“Well, I’m miserable. He succeeded.”
Francis reached out and gently massaged the back of her neck. “Do what you always do, querida.”
“I’m finding that hard.”
“Just turn over all the stones. All I can tell you is this: I went to school with Louis, and I think I know him pretty well. I can’t imaging he’d risk something so stupid. But,” and he shrugged helplessly.
“We don’t know, do we? I don’t pay attention to how he runs the pharmacy, any more than he watches over what Alan and I do down the hall. Too trusting, I suppose.”
“There was an understanding between the three of you that you’d sell prescriptions as inexpensively as you could.”
“Yes. And there’s a fair-sized clientele that pays nothing at all, for drugs or services, either one…or maybe a few token pesos. But we knew that would happen going in. That was part of the deal.”
Estelle fell silent.
“By the way, I don’t know anything about Guy Trombley, other than what the rest of the town knows: He and his drugstore have been here forever. I’ve never had a patient complain to me about anything he does…except once in a while about the price of things. On a few occasions, I’ve been a little irritated with his second-guessing the doctor’s orders, but there’s probably not a pharmacist on the planet who doesn’t do that once in a while.”
“That’s not what worries me,” Estelle said.
“It sure worries me, querida. We have a lot to lose.”
She turned and looked at her husband. “George Enriquez knew something. We don’t know what. He contacted Dan Schroeder. And then someone blew George’s brains out. It’s not about the drugs, Oso. It’s about murder.”
“You’re telling me that somehow Louis Herrera might be involved in Enriquez’s death?”
“I don’t know what I think.”
“You could as easily imagine that Dan Schroeder is involved.”
Estelle’s face went blank. “Why would I think that?”
“Enriquez called him, then ended up dead. It’s a fair assumption.”
“The district attorney did not kill George Enriquez,” Estelle said.
“And how do you know this?”
“I just do.”
“Ah. La intuicion femenina. But remember, he had a great alibi. In court, busy with the grand jury that was supposedly seeking an indictment against Enriquez…”
“Oso, get a grip. If that were the case, there would have been no reason for Enriquez to call Schroeder, or in the bizarre event that he did, no reason for Schroeder to tell me about the call in the first place.”
“It was just a thought.” He held up both hands. “What do you want to do, then?”
“I’d like to look through the drug inventory down at the clinic.” She watched his left eyebrow drift upward. “Will you help me do that?”
He shook his head wearily. “This is really scary, querida.” He drew in a deep breath and glanced at his watch. “This is in the category of ‘no good deed goes unpunished.’ ”
“I need to know,” Estelle said.
“We’ll do whatever you have to do,” Francis said. He reached out and squeezed her leg just above the knee, rocking her gently back and forth. “This is going to work out, one way or another. We do what we have to do. You want to focus on the drugs that Enriquez marked in the book?”
“I think that was his study guide,” Estelle said, nodding. “That’s a good place to start. That will tell me if I’m crazy or not.”
“Louis should be there, you know. The pharmacy is his bailiwick. But I guess that’s not what you had in mind.”
“No.”
Francis smiled and held up a hand. “Which prompts a question. I have a key that will get us into the pharmacy, no problem. Should you then decide to go through all of Guy Trombley’s stock, too, how are you going to do that? He’s not going to be overjoyed at that prospect.”
Estelle pushed herself up off the couch and straightened her suit. “I hope it doesn’t go that far, Oso. I have no connection with Guy Trombley. I do have a connection with Louis Herrera. That’s why I want to start there. If it does go further…that’s the nice thing about a warrant. It won’t matter if Trombley is overjoyed or not.”
Chapter Thirty-three
“Where do you want to start?” Dr. Francis Guzman held open the heavy door that separated the pharmacy from the clinic. Estelle stepped into the darkened pharmacy and paused. She didn’t want to start at all, and even more than that, didn’t want to find anything once she did.
“The best-sellers,” she said, without enthusiasm.
Her husband switched on the panel of lights directly over the pharmacist’s work counter. The pharmacy was tidy. Rows of white boxes and bottles trooped on narrow shelves as if they’d been lined up with a laser. Estelle lifted the weighty pharmaceutical reference book and laid it on the counter.
“Of the eight that were marked, which ones do you prescribe the most often?”
“Me, personally, or physicians in general?” Francis asked. He saw the impatience flick across his wife’s face. “I’m just asking, querida. There are some drugs that some physicians prescribe a lot, that I don’t,” he continued. “I don’t know if that makes a difference or not in this case.”
“I don’t either.”
“Petrosin is an example.” He folded his arms across his chest. “To me, it’s sort of like using morphine to counter the pain of a stubbed toe. Obviously, not everyone agrees with me.” He shrugged. “Of the eight drugs that you’ve marked there, I commonly prescribe Deyldiol. When they remember to take it and stay on schedule, it’s pretty dependable.”
“It’s fairly inexpensive,” Estelle said.
“Well, remember that ‘inexpensive’ is a relative thing,” Francis said. “Of all the prescriptions we give out that we know we’re not going to be paid for, Deyldiol probably heads the list. That wasn’t always the case.” He shrugged. “Birth control by chemical wasn’t always an option, especially south of the border. It’s interesting,” he added, and then frowned as he fell silent. Estelle waited, watching her husband’s face.
After a minute, he said, “You know, that’s an interesting spectrum. I was going to say that the other drug that is prescribed frequently is Daprodin. It’s a real powerhouse antibiotic, and so far we haven’t seen too many side effects. But we’re getting good results with it-sometimes even spectacular-with really tough, persistent infections. Urinary tract, prostate…things like that. It’s really effective against some of the strep infections. On top of that, Daprodin is the most expensive of the group that you’ve got there, by far. Four, five bucks a pop.” He held up a hand. “But even that isn’t near the top of the list as far as expense is concerned. We can hit forty grand a year with some of the injectable drugs that AIDS patients take as part of their daily smorgasbord.” He reached out and tapped the book. “But none of those are on your list.”
“Let’s start there,” Estelle said. “With Daprodin, I mean. If they were counterfeit pills, could you tell the difference?”
“That depends,” Francis replied. “People counterfeit things as complicated as currency all the time. I don’t see why it would be hard to knock off a fake tablet that would fool most patients. Probably their doctors, too.”
He stepped to the shelves and ran his hand along the edges, reached the end of a section and turned the corner. After a moment he straightened up with a large white plastic bottle. “Daprodin DG.”
“What’s the DG stand for?”
“ ‘Damn good,’ at this price, I suppose.” He flashed a quick grin. “I don’t know, querida. If it’s not in that tome that you’re carrying around, you’d have to ask the company.” He turned the bottle so he could read the bottom of the label. “Kleinfelder and Schmidt Laboratories, Darien, Connecticut.”