Джеффри Дивер - Transgressions

“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. ”

At just that moment they received a possible answer.

Shellee stepped into Tal’s office. Pointedly ignoring the homicide cop, she said, “You’re back. Good. Got a call from the P-I–I team in Greeley. They said a neighbor saw a woman in a small, dark car arrive at the Bensons’ house about an hour before they died. She was wearing sunglasses and a tan or beige baseball cap. The neighbor didn’t recognize her.”

“Car?” LaTour snapped.

It’s hard to ignore an armed, 250-pound, goateed man named Bear but Shellee was just the woman for the job.

Continuing to speak to her boss, she said, “They weren’t sure what time she got there but it was before lunch. She stayed maybe forty minutes then left. That’d be an hour or so before they killed themselves.” A pause. “The car was a small sedan. The witness didn’t remember the color.”

“Did you ask about the—” LaTour began.

“They didn’t see the tag number,” she told Tal. “Now, that’s not all. DMV finally calls back and tells me that Sandra Whitley drives a blue BMW 325.”

“Small wheelbase,” Tal said.

“And, getting better ’n’ better, Boss. Guess who’s leaving town before her parents’ memorial service.”

“Sandra?”

“How the hell d’you find that out?” LaTour asked.

She turned coldly to him. “Detective Simms asked to me organize all the evidence from the Whitley crime scene. Because, like he says, having facts and files out of order is as bad as not having them at all. I found a note in the Whitley evidence file with an airline locator number. It was for a flight from Newark today to San Francisco, continuing on to Hawaii. I called and they told me it was a confirmed ticket for Sandra Whitley. Return is open.”

“Meaning the bitch might not be coming back at all,” LaTour said. “Going on vacation without saying goodbye to the folks? That’s fucking harsh.”

“Good job,” Tal told Shellee.

Eyes down, a faint smile of acknowledgment.

LaTour dropped into one of Tal’s chairs, belched softly and said, “You’re doing such a good job, Sherry, here, look up whatever you can about this shit.” He offered her the notes on Luminux.