Blind Spot (14 page)

“I’m not going anywhere.” He waited until she slid back into her side of the booth before he took the bench across the table. “May I buy you a late dinner?”

She shook her head. “Just coffee would be good.”

He raised one of his large fingers, and the waitress—an older woman with gray hair in a tight bun behind her head—came to the booth with her pad. She clicked her pen and put it to the paper. “What looks good, kids?”

“Two coffees and…” He glanced over at the rack of pies on the lunch counter.

The waitress, in a singsong voice: “We’ve got banana cream and coconut cream, blueberry and cherry, pecan and apple, peanut butter and—”

“Peanut butter,” he interrupted. “My mother used to make it. Haven’t had it in years.” He looked across the table. “Sure you don’t want something?”

“Maybe I will try the peanut butter.” She smiled.

She waited until a lull in the conversation. Reaching under the table, she slipped her hand inside the purse on her lap. “This is for you,” she said, sliding the envelope across the table.

“I am not a hit man,” he whispered, pushing the envelope away from him. Their in-booth jukebox, mounted to the wall just above their table, was winding down on a Roy Orbison pick. “Only the Lonely.” It was cranked as loud as it could go.

“You need to support yourself.” She pushed the envelope back across the table, and it stuck halfway between them on a patch of something sticky. “Take it.”

He scanned the diner. Though the other booths had remained empty, three men in jeans and flannel had just taken stools lining the counter. All three were soaked to the skin. The waitress was busy pouring the trio coffee while they dried their heads and faces with paper napkins.

The big man peeled the white rectangle off the table, set it on his lap, and peeked inside. The envelope was stuffed with large bills. He tucked the top flap closed.

“It’s my money.” She worried that sounded snotty, and quickly added in her meekest voice: “I’ve been saving. My husband won’t miss it.” She took a sip of coffee and glanced through the diner windows. The rain had kept pedestrians off the sidewalks, but the streets were jammed with traffic. A row of cars and trucks were stopped at the lights on West Seventh Street. The lights turned green, and the cars rolled forward, kicking up waves of water. She set down the cup and returned her attention to the man sitting across the table.

Fingering the envelope, he said, “I’m still not sure what you expect me to do with this.”

“Use it for the expenses for your…” She searched for the right phrase, and remembered what Anna had called them. “Righteous missions.”

“What do you know about my expenses? My missions? What did Anna tell you?”

Now I’ve done it,
she thought. He was angry Anna had told her so much. She skipped over his question. “Put the money in the collection plate, then. Do some good with it. Anna said you do good things.”

That seemed to appease him, and he tucked the envelope into the inside pocket of his blazer. He picked up his fork and poked at the last corner of his pie. “Why am I here exactly? Not to serve as a charity drop box.”

She bit down on her top lip and looked off to the side, at the jukebox. Orbison was over. The Eagles were singing “Hotel California.” She undid the top two buttons of her smock and pulled back on the material so he could see the purple on the right side of her chest, below the collarbone. A bruise, like a dead violet pressed into her paper-white skin. “He’s smart about it. Beats me where it doesn’t show. Avoids the face. Never hits me hard enough to break anything.” She pulled her eyes off the jukebox and looked at him. “This isn’t the worst of it. I can’t show you the worst of it. My back. Breasts.”

He dropped his fork and held up his hands. “Stop.”

“Afterward, Noah makes me take an ice-water bath. For the swelling. And to punish me for crying. Then he sends me to bed so he can leave the house. He’s seeing someone else, I don’t even know who. He hasn’t slept with me for months, and he’s definitely the kind of man who needs it on a regular basis.” She buttoned up her blouse. “He hasn’t hit our daughter. At least not yet.”

“The police?”

“They’d never believe me. Even if they did, he’d get no time. He doesn’t have a record. Not even a parking ticket. He said if he ever got nailed he’d take me down with him. Make sure I never see our daughter again. And he could do it. He’s got money. The lawyers.” She looked up at him. “Anna told you who he is?”

“All she gave me was your name,” he said evenly. “You know more about me than I do about you.”

“Not true. I don’t even know
your
name.” She paused, hoping he’d offer it up.

He retrieved his fork, stabbed the chunk of pie. “Your husband…” He popped the morsel in his mouth and chewed.

“He’s a pharmacist with a serious drug problem. It’s become my problem. And it’s become other people’s problem, even if they don’t know it.”

His brows furrowed. He set down his fork and pushed his empty plate off to one side. “What do you mean?”

She took a breath and launched into it. “Noah started up by stealing from the inventory. Stealing from the customers. Shorting people their pills. They didn’t bother checking. The old people can’t see well enough to check. They trusted him. Trusted him with their lives. And he was standing behind the counter, stoned.”

“On what?”

“Codeine was his first love. Worked his way up the food pyramid from there. OxyContin was one of his favorites.” She picked up her coffee mug, took a sip, and set it down. “He’s graduated from the prescription meds, though. Now he’s into a more dangerous high. Stuff he has to pay for himself.”

He cupped his hands around his coffee. “But if he isn’t killing anyone but himself with his addiction…”

“That’s not all.” She looked straight ahead. Past him. She chewed her bottom lip and picked a damp curl off her forehead.

“Mrs. Stannard. This doesn’t rise to the level…”

“Chris.”

“Chris. If this is all there is…”

She jumped in. “You don’t understand.” She reached across the table and clutched his arm. “He’s killing people right now. While we’re sitting here.”

He leaned forward. “Tell me more.”

“For years, he’s hopped around from one pharmacy to another. Always leaves before anyone gets wise. Never worked at my hospital, thank God. Mostly across town.”

“Go on.”

“His latest setup gives him access to serious goop. He mixes intravenous bags of medicine that are sold to doctors. Cancer doctors.”

“Chemotherapy treatments.”

She nodded grimly. “Gemzar. Taxol. Liquid gold.”

“Has he been stealing sacks of the stuff? Selling it on the black market?”

“Something worse. More devious.” She bit down on her bottom lip again. “He’s been diluting it with saline. Billing doctors like he’s selling them full-strength medicine.”

“How much can he possibly make that way?”

“One doctor can buy a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of drugs from him.”

“A year?”

“A month.”

The big man leaned back in the booth. “Liquid gold is right.”

“He came from money, but he always wants more. Needs more. Needs to fund his extracurricular activities.” She pushed her own untouched pie to one side and folded her hands together on top of the table. “The money isn’t the point, of course. His drug habit isn’t the point. His beating me and cheating on me—even that isn’t the point. My daughter and I, we could run away. Hide from him. I went back to work for that contingency. Got quite a nest egg going for myself. None of that matters. What matters is—”

“Very sick people are getting watered-down drugs.” He sat up straight and asked: “How long has this been going on? How did you figure it out?”

“Noah’s had the shop for a couple of years. He spilled his guts to me during one of his drinking jags. That was last winter, right after my mother died of ovarian cancer.” She looked out the window again and spoke to the pane of glass. “Her meds were mixed at his place.”

“Your mother. I’m sorry.”

As she continued staring out the window, she congratulated herself on reading him right.
Definitely a momma’s boy.
“Even if he was caught and convicted, he’d never get what he deserves. He needs to get what he deserves. And he needs it soon, before somebody else’s mother dies.” She turned away from the glass and looked across the table. “Anna said you can help.”

He picked up his coffee cup and cradled it between both hands. “How do you two know each other?”

“From the hospital. Not just from this stay. During her previous visits, too.”

“I’m surprised we never ran into each other.” He drained his cup and set it down.

“I work third shift mostly. Patients get attached to the night nurse, especially patients in a lot of pain. You’re their angel. Coming in with magic shots and pills. Talking to them while the rest of the world is asleep. She noticed a bruise. I opened up.” Her voice lowered. “She opened up.”

He pulled out his wallet, took out some bills, and tossed them down on the table. “We need to talk in greater detail.” As he slipped his wallet back in his pants, he looked toward the diner’s glass doors. Two cops were standing inside the restaurant’s glass-enclosed foyer. They were snapping the water off their jackets before coming inside. “Elsewhere.”

“I’ve rented an efficiency on Smith Avenue, in the West Side Artists’ Block,” she offered.

“The contingency.”

She nodded. “We can go there.”

They slid out of the booth. She picked her purse up off the seat. As he went to the door, he gave a sideways look to the cops taking stools at the counter, next to the flannel guys. He pulled the door open and held it for her. “Where’s your car?”

“Hospital ramp.” She stepped through the door and into the foyer, hiking her purse strap over her shoulder.

“Mine, too.”

They stood in the foyer waiting for the light to change. When it turned green, they ran out into the rain and across the street.

“Is your husband right-handed or left-handed?” he asked as they stepped over the curb.

The question sent a pleasant chill crawling up her back, and she readily answered: “A lefty.”

Fourteen

By the time she got home, Bernadette was as wet as a dishrag and looked as appealing as one. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably, and her hands shook as she shoved the key in the lock. That priest had spooked her; all she wanted to do was get inside, get food in her belly, and pull the covers up over her head. The dead bolt wasn’t being cooperative, however; it wouldn’t turn. She pulled out the key and struggled to steady her hand while she slipped it back in. She tried turning it to the left and to the right. It gave way a little bit in each direction, but not enough to do the trick. Drawing back her right foot, she gave the bottom panel of the door a kick. She pulled the key out a second time and resisted the urge to fling it at the wall.

A male voice bellowed from down the hall. “Hey, kid! What the hell are you doing there?”

The tail end of the shouted question echoed and bounced off the walls.

There…there…there.

She was so startled she dropped the key. As he walked toward her, she felt her face heating up while the rest of her stayed chilled. He had to be six and a half feet tall. Biceps strained the sleeves of his tee shirt, and a mop of brown curls covered his head. The five o’clock shadow looked genuine as opposed to one of those groomed, catalogue-model beards. He had a strong nose with a prominent aquiline bridge. What did they call it? Roman nose. It fit the rest of him, she thought. He looked like a gladiator. He was pulling something low and long behind him on a leash. A dachshund. The gladiator was walking a wiener dog. As she bent down to retrieve her key, the gladiator stepped up next to her. His jeans were ripped at the knees, and he had sandals on his feet. She straightened up and looked him in the eyes. They were piercing, dark eyes. Surprised eyes. He seemed as startled as she.