Джон Гришэм - Camino Winds

“Back to Brittany. She volunteered to work double shifts so she would be on the floor late at night. We gave her a list of every medication and vitamin that the labs had identified so far, and she memorized it. She already knew most of the meds anyway. Without creating suspicion, she managed to learn her way around the pharmacy and realized that she could leave with certain over-the-counter items—aspirin, cough drops, Band-Aids, and so on—almost any time she wanted. Because of staffing issues, she told her supervisor that she was willing to learn how to handle the food and meds for the feedings. Eventually, she walked out with a jar of something called vitamin E3, a generic-looking capsule that could pass for almost any supplement. Don’t know how much you know about vitamins but there is no such thing as E3. It sent off alarms in the lab and went through every possible test. The bottom line is that it’s an obscure drug called Flaxacill, one that’s never been on the market. It’s never been approved anywhere because no one has tried to get it approved. The story is that it was accidentally created as some by-product in a Chinese lab twenty years ago and was tested on a few human guinea pigs over there. It was dropped immediately when they realized that the drug causes vomiting and blindness.”

“That would pose a challenge for marketing, even for a drug company,” Bruce quipped, but it fell flat.

“Apparently it’s an easy drug to make and is produced only on demand.”

“So what does the drug do?” Bruce asked.

“Keeps the heart beating, barely, but only in people who are practically brain-dead anyway. It stimulates the medulla, the lower half of the brain stem that connects to the spinal cord and controls our involuntary functions like breathing, heart rate, swallowing, blood pressure. Pretty important little area.”

Nick added, “It also causes vomiting, which explains that side effect.”

“Correct.”

“And no one knows the patients are blind, because they can’t open their eyes, right?” Bruce added.

“Exactly.”

Nick said, “So Nelson was on to something.”

“He certainly was. He knew about this drug, and the only way he could have possibly learned of its existence was through an informant, someone with deep connections at Grattin.”

“Thought so,” Nick said, almost under his breath. He shot a quick smug smile at Bruce, who could only shake his head.

“And what happened to Brittany?” Bruce asked.

Lindsey slowly took a sip of coffee while staring at Bruce. “Do you know what happened?”

“Yes, I do, and the question is whether you planned to tell me.”

“Yes, I was going to tell you. She’s dead.”

“Opioid overdose, according to the newspaper over in Kentucky. You believe that?”

“No, not really. It got real complicated and it’s far from over. We’re done, but the plot thickens. Evidently there was a surveillance camera in the pharmacy that Brittany did not notice. She was seen lifting the vitamin E3 along with other medications. Maybe pain pills, maybe not. We really don’t know. They kept a fair amount of the heavy stuff in the pharmacy but usually under lock and key. If Brittany lifted the opioids, we didn’t know about it. There are a few cameras around the facility but hardly anyone to monitor them. A colleague named Gerrard, a real character, had access to the cameras and he had noticed Brittany’s new and sudden interest in the pharmacy. It appears that Gerrard doesn’t miss much. He kept the footage for future extortion. He and Brittany despised each other. Not long afterward, she caught him in the room with the pregnant patient and they had a huge fight. She accused him of getting the girl pregnant and threatened to tell a lawyer. He accused her of stealing meds and said he had the video to prove it. He showed the video to the director and Brittany was fired on the spot. Two days later, the pregnant girl died ‘of complications.’ Brittany was certain that Gerrard juiced her with a mix of drugs. Her body was immediately sent to her mother in Ohio and buried quickly. The lawsuit was gone. The company then knew that Brittany had lifted some E3, although at the time our lab work wasn’t finished and we didn’t know about the drug. Neither did Brittany. Jumper suggested that she leave town for a spell and we even offered to send her away. She was thinking about this when she died.”

“And, she died how?”

“She was in a crowded bar last Saturday night, drinking heavily, and apparently someone spiked her drink. From there we don’t know. Her body was found in a ditch behind the bar. Official cause was too much oxycodone, which is hard to believe since she was drinking and partying with friends and not swallowing pain pills. My guess is that someone grabbed her as she was fading, injected her with a massive dose, and left her for dead.”

“The same people who killed Nelson,” Nick said.

Lindsey nodded in agreement but said nothing. Bruce said, “So, in a way, we’re responsible for her death.”

“I disagree,” she said. “No more so than Nelson’s. The people doing the killing are running scared and trying to hide dirty secrets. They knew Brittany filched the E3 and they could take no chances. They also knew that Nelson knew, and they wanted to silence him.”

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said. “But I feel some level of responsibility. You assured me that you do not break laws.”

“Look, Bruce, in this line of work we often operate in the gray areas. We didn’t steal the bottle of E3, rather, we borrowed it and then took it back.”

Bruce exhaled in frustration, stood, and walked around the room, obviously bothered. Lindsey watched him with a tight, smug smile as if she had no concerns. He would come around because he had no choice.

Finally, Bruce said, “I don’t buy it, Lindsey. I’m sorry. Those two girls are dead because of our, what do you call it, ‘infiltration.’ ”

“Our hands are clean, Bruce,” she replied coolly, completely unruffled. “The patient had been brain-dead for years. If she was raped and impregnated, that’s hard to pin on us. As for Brittany, we had nothing to do with her murder.”

“How can you say that? We had everything to do with it. Under your scenario, she was murdered because she swiped a bottle of their secret drug, one that they are, evidently, quite touchy about. And she ‘borrowed’ the E3 at your suggestion and direction. You were paying her. That implicates the hell out of us.”

“She was sloppy, Bruce. Jumper warned her repeatedly about surveillance cameras, especially around the pharmacy. She got herself caught on video—”

“While she was stealing for you, for us. I can’t believe this. Nick, help me out here.”

Nick shrugged and raised his hands in mock surrender and said, “I’m just a college boy and right now I’d love to be back on campus. What am I doing here?”

“Thanks for nothing,” Bruce shot back.

“Don’t mention it.”

Lindsey, eager to control the narrative, said, “We are not implicated because we committed no crime, and nothing we did in Kentucky can be traced to us. As I promised you up front, we are very careful and we know what we’re doing. Brittany was handled in a proper fashion and she simply missed a surveillance camera.”

“So let’s blame her for getting herself killed,” Bruce said.

“If she had noticed the camera she would probably be alive.”

“I’m not believing this.” Bruce was standing in the window, peering through the blinds, talking over his shoulder.

Nick cleared his throat and asked, “Is her death being investigated?”

“Yes, sort of. There was an autopsy but I don’t know the results. If they find traces of club drugs they’ll know they’ve got a problem.”