Final Undertaking: A Buryin' Barry Mystery (Buryin' Barry Series)

by Mark de Castrique

  I entered the store a few minutes before six, which earned me a scowl from the teenage girl behind the register.

  “Is Mr. Larson here?”

  “In the back. Are you buying something?”

  “No. You can close out the register.”

  She flashed me a smile of braces. Saturday night was definitely date night.

  A waist-high counter at the back of the store separated the customers from the shelves of pharmaceuticals on the other side. I didn’t see Doug so I rang the bell beside the “drop prescription” slot.

  “Just a second,” he called.

  I stepped farther along the counter and saw him kneeling in front of a large safe. He closed the door, yanked up the handle, and spun the combination dial a few times.

  “The family jewels?” I asked.

  “Oh, hi, Barry.” Doug got to his feet. “The junkies would walk over the family jewels to get what’s in here.”

  The pharmacist wore a white lab coat and blue name badge. His round, pale face and thick glasses made him look like a snow owl.

  “Any of it OxyContin?”

  His eyes blinked twice. “Yes. I have to keep it under lock and key even when we’re open. Guess you don’t have to worry about your customers stealing any drugs.”

  “No. They’re certified pain free. I hear that stuff’s dangerous.”

  “Can be. The manufacturer’s being sued. People say it works so well they get hooked. They claim the company should have put out more warnings.”

  “But it’s prescription.”

  “And when the doctor stops prescribing, the only prescription form needed on the street is a couple of Andrew Jacksons—forty dollars a pill rather than four. That’s why I keep my safe locked.”

  “How easy is it to overdose?”

  Doug grabbed a bottle of Tylenol from a counter display. “Take too many, you can O.D. on these. Same with OxyContin. But I don’t know anyone who crushes, snorts, chews, or injects Tylenol. That’s how people die from OxyContin.”

  Like Lucy Kowalski, I thought.

  Doug gave me an inquisitive look. “Why the interest? Are they prescribing OxyContin for Tommy Lee?”

  “No. Maybe.” I decided the background information on Mitch Kowalski wasn’t confidential. “The wife of the man who shot Tommy Lee died two weeks ago in Florida. Police think it was an accidental overdose of OxyContin. She probably chewed the pills.”

  “There you go. That could do it. I always make customers sign a sheet that they’ve read the warning for time-released opioids.”

  “Her name was Lucy Kowalski. Ever fill a prescription for her?”

  He stared at the ceiling, thinking. “No. I don’t believe so. I can check the records.” He looked at his watch. “But I’m supposed to be at the hospital at six-thirty.”

  “Someone I know?”

  He shook his head. “I work an evening shift in their pharmacy. A little extra to help make ends meet.”

  “I didn’t mean to keep you. I actually dropped by to pick up some cold medicine for Susan Miller. She said you had some samples.”

  Doug walked back to a side shelf. “Yes. Got them in first of the week. ‘Cold-B-Gone.’ It’s like Cold-Eeze, but formulated for a combination viral and allergenic attack. The common summer cold. Everything’s a specialty these days.” He slid a box of the lozenges over the counter. “Tell her to let me know how they work. I won’t recommend them if they’re just marketing hype.”

  “Thanks, Doug. But how much medicine’s not marketing hype these days?”

  He laughed. “You got that right. Now days customers tell me what brand prescription they want. One elderly lady asked for that Viagra with the side-effect of a four-hour erection for her husband.”

  “Sounds like a combustible couple.”

  “Nah. She just wanted to keep him from rolling out of bed.”

  Susan had gotten back to her condo a few minutes before I arrived. She popped two of Doug’s samples in her mouth, and then mumbled would I like dinner.

  “Do you want to go out? No sense cooking if you don’t feel well.”

  She plopped on the sofa. “I really just want to get off my feet. I’ll fix something simple.”

  “How ’bout take-out? I could go for Chinese.”

  An hour later, I was clearing the remnants of tangerine chicken and beef with broccoli from Susan’s dining room table. Susan was back on the sofa, but she’d changed into a blue and white jogging suit and she was nursing a cup of green tea. So far Doug Larson’s miracle cold remedy had had little effect.

  “I’ll load the dishwasher,” I said. “Why don’t you get into bed?”

  “I hate that I’m sick. I’ve never slept with a deputy before.”

  “Wait till Reece gives me my handcuffs.”

  As I carried the dishes into her kitchen, my cell phone vibrated on my belt. I was setting my load in the sink when I heard a chirping noise and saw Susan heading for her bedroom.

  “Damn. My pager’s beeping.”

  With an uneasy premonition, I flipped open my phone. The incoming number belonged to Fletcher.

  “Barry?” His voice was a brittle rasp. “She’s dead. Oh, God, she died while I was taking her picture. The girl is dead.”

  Chapter Six

  No one spoke above a whisper even though the person at the center of our attention could no longer hear us.

  Susan, Ray Chandler, and Judi Perez stood conferring about the monitor readouts. To a casual glance, the young woman lying in the hospital bed beside them appeared to be sleeping. I didn’t need to see the blank video screens or touch the girl’s body to recognize the sleep of the dead.

  The room in the intensive care unit was smaller than Tommy Lee’s so Fletcher and I crammed ourselves into a corner near a storage cabinet. Fletcher rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, an expensive Canon bouncing against his chest. He hadn’t said two words since Susan and I arrived.

  Susan had immediately become involved with Chandler and Perez, and I hesitated to speak lest I interrupt their conversation. After five minutes, Chandler and Perez left, but not before giving Fletcher piercing stares as they passed him.

  “I didn’t touch her,” Fletcher muttered.

  Susan laid her hand on the girl’s shoulder in a final gesture of compassion.

  “What happened?” I asked her.

  “Cardiac arrest is the preliminary diagnosis.”

  “A heart attack? Is that something associated with head trauma?”

  Susan walked toward us, and then stopped at the foot of the bed. She looked back at the girl. “Not at her age. But she’d suffered abdominal as well as brain injuries, and had received four units of blood. Her pulse had been through more ups and downs than an elevator.” She turned to me. “Short of an autopsy, we can only speculate, but we’ve enough potential causes and complications that holding an autopsy would probably be a waste of time and money.”

  “And no family to give consent,” I added.

  Susan spoke to me but glanced at Fletcher. “You can seek an autopsy if you think there’s malpractice or foul play involved.”

  “I don’t care what that nurse said, I didn’t touch her.” Fletcher held up his camera. “I took a few pictures like I told Barry I would.”

  Susan’s glance at Fletcher turned to a hard glare. “Judi said you were bending right over the girl’s face when the heart monitor went ballistic.”

  Fletcher looked at me as if seeking some support. “I’d only been in the room about thirty seconds. I thought I’d get a close-up of her hair.”

  Susan pressed on. “Really? Her head was pretty well shaved from surgery.”

  “I didn’t know that. I wanted a color sample to build my computer rendering. Then she said something.”

  “She spoke?” In my excitement, the question came out as a shout.

  “Only a few words. More like muttering in her sleep.”

  “Could you make them out?”

  “Billy.
I’m pretty sure one of the words was Billy. She repeated it a few times.”

  Maybe Billy was Lincoln’s first name. I wanted to write it down and realized a smart investigator would be carrying a pen and pad. “What else?”

  “I think they were letters. R and D. She only said them once and took a short breath in between each. Then the monitor started beeping and the nurse ran in.”

  “What do you think?” I asked Susan. “Would she come out of a coma if she were dying?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. We expected her to regain consciousness and her erratic pulse rate could have accelerated it.”

  I looked down at the motionless girl. “And killed her in the process.”

  “The brain’s the most complex organ in the body, so injuries to it create the most complex consequences. I don’t know anything else we could have done.” Susan’s assessment was neither flippant nor callused. Every patient was precious to her, and the girl without a name had been a life entrusted to her care.

  “We’ll do everything we can to find her family.” I turned to Fletcher. “I still want that composite and anything you can create on the man with her.” I touched the latch on the cabinet. “Her personal things in here?” I opened the door and saw a plastic bag.

  Susan grabbed a box of latex gloves from a nearby trauma cart. “Better glove up.”

  The girl’s clothes had been cut off her. Blood soaked through parts of the wadded fabric. “Where can I examine these?”

  “There’s a scrub room available for visitors right outside the ICU. I’ll need to clear you through.” Susan looked from me to Fletcher. “We should leave so the orderlies can do their work.”

  “Can you have something for me in the morning?” I asked Fletcher.

  “When do you want to meet?”

  Sunday morning would find most law enforcement operations on skeletal shifts, but the slow time could be good for getting a duty officer’s attention. “How about eight o’clock? Then we can send the renderings to the surrounding counties.”

  “At the funeral home?”

  “Yeah. I’ll have coffee waiting.”

  “What have you got for me?” Tommy Lee’s weak whisper still carried the urgency of his request.

  “Not much,” I said. “The worst thing is the girl died.”

  He closed his eyes and swallowed.

  Patsy stood up from the chair beside his bed and motioned me to sit. “Come on, Samantha. Let’s get a Coke in the cafeteria.”

  Samantha had paled at the news of the girl’s death, a girl who was only a few years older than she. When they’d gone, I closed the door and pulled the chair closer to Tommy Lee.

  “No ID?” he asked.

  “Don’t try to talk. Save your questions till I finish.” I walked him through what had happened since we spoke last. I repeated what Fletcher said he heard the girl say, and then told Tommy Lee I’d found nothing in her clothing that aided her identification. The jeans and blouse were from The Gap and the shoes were Nikes available in every country on the planet. She wore no rings or jewelry, but the signs of body piercings and the two tattoos might be a help in developing leads. I ended with my plan to have Fletcher create the composites by morning so I could distribute them as soon as possible.

  “And Florida?”

  “That Lieutenant Spring never called me back.” I flipped open my phone and saw the dead screen. “Damn, this afternoon I turned my cell off around all the medical equipment and forgot to turn it back on.” I checked my watch. Nearly eight-thirty.

  “Call him again.”

  “Let me see if he left a message.” I headed for the door. “I’ll step out in the hall. Wouldn’t want to screw up your monitors.”

  When the phone powered up, the screen flashed there were two voice mails, both from Lieutenant Spring. In the second one, he left his cell phone number and instructions to call anytime. I decided I’d try him from the hospital phone so Tommy Lee could hear my end of the conversation.

  “This is Spring.” His voice was deep and all business. Jazz piano played in the background.

  “Barry Clayton here. Have I caught you at a bad time?”

  “No. This is a good time. I’m sipping a margarita on the terrace of Busch’s Restaurant and watching some big ass yacht try to squeeze through the intracoastal waterway. Since all the retirees are up in your mountains, I didn’t even have to wait at the bar. What’s up?”

  “The girl died. We still don’t know who she is.”

  “You think she’s from down here?”

  “Maybe. I can fax you a photo in the morning.”

  “Any leads on the guy with her?”

  “Someone in the ICU room heard the girl say Billy and the initials R. D. right before she died. Mean anything to you?”

  “No. But I’ll add them to Kowalski’s Lincoln and Lucy.”

  “I might have a decent composite of Lincoln tomorrow. I’ll fax that as well.”

  For a few seconds, all I heard was piano. “You there?”

  “Sorry. I was thinking.” He chuckled. “Didn’t you hear the rusty gears? That deputy I spoke with earlier, Hutchins?”

  “Yes, Reece Hutchins.”

  “He said you’re a funeral director.”

  I wondered if Reece had tried to undercut my role in the investigation. “I’m also a former police officer.”

  “Right. Anyway, Kowalski’s daughter’s flying in tomorrow and she’s going to let me into her father’s house.”

  “His daughter doesn’t live in Delray?”

  “No. Some little town outside Pittsburgh. I thought since you’re a funeral director, you could help make arrangements for getting her father’s body wherever she’s planning interment.”

  Not a bad suggestion. There was a chance we’d be contacted by the home town funeral director anyway, but this way I could establish a relationship in case the investigation required more of the daughter’s cooperation down the road. “Fine. Give her my cell number. She can have her funeral director call me. What time’s she arriving?”

  “The flight lands at twelve-thirty.”

  “Good. I should have the girl’s picture to you before then.”

  The bed sheets rustled behind me. I turned and saw Tommy Lee shaking his head.

  “Go,” he said.

  “You want me to leave the room?”

  “To Florida.”

  “Go to Florida? Tomorrow?”

  He nodded, and then lay back on his pillow.

  Lieutenant Spring had heard only my side of the conversation. “Are you talking to me?”

  “No. Sheriff Wadkins.”

  “I thought he was shot.”

  “I’m in his hospital room. He wants me to come down there.”

  “Ordered you,” Tommy Lee said without opening his eye.

  “He ordered me.”

  “He’s working on the case?” Lieutenant Spring sounded skeptical.

  “No, he’s working me on the case.” For Tommy Lee’s benefit I added, “Can you believe it? The man takes a bullet in the chest and then becomes a pain in everybody else’s ass.”

  Spring laughed. “Just like my captain. Let me know your flight schedule. I’ll pick you up.”

  I thanked him and promised to call in the morning.

  “Any other orders?” I asked Tommy Lee, not knowing whether he was still awake.

  He opened his eye and looked around the room. “Ice.”

  The pitcher held half ice and half water. I poured the slush into a cup and added a straw. He took a sip and let the cold liquid coat his throat.

  “Why do you want me to go to Florida?” I asked. “There’s a lot I need to do up here.”

  “Because whatever brought Kowalski up here to kill a man probably started in Florida, so that’s where you need to start.”

  Tommy Lee was right. Something had turned Kowalski’s life upside down and that life had been lived in Florida. “I’ll catch the earliest plane even if I have to go in a dog crate.
”

  Tommy Lee took another sip from the straw and licked his cracked lips. “So you think I’m a pain in the ass now? You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  Chapter Seven

  The 737 dropped out of the thick gray clouds only a few miles from Palm Beach International. Streaks of rain flashed by, but the speed of the jet kept my window dry. Beneath me, neighborhoods of stucco condos, both single-story and high-rise, were interspersed among shopping centers and palm-lined boulevards. The few cars traveling on Sunday morning burned their headlights in an effort to see through the gloomy mess. So much for sunny Florida.

  My day had started before dawn. I’d canceled my meeting with Fletcher because I had to get to the Asheville airport at five in the morning for my five-fifty flight. Then I suffered a two-hour layover in Charlotte before boarding for West Palm Beach. I could have driven to Charlotte in that time, but the unfathomable pricing of the airline industry meant I’d have paid four hundred dollars more for booking the same plane out of Charlotte without the Asheville origination. And people wonder why the carriers are in bankruptcy.

  With no baggage other than a legal pad and my digital camera, I moved quickly through the reuniting families and friends to the taxi queue beneath the protective overhang. Twenty yards beyond the pickup point, a dark blue Crown Vic waited by the curb. Leaning against the car’s trunk, a balding man in a peach golf shirt casually surveyed the sidewalk traffic. His gaze fixed on me and I nodded that he’d found his quarry.

  “Roy Spring.” He extended a broad hand and even broader smile. “Welcome to the hurricane capital of the world.”

  Spring had me by six inches and thirty pounds. His tan face and boyish grin made it hard to judge his age, but I guessed about twenty years separated us.

  “Thanks for meeting me. And for giving up your Sunday morning.”

  “No problem. God lets me skip mass to help a fellow police officer.” He winked. “Too bad it’s raining. I could have helped you play nine holes.” He motioned to the passenger side. “Ready to ride?”