Tampered

by Ross Pennie

  Hamish studied the sheet. Finally, in the monotone that came out whenever he was anxious or concentrating, he said, “Brings us back to money.”

  “How so?” Colleen said.

  Hamish’s professorial finger, freed from the wineglass, asserted itself. “Those drugs are really expensive. A month’s supply of Xanucox runs about two hundred and fifty bucks. And Durimab is easily twice that. Neither drug is on the government’s drug benefit list. To afford them, you have to be wealthy or belong to a generous private plan.”

  Zol eyed the plates steaming on the table, then winked at Colleen. “I hope the private detective assigned to the case this time is a lot smarter than the one who dropped the ball in the north end.”

  Max skipped into the kitchen, game gadget in hand. His eyes widened at the sight of supper on the table. Zol fastened the buckles on his briefcase and slid it under the telephone desk. It was time to put away the worries and enjoy the meal and the Chenin Blanc, at least for a few minutes.

  CHAPTER 21

  At eight-thirty that Thursday night, Art edged the foldable wheelchair, which he used for car-trip transfers, in through the front doors of Camelot Lodge. It took the last flicker of strength left in his arms. Phyllis was still parking the Lincoln, and Myrtle was striding to the elevator. He knew she was bursting to get to her room and share the afternoon’s events with her sister Maude. The two were practically inseparable, and incredibly robust. They never got sick, never needed medication. What was their secret? Good luck or good genes? Art waved her on, explaining that he needed to catch his breath before transferring to his scooter and heading upstairs.

  The afternoon’s ordeal at Caledonian Medical Centre had been exhausting and humiliating. By the time Phyllis had found a spot to park the Lincoln in the visitors’ lot, and Myrtle had lugged Art’s wheelchair out of the trunk, poor Earl had been whisked into a treatment room in the dark reaches of the emergency department. He’d been consigned out of bounds, beyond the reach of three friends trying to find out what condition he was in, whether he was even still alive.

  “Are you next of kin?” the nurse had replied to Art’s first enquiry at the reception desk. She hadn’t bothered looking at him, just kept writing on the forms it seemed she’d stacked on the counter to shield herself from an anxious public.

  Art admitted that he and Earl were not related, but felt like brothers after a friendship of more than sixty years. The nurse tightened her lips and told him she couldn’t divulge any information. Details about the patient’s condition would be made available only to relatives. Phyllis tried her full-bosomed stance and crisp stare, but the nurse returned an equally stern glare and told them to take a seat in the waiting room. Some hours later, Art tried again with a different nurse, then pleaded with a baby-faced doctor, but was given the same unyielding responses. He and Phyllis finally returned with Myrtle to the Lincoln, forced to abandon their friend to whatever the system decided to do with him. On the ride home, none of them had the energy to speak.

  Art set the wheelchair’s brakes and transferred to his loyal steed waiting in the lobby. He thanked Phyllis and wished her good-night as she came through the door, then rubbed at the burning in his legs. His neuropathy played up something fierce when he got overtired. After a couple of minutes the pain eased a little. He flipped the scooter’s switch and drove into the common room. The walls of the deserted, tomb-silent room pressed in on him. They flooded him with memories of the funeral parlour after Jeannie’s service, of his overwhelming desolation when the last of the guests had departed. It was then he knew he’d lost her forever to the pain and disfigurement of metastatic breast cancer. During his ten years as a widower, he’d become accustomed to living on his own and consoling himself with the notion that though death had changed his relationship with the love of his life, the relationship had not ended. He still had his memories of the wonderful times they’d shared, he could talk to her when he felt fearful or alone, and he could imagine her encouraging him at his easel and piano.

  But then the peripheral neuropathy began to suck the strength from his legs, and his doctor took away his driver’s licence. Being shut away in suburbia all winter without a car made him ache with loneliness. The move into the camaraderie of the Lodge had given new zest and meaning to his life. But today, with Earl and Betty fighting for their lives, and poor Melvin being buried tomorrow, the loneliness was palpable again and magnified with dread. As it had been in the suburbs, old age felt like a dry run for eternity: monotonous days of profound fatigue, relentless pain, tasteless meals, and fading eyesight stretching on for ever and ever.

  Maude and Myrtle’s jigsaw puzzle lay jumbled and abandoned on the card table. Gertie’s knitting, a fixture on the blue sofa, had vanished — packed away or confiscated. All that remained was the imprint of her ample bottom on the cushions. Art scanned the room and found not a teacup, a paperback, a crossword in sight. Gloria had issued another quarantine order. Camelot Lodge was not a cozy home but an asylum, where inmates hid in their cells and ventured out like frightened rabbits, only at mealtimes. Art wanted to grab Betty and run, but who would take in a desperate elderly couple tainted by a deadly plague? Zol had offered the run of his house, bless him, but the bedrooms were upstairs, as inaccessible as Everest. And it wouldn’t be right to abandon Phyllis, Earl, and the others.

  The confidence of youthful footsteps approached from behind him. Art turned to see Joe, Gloria’s accident-prone nephew, carrying a bottle of beer in one hand, a full plate in the other, and a second beer tucked under his arm. His right eye was black and swollen as a result of the other day’s hit and run. A line of blue stitches scored the skin above his right eyebrow.

  Art gestured toward the double-decker sandwich piled on Joe’s plate. “Feeling better?”

  “I guess. But Jesus, I ache all over.”

  Art smiled and nodded. “They say the third day is the worst. You feel like you’ve been run over by a steamroller, but then it passes. How’s your aunt?”

  “Who?” Joe looked puzzled for an instant, then chuckled at his momentary lapse in concentration. “Oh, yeah. She’s okay. Says it’s all my fault.”

  “Your fault? I thought it was a hit and run.”

  Joe took a swig of his beer then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He strode to the sofa and dropped into Gertie’s spot. “Long story,” he said, setting the beers on the table then biting hungrily into his sandwich.

  Art said goodbye and headed for the elevators. Betty had looked rough this morning. And gaunt. She hadn’t eaten a thing in almost a week, and it was showing in her face. He scrunched his eyes and allowed himself a little prayer: Please may she look a tiny bit better tomorrow.

  As he waited for the elevator, Art pondered the tattoo he’d just seen on Joe’s bicep. What was a Portuguese fellow doing with a tattoo of a maple-leaf military crest and the words Jason Argylls Forever below it? The men of the Argyll and Sutherland were Canadian soldiers, based in Hamilton. In Art’s day, soldiers tattooed the names of their sweethearts on their arms. Was this a sign that Joe entangled himself romantically with men? These days, you never could tell who was who and what was what — not a bad thing, he supposed. They called it diversity, and if it made for a better world, then Art was all for it.

  Joe had made quite the scene at the time of the accident. He’d gotten riled up when Dr. Wakefield had asked if he knew the identity of the hit-and-run driver. Joe had intimated the car crash was intentional, that something similar had happened before. Was this a grudge match in the wake of a failed liaison with a soldier named Jason? Is that why Joe was so tight-lipped about the circumstances of the accident?

  Raimunda’s funeral was set for Saturday afternoon. After that, her ruffian grandson would be catching his return flight to Portugal and taking his vendettas with him. And good riddance.

  CHAPTER 22

  At ten-forty on Friday morning, Natasha’s heartbeat fluttered in her throat as Colleen drew the Mercedes to a stop o
n a quiet side street two blocks away from Steeltown Apothecary. Natasha had awoken at six with a stomach full of butterflies — heck, they were cockroaches — and hadn’t been able to face breakfast.

  In about five minutes, she’d be walking into the strip mall at Mohawk and Magnolia, into Viktor Horvat’s lair. Colleen had shown her photos of the man. He looked surprisingly ordinary — forties, medium height, short brown hair, beefy face and hands.

  Colleen killed the ignition and unlocked the doors. She touched Natasha’s arm and told her to take a few deep breaths. “Honestly, you look fantastic, like you just stepped off the last Air India flight.”

  Natasha checked her tilak in the rear-view mirror. The dot of red kumkum was positioned exactly where it should be, in the Ajna Chakra, the space between her eyebrows. “You’re sure the hair’s okay?”

  “It’s perfect. Looks a hundred percent natural. And that sari’s a stunner.”

  “Not too stunning, I hope. It’s my cousin’s. She said the yellow and green were suitably subtle. Told me mine were too flashy for a trip to a pharmacy.” Her cousin Anjum had fifty saris, one for every occasion, including spying on villains, it seemed. Natasha had only three, in fuchsias and blues with gold trim — strictly for weddings and Hindu celebrations like Diwali.

  “You better ditch the shades,” Colleen said. “With that trench coat over your sari, and that long gorgeous hair, you look enough like a Bollywood star.”

  Natasha pulled off her sunglasses and gripped them in her fist. “But . . .”

  “Much better. You don’t need them. Even your best friends wouldn’t recognize you today.”

  Colleen looked in the mirror and straightened her Ray-Bans, then tucked her ponytail under the wide-brimmed Tilley hat that dwarfed her face. In her denim jacket and jeans, and rubber boots from Wal-Mart, she looked like a farmer — one of those organic types who cruise the shelves for natural supplements and herbal remedies.

  She cracked open her door, then paused. “Remember, give me three minutes. I’ll be scouting inside when you arrive. And whatever you do, don’t pay me any attention.”

  “But what about the red hanky? You said —”

  Colleen’s face looked taut and serious. She wasn’t wearing a speck of makeup. “Don’t look at my face.” She tapped her jacket’s breast pocket. “Just a quick glance here.”

  They’d agreed to abort the mission if the red hanky was showing. If Natasha saw the signal, she was to casually exit the pharmacy without approaching anyone.

  The three minutes alone in Colleen’s car felt like three hours. Natasha held the key fob of the Mercedes in her fist and practised her script, unsure whether she felt more frightened or excited. She’d never expected that a Master’s in epidemiology would lead her undercover into a crime scene. Stuffy lectures, case-control studies, and statistical formulas seemed light-years away.

  She stepped out of the car, taking care with the long, flowing hem of Anjum’s sari. She clicked the door locks and pocketed Colleen’s fob in her trench coat. The other pocket held her sunglasses — just in case.

  She started striding toward the strip mall and tripped on a piece of ice. She caught herself in time without falling and forced herself to slow down. South Asian women were supposed to take dainty steps. Bold strides were for Canadian women wearing jeans or short skirts. As her mother never stopped harping, stepping lightly was part of knowing your place. Natasha dodged the icy patches on the sidewalk and concentrated on her footwork. She could feel her cheeks flush at the thought of those two pharmacists in north Hamilton last year, duping the vulnerable with fake medicines and getting away with barely a rap on the knuckles from the College of Pharmacists. Well, Viktor Horvat was going to get nailed.

  When Dr. Zol phoned her last night, he confessed that the case seemed more like a police matter than a public health concern. He’d described how useless the RCMP counterfeit squad had been last time and reminded her that catching Horvat in the act required the same scientific vigour they used at the health unit when sleuthing out food poisonings and streptococcal epidemics. Nursing homes came under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health, which meant that health-unit staff were responsible for addressing breaches in the legislated codes. It looked like Viktor Horvat had been breaching umpteen codes at Camelot Lodge. Catching him willfully dispensing counterfeit medications was truly in the public interest. When she’d volunteered last night to play her part, it seemed the natural thing to do. Today, she felt anything but natural.

  As Steeltown Apothecary came into view, past a dry cleaner’s and a pizza place, she closed her fists and reminded herself that she was not doing anything criminal. She was just running an errand at a drugstore, while wearing a long black wig, a tilak, and a sari.

  She stepped into the store and felt a wave of panic rise from her chest. It was a fairly small shop, and she couldn’t see Colleen. There was no way she could do this without Colleen watching her back, ready to pounce to her rescue. She turned to dash from the store — to heck with the dainty steps — when she saw the top of Colleen’s hat in the vitamin aisle beside the far wall. At barely five feet tall, Colleen could make herself almost invisible. When she turned, she ignored Natasha completely, apparently absorbed in the process of choosing among bottles of bee pollen and shark cartilage. There was no red flag in her pocket.

  Natasha tugged at the lapels of her trench coat and pulled out her sunglasses. She stared at them for a moment, took a few deep breaths, then returned them to her coat pocket. Yes, she could do this.

  She picked up a shopping basket and headed for the hair- products aisle. The familiar bottles of shampoo and conditioner made her feel at home. She strolled in the direction of the dispensary at the rear of the store, keeping one eye on the hair stuff and the other on the pharmacist’s counter a few steps away.

  The only person visible in the dispensary was a woman in her thirties. She stapled a receipt to a paper bag and passed it to a customer. The phone rang beside her. She spoke into it briefly, then turned and called, “Dr. Carter on the line.”

  Natasha grabbed a bottle of her favourite shampoo and pretended to study its label. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement at the counter. She gripped the bottle and turned for a better look. A man in his forties was standing there, drying his beefy hands with a paper towel. There was no mistaking his identity from the photos Colleen had shown her this morning. His grim face with broad forehead, large round cheeks, and flat dark eyes set her heart racing faster. He’d be a formidable opponent in any showdown.

  An unholy crash thundered at her feet. The cardboard display and its dozens of shampoo bottles tumbled to the floor, the avalanche triggered by her coat sleeve.

  Horvat looked up. He frowned. His dark eyes pierced her face, memorizing its features so he could point her out in court when he sued her for damages. Oh shit!

  He finished drying his hands, then pressed a button on the phone and picked up the receiver. As he spoke, his head bobbed, and the stainless-steel cap on his front tooth flashed in the harsh fluorescent light of the dispensary. He pulled a pen from his lab-coat pocket and scribbled on a pad.

  She stood there dumb and helpless, staring at the mess of shampoo containers and feeling hotter and hotter under the ridiculous wig. Finally, a skinny teenage boy sauntered down the aisle carrying a mop.

  “I’m so sorry,” Natasha said, squatting to recover the bottles.

  The boy righted the display without comment. None of the containers had broken. Soon, everything was back in place. The boy took off, leaving Natasha with panic washing over her again. What should she do? Had she drawn so much attention to herself that it was impossible to go through with her mission? Colleen appeared like a genie at the far end of the aisle, apparently ogling the fair-trade coffee. Still no red signal in her pocket.

  Natasha grabbed bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and hair gel and tossed them into her basket. She scanned the aisle for Colleen’s reassuring presence. Her mentor was g
one. Oh my God, she was on her own. Was that a good sign? It better be. She straightened her shoulders and pushed annoying strands of wig hair behind her ears.

  Viktor Horvat was off the phone and counting tablets on a tray when she approached his dispensary. She fished in her trench coat for the prescription Dr. Wakefield had written out for her earlier this morning. Oh no, she’d lost it. Her knees felt like rubber. Where was it? Oh yes, now she remembered. She’d put it in the outer pocket of her purse. She must look a sight — embarrassed and terrified. Maybe that was okay. She was supposed to be a recent immigrant picking up a prescription for her grandmother — brand name Zytopril.

  The medication survey had shown that eighty percent of Camelot’s residents were taking Zytopril for high blood pressure. Dr. Wakefield said that if Horvat were running a counterfeit substitution scam, Zytopril was a perfect target: it was covered by the government’s drug plan for seniors, Dr. Jamieson prescribed it like candy, and the high price of the originals made for high profit margins on the fakes.

  Horvat gave her a knowing look that quickly broke into a mocking grin, hardened by the steel tooth. “How many you break?”

  “Pardon?” she said, forgetting to put on the just-off-the-plane Indian accent that always made her friends laugh. They wouldn’t be laughing at this.

  “Hair stuff displaying. Company is giving us that. Fall down always. How many you break?”

  “Um . . . none, sir.”

  He scowled at her skeptically. “Okay. What you want?”

  She handed him the prescription. “For my grandmother, sir. Her blood-pressure medication.” Her accent was on track.