A Discount for Death (23 page)

The thought curled Estelle’s gut into a tight ball as she pulled the county car into her driveway. More than anything else, she wanted to find a quiet corner and talk with her husband, to listen as his soft, husky voice assured her that her nightmares weren’t true.

She sat in the car, its engine silent. She gazed at the house, knowing every smell, every sound, every soft touch inside. George Enriquez was a persuasive salesman. Her eyes narrowed with anger, and she twisted the ignition key. The county car started at the same time that the front door of her home opened.

Francis Guzman peered out at her and then stepped out on the stoop, closing the door behind him. She rolled down the window as he approached. He bent down, both hands on the door.

“You lose your way?” He reached out and touched her cheek.

“No, I don’t think so,
Oso
. But I forgot something. Half hour. I promise.”

“One of the other docs is covering for me tonight,” he said and thumped the door gently with the heel of his hand. “As soon as the kids are done with dinner, I’m going to send Irma home. Okay? Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Fine. I’ll be right back. But there’s one more thing I need to do.”

“
Siempre uno más, querida
. Always one more.”

She nodded.

“Did you make some progress today?” He watched her face, his gaze almost clinical.

“I think so.”

“We’ll talk about it when you get home.”

She nodded, and he leaned toward her. When their lips touched, she had the urge to pull him through the window, and some of her urgency must have been transmitted through her grip on his arm. “Be careful,” he said.

“You bet.”

He stood by the driveway and watched as she backed the car out into the street, then lifted a hand in salute as she pulled away.

Chapter Thirty-one

Guy Trombley’s Rite-Brand Pharmacy, Cards and Gifts shared the corner of Pershing and Bustos with Bascomb Auto Parts. The two stores shared more than the corner. Both were dark, cluttered, and soaked in the odd smells of their merchandise.

At one time, Trombley’s had included a six-stool soda fountain, but the vending machines down the street outside of Tommy Portillo’s Handi-Way—along with the racks of junk food inside that convenience store—had made the soda fountain obsolete. Trombley had refused to remove the stools or the counter. And he hadn’t set foot in Portillo’s store during the twenty years it had been open.

Estelle had no difficulty imagining how Guy Trombley must have felt about the new Posadas Clinic and Pharmacy, after being what Bill Gastner was fond of calling the “stud duck” for three decades.

Shortly after six, Estelle parked on Pershing two car lengths from the corner. The drugstore’s large windows fronted Bustos. The concrete-block wall that faced the cross street had blistered and peeled like skin in critical need of a dermatologist.

She hefted the drug reference volume, hesitated for just a moment, and then left the car. The posted hours on the door announced that closing was six minutes overdue, but the
OPEN
sign that nestled in the corner of the window hadn’t been turned. A tiny bell chimed when she entered the drugstore.

“Just under the wire,” Guy Trombley said without looking up. He stood behind the cash register, the drawer open and a bank bag laid across the change tray. He was frowning at a fistful of bank-card receipts. He shook his head and stuffed them into the bag, glancing up at Estelle for the first time as he did so.

“Well, well,” he said. Tall and slender, with the exception of a neat watermelon-sized pot belly, Guy Trombley was stoop-shouldered from forty years spent bending over the prescription counter. He wore the sort of half glasses that came ten to a display card, $3.95 apiece. He regarded Estelle over the top of them, hands poised over the cash drawer.

“And what can I do for you?” His tone was neither particularly gracious nor impatient, just faintly surprised.

Estelle placed the heavy volume on the counter. “May I ask you about a couple of drugs, Mr. Trombley?”

“Of course.” He stepped away from the register, leaving the drawer open. “I’m not sure what I can tell you that your husband can’t.” It was said as a simple statement, without inflection, and Estelle ignored it, unwilling to test what was left of Guy Trombley’s generous spirit.

“Daprodin,” she said and opened the large book to the appropriate product identification page. “That’s made by Thacker-George Pharmaceuticals, according to this.”

Trombley waited patiently, the half glasses perched at the very end of his patrician nose. His eyes were brilliant hazel, probably changing hue, depending on light or mood. He watched Estelle rather than the glossy pages displaying the colorful drugs.

“Are they also manufactured in Mexico?”

A faint smile touched Trombley’s full lips. “I have no idea. But I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Is there any way to tell the difference between the capsules made in Mexico, for example, and the ones made domestically?”

“You mean just the tablet itself? It’s called a
tablet
, by the way, not a capsule. You’re not talking about the labeling on the bottle?”

“Maybe both.”

“The only thing on the tablet itself,” and he pointed a long, slender finger at the image on the page, “is the lettering T-G. In this case. Most manufacturers use something that makes a pill distinctive…although not always.”

“May I look at one?”

“One what? A Daprodin tablet? Sure.” He reached back and shoved the drawer closed. “Let me lock up first,” he said. His stride was unhurried, almost thoughtful. He snapped the dead bolt on the door and turned the sign to
CLOSED
. “Come on back.”

She followed him through the store to the pharmacy. He stepped up into the area, avoiding two five-gallon jugs of drinking water that had been parked by the steps. With the perfect precision of someone who could count and name each bottle in his sleep, he selected a large milk-white plastic bottle from the shelf, turned to the counter, and deftly shook out a single tablet onto the blue plastic counting tray. He screwed the top tightly back on the bottle.

He stepped back without comment. “And, as you can see, it’s white, not yellow. Somebody’s been coloring in your book.”

The large tablet was marked only by the incised letters of the manufacturer, and when Estelle didn’t respond to his comment, he added, “How are the kids, by the way?”

“They’re well, thank you.”

“Growing fast, I imagine.”

“Too fast,” Estelle said. “I wish they’d stay just the way they are.”

For the first time, Guy Trombley smiled, showing the even, too-white of his dentures. “No, you don’t. They’re going to accomplish all kinds of wonderful things in their lifetimes. You want to see all of it.” He leaned his hip against the counter, waiting. “Do you need that as a sample?”

“May I?”

“Either that or it goes in the trash. Did someone find some of those loose at school or something?”

“You wouldn’t believe where we find things,” Estelle said.

“Oh, yes I would.”

“What would a prescription of those cost. Say thirty tablets?”

He looked over his shoulder. “My computer’s not booted up just now, so I’m ball parking it. I’d guess right around $140, maybe $145 or 50, plus the governor. Pricey stuff. If you’ve got insurance, the co-pay is right at $40.”

“And it’s an antibiotic?”

He nodded. “Great stuff, or so the salesmen would have us believe. It’s used primarily for really pesky urinary tract and kidney infections, even something dangerous like endocarditis. And anthrax doesn’t like it much.” He watched Estelle slide the tablet into a small plastic evidence bag. “It’s interesting you asking about whether or not Thacker-George has a plant in Mexico. One of the troubles, and I blame that thing, by the way,” he turned and nodded at the computer, “is lots of fake stuff on the market now. Just like you can buy a Rolex watch on a street in Hong Kong for thirty bucks, or a pair of Adidas shoes for ten that should cost a hundred? The old knockoff racket.”

“Fake medications, you mean?”

He nodded. “Sure.”

She looked down at the plastic bag. “How would you tell if it was fake or not?”

“Unless it was crudely done, you couldn’t,” Trombley said. “And some of them are pretty crude, I’m told. We were shown some at a seminar not long ago that looked as if they’d been carved with a pocket knife. But otherwise, you couldn’t tell…not without sophisticated lab analysis. And we’re talking human nature here, too, you know.” He grinned. “I don’t mean to cast aspersions on our eminent medical profession,” and he laid a hand on his chest, “or on us, either, but let’s face facts. We’re in the feel-good business most of the time. If you’ve got a whopper of a head cold, you gulp down fifteen or twenty bucks worth of medications, and in eight or ten days, you start to feel better. Or you can save your money, and guess what? If you take care of yourself, in eight or ten days, you’ll start to feel better.”

She lifted the plastic bag. “But you normally wouldn’t take this for a head cold, would you?”

“Indeed not. But if the first prescription doesn’t work, what does the physician do in ten days’ time?”

“He tries something else.”

“Exactly,” Trombley said, sounding indulgent. “So if that drug is actually nothing more than a little bit of sugar pressed into the shape of a tablet, well, cheer up. In ten days’ time, the doc will give you something else that
might
work.”

He glanced toward the front of the store as if someone might be leaning with their ear pressed against the door. “As I’m sure Louis Herrera would tell you, should you have this same conversation with him, that’s the problem with doing business with some of our pharmaceutical brethren south of the border, especially over the Internet, where you don’t know who you’re talking to.” The humorless smile lingered on his face, as if to say
Do you understand what I’m saying
?

Estelle took her elbow off the drug reference guide and opened it to page 332. “You’re not telling me that they make fake Deyldiol? Pregnancy is a little more serious than a head cold.”

Trombley chuckled. “My wife used to say something very similar to that, bless her soul.” He tapped the page thoughtfully and then stopped his finger at the head of the column. “Deyldiol is made by Peekskill Laboratories. And they
do
have a lab in Mexico. I happen to know that for a fact. We used to pass it every time we drove down to Chihuahua to visit our daughter.”

“The lab is in Chihuahua?”

“On the outskirts of town. In one of those new little industrial parks that Mexico is trying so hard to make work.”

“Do you do business with Peekskill?”

“No.” The answer was flat and unqualified.

“Any special reason?”

“I’m happy with the suppliers that I use now. Half a dozen companies make that particular birth-control formula. There’s nothing proprietary about it.”

“What if a customer comes in and has a prescription specifically for Deyldiol?”

“Then I call the doc and suggest that he make a change. Go generic, or at least go with something I have in stock. They’re usually pretty good about that.” He relaxed against the counter, leaning his weight on his elbows, hands loosely clasped. “What you do is not my business,” he said, “but it sounds like this is the sort of thing that might attract the state board of pharmacy…what you’re looking into.”

“It might.”

“Am I going to be sorry I talked to you?” He didn’t smile.

“I don’t think so, Mr. Trombley. At least I hope not.” She closed the book. “Can I ask you one more thing, not necessarily related?”

“Sure.”

“How well did you know George Enriquez?”

Trombley took a long time answering, first drawing little invisible circles on the shiny black counter top. “Old George,” he said finally, and lapsed into silence again. Estelle waited. Trombley sighed with resignation. “Connie is a good customer —#8212;too good sometimes. I manage to talk her out of about half of the junk that she wants to take.” He flashed a quick, conspiratorial smile. “George and I are…were…both in Lions Club. And Optimists. We’re in the chamber of commerce.” He straightened away from the counter. “He wasn’t the sort of man who impressed me as suicidal, Estelle. I didn’t need to see the headlines in the paper yesterday afternoon to know that.”

He looked at the undersheriff for a long time while his jaw worked. “For one thing—and I think I’m one of the few who are privy to this—you can’t imagine how much George truly loved his wife. He was so protective of her, of her faults, of her troubles, of her…her whatever.” He waved a hand helplessly. “I’m not so sure that any of that was reciprocated, which makes it all the more tragic, somehow. I can’t imagine him saying, in effect, ‘Well, I’m leaving you now, Connie, mess and all. Deal with it, sweetheart.’ I can’t see him doing that.”

“Maybe he just reached a point.”

“The paper implies that you don’t believe that, Mrs. Guzman. I know he had his legal troubles, but this is going to be a bigger mess than he
ever
imagined.”

She hefted the large volume and extended her hand. “Thank you, sir.”

“You bet. Any time. I hope things work out, whatever those things are.” As Estelle was turning to step down past the two water bottles, he added, “And by the way, under the not-
necessarily
-related category—and I hope I don’t regret telling you this—but I’ve always liked your honest face.” He approached and leaned on the stub wall partition that fronted the counter. For a long moment he stood silently, examining the paint job on the top edge.

“George approached me once a year or so ago. I think it was when I stopped by his office to have the insurance changed on the new car. He said a friend of his was getting into the prescription-drug distributor’s business, and he wondered if there was anything I needed that I was having trouble getting now. He said that he could guarantee prices that would beat anyone’s.”

“He asked you that?”

Trombley nodded. “Yes, he did. I said no. I’ve got enough pharmaceutical salesmen who call on me now. I didn’t need one more, especially a friend of a friend, if you follow what I mean. That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? George Enriquez?” He flashed the denture smile again. “The ‘not necessarily related’ part?”

“He didn’t happen to mention who this distributor friend was, did he?”

Trombley’s smile disappeared. “No, he didn’t. And I guess I should be wishing about now that he had?”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a call if you recall anything else, sir,” Estelle said.

“About George Enriquez, or about the drugs?”

“Both, sir.”

He nodded with satisfaction. “That’s what I thought.” He ambled after Estelle as she walked toward the front door. She waited for him to snap the dead bolt. “Give your husband my regards,” he said. He smiled, an expression that was almost kindly. “Tell him that I’m proud of what he’s doing.”

“He’s working with a good crew,” Estelle said.

“For the most part,” Trombley said. “You take care, now.” He nodded and closed the door before she had an opportunity to respond. But she knew what he meant, and as she walked out to the car, her heart felt heavy, like an old cinder block tied on the end of a stretched and frayed cord.