Transgressions

by Ed McBain

At the circular glass table sat the president of the company and the other suspect, Karen Billings.

  Montrose leaned forward, eyes wide in shock. He stood up slowly. The woman too pushed back from the table. The head of the company was as rumpled as before; Billings was in a fierce crimson dress.

  “You, don’t move!” LaTour snapped.

  The red-dress woman blinked, unable to keep the anger out of her face. Tal could hear the tacit rejoinder: Nobody talks to me that way.

  “Why didn’t you tell us about the problems with Luminux?”

  The president exchanged a look with Billings.

  He cleared his throat. “Problems?”

  Tal dropped the downloaded material about the FDA issues with Luminux on Montrose’s desk. The president scooped it up and read.

  LaTour had told Tal to watch the man’s eyes. The eyes tell if someone’s lying, the homicide cop had lectured. Tal squinted and studied them. He didn’t have a clue what was going on behind his expensive glasses.

  LaTour said to Billings, “Can you tell me where you were on April seventh and the ninth?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Simple question, lady. Where were you?”

  “I’m not answering any goddamn questions without our lawyer.” She crossed her arms, sat back and contentedly began a staring contest with LaTour.

  “Why didn’t you tell us about this?” Tal nodded at the documents.

  Montrose said to Billings, “The dimethylamino.”

  “They found out about that?” she asked.

  “Yeah, we found out about it,” LaTour snapped. “Surprise.”

  Montrose turned to Tal. “What exactly did you find in the victims’ blood?”

  Unprepared for the question, he frowned. “Well, Luminux.”

  “You have the coroner’s report?”

  Tal pulled it out of his briefcase and put it on the table. “There.”

  Montrose frowned in an exaggerated way. “Actually, it doesn’t say ‘Luminux.’ ”

  “The fuck you talking about? It’s—”

  Montrose said, “I quote: ‘9-fluoro, 7-chloro-1,3-dihydro-1-methyl-5-phenyl-2H-1, 4-benzodiazepin, 5-hydroxytryptamine and N-(1-phenethyl-4-piperidyl) propionanilide citrate.’ ”

  “Whatever,” LaTour snapped, rolling his eyes. “That is Luminux. The medical examiner said so.”

  “That’s right,” Karen snapped right back. “That’s the approved version of the drug.”

  LaTour started to say something but fell silent.

  “Approved?” Tal asked uncertainly.

  Montrose said, “Look at the formula for the early version.”

  “Early?”

  “The one the FDA rejected. It’s in that printout of yours.”

  Tal was beginning to see where this was headed and he didn’t like the destination. He found the sheet in the printout and compared it to the formula in the medical examiner’s report. They were the same except that the earlier version of the Luminux contained another substance, dimethylamino ethyl phosphate ester.

  “What’s—”

  “A mild antipsychotic agent known as DEP. That’s what caused the problems in the first version. In combination it had a slight psychedelic effect. As soon as we took it out the FDA approved the drug. That was a year ago. You didn’t find any DEP in the bodies. The victims were taking the approved version of the drug. No DEP-enhanced Luminux was every released to the public.”

  Billings muttered, “And we’ve never had a single incidence of suicide among the six million people worldwide on the drug—a lot of whom are probably alive today because they were taking Luminux and didn’t kill themselves.”

  Montrose pulled a large binder off his desk and dropped it on his desk. “The complete study and FDA approval. No detrimental side effects. It’s even safe with alcohol in moderation.”

  “Though we don’t recommend it,” Billings snapped, just as icily as she had at their first meeting.

  “Why didn’t you tell us before?” LaTour grumbled.

  “You didn’t ask. All drugs go through a trial period while we make them safe.” Montrose wrote a number on a memo pad. “If you still don’t believe us—this’s the FDA’s number. Call them.”

  Billings’s farewell was “You found your way in here. You can find your way out.”

  Tal slouched in his office chair. LaTour was across from him with his feet up on Tal’s desk again.

  “Got a question,” Tal asked. “You ever wear spurs?”

  “Spurs? Oh, you mean like for horses? Why would I wear spurs? Or is that some kind of math nerd joke about putting my feet on your fucking desk?”

  “You figure it out,” Tal muttered as the cop swung his feet to the floor. “So where do we go from here? No greedy daughters, no evil drug maker. And we’ve pretty much humiliated ourselves in front of two harsh women. We’re batting oh for two.” The statistician sighed. Maybe they did kill themselves. Hell, sometimes life is just too much for some people.”

  “You don’t think that, though.”

  “I don’t feel it but I do think it and I do better thinking. When I start feeling I get into trouble.”

  “And the world goes round and round,” LaTour said. “Shit. It time for a beer yet?”

  But a beer was the last thing on Tal’s mind. He stared at the glacier of paper on his desk, the printouts, the charts, the lists, the photographs, hoping that he’d spot one fact, one datum, that might help them.

  Tal’s phone rang. He grabbed it. “ ‘Lo?”

  “Is this Detective Simms?” a meek voice asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m Bill Fendler, with Oak Creek Books in Barlow Heights. Somebody from your office called and asked to let you know if we sold any copies of Making the Final Journey: The Complete Guide to Suicide and Euthanasia.”

  Tal sat up. “That’s right. Have you?”

  “I just noticed the inventory showed one book sold in the last couple of days.”

  LaTour frowned. Tal held up a wait-a-minute finger.

  “Can you tell me who bought it”

  “That’s what I’ve been debating. . . . I’m not sure it’s ethical. I was thinking if you had a court order it might be better.”

  “We have reason to believe that somebody might be using that book to cover up a series of murders. That’s why we’re asking about it. Maybe it’s not ethical. But I’m asking you, please, give me the name of the person who bought it.”

  A pause. The man said, “Okay. Got a pencil.”

  Tal found one. “Go ahead.”

  The mathematician started to write the name. Stunned, he paused. “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Positive, Detective. The receipt’s right here in front of me.”

  The phone sagged in Tal’s hand. He finished jotting the name, showed it to LaTour. “What do we do now?” he asked.

  LaTour lifted a surprised eyebrow. “Search warrant,” he said. “That’s what we do.”

  The warrant was pretty easy, especially since LaTour was on good terms with nearly every judge and magistrate in Westbrook County personally, and a short time later they were halfway through their search of the modest bungalow located in even more modest Harrison Village. Tal and LaTour were in the bedroom, three uniformed county troopers were downstairs.

  Drawers, closets, beneath the bed . . .

  Tal wasn’t exactly sure what they were looking for. He followed LaTour’s lead. The big cop had considerable experience sniffing out hiding places, it seemed, but it was Tal who found the jacket, which was shedding off-white fibers that appeared to match the one they’d found at the Whitleys’ death scene.

  This was some connection, though a tenuous one.

  “Sir, I found something outside!” a cop called up the stairs.

  They went out to the garage, where the officer was standing over a suitcase, hidden under stacks of boxes. Inside were two large bottles of Luminux, with only a few pills remaining in each.
There were no personal prescription labels attached but they seemed to be the containers that were sold directly to hospitals. This one had been sold to the Cardiac Support Center. Also in the suitcase were articles cut from magazines and newspapers—one was from several years ago. It was about a nurse who’d killed elderly patients in a nursing home in Ohio with lethal drugs. The woman was quoted as saying, “I did a good thing, helping those people die with dignity. I never got a penny from their deaths. I only wanted them to be at peace. My worst crime is I’m an Angel of Mercy.” There were a half-dozen others, too, the theme being the kindness of euthanasia. Some actually gave practical advice on “transitioning” people from life.

  Tal stepped back, arms crossed, staring numbly at the find.

  Another officer walked outside. “Found these hidden behind the desk downstairs.”

  In his latex-gloved hands Tal took the documents. They were the Bensons’ files from the Cardiac Support Center. He opened and read through the first pages.

  LaTour said something but the statistician didn’t hear. He’d hoped up until now that the facts were wrong, that this was all a huge misunderstanding. But true mathematicians will always accept where the truth leads, even if it shatters their most heart-felt theorem.

  There was no doubt that Mac McCaffrey was the killer.

  She’d been the person who’d just bought the suicide book. And it was here, in her house, that they’d found the jacket, the Luminux bottles and the euthanasia articles. As for the Bensons’ files, her name was prominently given as the couple’s nurse/counselor. She’d lied about working with them.

  The homicide cop spoke again.

  “What’d you say?” Tal muttered.

  “Where is she, you think?”

  “At the hospital, I’d guess. The Cardiac Support Center.”

  “So you ready?” LaTour asked.

  “For what?”

  “To make your first collar.”

  The blue cheese, in fact, turned out to be a bust.

  But Nurse Mac—the only way Robert Covey could think of her now—seemed to enjoy the other food he’d laid out.

  “Nobody’s ever made appetizers for me,” she said, touched.

  “They don’t make gentlemen like me anymore.”

  And bless her, here was a woman who didn’t whine about her weight. She smeared a big slab of pate on a cracker and ate it right down, then went for the shrimp.

  Covey sat back on the couch in the den, a bit perplexed. He recalled her feistiness from their first meeting and was anticipating—and looking forward to—a fight about diet and exercise. But she made only one exercise comment—after she’d opened the back door.

  “Beautiful yard.”

  “Thanks. Ver was the landscaper.”

  “That’s a nice pool. You like to swim?”

  He told her he loved to, though since he’d been diagnosed with the heart problem he didn’t swim alone, worried he’d faint or have a heart attack and drown.

  Nurse Mac had nodded. But there was something else on her mind. She finally turned away from the pool. “You’re probably wondering what’s on the agenda for this session?”

  “Yes’m, I am.”

  “Well, I’ll be right up front. I’m here to talk you into doing something you might not want to do.”

  “Ah, negotiating, are we? This involve the fourth glass of port?”

  She smiled. “It’s a little more important than that. But now that you’ve brought it up . . .” She rose and walked to the bar. “You don’t mind, do you?” She picked up a bottle of old Taylor-Fladgate, lifted an eyebrow.

  “I’ll mind if you pour it down the drain. I don’t mind if we drink some.”

  “Why don’t you refill the food,” she said. “I’ll play bartender.”

  When Covey returned from the kitchen Nurse Mac had poured him a large glass of port. She handed it to him then poured one for herself. She lifted hers. He did too and the crystal rang.

  They both sipped.

  “So what’s this all about, you acting so mysterious?”

  “What’s it about?” she mused. “It’s about eliminating pain, finding peace. And sometimes you just can’t do that alone. Sometimes you need somebody to help you.”

  “Can’t argue with the sentiment. What’ve you got in mind? Specific, I mean.”

  Mac leaned forward, tapped her glass to his. “Drink up.” They downed the ruby-colored liquor.

  ______

  “Go, go, go!”

  “You wanna drive?” LaTour shouted over the roar of the engine. They skidded sharply around the parkway, over the curb and onto the grass, nearly scraping the side of the unmarked car against a jutting rock.

  “At least I know how to drive,” Tal called. Then: “Step on it!”

  “Shut the fuck up. Let me concentrate.”

  As the wheel grated against another curb Tal decided that shutting up was a wise idea and fell silent.

  Another squad car was behind them.

  “There, that’s the turn-off.” Tal pointed.

  LaTour controlled the skid and somehow managed to keep them out of the oncoming traffic lane.

  Another three hundred yards. Tal directed the homicide cop down the winding road then up a long driveway, at the end of which was a small, dark-blue sedan. The same car the witnesses had seen outside the Bensons’ house, the same car that had left the tread marks at the Whitley’s the day they died.

  Killing the siren, LaTour skidded to a stop in front of the car. The squad car parked close behind, blocking the sedan in.

  All four officers leapt out. As they ran past the vehicle Tal glanced in the backseat and saw the tan baseball cap that the driver of the car, Mac McCaffrey, had worn outside the Bensons’ house, the day she’d engineered their deaths.

  In a movement quite smooth for such a big man LaTour unlatched the door and shoved inside, not even breaking stride. He pulled his gun from his holster.

  They and the uniformed officers charged into the living room and then the den.

  They stopped, looking at the two astonished people on the couch.

  One was Robert Covey, who was unharmed.

  The other, the woman who’d been about to kill him, was standing over him, eyes wide. Mac was just offering the old man one of the tools of her murderous trade: a glass undoubtedly laced with enough Luminux to render him half conscious and suggestible to suicide. Tal noticed that the back door was open, revealing a large swimming pool. So, not a gun or carbon monoxide. Death by drowning this time.

  “Tal!” she gasped.

  But he said nothing. He let LaTour step forward to cuff her and arrest her. The homicide cop was, of course, much better versed in such matters of protocol.

  The homicide detective looked through her purse and found the suicide book inside.

  Robert Covey was in the ambulance outside, being checked out by the medics. He’d seemed okay but they were taking their time, just to make sure.

  After they found the evidence at Mac’s house, Tal and LaTour had sped to the hospital. She was out but Dr. Dehoeven at the CRC had pulled her client list and they’d gone through her calendar, learning that she was meeting with Covey at that moment. He hadn’t answered the phone, and they’d raced to the elderly man’s house.

  LaTour would’ve been content to ship Mac off to Central Booking but Tal was a bit out of control; he couldn’t help confronting her. “You did know Don and Sy Benson. Don was your client. You lied to me.”

  Mac started to speak then looked down, her tearful eyes on the floor.

  “We found Benson’s files in your house. And the computer logs at CSC showed you erased his records. You were at their house the day they died. It was you the witness saw in the hat and sunglasses. And the Whitleys? You killed them too.”

  “I didn’t kill anybody!”

  “Okay, fine—you helped them kill themselves. You drugged them and talked them into it. And then cleaned up after.” He turned to the uniformed deputy. “Take
her to Booking.”

  And she was led away, calling, “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  “Bullshit,” LaTour muttered.

  Though, staring after her as the car eased down the long drive, Tal reflected that in a way—some abstract, moral sense—she truly did believe she hadn’t done anything wrong.

  But to the people of the state of New York, the evidence was irrefutable. Nurse Claire “Mac” McCaffrey had murdered four people and undoubtedly intended to murder scores of others. She’d gotten the Bensons doped up on Friday and helped them kill themselves. Then on Sunday she’d called the Whitleys from a pay phone, made sure they were home then went over there and arranged for their suicides too. She’d cleaned up the place, taken the Luminux and hadn’t left until after they died: (Tal had learned that the opera show she listened to wasn’t on until 7:00 P.M. Not 4:00, as she’d told him. That’s why he hadn’t been able to find it when he’d surfed the frequencies in LaTour’s car.)

  She’d gone into this business to ease the suffering of patients—because her own mother had had such a difficult time dying. But what she’d meant by “easing suffering” was putting them down like dogs.

  Robert Covey returned to his den. He was badly shaken but physically fine. He had some Luminux in his system but not a dangerously high dosage. “She seemed so nice, so normal,” he whispered.

  Oh, you bet, Tal thought bitterly. A goddamn perfect member of the Four Percent Club.

  He and LaTour did some paperwork—Tal so upset that he didn’t even think about his own questionnaire—and they walked back to LaTour’s car. Tal sat heavily in the front seat, staring straight ahead. The homicide cop didn’t start the engine. He said, “Sometimes closing a case is harder than not closing it. That’s something they don’t teach you at the academy. But you did what you had to. People’ll be alive now because of what you did.”

  “I guess,” he said sullenly. He was picturing Mac’s office. Her crooked smile when she’d look over the park. Her laugh.

  “Let’s file the papers. Then we’ll go get a beer. Hey, you do drink beer, don’tcha?”

  “Yeah, I drink beer,” Tal said.

  “We’ll make a cop outta you yet, Einstein.”