by Ed McBain
“But?” He sensed there was something more she wanted to say.
She looked down, organized some papers, closed a folder.
“It’s just. . . See, there was one thing. I spent the last couple of days going over what they said to me, looking for clues. And I remember they said how much they’d enjoyed working with me.”
“That was odd?”
“It was the way they put it. It was the past tense, you know. Not enjoy working with me. It was enjoyed working with me. It didn’t strike me as odd or anything at the time. But now we know. . .” A sigh. “I should’ve listened to what they were saying.”
Recrimination. Like the couples’ lawyers, like the doctors, Nurse McCaffrey would probably live with these deaths for a long, long time.
Perhaps forever. . .
“Did you know,” he asked, “they just bought a book about suicide? Making the Final Journey.”
“No, I didn’t know that,” she said, frowning.
Behind her desk Nurse McCaffrey—Mac—had a picture of an older couple with their arms around each other, two snapshots of big, goofy black labs, and one picture of her with the dogs. No snaps of boyfriends or husbands—or girlfriends. In Westbrook County, married or cohabitating couples comprised 74 percent of the adult population, widows 7 percent, widowers 2 percent and unmarried/divorced/noncohabitating were 17 percent. Of that latter category only 4 percent were between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-five.
He and Mac had at least one thing in common; they were both members of the Four Percent Club.
She glanced at her watch and he focused on her again. “They were taking Luminux, right?”
She nodded. “It’s a good anti-anxiety drug. We make sure the patients have it available and take it if they have a panic attack or’re depressed.”
“Both Sam and his wife had an unusually large amount in their bloodstreams when they died.”
“Really?”
“We’re trying to find what happened to the prescription, the bottle. We couldn’t find it at their house.”
“They had it the other day, I know.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. I don’t know how much they had left on the prescription. Maybe it was gone and they threw the bottle out.”
Raw data, Tal thought. Wondering what to make of these facts. Was he asking the right questions? Greg LaTour would know.
But LaTour was not here. The mathematician was on his own. He asked, “Did the Whitleys ever mention Don and Sy Benson?”
“Benson?”
“In Greeley.”
“Well, no. I’ve never heard of them.”
Tal asked, “Had anybody else been to the house that day?”
“I don’t know. We were alone when I was there.”
“Did you happen to call them from a pay phone that afternoon?”
“No.”
“Did they mention they were expecting anyone else?”
She shook her head.
“And you left when?”
“At four. A little before.”
“You sure of the time?”
“Yep. I know because I was listening to my favorite radio program in the car on my way home. The Opera Hour on NPR.” A sad laugh. “It was highlights from Madame Butterfly.”
“Isn’t that about the Japanese woman who . . .” His voice faded.
“Kills herself.” Mac looked up at a poster of the Grand Tetons, then one of the surf in Hawaii. “My whole life’s been devoted to prolonging people’s lives. This just shattered me, hearing about Sam and Liz.” She seemed close to tears then controlled herself. “I was talking to Dr. Dehoeven. He just came over here from Holland. They look at death differently over there. Euthanasia and suicide are a lot more acceptable. . . . He heard about their deaths and kind of shrugged. Like it wasn’t any big deal. But I can’t get them out of my mind.”
Silence for a moment. Then she blinked and looked at her watch again. “I’ve got a new patient to meet. But if there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.” She rose, then paused. “Are you . . . what are you exactly? A homicide detective?”
He laughed. “Actually, I’m a mathematician.”
“A—”
But before he could explain his curious pedigree his pager went off, a sound Tal was so unaccustomed to that he dropped his briefcase then knocked several files off the nurse’s desk as he bent to retrieve it. Thinking: Good job, Simms, way to impress a fellow member of the Westbrook County Four Percent Club.
“He’s in there and I couldn’t get him out. I’m spitting nails, Boss.”
In a flash of panic Tal thought that Shellee, fuming as she pointed at his office, was referring to the sheriff himself, who’d descended from the top floor of the county building to fire Tal personally for the 2124.
But, no, she was referring to someone else.
Tal stepped inside and lifted an eyebrow to Greg LaTour. “Thought we had an appointment yester—”
“So where you been?” LaTour grumbled. “Sleepin’ in?” The huge man was finishing Tal’s cheese sandwich from yesterday, sending a cascade of bread crumbs everywhere.
And resting his boots on Tal’s desk.
It had been LaTour’s page that caught him with Mac McCaffrey. The message: “Office twenty minutes. LaTour.”
The slim cop looked unhappily at the scuff marks on the desktop.
LaTour noticed but ignored him. “Here’s the thing. I got the information on the wills. And, yeah, they were both changed—”
“Okay, that’s suspicious—”
“Lemme finish. No, it’s not suspicious. The beneficiaries weren’t any crazy housekeepers or Moonie guru assholes controlling their minds. The Bensons didn’t have any kids so all they did was add a few charities and create a trust for some nieces and nephews—for college. A hundred thousand each. Small potatoes. The Whitley girl didn’t get diddly-squat from them.
“Now, the Whitleys gave their daughter—bitch or not—a third of the estate in the first version of the will. She still gets the same for herself in the new version but she also gets a little more so she can set up a Whitley family library.” LaTour looked up. “Now there’s gonna be a fucking fun place to spend Sunday afternoons. . . . Then they added some new chartites too and got rid of some other ones. . . . Oh, and if you were going to ask, they were different charities from the ones in the Bensons’ will.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Well, you should have. Always look for connections, Tal. That’s the key in homicide. Connections between facts.”
“Just like—”
“—don’t say fucking statistics.”
“Mathematics. Common denominators.”
“Whatever,” LaTour muttered. “So, the wills’re out as motives. Same with—”
“The insurance polices.”
“I was going to say. Small policies and most of the Bensons’ goes to paying off a few small debts and giving some bucks to retired employees of the husband’s companies. It’s like twenty, thirty grand. Nothing suspicious there . . . Now, what’d you find?”
Tal explained about Dr. Sheldon, the cardiologist, then about Dehoeven, Mac, and the Cardiac Support Center.
LaTour asked immediately, “Both Benson and Whitley, patients of Sheldon?”
“No, only Whitley. Same for the Cardiac Support Center.”
“Fuck. We . . . what’sa matter?”
“You want to get your boots off my desk.”
Irritated, LaTour swung his feet around to the floor. “We need a connection, I was saying. Something—”
“I might have one,” Tal said quickly. “Drugs.”
“What, the old folks were dealing?” The sarcasm had returned. He added, “You still harping on that Lumicrap?”
“Lumi nux” Makes you drowsy and happy. Could mess up your judgment. Make you susceptible to suggestions.”
“That you blow your fucking brains out? One hell of a suggestion.”
“Ma
ybe not—if you were taking three times the normal dosage . . .”
“You think somebody slipped it to ‘em?”
“Maybe.” Tal nodded. “The counselor from the Cardiac Support unit left the Whitleys’ at four. They died around eight. Plenty of time for somebody to stop by, put some stuff in their drinks. Whoever called them from that pay phone.”
“Okay, the Whitleys were taking it. What about the Bensons?”
“They were cremated the day after they died, remember? We’ll never know.”
LaTour finished the sandwich. “You don’t mind, do you? It was just sitting there.”
He glanced at the desktop. “You got crumbs everywhere.”
The cop leaned forward and blew them to the floor. He sipped coffee from a mug that’d left a sticky ring on an evidence report file. “Okay, your—what the fuck do you call it? Theory?”
“Theorem.”
“Is that somebody slipped ’em that shit? But who? And why?”
“I don’t know that part yet.”
“Those parts” LaTour corrected. “Who and why. Parts plural.”
Tal sighed.
“You think you could really give somebody a drug and tell ’em to kill themselves and they will?”
“Let’s go find out,” Tal said.
“Huh?”
The statistician flipped through his notes. “The company that makes the drug? It’s over in Paramus. Off the Parkway. Let’s go talk to ’em.”
“Shit. All the way to Jersey.”
“You have a better idea?”
“I don’t need any fucking ideas. This’s your case, remember?”
“Maybe I twenty-one-twenty-foured it. But it’s everybody’s case now. Let’s go.”
She would’ve looked pretty good in a short skirt, Robert Covey thought, but unfortunately she was wearing slacks.
“Mr. Covey, I’m from the Cardiac Support Center.”
“Call me Bob. Or you’ll make me feel as old as your older brother.”
She was a little short for his taste but then he had to remind himself that she was here to help him get some pig parts stuck into his chest and rebuild a bunch of leaking veins and arteries—or else die with as little mess as he could. Besides, he claimed that he had a rule he’d never date a woman a third his age. (When the truth was that after Veronica maybe he joked and maybe he flirted but in his heart he was content never to date at all.)
He held the door for her and gestured her inside with a slight bow. He could see her defenses lower a bit. She was probably used to dealing with all sorts of pricks in this line of work and was wary during their initial meeting, but Covey limited his grousing to surly repairmen and clerks and waitresses who thought because he was old he was stupid.
There was, he felt, no need for impending death to skew his manners. He invited her in and directed her to the couch in his den.
“Welcome, Ms. McCaffrey—”
“How ‘bout Mac? That’s what my mother used to call me when I was good.”
“What’d she call you when you were bad?”
“Mac then too. Though she managed to get two syllables out of it. So, go ahead.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “With what?”
“With what you were going to tell me. That you don’t need me here. That you don’t need any help, that you’re only seeing me to humor your cardiologist, that you don’t want any hand-holding, that you don’t want to be coddled, that you don’t want to change your diet, you don’t want to exercise, you don’t want to give up smoking and you don’t want to stop drinking your—” She glanced at the bar and eyed the bottles. “—your port. So here’re the ground rules. Fair enough, no hand-holding, no coddling. That’s my part of the deal. But, yes, you’ll give up smoking—”
“Did before you were born, thank you very much.”
“Good. And you will be exercising and eating a cardio-friendly diet. And about the port—”
“Hold on—”
“I think we’ll limit you to three a night.”
“Four,” he said quickly.
“Three. And I suspect on most nights you only have two.”
“I can live with three,” he grumbled. She’d been right about the two (though, okay, sometimes a little bourbon joined the party).
Damn, he liked her. He always had liked strong women. Like Veronica.
Then she was on to other topics. Practical things about what the Cardiac Support Center did and what it didn’t do, about care givers, about home care, about insurance.
“Now, I understand you’re a widower. How long were you married?”
“Forty-nine years.”
“Well, now, that’s wonderful.”
“Ver and I had a very nice life together. Pissed me off we missed the fiftieth. I had a party planned. Complete with a harpist and open bar.” He raised an eyebrow. “Vintage port included.”
“And you have a son?”
“That’s right. Randall. He lives in California. Runs a computer company. But one that actually makes money. Imagine that! Wears his hair too long and lives with a woman—he oughta get married—but he’s a good boy.”
“You see him much?”
“All the time.”
“When did you talk to him last?”
“The other day.”
“And you’ve told him all about your condition?”
“You bet.”
“Good. Is he going to get out here?”
“In a week or so. He’s traveling. Got a big deal he’s putting together.”
She was taking something out of her purse. “Our doctor at the clinic prescribed this.” She handed him a bottle. “Luminux. It’s an anti-anxiety agent.”
“I say no to drugs.”
“This’s a new generation. You’re going through a lot of stuff right now. It’ll make you feel better. Virtually no side effects—”
“You mean it won’t take me back to my days as a beatnik in the Village?” She laughed and he added, “Actually, think I’ll pass.”
“It’s good for you.” She shook out two pills into a small cup and handed them to him. She walked to the bar and poured a glass of water.
Watching her, acting like she lived here, Covey scoffed, “You ever negotiate?”
“Not when I know I’m right.”
“Tough lady.” He glanced down at the pills in his hand. “I take these, that means I can’t have my port, right?”
“Sure you can. You know, moderation’s the key to everything.”
“You don’t seem like a moderate woman.”
“Oh, hell no, I’m not. But I don’t practice what I preach.” And she passed him the glass of water.
Late afternoon, driving to Jersey.
Tal fiddled with the radio trying to find the Opera Hour program that Nurse Mac had mentioned.
LaTour looked at the dash as if he was surprised the car even had a radio.
Moving up and down the dial, through the several National Public Radio bands, he couldn’t find the show. What time had she’d said it came on? He couldn’t remember. He wondered why he cared what she listened to. He didn’t even like opera that much. He gave up and settled on all news, all the time. LaTour stood that for five minutes then put the game on.
The homicide cop was either preoccupied or just a natural-born bad driver. Weaving, speeding well over the limit, then braking to a crawl. Occasionally he’d lift his middle finger to other drivers in a way that was almost endearing.
Probably happier on a motorcycle, Tal reflected.
LaTour tuned in the game on the radio. They listened for a while, neither speaking.
“So,” Tal tried. “Where you live?”
“Near the station house.”
Nothing more.
“Been on the force long?”
“Awhile.”
New York seven, Boston three. . . .
“You married?” Tal had noticed that he wore no wedding band.
More silence.
Tal tur
ned down the volume and repeated the question.
After a long moment LaTour grumbled, “That’s something else.”
“Oh.” Having no idea what the cop meant.
He supposed there was a story here—a hard divorce, lost children.
And six point three percent kill themselves before retirement. . .
But whatever the sad story might be, it was only for Bear’s friends in the Department, those on the Real Crimes side of the pen.
Not for Einstein, the calculator humper.
They fell silent and drove on amid the white noise of the sportscasters.
Ten minutes later LaTour skidded off the parkway and turned down a winding side road.
Montrose Pharmaceuticals was a small series of glass and chrome buildings in a landscaped industrial park. Far smaller than Pfizer and the other major drug companies in the Garden State, it nonetheless must’ve done pretty well in sales—to judge from the number of Mercedes, Jaguars, and Porsches in the employee parking lot.
Inside the elegant reception area, Westbrook County Sheriff’s Department badges raised some eyebrows. But, Tal concluded, it was LaTour’s bulk and hostile gaze that cut through whatever barriers existed here to gaining access to the inner sanctum of the company’s president.
In five minutes they were sitting in the office of Daniel Montrose, an earnest, balding man in his late forties. His eyes were as quick as his appearance was rumpled and Tal concluded that he was a kindred soul; a scientist, rather than a salesperson. The man rocked back and forth in his chair, peering at them through stylish glasses with a certain distraction. Uneasiness too.
Nobody said anything for a moment and Tal felt the tension in the office rise appreciably. He glanced at LaTour, who simply sat in the leather-and-chrome chair, looking around the opulent space. Maybe stonewalling was a technique that real cops used to get people to start talking.
“We’ve been getting ready for our sales conference,” Montrose suddenly volunteered. “It’s going to be a good one.”
“Is it?” Tal asked.
“That’s right. Our biggest. Las Vegas this year.” Then he clammed up again.
Tal wanted to echo, “Vegas?” for some reason. But he didn’t.
Finally LaTour said, “Tell us about Luminux.”
