Lundquist sat behind Jesse’s desk. “Okay, I’m sitting and facing you.”
“One more thing. Drs. Laghari and Wexler. What about their prescription writing?”
The corners of Lundquist’s lips turned down. “They’ve been busy little beavers, those two. I imagine they must have writer’s cramp from all the Vicodin and Oxycontin scripts they’ve been writing.”
“Fascinating. Dr. Wexler is suffering from severe Alzheimer’s and doesn’t know where he is or who he was. Laghari, he’s something else.”
“What’s the bigger thing, Jesse?”
“The other day, I parked across the street from a storefront in Roxbury. Nominally, it is Dr. Laghari’s office or clinic. What it really is is a script mill. People, probably opioid addicts themselves, are getting paid to get the scripts written by Laghari filled at ‘friendly’ pharmacies. A bus drops them off at the clinic, then drives them to various pharmacies they know will fill the scripts. Those pills wind up in towns like Paradise, Salem, and Swan Harbor, where the dealers know they will get top dollar for each pill. And when the addicts can’t afford the pills anymore, they turn them on to heroin. Helluva business model.”
“But what’s this got to do with the task force?”
“I was approached by a Detective Hector of the BPD. Told me to scoot.”
“So?”
“Truth?”
“I asked, didn’t I, Jesse?”
“Hector was protecting the clinic.”
“How can you know that?”
“Know it?” Jesse said. “I can’t know it, but I do. The guy guarding the door at the clinic made my Explorer. Probably knows every car on the block. He called his man on the task force and his man came and chased me.”
“Maybe it was legit and the task force spotted you.”
“I don’t like the idea of dirty cops any more than you do, Brian. What you do with this info is up to you. But I can tell you this, put someone on a registered nurse named Millie Lutz. She’s the one writing Wexler’s scripts. She’s part of a rotating crew of caretakers for Wexler. Also put one on Laghari. If they’re not already dead, they will be soon.”
Dr. Rajiv Laghari did not like or trust the crude men who had coerced him into being their boy. He had himself to blame for that, but he had taken responsibility for very little in his life except the successful parts. That morning he was very pleased that his escort to the new location would not be that animal Stojan or his silent sidekick, Georgi. Detective Hector was a reasonable fellow who enjoyed talking about the things that interested Laghari: women and other women. So when the bell rang, he answered it without question. Detective Hector was there, but behind him was another man, an addict he recognized as a patient from the clinic.
“What is he doing here?” Laghari asked, as if the other man wasn’t there.
Detective Hector didn’t answer. Instead he stuck a six-inch blade into Laghari’s liver, pulled it out, and sliced through the doctor’s left femoral artery. Then he stepped back, shoved the junkie in front of him, drew his weapon, and screamed loudly enough to be heard on the street and in the condo next door, “Drop the knife now!”
Hector emptied half his clip into the clinic patient’s back. He died of his gunshot wounds even before Dr. Laghari bled out. Hector gloved up, wiped the hilt of the knife, and wrapped the dead man’s hand around it. He then removed several scripts written by Laghari out of his own pocket and carefully placed them in the patient’s front pocket. When he was sure the scene was believable, he called it in.
When Jerry opened Precious Pawn and Loan, he held the door for Jolene and hurried to shut the alarm. The second the alarm was disarmed, a man in a Patriots ski mask grabbed Jolene around her throat and pressed a Glock to her temple.
“Do what I tell you and she doesn’t die.”
Jerry held his hands up and promised to do as he was told.
“The cash. Now!”
Jerry hurried to the back room.
“Faster! Faster!”
But he wasn’t fast enough. As Jerry ran toward the back room door, the masked man shot him twice, once through his left shoulder blade and then the back of his head. Jolene screamed as Jerry went down face-first. The gunman released Jolene, who knelt by Jerry. When she turned to look back, a bullet ripped through the top of her left breast. She was already dead when the second bullet made certain she wouldn’t be nearly as pretty in death as she had been in life.
On the way out, the gunman smashed one of the display cases with the butt of his gun and grabbed a fistful of jewelry with a gloved hand. It would all look good for the cameras, like a robbery gone wrong at the hands of a nervous junkie. A nervous junkie who was an expert shot and who would eventually throw the stolen jewelry into the Charles River.
Seventy-one
After Lundquist left, Jesse headed to the high school in a cruiser. What he had to tell Virginia Wester was not the type of thing you did over the phone if it could be avoided. Although telling Wester he had to investigate every female teacher in her school was tough, it was nowhere near as difficult to do as a next-of-kin notification. That was the worst thing to do over the phone, and he had been forced to do it more than once, both in L.A. and in Paradise. The hardest call he had ever had to make was several years back, when a college freshman from California had been murdered in the Salter mansion up on the Bluffs. That call to the girl’s parents would haunt Jesse.
When Jesse entered the high school, he drew stares and sideways glances. Heather Mackey’s death was one thing, but the drug locker display, and now Petra North’s OD... There was a cloud that had settled over the school, a veil of guilt and suspicion. It hung in the air in the hallways and classrooms so that even the innocent and naïve were touched by it.
As he climbed the stairs, Brandy Lawton came down.
“Hi, Jesse.”
“Brandy.”
“On the way to see Virginia?”
He nodded.
“How is Petra North?”
“You’ve heard?”
“Everybody’s heard. How is she?”
“Alive,” Jesse said, being purposely vague. If he was going to interview these people, he wanted them as uninformed and on edge as possible.
“That’s something, at least. Was it like Heather? I mean... you know.”
“I’ve got to go, Brandy. Excuse me.”
But as he tried to move past her, she asked if he would be willing to do his talk to the softball team again this spring. He agreed more out of expediency than a desire to give a motivational talk. He had never found those talks very helpful during his baseball career. Then again, Jesse was old-school and thought a kick in the ass often worked better than talk.
Just as Brandy Lawton had asked about Petra, so, too, did Freda and Principal Wester. He was a little less vague with these two women than he had been with Lawton.
“She’s in a coma,” he said. “There is brain activity and there’s a chance she will recover, but I’d prefer it if you would not share that information with the faculty.”
Principal Wester didn’t like that. “And why wouldn’t I share that with my people? They are all concerned about Petra’s recovery.”
“Most, not all.”
“What?”
“Virginia, it’s my belief that one of your teachers tried to kill Petra. That’s why I’m here.”
“To make an arrest?”
“No, to tell you that I need to set up interviews with all your female faculty members and employees. We’ll talk to everyone, from the teachers to the lunch ladies and the bus drivers.”
“Jesse, I’ve bent over backward for you, but you’re going to have to give me something more than your word on this, and I will have to alert the school board.”