“Hey, guys,” he said. “We have an ambulance inbound from an accident east of here on the interstate. Before we get wound up with that, I wanted to let you know about Patrick Gabaldon.” He held his hand to the left side of his head. “He was hit twice, really hard…hairline skull fractures and some subdural hematoma and brain swelling that’s a worry. We have him stabilized now and are looking to airlift him to University Hospital as soon as we can.”
“Is he conscious?” I asked, and Francis shook his head. “What about the neck wound?”
“He lost a lot of blood, but whoever assaulted him didn’t work it just right.” The doctor held his left index finger on the angle of his own jaw, then drew a line along his jaw until he touched the point of his chin. “Ran right along his jaw bone, but that protected the major vessels. Nasty, but manageable.”
“So he can’t talk to us,” I said.
“No. Not the way we have him sedated. It’s going to be touch and go. Whoever hit him really tagged him a good one. Twice. Really hard.” Francis patted the door jamb as he pushed himself upright.
“Hit him with what? Any guesses?”
“I have no idea,” Francis replied. “There were no distinguishable marks, and the wound is not really focused, the way being swatted with a lug wrench would be. You’re looking for something blunt, maybe kinda flat. That’s as good as it gets at the moment. Okay?”
“You bet. Thanks.”
“I saw Louis out in the hallway,” the physician said. “In the past ten years, I think I’ve treated half a dozen patients where I prescribed the H-C cocktail. It’s not common, by any means. Not here, anyway.”
“We need a list of those,” Torrez said.
“Not even with a warrant, Bobby. We just don’t do that.”
The sheriff actually smiled. “I know you don’t,” he said affably. “I just said that was something we needed. Didn’t say we were going to get it.”
Chapter Twenty-one
I’d been inside Guy Trombley’s drug store a thousand times in the past three decades. With the passing of the years, chasing various health episodes had threatened to become a major hobby of mine. I’d never considered Trombley’s Posadas Pharmacy as particularly old-fashioned, any more than I thought of myself as aging-unless I looked in the mirror or started to push myself from a low-slung chair. It wasn’t hard to imagine that Louis Herrera, a youthful, progressive pharmacist, might regard Posadas Pharmacy and its long-time owner as relics.
Comfortable is what the place was. All the aromas, most of them pleasant, mingled into a good, solid, dependable potpourri. I knew where I was when I walked into Guy’s place, even recognized most of the teenaged counter attendants. The floor was old-fashioned, well-oiled wood that squeaked a welcome.
With construction of the Guzman/Perrone clinic, Trombley’s would no longer be the only retail pharmacological game in town. I doubted that he’d deign to lower his monopolistic prices with the competition.
We stood quietly and watched while Guy fumbled with the keys for both the door and the alarm system. At one point, he stopped and twisted his tall, gangling form toward me. “I wouldn’t do this for just anybody,” he whispered, as if the streets had ears. He turned 180 degrees so Estelle could hear him. “Not just anybody.”
“We appreciate it, sir,” she said.
“I’m not even going to ask why all this can’t wait until a reasonable hour,” he said. His voice reminded me of a banjo. “But I’m sure that the sheriff has his reasons.” He grinned at me as the door clicked open. “Robert isn’t coming over? He was the one who called me.”
“Ah, no,” I said. “He decided that the two of us could handle you all right.”
Trombley barked a laugh. “Well, then, here we are.” He bowed and ushered us both inside. “My kingdom.” He closed the door behind him, clicked the dead bolt shut, and palmed a four-switch panel for the lights. The fluorescents tinkled and blinked into life. “Now what can I do for the minions of the law?” He held up a hand before either of us had a chance to answer. “You know, nothing would taste better right now than a cup of coffee. Do you mind if I take a moment to put on a pot?”
“Oh, I never touch the stuff,” I said, and Trombley guffawed again.
“Just herbal tea now, eh?” he chortled. “I know you’re not to be tempted,” he said to Estelle. “But I have Earl Grey, Oolong, and some other stuff that’s mostly chopped up flower beds if you’re in the mood.”
“No, thank you, sir. But we really appreciate you coming down to meet us,” Estelle said.
We followed him through the aisles, around a tall counter, and two steps up to the pharmacists’ work counter. From this spot, Guy could look out over his domain. In a moment, he had the drip brewer hard at work, and I was beginning to think that a hot bagel with cream cheese would go nicely. He rubbed his hands in anticipation. “Now, then.”
“We’re interested in a particular chemical,” Estelle said. Trombley tilted his head back, locking her in focus through his half glasses, his ruddy, pocked face a mask of serious interest. “Histamine diphosphate.”
Trombley’s head sank back down until his head rested on his chest, his eyes never leaving Estelle’s face. He watched as she consulted her notebook. “Histamine diphosphate,” she repeated.
His sparse eyebrows raised, and he cocked his head. “That’s a little off the wall, sheriff.”
“Yes,” she agreed, and let her explanation go with that. “I’d appreciate whatever information you can give us.”
“You’ve talked to your husband, or to young Herrera?” He asked the question with enough tact that it sounded more self-deprecating than anything else.
“Briefly.” Estelle didn’t elaborate.
“I see.” Guy looked across at me, then back over his shoulder at the coffee pot. It was thinking, but hadn’t produced much. “I sincerely hope that’s not the new street craze, folks. If it is, you guys are going to be picking up a lot of dead bodies.”
“We hope it isn’t,” I said.
“Well, while we’re waiting for this pokey thing, let me show you where I keep ours. It’s back in the compounding area. Histamine diphosphate isn’t a drug, per se, you know. Your husband might have already told you all this, I suppose. It’s really just a chemical that is compounded into a treatment. Never administered by itself.”
He moved past me toward the steps. “Follow me this way,” he said. “The drug you mention has been shown to be efficacious sometimes in the treatment of multiple sclerosis. That’s its major claim to fame.”
“It’s ingested orally? The treatment, I mean?” I asked as we followed him through a narrow passageway to a tiny room in the back. Except for a touch of gray where dust touched unused flat surfaces, the place was tidy, with a gadget at one end that looked like a hi-tech bead-blasting chamber.
Trombley shook his head. “Oh, no. Through a skin patch. Like those things you wear to stop smoking.”
“So the histamine diphosphate is easily absorbed through the skin, then.”
“Indeed it is,” Trombley said. “And that’s how we can keep the dose very small, and very controlled.” He ran a hand along a shelf, ticking off the jars and boxes. “It’s pretty squirrelly stuff, folks. Histamine is a natural chemical in the body, as I’m sure you’re aware. That’s what triggers the body’s response mechanism in allergies, for instance.” He turned his head to cough once into his cupped hand, a loud, racking ratchet that didn’t sound good.
He continued his own personal guided tour of the shelves, working his way downward through the alphabet. “Ah, here we are,” he said, pulling a small bottle off the shelf. He handed it to Estelle. “Don’t open it.”
She twisted it this way and that, scanning the label. “This says haloperidol powder, Mr. Trombley. Is that the same thing?”
“Hardly,” he replied, reaching hastily for the bottle. He squinted at it, looked heavenward, and turned around muttering, “Don’t ever, ever get old, either one of you.” I knew exactly what he’d done. The eyes see the target, but the hand and the attention drift a bit. I did that very thing at the supermarket, sometimes arriving home with a truly puzzling substitution for what I’d intended.