Drayco took big gulps out of the thermos of black coffee he’d filled up at the 7-11 and checked the time. He didn’t want to start knocking on doors before nine. As he sat in his car waiting, he thought about his less-than-steller evening after Sarg dropped him off last night. He’d been up late again doing research and then a little attempt at the piano. A failed attempt.
He’d needed a strong dose of Bach, but found he still couldn’t bring himself to play anything. Not one teensy little scale. He’d just sat there staring at the thing until he almost fell asleep on the keyboard.
One thing was sure—he owed Benny and Nelia big time for working their magic yesterday with their effective stalling. After the hearing, Benny was grumpily optimistic and Nelia cautiously worried about the outcome. In answer to their questions as to whether his plane-chasing side trip paid off, Drayco had hedged with his reply.
He couldn’t give them an answer until he dug a little deeper into his new hypothesis. And for him to be able to answer that, he needed to get closer to his roots and use some of those Maura Brisbane McCune Drayco Whatevername genes to play con artist.
At the dot of nine, he drove past Edwin’s small pharmacy building, within walking distance of the condos where Jerold had lived and died. He parked and headed for his first objective and knocked on the door. While waiting, he checked his image in the window to make sure he looked professional, no dandruff, no wrinkles. He’d even donned one of his hated ties.
Imogen Layford opened the door, her smile hesitant at first. Then, as recognition glinted in her eyes, she opened the door wider. “You’re one of those folks who was looking at Jerold’s place the other day.”
“Scott Drayco, Mrs. Layford. I wonder if I might have a few moments of your time?”
She guided him to a green and blue paisley-print chair and poured him a cup of something amber. After all that coffee, he didn’t want anything else but accepted it politely.
“Yerba mate,” she pointed at the cup as he took a tentative sip of something that tasted a little like a cross between weak coffee, smoky wood, and flavored hay. “It’ll put hair on your chest. A good sex tonic, too.”
He almost choked but gulped another sip down. “Last time we spoke, you mentioned a Canadian lottery notice but hadn’t kept the envelope. I don’t suppose you’ve received another one since?”
She motioned for him to wait while she disappeared into a back room. He could hear drawers being opened and closed, and then she returned and handed him a letter. “It was sweet of you to remember that. I haven’t gotten another, no, but I did find the one I told you about. I’d so appreciate it if you’d look into it for me. Jerold said he was going to.”
She sat on the sofa and stared at her teacup. “I guess he wasn’t able to before he died.”
Drayco put down his cup and looked over the form letter. A typically worded sham notice, “You must act now or the winnings will go to an alternate,” and “Send money to cover taxes and processing fees,” with instructions on where to send the money. But those instructions said to put a money order in the enclosed envelope. An envelope long gone now, and there was no address on the actual letter.
“Mrs. Layford, did any of your friends receive a similar notice?”
“Well now, I don’t recollect as such. Least, they didn’t say.” She put her feet up on an ottoman, where it was more obvious she was wearing high-heeled boots. When she saw him staring at them, she grinned. “If you wear heels for decades, you can’t just stop, or you won’t be able to walk. Besides, everyone has their little vanities.”
“I must confess I know very little about women’s shoes.”
“Most of my friends wear ugly flat things. And they complain all the time about their feet. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s belly-aching old people. If you make it to seventy, you’ve had a pretty good go at it, so stop complaining, I say.”
He reached over to grab the cup of yerba matte but decided against it. If he wanted a sex tonic or any kind of tonic for that matter, he’d use the old standby, alcohol. “Are you feeling any better? You said you’d taken a turn for the worse lately.”
“No U-turns yet, I’m afraid. Need to ask my doctor about upping my dose. Not that I’m complaining.” She winked at him.
“You switched to Edwin Zamorra’s pharmacy recently, isn’t that right?”
“Such a kind man. Calls me whenever my refills are ready, without me having to ask.”
“I passed by that pharmacy on my way here. It’s certainly convenient. Do a lot of people at these condos get their meds there?”
“There’s Twyla Sweet, for one. She lives in 208. And Inez Bruce. She’s in 316. Oh, and Marta Aguayo. She’s on the first floor in 119.” She rattled off a few more names. Drayco filed each one away in his memory.
“You know, Mrs. Layford, maybe that medication of yours is just a little out of date—having to be shipped long distance, sitting on a shelf for a while. While I’m doing some checking, I’d be happy to have a friend of mine who works at a lab look into it for you. If you wouldn’t mind parting with one of your pills that is.”
She didn’t hesitate to retrieve her medicine bottles. She had three with her and gave him one from each bottle. He noted the names on the bottles and pulled a little notebook out of his pocket. Grateful that Sarg wasn’t here to see him with that notebook, he copied the name of each prescription and the dosage and then placed one of each pill in a little baggie he’d brought.
She sat back down again and drank some of the now-cold tea, not seeming to mind. Drayco handed her a photo from his wallet. “Did you ever see this woman with Jerold?” He’d gotten Benny to make him a copy of Maura’s mugshot.
“That nice police detective asked me that, too. I did see her once, coming out of Jerold’s place. She was angry and said if he ever did that to her again, she’d grab the nearest knife and cut him into pieces. The police seemed very interested in that.”
Drayco could see the self-satisfied look on Halabi’s face now. If it were up to the detective, Maura McCune would already be on death row.
Drayco chatted with her a little longer about those “obnoxious” boys on their skateboards at all hours, and then she surprised him with a cogent and insightful take on the latest stumbling blocks in Mideast peace initiatives. Most of all, she just seemed happy to have someone to talk to.
It was the same with all the other women he visited after he left Mrs. Layford’s condo. Like her, they were elderly and lonely and would have kept him there all day if he hadn’t maneuvered his way on to the next woman as politely as he could.
He briefly stopped by the rec room in the complex, where a group of mostly senior women were playing bingo. Lots of disposable income, lots of time on their hands. They were the throwaway people, so easily preyed on. One baitfish after another in a silver sea.
His next “interviewee,” Twyla Sweet, had the same complaint about her medications not seeming to work as well after she’d switched to Edwin’s pharmacy. Drayco got her to give him a sample, too, using the excuse he was conducting a survey on the quality of area pharmacies. So did Mara Aguayo, who talked about how her children didn’t call and how she felt like she’d become invisible. Both women had also recently received Canadian lottery notices.
Inez Bruce, a smoker who’d had her voice box removed and talked via a TEP prosthesis and stoma, greeted him with a lighted cigarette in hand. In her mechanical voice, she told him he was such a handsome pup, he’d never have to worry about getting the ladies. That prompted him to draw up his sleeve on his right arm to show her all the scars. She was silent at first, then said with a wicked grin, “You got more you can show me?”
All the women gave him medicine samples, and he carefully cataloged each. As he did, he recalled Edwin’s comment the first time Drayco and Sarg met him, about Edwin switching to his own independent pharmacy for more control, less red tape. No bean counters always looking over your shoulder. No corporate oversight wonks checking your books.
Maybe Drayco’s hunch was way off, but the weight of coincidences threatened to tilt the scales of both medicine and justice down to earth with a thud.
§ § §
Drayco met Sarg in a parking lot in Dumfries, not too far from Quantico. Better to keep this part of his investigation from looking FBI-official for now, until if, and when, it needed to become an FBI case.
Sarg climbed out of his car saying “This is all cloak-and-dagger, junior. What’s up?”
Drayco pulled out the baggies he’d labeled with prescription types and doses and placed them on the top of Sarg’s Range Rover. “See if you can get these tested. Might need to get the FDA’s OCI involved.”
Drayco explained how he’d spent the earlier part of his morning, and Sarg looked at him with raised eyebrows. “These little old ladies just let you inside their homes, no questions asked? You’d make a great con artist, junior.”
“The ole apple and tree cliché.”
“What, you think Edwin was scamming his clients, Jerold found out, and Edwin killed him? Or he and Jerold and your mother—maybe even Ophelia Zamorra—were all partners in one loving family scam? A scamily, as it were? And where do Iago Pryce and Alistair Brisbane fit in?”
“When I saw Brisbane and Iago the other day, they were heading into a lobbying firm, one that deals with health industry clients like insurers.”
“And pharmacists.”
“Exactly,” Drayco replied, as Sarg handed over a bottle of something reddish. “What’s that?”
“You remember our favorite diner not far from here? They’re bottling this stuff now. Pomegranate tea. Figured you haven’t been staying hydrated, and that’s why you’re wasting away.”
“Diner as in the one run by Michael and Michael II?” Or M&M, as they were known—who’d owned the place while Drayco was at the Bureau. Always kept an eagle eye on the wait staff to make sure they lived up to the M-squared’s high standards. Obsessing over every detail, down to the always-fresh white carnations on the tables.
Drayco held up the bottle. “Good marketing move. The Michaels never leave anything to chance, do they?”
“Guess not. When you’re in charge of your own destiny—”
“You mold that destiny to your will. Take our friend Alistair Brisbane, for instance. You might expect him to keep tabs on all the players in his little dramas, wouldn’t you?”
“From what I’ve learned of the guy, sure.”
Drayco opened his car door, reached inside, and pulled out a small object he handed it over. He closed the door again, making sure it was tight.
Sarg held it up to examine it. “A bug?”
“That one’s deactivated. I found others at home and in my office, in both my cars, and I’m sure there are others tapping my phones.”
Sarg looked at Drayco’s cellphone on the driver seat of his car. “That’s why you left your phone in there.” Sarg rolled the device around in his hand. “Need help removing the others?”
“Not going to.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“I’ll get a burner phone for times I don’t want my new friends listening in. But the others, no. Let him think he’s doing so undetected. Could work to my advantage.”
“Better be careful which dames you bring into your love nest, then, lest you end up on YouTube.”
Drayco nodded at the bug. “You can keep that one as a souvenir. In case something happens to me.”
Sarg frowned at him. “Don’t like you toying with this Brisbane guy.” He put the bug in his pocket. “Even the little we’ve dug up points to Brisbane being some kind of shadow puppet master. More clout than mere politicians who come and go. You said he’d been in the country for thirty-six years, right?”
Drayco eyed the pomegranate tea in his hand. Maybe later, when he could savor it. “Mr. Big swears neither he nor his sister killed Jerold.”
“And you believe him?”
“The question is, do I want to?”
Sarg picked up one of the pill baggies on his car. “These might be ordinary, genuine pills.”
“Nothing would make me happier.”
Sarg added the baggies to his growing pocket collection. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Any way to put a stat order on it? Like, maybe, today?”
“I got some techs at a lab working with OCI who owe me a favor. A big favor. What’s next for you?”
“I’m going to a funeral at five.”
“Jerold’s? Were you invited?”
“No.”
Sarg grinned. “Sticking your head into the lion’s den. Sounds like fun. If I didn’t have a shitload of paperwork, I’d go with you.”
“You think it would be gauche if I texted you details during the service?”
“Better yet, take some photos with a flash. And some selfies. And hold up your phone to video the whole damn thing. You’ll fit right in.”