When consciousness returned, it was driven by an urgency of memory, a sense that he had forgotten something critical and needed to remember it fast.
The memory did not come, though, and awareness of his surroundings pushed it down the ladder of priorities. He saw the hospital room and felt how dry his mouth was and knew from the creaky, ponderous way his mind worked to put these things together that there must be a drug involved—and a damn fine one at that. He felt no pain, and he was pretty sure he should be feeling pain.
He looked himself over as best he could, taking inventory, but he lost track of the inventory a few times and had to start over. Tubes in right arm, leading to intravenous fluids or medications. Legs bandaged, but functional. Toes wiggled, knees flexed. All good. There was something strange that he wasn’t catching, though. Some odd feeling along his skull that had nothing to do with whatever painkiller was dripping into his blood. When he touched his head gingerly with his right hand, he discovered nothing but stubble.
He was pondering that when the doctor came in. He was a tall and thin man with very dark black skin, and he had a trace of British diction in his voice when he introduced himself as Dr. Abeo and asked how Barrett was feeling.
“Bald,” Barrett said. “And thirsty.”
Dr. Abeo smiled and brought him water and said he was sorry about the baldness.
“We were in a bit of a hurry,” he said as Barrett sipped the water. “There are thirty-seven stitches and five staples and some glue in your scalp. It’s hard to do that and keep the hair.”
Barrett acknowledged that was likely true and said he did not blame anyone for the bad haircut. The doctor was watching him with both compassion and curiosity, and Barrett had the sense that he was not expressing himself as articulately as he believed.
“There are some drugs,” he said carefully. “Right?”
“You are on medications, correct.”
“Well. That’s the reason.”
Dr. Abeo nodded patiently. “You will be good as new soon. No worries now. When you came in? The liver scared me.”
Barrett thought that was harsh. Sure, he drank a little more than he should, but how bad could his liver have been? He tried to inquire, missed the proper phrasing a few times, and finally got the word whiskey out. The doctor laughed a beautiful, rich laugh that made Barrett smile. This was not so bad. With these drugs and that laugh, why would any man need hair?
“You have a healthy liver,” Dr. Abeo told him. “I wouldn’t have guessed at the whiskey. I was afraid your liver was lacerated. Do you understand?”
Barrett said that he knew lacerations, yes. Dr. Abeo told him all was well now. The liver was fine. There hadn’t been any surgery. He’d been given a few units of blood, and then they’d closed his scalp wound. Barrett was tired and he liked the sound of the man’s voice and particularly the sound of his laugh. Dr. Abeo talked some more and laughed some more and adjusted a dial on a monitor.
Then the blackness returned.
The next time he woke, he was more coherent, and this was viewed as fine news by the doctor because the police had been waiting to talk to him.
“Rather impatiently,” Dr. Abeo said.
“I’ve known that type.”
The cop wasn’t anyone Barrett had worked with before. He was a short but muscular Hispanic man with a shaved head and penetrating, intelligent eyes. He introduced himself as Nick Vizquel but did not share his department or title.
“State police?” Barrett asked him.
“No. DEA.”
“MDEA?” Maine had its own drug enforcement agency.
“Federal.”
“You mind telling me why my attack has attracted a DEA investigation?”
“Let’s talk about that attack. It’s a little murky to me right now.”
Vizquel pulled up a chair and explained that the story Barrett had offered in the ambulance, before blood loss and painkillers knocked him out, hadn’t given them much to work with; he’d spoken only of a masked man and a truck with teeth.
“I thought you might want to try that one about the truck again,” he said with a faint smile.
Barrett gave him what he could. It wasn’t much. He could clarify that the truck did not in fact have teeth but a ranch-style grille protector, and that it was black, and so was the mask, and so was the shotgun. His memory was scattershot, which was logical because of his concussion and blood loss.
Vizquel said, “And you’re back in Maine because…”
Barrett shrugged, and Vizquel nodded as if this was the response he’d expected.
“Sure. Just passing through, getting body-shop quotes from Bobby Girard.”
“Want to explain why you’re here?” Barrett said. “Or am I supposed to believe that the locals were overstretched and you volunteered?”
“I’d like you to talk to Crepeaux for me.”
“The DEA wants to talk to Kimberly? About what?”
“About the death of Cass Odom,” Vizquel said, and now Barrett felt more confused than he had when he’d first woken up.
“What’s interesting about Cass?”
“Where she bought her drugs, maybe.” Vizquel leaned forward, studied Barrett, and said, “You’re really still looking at those murders? That’s honestly what brought you back? If it’s a lie, I’ll find out, and that will become a very big problem for you.”
“It’s not a lie, and I don’t like to be threatened while I’m in a hospital bed.”
“Fair enough. Your interest in Port Hope is certainly not mine. I’m not worried about Jackie Pelletier and Ian Kelly or any stories about them.”
“Compassionate.”
“Call it what you want. You’re losing sleep over two dead. I’m losing sleep over two hundred and fifty-seven and counting.”
Barrett stared at him. “Want to say that number again?”
“You heard it.”
“Explain it, please,” Barrett said.
Vizquel obliged. He was out of Miami originally and had been in New Hampshire by way of Dayton when he heard about Rob Barrett’s return to Maine. He was in these disparate places because he was following the spread of a deadly strain of heroin that had taken, to the best of his knowledge, more than 250 lives already.
“Fentanyl?” Barrett asked.
“Carfentanil, actually. Heard of it?”
“No.”
“It’s an elephant tranquilizer. I kid you not. Now it’s coming out of labs in Mexico and China and into the U.S., mixed with heroin. It crosses the blood-brain barrier with ease and produces an incredible euphoria—right before it kills you. Fentanyl can be fatal at minuscule levels. Two milligrams. The size of a few grains of sand, literally. Consider that. Now consider the fact that carfentanil is approximately one hundred times more potent.”
Barrett said, “Devil’s cut?”
Vizquel arched an eyebrow. “Pardon?”
“Is that what it’s called? Or devil’s calling? I’ve heard those names.”
“New to me, but drug names change often, and regionally.” He took out his iPhone and made a quick note. “Who told you those?”
Barrett didn’t answer, and Vizquel sighed. “Come on,” he said. “Cooperate with me, Agent Barrett.”
“Happy to, if it’s a two-way street. What’s this have to do with Kimberly Crepeaux and Mathias Burke?”
“Nothing.” He lifted his hands before Barrett could argue. “Honestly, nothing. I’ve read about the case. I believe you were given a false confession, and frankly, I don’t care. It’s of no interest to me. What is of interest to me is the drug. I’m following a distribution map. Or trying to build one. Some areas are making sense. Port Hope, Maine, is not. Usually this thing kills in waves. I go to see a coroner who has seen two dozen dead in two weeks. In Ohio, they had fifty in one county. Up here, that’s not the case. Toxicology reports are showing matches, and Cass Odom is one of them. The matches are sporadic, and the path of entry isn’t clear. That’s what’s important to me. I chase this cancer all around the country, talking to coroners and cops and watching the bodies stack up, and what I need to know is how it’s coming in. Maine’s intriguing to me.”
“Why?”
“Because Maine has plenty of harbor towns, and my job is to determine how the drug is arriving. A lot of it has been flown into Dayton or Indianapolis, centrally located cities with major interstate systems. Maine is usually a final destination for heroin, not an entry point. But it’s not killing many people up here either. A handful of dead in tiny coastal towns doesn’t make sense for this shit. Which makes me wonder…did it arrive here, and did some enterprising soul pilfer a little before they let it bleed out into the rest of the country?”
“Interesting questions,” Barrett said. “But I can’t answer them. And I’m still curious about my questions. Someone tried to kill me, and you seem to know more about it than I do, but you’re not sharing that.”
“Who do you think did it?”
“I’m not sure, but it seems safe to assume it was someone who doesn’t want me asking questions about a murder case that was closed too early.”
“I think you’re halfway there but facing the wrong way.”
“What?”
“They don’t want you asking questions, but that’s because your questions are changing. You’re not asking about the murders anymore. You’re asking about the drugs.”
“How do you know that already?”
Vizquel smiled and shook his head. Barrett wondered who his informant was. Millinock? Girard? Johansson?
“How’s your relationship with the state police up here?” he asked.
“Aces,” Vizquel said, “but you’re still facing the wrong way.”
“Then set me straight, and stop throwing the curveballs. I clearly can’t hit them, and I can’t help you unless I can hit them. Who’s your source, Vizquel?”
Vizquel gave a dry little smile. “No source. Oh, by the way—there was a GPS tracking device attached to the frame of your car. That’s why I’m here. Cass Odom matches the drug profile, and Rob Barrett nearly gets killed with a tracker on his rental car, and this is what brings Nick Vizquel hustling up to Maine to chat at your bedside, understand?”
Barrett stared at him, trying to catch up. “Is the tracker clean or do you think you can get something from it?”
“We’ll try, of course, but unless someone got lazy, it’ll be clean. You’ve honestly got no idea who might have put that on your car?”
“I don’t. My first thought is Mathias Burke, because he’s the—”
“Stop thinking about the murder case. That’s small ball.”
Barrett pointed at Nick Vizquel, dragging IV tubes across his body as he did it.
“Tell that to Howard Pelletier, asshole. Tell him that his daughter’s murder is small ball.”
Vizquel sighed. “I was hoping you’d get it. You’re a fed, not a local.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“You are disappointing. I could use the help, and you’re still talking about caretakers and addicts and old murders. Get past that. Think about money. Somewhere, somebody is making big money on this drug.”
“I’m sure they are. But it’s not Kimberly Crepeaux.”
Vizquel looked disgusted. “You’re right about that. Listen, I’m leaving my card and my cell number. You get better ideas than that, share them, would you? You scared somebody pretty good by coming back to Maine. I’d like to know who it was.”
“Yeah,” Barrett said. “You and me both.”
Vizquel left his card on the table beside the bed and stood. “You’re a lucky man.”
Barrett gestured at the rack of IVs beside his hospital bed. “Really?”
“Absolutely. You wandered into the ring without knowing what weight class was punching in it. Most guys like you? They don’t see a hospital bed. They see a morgue.”