Inside the elegant reception area, Westbrook County Sheriff’s Department badges raised some eyebrows. But, Tal concluded, it was LaTour’s bulk and hostile gaze that cut through whatever barriers existed here to gaining access to the inner sanctum of the company’s president.
In five minutes they were sitting in the office of Daniel Montrose, an earnest, balding man in his late forties. His eyes were as quick as his appearance was rumpled and Tal concluded that he was a kindred soul; a scientist, rather than a salesperson. The man rocked back and forth in his chair, peering at them through stylish glasses with a certain distraction. Uneasiness too.
Nobody said anything for a moment and Tal felt the tension in the office rise appreciably. He glanced at LaTour, who simply sat in the leather-and-chrome chair, looking around the opulent space. Maybe stonewalling was a technique that real cops used to get people to start talking.
“We’ve been getting ready for our sales conference,” Montrose suddenly volunteered. “It’s going to be a good one.”
“Is it?” Tal asked.
“That’s right. Our biggest. Las Vegas this year.” Then he clammed up again.
Tal wanted to echo, “Vegas?” for some reason. But he didn’t.
Finally LaTour said, “Tell us about Luminux.”
“Luminux. Right, Luminux... I’d really like to know, I mean, if it’s not against any rules or anything, what you want to know for. I mean, and what are you doing here? You haven’t really said.”
“We’re investigating some suicides.”
“Suicides?” he asked, frowning. “And Luminux is involved?”
“Yes indeedy,” LaTour said with all the cheer that the word required.
“But... it’s based on a mild diazepam derivative. It’d be very difficult to fatally overdose on it.”
“No, they died from other causes. But we found—”
The door swung open and a strikingly beautiful woman walked into the office. She blinked at the visitors and said a very unsorrowful, “Sorry. Thought you were alone.” She set a stack of folders on Montrose’s desk.
“These are some police officers from Westbrook County,” the president told her.
She looked at them more carefully. “Police. Is something wrong?”
Tal put her at forty. Long, serpentine face with cool eyes, very beautiful in a European fashion-model way. Slim legs with runner’s calves. Tal decided that she was like Sheldon’s Gaelic assistant, an example of some predatory genus very different from Mac McCaffrey’s.
Neither Tal nor LaTour answered her question. Montrose introduced her — Karen Billings. Her title was a mouthful but it had something to do with product support and patient relations.
“They were just asking about Luminux. There’ve been some problems, they’re claiming.”
“Problems?”
“They were just saying...” Montrose pushed his glasses higher on his nose. “Well, what were you saying?”
Tal continued, “A couple of people who killed themselves had three times the normal amount of Luminux in their systems.”
“But that can’t kill them. It couldn’t have. I don’t see why...” Her voice faded and she looked toward Montrose. They eyed each other, poker-faced. She then said coolly to LaTour, “What exactly would you like to know?”
“First of all, how could they get it into their bloodstream?” LaTour sat back, the chair creaking alarmingly. Tal wondered if he’d put his feet up on Montrose’s desk.
“You mean how could it be administered?”
“Yeah.”
“Orally’s the only way. It’s not available in an IV form yet.”
“But could it be mixed in food or a drink?”
“You think somebody did that?” Montrose asked. Billings remained silent, looking from Tal to LaTour and back again with her cautious, swept-wing eyes.
“Could it be done?” Tal asked.
“Of course,” the president said. “Sure. It’s water soluble. The vehicle’s bitter—”
“The—?”
“The inert base we mix it with. The drug itself is tasteless but we add a compound to make it bitter so kids’ll spit it out if they eat it by mistake. But you can mask that with sugar or—”
“Alcohol?”
Billings snapped, “Drinking isn’t recommended when taking—”
LaTour grumbled, “I’m not talking about the fucking fine print on the label. I’m talking about could you hide the flavor by mixing it in a drink?”
She hesitated. Then finally answered, “One could.” She clicked her nails together in impatience or anger.
“So what’s it do to you?”
Montrose said, “It’s essentially an anti-anxiety and mood-elevating agent, not a sleeping pill. It makes you relaxed. You get happier.”
“Does it mess with your thinking?”
“There’s some cognitive dimunition.”
“English?” LaTour grumbled.
“They’d feel slightly disoriented — but in a happy way.”
Tal recalled the misspellings in the note. “Would it affect their handwriting and spelling?”
Dangrous...
“It could, yes.”
Tal said. “Would their judgment be affected?”
“Judgment?” Billings asked harshly. “That’s subjective.”
“Whatta you mean?”
“There’s no quantifiable measure for one’s ability to judge something.”
“No? How ‘bout if one puts a gun to one’s head and pulls the trigger?” LaTour said. “I call that bad judgment. Any chance we agree on that?”
“What the fuck’re you getting at?” Billings snapped.
“Karen,” Montrose said, pulling off his designer glasses and rubbing his eyes.
She ignored her boss. “You think they took our drug and decided to kill themselves? You think we’re to blame for that? This drug—”
“This drug that a couple of people popped — maybe four people — and then killed themselves. Whatta we say about that from a statistical point of view?” LaTour turned to Tal.
“Well within the percentile of probability for establishing a causal relationship between the two events.”
“There you go. Science has spoken.”
Tal wondered if they were playing the good-cop/bad-cop routine you see in movies. He tried again. “Could an overdose of Luminux have impaired their judgment?”
“Not enough so that they’d decide to kill themselves,” she said firmly. Montrose said nothing.
“That your opinion too?” LaTour muttered to him.
The president said, “Yes, it is.”
Tal persisted, “How about making them susceptible?”
Billings leapt in with, “I don’t know what you mean... This is all crazy.”
Tal ignored her and said levelly to Montrose, “Could somebody persuade a person taking an overdose of Luminux to kill themselves?”
Silence filled the office.
Billings said, “I strongly doubt it.”
“But you ain’t saying no.” LaTour grumbled.
A glance between Billings and Montrose. Finally he pulled his wire-rims back on, looked away and said, “We’re not saying no.”
They next morning Tal and LaTour arrived at the station house at the same time, and the odd couple walked together through the Detective Division pen into Tal’s office.
They looked over the case so far and found no firm leads.
“Still no who,” LaTour grumbled. “Still no why.”
“But we’ve got a how,” Tal pointed out. Meaning the concession about Luminux making one suggestible.
“Fuck how. I want who. ”