“Where are you?” I barked into the phone, hoping Michael would interpret my tone as urgent rather than rude. It was quite a shift from the way we’d said our goodbyes this morning, but my anxiety was ratcheting up.
Although Dr. Lecaros had declined to explain his comments about Dr. Wykell, at least while standing in the middle of a courthouse hallway, his intensity had pushed the right fear buttons in me and I was waiting for a call back from his assistant to schedule a time to discuss the issue privately.
Grilling Michael for answers on Paul Macanas’s death suddenly held new importance. It was crossing the line in our agreed-upon boundaries, but I needed to understand where CPD was going in the investigation of the young man’s death. And whether Zoe’s might be related.
“I’m at the treatment center. Why?” he replied.
“I’ll see you in twenty minutes.” I heard the word no come out of his mouth as I pulled the phone away from my ear but hung up anyway.
Twenty-three minutes later, I was at the Renacido Center. Michael’s SUV sat prominently in the driveway. I parked on the street and saw Officer Wrobleski rooting around the perimeter of the coach house when I got out of the car. It wasn’t obvious if he was looking for something specific or if this was a general search. Calculating my odds of gathering information, I headed toward the officer rather than barging up to the front door directly.
“Hey, you doing okay? Saturday was pretty wonky,” Wrobleski said, looking me over for signs of instability.
“I’m fine. You have this thing figured out yet?” I smiled at him and jerked my thumb toward the coach house. Wrobleski didn’t have a reputation for being a steel trap of information, which was probably why they’d stuck him out here to dig in the dirt.
“Wouldn’t it be great if it were that easy.” He laughed. “Not exactly a talkative bunch around here, if you know what I mean,” he said, nodding his head at the house and hiking up his belt.
“I got that impression too. Any initial thoughts?” I asked, pulling off my sunglasses and tucking the stem into the neckline of my shirt.
“I can’t tell if they were letting these kids have a supervised high or trying to bring them back from the brink. Did you see all the IV setups they have upstairs? And there are an awful lot of locked storage cabinets and closets. They won’t let me even walk through the place without an escort or a warrant.”
That was an angle that hadn’t occurred to me, a supervised high. Perhaps it was a method for downshifting tolerance or cravings?
“Is Hewitt around?”
“He’s inside chatting up the head doc. I got my crew here in the coach house being led around on a leash by some nurse who won’t let them touch anything. You’d think they had the Hope Diamond stashed out here, as nervous as we’re making them while we poke around. I can feel the eyes on the back of my head now. The scary-looking chick has been staring at us from up on the top floor the whole time. I’m expecting to turn around and see her eyes glowing or see her levitating any minute now.” He chuckled. “Seems to me, they should all be a little more cooperative after one of their charges croaked. Some lawyer must have coached them.”
“It’s an odd bunch, that’s for sure.” I turned toward the house, my head running sprints through the possibilities.
“You should probably wait till Hewitt comes out,” he said, watching my gaze. “It’ll give them less reason to be spooked, if you know what I mean.”
“Sure.” I looked back at the house, my eyes drawn to the third-story window. Sure enough, Francesca stood at the glass watching, her eyes in a squint, and sending crazy vibes our way.
“Other than the IVs, have you seen anything else that seems off?” I asked. “What I saw looked like they’d set up as a medical facility, not a support group.” I didn’t mention snooping in the storage closet or taking photos.
“I don’t know what kinda kinky stuff they’re doing in there. Maybe scientific experiments or something. But there seems to be an awful lot of little treatment rooms. At least, that’s what they look like to me.” He leaned in close. “Two of them even have padded walls.”
I looked at the coach house one more time. Padded walls? “Maybe it’s a precaution for detox?” I said, not even convincing myself.
“I know, right?” Wrobleski said, watching my face. “There’s something spooky going on in there. Not that you could tell from the outside. Who knows, maybe they’re making smut films. I’ve seen stranger things. Hidden cameras, chains. I don’t make assumptions about anything or anyone when it comes to depravity. Wonder what the neighbors know?”
Movement at the end of the driveway stopped the conversation as Michael came around the side of the building. Janek was right behind him. I left Wrobleski and headed toward them, hoping to have a conversation out of earshot of the rest of his team. Not that I didn’t trust Officer Wrobleski, but it was impossible to know who else he was so liberal with in his conversations.
I could see the exhaustion in Janek’s face as I neared the men. He was trying to macho through the emotional strain of Zoe’s death. Bad move. I knew firsthand how grief had a way of landing on you eventually, usually with a cement truck to the body.
“Was Dr. Wykell cooperative?” I asked, knowing that I wouldn’t get a straight answer. It was part of the game. I told them bits of things I’d uncovered, they told me nothing. Our little tango seemed to play out that way on every story that I’d done involving CPD. With a number of less than flattering exchanges between cops and suspects making headline news over the past year, one of the measures the police chief had been drilling into the team was the need for tighter message control. It was hardly his only problem, but I understood his reasoning. Officers had been reminded repeatedly to run everything through the community liaison’s office. Michael and Janek both knew me well enough at this point that we understood the boundaries. As long as we kept the one-way street of communication top of mind, everything was cool.
“He is one odd duck,” Michael said.
“You mean arrogant prick,” Janek added, lowering his sunglasses and shooting me a “don’t you dare quote me” look.
Janek’s true state of mind had been revealed. He would never have denigrated a source publicly under normal circumstances.
“The kid that died Saturday, Paul, does the ME have any idea on the cause of death?” I asked.
“Not yet. But we got the tox report back on Zoe. He’s pegged the time of death as roughly the beginning of January,” Michael said, looking at Janek, then back at me.
“No heroin in her system, or any other opioids,” Janek said.
“Then why did she die?” I asked, my mind running again to Levi’s words.
“The ME thinks her heart gave out. Probably damage from her prior drug use,” Michael said.
“That damn Levi,” Janek spat out. “He got her hooked and didn’t give a shit about what happened to her. God knows what she was taking and for how long. That stuff does all kinds of things to your body. Even the straight stuff. Lord knows what it was laced with and what it did to her.”
Janek seethed with rage. The veins in his neck bulged, and his jaw was locked down like a vise. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the aviators, but this was a man ready to blow.
“Is it possible there were other drugs in her system?” I asked tentatively. Janek was so riled I was concerned I’d be adding to his burden with the question. “Toxicology doesn’t uncover everything, unless you know what to look for. The unusual stuff isn’t part of the first pass and there are a lot of synthetics out there that could be causing all kinds of problems.”
“I know how tox screens work, Kellner! You think you need to educate me?” Janek shot back.
“She had a known history with heroin. And the ME looked for all the usual bad shit, fentanyl, etc. He’s ready to declare on this one,” Michael said, his eyes on his partner.
“How long ago was she a patient here?” I asked.
The men looked at me with confusion, then at each other.
“What?” Janek said. “She was a patient in this loony bin? I don’t know anything about that, and neither does her mother.”
“How do you know that?” Michael asked. “Wait, is this related to that comment you heard Levi make? You don’t know he was talking about Zoe. That’s nothing but speculation.”
Janek swung his head from me to Michael. “Will one of you just tell me what the fuck is going on?”
“Dr. Wykell told me directly that Zoe had briefly been a patient here,” I said to the men. “He was at her funeral. I’m sorry, but I assumed you knew her treatment history,” I said, looking at Janek. “You were occupied with your family and didn’t notice, but yes, he was there. He had to have known her or he wouldn’t have shown up, so I asked him.”
The men were still giving me growly looks.
“Let me back up. A couple days before the funeral I found a stash of brochures for the treatment center in the home where Zoe died. Initially, I was just curious about why they were in the house, so I came over and sat in on an open house. That’s when Levi stormed in. I didn’t know who he was at the time, but I’m certain I heard him say to Wykell, ‘What did you give her?’ When I later saw both Wykell and Levi at the funeral, that’s when I got curious. So I spoke to them both. Levi right after the funeral and Wykell a day later. Wykell told me she had been a patient and Levi claims he doesn’t know who Wykell is. I don’t know why, but he’s clearly lying for some reason.”
Janek seemed to be calming down, but he still had that look on his face that said he was ready to tell me I was full of shit.
“On Saturday, I confirmed it with one of the patients who is receiving treatment now. I showed her Zoe’s photo. She said Zoe had been a patient here about nine months ago, maybe as much as a year ago. I would have mentioned it earlier, but it never crossed my mind that Zoe’s mom hadn’t known. You said there had been a couple of stints at rehab that your sister had paid for. I just assumed this was one of them.”
“No, absolutely not.” Janek shook his head. “Not a place like this. Theresa is a nurse. She would’ve never let her daughter hook up with any treatment that didn’t have total AMA best practices approval. They did a ton of research before choosing a facility. This never would’ve passed muster regardless of how high and mighty this guy thinks he is.”
“Okay, then Zoe must have done this on her own. Any idea how she would have paid for it?”
It was another question that now connected Zoe and Paul. Neither one of them had the financial resources to swing treatment in this price range.
Janek shrugged, but I had his attention now.
“And the bigger question is, why didn’t Wykell tell us himself?” Michael added.
“No,” I said. “There’s one question even bigger still. Are the two deaths connected?”