time we reached Guy Trombley’s pharmacy. He’d be grumpy but cooperative…and inquisitive at the odd hour. “Do you want to call Guy, or do I?” I said, looking first at Estelle and then at the sheriff. “Or do you want to wait for a few hours and catch him in a better mood? I don’t see much point in waiting, if you’re willing.”

“I don’t care what mood he’s in,” Torrez said. “There’s things we need to find out.”

“Absolutely,” Estelle agreed. “And another thing that can’t wait. If we’re right about all this, there’s likely a little bottle of histamine diphosphate floating around somewhere. I’d hate to see the top come off of that.”

“That would put somebody’s garbage-raiding mutt into orbit,” I said.

“That’s exactly it,” Estelle said. “What do we do with an empty bottle? We toss it in the trash.”

“There’s not a lot we can do about that,” I said. “Everything ends up in the landfill.” Estelle’s eyebrows puckered in a frown, and I had visions of all of us, like a flood of rats, ransacking the heaps of garbage at the landfill, looking for one tiny bottle.

“I’ll call Guy,” Torrez said, and pushed himself to his feet, headed for the end table where he rummaged through the phone book for a moment and then dialed. After half a dozen rings, he frowned and then looked at me with exasperation.

“Guy,” he said, “this is Sheriff Torrez. Get back to me ASAP.” He rattled off his cell phone number and then hung up. “Damn answering machines,” he said, and mimicked a mechanical voice. ‘If this is an emergency, please dial 9-1-1.’”

“You can’t blame him, Bobby. I bet it gets old with all the hypochondriacs calling for aspirin in the middle of the night.”

Torrez yawned and gazed thoughtfully at the clock. “I’ll go over to his house and shake him out of bed,” he said. “Meet you at the drug store in a few minutes?” Before either of us had a chance to answer, a knuckle rapped on the door, and Torrez stepped across and opened it.

Dr. Francis Guzman leaned against the door jamb, looking as tired as the rest of us.

“Hey, guys,” he said. “We have an ambulance inbound from an accident east of here on the interstate. Before we get wound up with that, I wanted to let you know about Patrick Gabaldon.” He held his hand to the left side of his head. “He was hit twice, really hard…hairline skull fractures and some subdural hematoma and brain swelling that’s a worry. We have him stabilized now and are looking to airlift him to University Hospital as soon as we can.”

“Is he conscious?” I asked, and Francis shook his head. “What about the neck wound?”

“He lost a lot of blood, but whoever assaulted him didn’t work it just right.” The doctor held his left index finger on the angle of his own jaw, then drew a line along his jaw until he touched the point of his chin. “Ran right along his jaw bone, but that protected the major vessels. Nasty, but manageable.”

“So he can’t talk to us,” I said.

“No. Not the way we have him sedated. It’s going to be touch and go. Whoever hit him really tagged him a good one. Twice. Really hard.” Francis patted the door jamb as he pushed himself upright.

“Hit him with what? Any guesses?”

“I have no idea,” Francis replied. “There were no distinguishable marks, and the wound is not really focused, the way being swatted with a lug wrench would be. You’re looking for something blunt, maybe kinda flat. That’s as good as it gets at the moment. Okay?”

“You bet. Thanks.”

“I saw Louis out in the hallway,” the physician said. “In the past ten years, I think I’ve treated half a dozen patients where I prescribed the H-C cocktail. It’s not common, by any means. Not here, anyway.”

“We need a list of those,” Torrez said.

“Not even with a warrant, Bobby. We just don’t do that.”

The sheriff actually smiled. “I know you don’t,” he said affably. “I just said that was something we needed. Didn’t say we were going to get it.”