Tampered

by Ross Pennie

  “Sidestepping the jargon, you mean these pills cause listeria?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Open one.”

  Natasha twisted the capsule over the paper. It required more force than the vancomycin dummy, but came apart in her hands without splintering. Dry white powder spilled onto the paper.

  Colleen snapped a flurry of close-ups of the bottle and the open capsule. “What’s he doing with these? Do you suppose they’re real or counterfeit?”

  “I’ve learned you can’t tell by looking.”

  Colleen photographed the propane torch, dead matches, and the wire loop, then strode to the stack of cardboard cartons at the rear of the room. She pointed to a large box covered in stickers and labels.

  The printing looked like barcodes and acronyms. There wasn’t one word on the box that Natasha could decipher. There were strange accents over the vowels and curlicues under the Cs and Ss. “The printing’s in code,” she said. “And a foreign language.”

  Colleen studied the carton from various angles. “Turkish,” she said, pointing to the top corner.

  “You read Turkish?”

  Colleen’s lips formed a proud grin. “No, but I’ve been to Izmir. See the return address? ADB? I’ve been there.”

  “Where?”

  “That’s the airport code for Izmir. A resort town in Turkey. Actually, it’s a big city. On the Ionian coast.”

  “You know airport codes?”

  “Why not? You know the Latin names of obscure micro- organisms. I know airport codes. Like Horvat’s vanity licence plate. SJJ YHM — Sarajevo and Hamilton.”

  “You’ve been to Sarajevo?”

  “No. I followed a hunch and looked it up on the Internet after our first visit here. Your Bollywood debut.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  Natasha checked the lettering on several of the boxes and realized they all shared the same destination: YYZ. “I know that airport code,” she said. “That’s Toronto Pearson.” The cartons had arrived there first. And cleared customs.

  The cat nuzzled against Natasha’s pant leg, purring with wasted enthusiasm. “Shoo!” she said, waving it away. It strolled off and sat under the table, licking its paws, a sly smile in its eyes.

  “Turkey,” Natasha said, “that’s where the counterfeits came from last year. You know, the fake antihypertensives that turned up at that pharmacy in the north end?”

  “Perhaps Horvat has tapped into the same obliging supplier. If there are pills in those cartons, they won’t be obvious. Probably hidden under Turkish-made shirts and blouses. It’s a smart business, smuggling fake prescription drugs. No cocaine or marijuana to set off the sniffer dogs at Canada Customs.”

  Colleen took shots of a dozen other possibly incriminating cartons, thoroughly taped for the trip from Turkey. They couldn’t be opened without arousing suspicion, but Colleen said the photos would pique the Mounties’ interest.

  Natasha let her eyes wander around the room. The LED lights of what appeared to be an oven caught her eye. A closer look told her it was an incubator. The glass door felt warm to the touch, but when she peered inside she could see only empty shelves.

  Next to the incubator was a kitchen refrigerator, a simple two-door job with the freezer on top. She pulled on the lower handle without thinking. The smell of rotting flesh punched her in the face. She slammed the door shut, but not without glimpsing an array of test tubes and petri dishes.

  “Careful,” Colleen said when she heard the door slam. A second later she covered her nose and mouth with her hand. “What an extraordinary stench.”

  “Smells like death.” There could be body parts in there. It was time to get out of here. Things had moved past epidemiology. Way past.

  Colleen raised her nose and sniffed. “Truly extraordinary.” She closed her eyes and sniffed again, her head cocked in concentration. She look like a sommelier judging an obscure Merlot at a pretentious restaurant. “No, not putrefaction,” she said. “That’s the odour of fermentation. Overlaid with cultured mould, the kind they use in Stilton or Limburger.” She approached the refrigerator but didn’t open the door. “Yes.” She nodded after a slow deep breath. “Cheese. A very strong one. Not the sort you pick up at Kelly’s SuperMart.”

  Colleen punched a number into her cellphone. “We’ve seen enough,” she told Natasha. “Better tell Zol. He and his boss need to hold a powwow. Tonight. With the evidence we’ve got, it’s time to call in the boys in blue.”

  Dr. Zol answered quickly, and Colleen gave him a rundown — where she was and what she’d found. But first, she had to calm him down. It was obvious he was upset she’d gone against his strict order to stay out of Viktor Horvat’s operation. Colleen didn’t mention Natasha, thank God, and was cagey about how she’d broken in.

  “He says to get out of here now,” she told Natasha as she closed the phone. “Horvat will be off his head. As belligerent as a bull hippo with a toothache.” Colleen closed her eyes and slowly shook her head. “The radio is reporting that his son was found dead in his prison cell today. The Mexican authorities are claiming he hanged himself.”

  “Oh, how awful. Mr. Horvat did look upset when we saw him closing up. Maybe he’d just found out.”

  Heavy footsteps crunched on the gravel outside the side door. Natasha froze. She prayed the steps would quickly fade as the person walked past the garage and down the alley.

  The crunching didn’t fade. It stopped. Abruptly.

  A low-pitched voice barked an order.

  The cat pricked up its ears, jammed its tail between its legs, and retreated further under the table.

  Another man’s voice, brusque and angry — and way too close — raised the hair on Natasha’s neck.

  A key scratched at the side door.

  “Quick,” Colleen whispered. “Behind the cartons.”

  Three seconds later the deadbolt on the side door clicked and the shuffle of footsteps echoed into the room.

  “Hey. Who is leaving light on?”

  Natasha crouched on the floor behind the cartons, imagining her body made of soundless granite. She pictured the man behind that voice sliding pills across a tray, his eyes memorizing her features as he handed her the bag containing her grandmother’s Zytopril prescription.

  Her knees burned against the hard, frigid concrete floor, but Natasha didn’t dare move anything but her eyeballs. Through a crack between two cartons, she could see three men crashing into the room through the door. Viktor Horvat led the way, his face glistening with rage as he shoved a young man in handcuffs onto the only chair in the room.

  Horvat tossed his keys and sunglasses onto the worktable and barked at a third man panting beneath a black balaclava. “Remove that thing. You not needing now.”

  The man pulled off his menacing headgear and swept the room with his gaze. For an agonizing moment he aimed his sightline at Natasha, and she found herself staring at the face of Nick, the hunky chef from Camelot Lodge. When he’d stood at his kitchen counter, a cleaver glinting in his hand and his pecs bulging beneath his apron, he’d exuded professional confidence and a whole lot of sexual magnetism. But here, squinting nervously and fingering a switchblade, he looked like an unpredictable creep who wouldn’t know a rasher from a ramekin.

  “Give me bottle,” said Horvat, then grabbed the litre bottle of Smirnoff Nick tore from a liquor-store bag. Horvat opened the vodka with a practised twist and held the bottle to the lips of the young guy cowering on the chair. “Drink,” Horvat demanded. “I know you are liking. Same like all goddamn Canada soldiers.”

  The young guy coughed and spluttered when he swallowed the fiery liquid. He clutched his throat with his manacled hands. His face turned blue. When he raised his head and breathed in deeply, Natasha saw the blue-green bruises around his right eye. This was Joe, Gloria’s nephew from Portugal who’d stumbled into Camelot’s front lobby covered in blood. Something he’d mumbled at the time had intrigued her, something about being the target of a
man wearing a black toque and dark glasses.

  Crouching beside her, Colleen nodded a millimetre then raised and lowered her eyebrows. She signalled What’s up with the vodka? then inched her cellphone out of her pocket. Even the buzz of it vibrating would give them away if it came to life with a call or a text. Natasha was glad she’d left her phone in the car. Colleen turned hers off.

  CHAPTER 37

  Zol hung up the kitchen phone after Colleen’s call and dropped into a chair next to Max. He watched his son attacking a pizza pocket and marvelled at the resilience of youth. The moment Zol had come through the door after his trip to the hospital, Max had peppered him with questions, his keen eyes wide but dry. How’s Travis? Is he in a oxygen tent? They’d read a story about a boy with chest problems; Max had been fascinated by the drawing of a boy sitting inside a clear plastic pup tent on a hospital bed. How many needles did Travis get? Are they going to give him an operation?

  Apparently satisfied that the doctors and nurses were properly looking after Travis’s fever (Zol considered that an appropriate simplification of the infection threatening the boy’s brain), Max returned his attention to the pizza pocket. The restorative powers of corn syrup solids, disodium inosate, titanium dioxide, and riboflavin were amazing to watch. Zol tousled Max’s mop of curls then rubbed at the warmth of his son’s spine through his Star Pirates sweatshirt. If only Zol could capture the boy’s optimism and equanimity.

  Zol knew he should be elated that Colleen had busted Horvat’s operation and likely put an end to Camelot’s untimely deaths. But a slew of worries about her safety trumped any kernels of elation he might have felt about the case. He hoped she did as he’d said and got out of there fast.

  He wondered what to do. Call Peter Trinnock? Or maybe the Hamilton city police? The Ontario Provincial Police or the RCMP? But without Colleen’s crime-scene photos, how could he spark any police officer’s interest in Horvat’s pharmacy? Come to think of it, how was Colleen going to present her incriminating photos without admitting that she, a consultant with the health unit, had obtained her shots by illegally entering Horvat’s premises? Shit. He’d told her not to go in there. Trinnock and the press were going to have a collective fit once the health unit was implicated in unlawful acts. Had she taken a big risk for nothing?

  He pulled two loonies from his pocket and ground them into his palms. He should have taken his suspicions about Horvat to the police in the first place, let them handle the investigation. But hell, they’d have made a balls of it, let Horvat walk with only a tap on the knuckles from the College of Pharmacists.

  Zol strode to the family room and grabbed the computer mouse. Max trotted behind clutching a bowl of rocky road ice cream. Zol clicked the Track Colleen icon on the monitor and keyed in his password. Three clicks later, the GPS gave him the answer he dreaded: Colleen’s cellphone was at Mohawk and Magnolia. Damn. She was still at Steeltown Apothecary. Why the hell was she dawdling?

  He looked at his watch. Five-forty. He wished she’d get out of there. She was a smart woman and he trusted her judgment, but she was taking unnecessary chances by staying there so long. He pictured Horvat, reeling from his son’s suicide, lunging into his den like a psychotic cougar.

  He dialled her cell number from the land line beside the computer. After one ring a recorded voice picked up: The customer you have dialled is unavailable. Damn! What good was a cellphone if you turned the frigging thing off or let the battery go dead? He thought about it for a second. No, the battery wasn’t dead. The GPS was still working: it knew where she was. She’d turned off the receiver. On purpose. She didn’t want the phone vibrating, or ringing, or lighting up. That meant she was in trouble. And she was hiding.

  “What’s wrong, Dad?” Max asked, his face covered in chocolate.

  “Um . . . nothing for you to worry about.”

  “Then why are you looking for Colleen?”

  “Big people stuff, that’s all.”

  “Don’t be mad. She’s with Natasha.”

  “What?” said Zol, spinning in his chair.

  Max recoiled at the sudden movement and his spoon flew from the bowl. A gooey mass of ice cream landed on the carpet. Max’s face crumpled.

  Zol reached out and grasped his son by the shoulders, keeping his grip as gentle as his taut muscles would allow. “How do —” He checked himself and lowered his voice. Too much force and Max would clam up. “How do you know that, son?”

  Max peered at what was left at the bottom of his bowl, his face full of hurt.

  “Please, Max.”

  “I, um, heard them.”

  “Talking?”

  Max nodded.

  “What did they say?”

  Max stared at the mess beside his sneakers, then mumbled, “Natasha was, um, only pretending about going straight home.”

  The phone screeched to life on the desk. Zol closed his eyes and prayed it was Colleen returning his call. “You okay?” he said, his heart pumping a mile a minute.

  “I’m still fine. Thanks for asking.” It was Hamish. “But Art is in a state, that’s for sure.”

  “Sorry. I thought you were Colleen.”

  “Don’t you have caller ID?”

  “I didn’t look. What’s up?”

  “Art and Phyllis. They think they’ve just witnessed a kidnapping. In Camelot’s parking lot.”

  “Jesus H. Christ. A kidnapping? You’re not serious.”

  “They are. Claim they saw two men in dark glasses and balaclavas forcing Gloria’s nephew into a black SUV.”

  “The nephew that got banged up the other day? The hit and run?”

  “They swear it was him. Joe. Nabbed outside Art’s bedroom window.”

  “D’you believe them?”

  “They say they’ve got pictures. Phyllis’s camera. And part of a licence plate. SJJ something.”

  Public health involved far more facets of modern life than Zol had imagined at the start of his training. But one thing was for sure: kidnappings were not part of his mandate. “Sorry. I’m drawing the line right here. I can’t let myself —”

  He suddenly noticed Max’s quizzical stare, pupils wide as hockey pucks. The boy was an unrivalled listening machine.

  “Just a sec, Hamish,” Zol said, then cupped his hand over the phone and told Max to fetch a roll of paper towels from the kitchen. As soon as Max shuffled out of earshot, Zol whispered to Hamish, “For God’s sake, I can’t get involved in an abduction.”

  “Art recognized the vehicle. Says it’s Horvat’s SUV, and the SJJ on the licence is the airport code for Sarajevo.”

  References to that city were turning up everyplace. “Where would the kidnappers take their victim?” Zol had a good idea but hoped like hell Hamish had a different one.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe that garage behind Steeltown Apothecary. Secluded. No windows, back alley, high cedars on both sides.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Still at the hospital. My student’s taking care of things at Camelot.”

  “No sign of your car?”

  “Don’t rub it in.”

  “I’ll pick you up in ten minutes. Front entrance.”

  CHAPTER 38

  As she watched Viktor Horvat clip Joe’s handcuffs to the back of the chair and nearly drown him with another blast of vodka, Natasha decided Joe must have stumbled onto Horvat’s counterfeit drug business. He must have been blackmailing Viktor and the pharmacist was retaliating. But could Joe be stupid enough to threaten the man who controlled every medication entering his aunt’s retirement residence? Horvat certainly had the upper hand now.

  She ran through the list of his Camelot victims. Among others, he’d infected and killed the Prime Minister’s aunt, a judge, a history professor, and a hard-working Portuguese immigrant. Was he settling scores against Joe by picking off Joe’s grandmother and his aunt’s high-profile residents? Was this a warning to a blackmailer or was it a long-running feud? And what about the two men and the boy admitted to
Caledonian Medical Centre today with probable listeria meningitis? Zol had told her they had no links to Camelot, but all three were tied to the Canadian Forces.

  It made more sense that Joe — and possibly Gus and Gloria — had been in on Viktor Horvat’s counterfeit-drug scam and they’d fallen out. Maybe street drugs had become part of the package and complicated everything. The scuttlebutt in the nightclubs of Hess Village was that Viktor Horvat’s son was a dealer, not a tourist, and facing two routes out of Juarez: a slow march in a cut-price coffin or a million-dollar ride in a private jet. Natasha’s dad, a pediatrician with a sharp understanding of human nature, always said the mango never fell far from the tree.

  Natasha winced as Nick cursed and held his switchblade to Joe’s neck, a centimetre from his jugular. Viktor Horvat forced Joe’s head back and poured another dose of vodka down his throat.

  “You like drink and drive, don’t you Corporal Jayson?” Horvat said.

  All Joe could do was gasp.

  The pharmacist righted the bottle and shook Joe by the shoulder. “Answer me, Corporal,” he said, his face luminous with fury. “Is exciting to street race in army Jeep when you’re drunk?”

  Joe stared straight ahead and didn’t answer.

  Horvat shook his fist. “I tell you, Corporal Jayson Dasilva. You gonna drink and drive one last time. Superfast down McNeely Road. You know McNeely? Runs very steep down the Escarpment. And on Sundays, very quiet.” A wicked smile lit Horvat’s face for a second or two, then the hatred returned. “This time, you not kill no one. No mother. No two young daughters. Just yourself. Police find you. Note in pocket. Telling real name. Admitting what you done in Sarajevo, August 2003.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” Joe insisted through a string of coughs and wheezes. “Mixing me up with somebody else.”

  Either Joe was one hundred percent sincere, or terror had turned him into a great actor.