“Is that the way it’s normally shipped? In an opaque bottle like that?”
“I don’t know. I would suppose so. Those are questions that Louis could answer.”
She reached out and took the bottle. “One thousand count. Ay. This little bottle is four thousand bucks.”
Francis nodded. “Sure enough, but a thousand pills means a lot of dead bugs, querida. ” With the tips of his fingers, he rolled a second bottle, the same size as the first, forward toward the edge of the shelf. Estelle saw the Kleinfelder and Schmidt label.
“Why would both bottles be open?” she asked.
“Are they?”
“Yes, they are. This one has the remains of a heat-shrunk sealing band. That one has nothing at all.”
Francis made a face. “Sharp eyes.” He handed her the second bottle.
“May I look?”
“Sure. Use the thingy, there.” He pointed at the counter behind her. “The counting tray.” He thrust his hands in his pockets. “And they don’t go back in the bottle once they’re out.”
Estelle opened the first plastic bottle and carefully shook two of the white capsules onto the plastic grid. With the small white spatula, she flipped over one of the pills. “Daprodin DG,” she said, and then examined the second pill. “And five hundred on the other side.” She leaned against the counter, regarding the two pills. Her free hand idly screwed the cap back on the jar and then reached for the second container. She pushed the first two pills to one side, neatly lined up on the grid, and then deftly shook out two pills from the second jar. “Daprodin DG, five hundred,” she said, and frowned. “I took this stuff last year, didn’t I.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Horse pills. I can remember trying to swallow them without gagging.”
“Break ’em up first.”
“I did that.” She reached out and tapped one of the pills with the spatula. “And they taste awful.” She looked up at her husband. “You’d have to counterfeit the taste, too. Otherwise, they wouldn’t fool anyone.”
“Quinine,” Francis said.
“That’s what’s in them?”
“In part. Daprodin is a quinolone, one of a fairly large family of drugs that’s derived from quinine.”
“Ay. Four dollars a pill for powdered bark.”
Francis laughed gently. “Almost. Rare powdered bark, though.” He frowned as Estelle took one of the pills from the first bottle and touched it to her tongue. For a moment, she closed her eyes.
She made a face. “Oh, si.” She regarded the damp pill for a moment, then dropped it into a small plastic evidence bag. After jotting a note on the label, closing the top, and tucking the bag into her jacket pocket, she pushed one of the pills from the second bottle to the side of the tray and picked it up.
“The scientific tasting test,” Francis said.
“You bet. Sophisticated laboratory analysis, as Guy Trombley would say. Let’s hope it’s not rat poison.”
“I don’t think so,” Francis said.
She let the capsule rest on her tongue, eyes closed. After a moment, without moving the pill or closing her mouth, she opened her eyes and looked at her husband.
“Well?”
She dropped the capsule into her hand and nodded at the tray. “Try one.”
“You’re serious?”
“Oh, si.”
Francis Guzman picked up the remaining pill and popped it into his mouth. Almost instantly, his eyebrows crumpled together, meeting over the bridge of his nose. “Talc,” he said. “That’s what it tastes like. That kind of musty, sweetish…” he waved a hand and then spat out the pill. He turned it this way and that, inspecting it. “Ain’t Daprodin, querida.”
“Most definitely not.” Estelle fell silent for a moment.
“Now what?” he asked, sagging his weight against the edge of the counter. “Christ, Louis,” he whispered. He hefted the second jar and turned it slowly, reading the label. “I can’t believe he’d do this. I mean, this means we’ve got patients out there who might as well be taking sawdust, as much good as this crap will do them.”
Estelle started to reach toward the second jar of capsules with the spatula when her cell phone rang, a shrill warbling. She looked heavenward. “Guzman.”
The phone remained silent long enough that Estelle repeated herself. The voice was tentative. “Is this…Undersheriff Guzman?”
“Yes, ma’am.” She recognized Barbara Parker’s light alto, complete with the woman’s characteristic waver of indecision. “How can I help you?” She glanced at her watch.
“Well, I…” the line fell silent, and Estelle waited, able to hear the woman’s breathing. “I probably shouldn’t have called,” Mrs. Parker said. “But I…well, I just don’t know.”
“Mrs. Parker,” Estelle said, “what is it?”
“You said to call, and then I wasn’t going to, and now I think I should say something,” Barbara Parker said. “Rick was here not too long ago. He wanted to talk, and I didn’t see any harm in that.”
Estelle felt her stomach tighten. The hand with the plastic spatula sank to the counter. The woman continued quickly now that she’d breached the dam. “We talked for nearly an hour, Undersheriff. Now it turns out that there’s a really good day-care center in Las Cruces that’s just a few blocks from Richard’s apartment, and he thought he’d be able to place Ryan there right away.”
“Mrs. Parker…”
“I knew that you wouldn’t approve, but…”
Estelle tossed the plastic spatula on the counter in disgust. “Mrs. Parker, it’s not whether I approve or not. You’re the guardian of your daughter’s children at the moment. We placed them in your custody because we believed they’d be safe there. That would be the best place for them. Richard Kenderman has no legal claim until a paternity test establishes that he’s the father. For both children. He hasn’t been living in the household. He hasn’t been contributing in any way toward child support.”
“I know,” the woman said, sounding as if she clearly didn’t know.
“Do you believe that Richard Kenderman is Ryan’s father, Mrs. Parker?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
“And I don’t think he does either, ma’am. Perry Kenderman is also claiming that honor.”
“He is?”
“Yes, he is. And I think we’ve had this conversation before.”
“Well…”
“And when Ryan isn’t in that wonderful day-care center down in Las Cruces, when he’s stuck in Richard Kenderman’s apartment the rest of the day, during the evening, at night, what then, Mrs. Parker? You trust Richard with Ryan?”
“No,” Barbara Parker said, and for the first time she sounded positive of something.
“That’s why it seemed reasonable to leave the children with you, Mrs. Parker. I’m as sorry as I can be about your daughter, but the fact remains that you’re Ryan and Mindi’s grandmother. They’ve been living in your home all along, and there’s no reason to change that now. Richard Kenderman might be the father of one or both of the children, and he might not be. If he wants custody, then he’s going to have to agree to a paternity test to establish his claim. Then, the courts will decide. Otherwise…”
“That’s why I called. Rick can be so persuasive, you know. Everything he said made sense, and he sounded so earnest. And he loves Ryan so, I think that’s clear. But now I think I made a mistake. In fact, I had decided that before he left. I told Rick that I’d consider it…what he was talking about, I mean. And apparently he didn’t like that very much. You know that temper of his.”
“Well, no I don’t, Mrs. Parker. I’ve met the young man once, and that wasn’t under the best circumstances. What happened?”
“I told him that I didn’t want Ryan going to the city, especially at such a late hour, and that we should talk about it more later. That I wanted to talk with you.”