A Discount for Death (29 page)

“Huh. And now we know how he did that goddamn little trick. But lowered prices aren’t proof that he’s in cahoots with your buddy there.”

“It’s a place to start.”

“So how does Leona Spears fit into all of this?”

“I’ve got something I want to try. She can help me with it.”

Gastner looked dubious. “You be careful about opening Pandora’s box with that woman, sweetheart. She’s nuts. And we both know it. Hell, the whole goddamn town knows it.”

“That’s what I’m counting on, sir. Want to ride along?”

“Ah, no. Thanks. It’d be more fun to find a nice rock and drop it on my foot.”

Chapter Thirty-nine

Despite her resolve, Estelle Reyes-Guzman’s finger hesitated a moment before dialing. Bill Gastner was right about Leona Spears. Whether Pandora’s box or the LaBrea tar pits was the more apt analogy, Estelle was loath to step too close. At two minutes after ten, the phone range twice, and when the receiver was lifted at the other end, Estelle could hear Placido Domingo’s cellolike voice in the background—a familiar operatic aria that was one of Francis Guzman’s favorites.

“Helllloooo,” Leona Spears’ rich contralto greeted.

“Leona? This is Undersheriff Guzman. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“Oh! My goodness, no. Would you believe it, I’m just sitting here working on a set of bridge specs. Now
that’s
excitement for you.” She chuckled. “I’m so glad you called.”

“I know this is an imposition, Leona, but I wonder if we could meet for a few minutes.”

Leona Spears paused to think about that for a nanosecond or so. “Why of course, Estelle. Do you want me to come down to the office? Would that be convenient?”

“Actually, I’m in the car at the moment, Leona. Could I just swing by? Would that be too much of an imposition?”

“Well, certainly not. You come right ahead. I’ll put on some coffee.”

“No…please don’t. Not on my account, anyway.”

“How about some tea or something like that?”

“Tea would be nice,” Estelle said, although her knotted stomach recoiled at the thought of anything, liquid or solid. “I’m on Bustos coming up on Pershing Park. As I remember you’re over on Alamo?”

“Four sixteen Alamo Drive. That’s right. Right behind the high school. Third house on the right. I’ll turn on the porch light for you.”

“It’ll be about three minutes,” Estelle said. As she clicked off the phone, she could still hear Placido Domingo in the background, heading for high C. She knew that at that moment, Leona’s pulse was kicking into triple digits with anticipation. The woman had run for several elective offices over the years, but her favorite target was the sheriff’s post, despite no working knowledge of law enforcement beyond what she might gain from the television. Her consistent landslide losses never deterred her from jumping into the next race. What prompted her fascination with law enforcement, Estelle couldn’t guess.

In less than three minutes, Estelle turned onto Alamo Drive, the short spur running west from South Fourth Street. She saw the state truck parked in front of 416. Leona’s front yard was straight from the drafting board to reality. A perfectly manicured square of crushed stone sufficed for lawn, its boundaries marked with tight chain-linked fencing. Estelle pulled in beside the pickup, thinking that a double yellow line up the driveway wouldn’t be out of place. If the woman owned a car of her own, it was tucked away in the one-car garage.

Even before Estelle stepped out of the car, she saw that Leona was standing at the front door of the house. The woman loomed enormous in a floor-length, frilly robe, her corn-yellow hair gathered in complex French braids to drape over her right shoulder. She peered out over half glasses with octagonal granny frames.

“This is an unexpected pleasure,” she said as Estelle approached. She stood to one side and gestured for Estelle to enter the house. “And I confess to being a little worried, too. When the law arrives in the middle of the night, it’s not for tea and cookies, is it?”

Estelle glanced back at her, surprised by the matter-of-fact tone. Leona was more apt to indulge in flights of fancy, imagining herself privy to all sorts of confidences that weren’t her business. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, Leona. But I really need to talk to you.”

The highway engineer waved a hand in easy dismissal. “Not a moment of it, Estelle. Let’s go into my office. The tea water’s on, too.” She beamed. “And I’ve got cookies, so we’re all set. Or maybe something stronger?” A hand fluttered. “But of course not. You’re on duty.”

They passed the living room, the furniture a metal and plastic style of decades past, all of it looking unused. Leona had turned one of the two bedrooms of the tiny home into her office, complete with an enormous drafting table wedged between matching filing cabinets. With just enough room to turn around, Leona could slide from drafting stool to the plush leather office chair that faced her computer table.

Estelle stood for a moment watching the image on the huge flat-screen monitor. The view was through the windshield of a vehicle, the black two-lane highway spooling through western prairie land, the mesa in the distance gradually growing in size.

“That’s a little screen-saver program I worked up,” Leona said with satisfaction. “Recognize the spot?”

“It looks like the area up by Newton,” Estelle said.

“That’s exactly right!” The woman chuckled. “Now I’m
really
impressed with myself for making it look so good.” She rubbed her hands together. “But you didn’t come over to admire my computer’s screen saver.” She turned the chair toward Estelle.
“Sitzen,”
and she heaved her bulk onto the drafting stool, planting one large elbow on the slanted surface. “So. May I be so presumptuous as to say that you look exhausted, young lady.”

Estelle smiled faintly. “I am. It’s been a long, long night, Leona. And bound to be longer before we’re through.” She saw the engineer rear back as if marshaling her considerable forces and held up a hand to stop the flow before it started. “I need to ask you a favor, but first, I need to make something really clear, Leona.”

“Of course.” Leona’s eyebrows furrowed, one of them rising a bit.

“What we talk about can go no further than this room,” Estelle said.

Leona nodded eagerly. “I may be a flake, Undersheriff, but I’m no gossip.”

“All right. I’d like you to do a little undercover work for me, if you think that’s possible.” She watched the woman’s heavy face, and this time the left eyebrow twitched several notches higher.

“Me?”

“Yes.” Estelle could imagine Sheriff Robert Torrez’s swarthy face melding to brick red as he asked,
“You asked Leona Spears to do what?”

“Of course it’s possible,” Leona said briskly.

“Well, wait,” Estelle said. “I need to ask you a couple of personal questions first, and
then
you decide.”

Leona’s eyes narrowed, and her head turned sideways so that she was looking at Estelle out of the corner of her eyes. “Personal like how?”

“And don’t feel you have to answer,” Estelle said. Leona nodded slowly. “Who’s your family physician?”

Leona visibly relaxed. “Here I thought you were going to ask me something terribly clandestine, something from the seamy side.” She smiled broadly. “That one’s easy. Dr. Grona. He’s over in Deming.” She immediately frowned again, prepared for the next challenge.

“No one here in town?”

“Noooo,” she said carefully. Her face flushed beet red, from the lace collar of her muumuu to her hairline. “Your husband is
way
too good-looking for me to be comfortable with, Miss Estelle, and Alan Perrone reminds me of a corpse. Hugh Clausen is a good Swede, but he drinks. And Kurt Baylor is in the process of moving his practice to Grants.” She shrugged. “Besides, I’ve been going to Dr. Grona for eons and eons. I’m in Deming half the week anyway, so it’s no inconvenience.” She flashed the broad smile again. “And all that is probably
way
more than you wanted to know.”

Estelle nodded. “Actually, it’s helpful. My next question is absolutely none of my business…not that the first one was.”

She hesitated, and Leona leaned forward on the stool. “My dear, if you’re here in the middle of the night asking, then you have your reasons. Shoot.”

Estelle fished a slip of paper out of her pocket and handed it to Leona. The woman scanned down the list of eight prescription drugs, frowning.

“And so? What’s this?”

“Do you currently take any of those medications?”

“Interesting, interesting. What
are
you in the middle of, dear girl?”

“Please.” Estelle nodded at the list.

“Well, let me see. I used to take Petrosin, up until about a month ago. And then Dr. Grona switched me to something else, I don’t remember what.”

“You were having some kind of reaction to Petrosin?”

“No. It just wasn’t working for me. Let me tell you, I wish I didn’t
have
to take it, but sometimes it’s just not possible to face the day without it. May you never suffer from depression, Estelle Guzman.” She scanned the list again. “None of the rest. Not just now, anyway. I had some Daprodin a month or so ago for a bladder infection. Great big horse pills.”

“Large price tag, too.”

“Oh, of course. Thank God for insurance, though. Still, the co-pay is enough to land you on your back.”

“Where did you go to have the prescriptions filled?”

“I’ve been using Trombley’s for years and years.” Leona lowered her voice as if in mid-conspiracy. “And he’s so thoughtful, you know. Like with the Daprodin? He would give me a few extra, in case the infection flared up again. That way I wouldn’t have to go through the whole rigmarole again. In some ways, old Doc Grona is kind of a fuddy-duddy. He wrote a thirty-day prescription for the Daprodin, instead of the normal ten. So I just saved the rest for another day.” She beamed smugly.

“So you still have some of the Daprodin, then?” Leona nodded. “May I see it?”

“Well surely.” The woman heaved herself upright. “And I’ll make the tea. Any special favorites? I have everything on the planet.”

“Actually, I’m fine, Leona. Really.”

“You don’t
look
fine. How about a little cup of Earl Grey? That cures all ills. And it’s scads cheaper than Daprodin.”

Estelle grinned with resignation. “Okay.” She felt a stab of affection for this lonely Brunhilda.

“Cream and sugar?”

“No, thanks. Just Daprodin.”

Leona burst out with a hearty laugh. “Ah, yes. All right. Let me fetch that.” She left the room and was gone for no more than two minutes, long enough for Estelle to read the two diplomas from UCLA, one of them a doctorate in civil engineering. A framed photo caught the former governor of New Mexico shaking Leona’s hand at what was obviously an awards dinner of some sort, with
I appreciate all you do!!
! written across the top corner of the photo in heavy black marker.

“Here we are,” Leona said, and handed the small bottle to Estelle. “And I’ll be right back with the tea. Cookies? I’ve got some of those wonderful little lemon things from Denmark.”

“No, please. But you go ahead.”

“Well, I’ll bring enough, in case you change your mind.” She hustled out of the room. Estelle rolled the prescription bottle between her fingers, then popped off the top. She shook one pill out into the palm of her hand and pressed the lid back in place. She regarded the pill for a moment, reading the
DAPRODIN DG
on one side, the 500 on the other—identical in appearance with either set of pills she’d taken from Louis Herrera’s pharmacy.
Quiero o no quiero
, she thought, and popped the pill into her mouth, letting it rest on the front of her tongue. The taste, if there was any at all, was bland and chalky.

Estelle deposited the capsule into a small evidence bag and slipped the bottle and remaining medication into another, marking them carefully. She was putting the cap back on the pen when Leona Spears returned with a tray and cups. She saw her medications now secure in the plastic bags and stopped short.

“Leona, this last batch of Daprodin DG that you purchased from Guy Trombley is a placebo,” Estelle said. “That’s what we’re investigating at the moment.”

“You’re kidding.” The large woman set the tray down carefully on the computer desk.

“No.”

“How do you tell, then? That it’s fake, I mean.”

“The taste, for one. The real medication has a tart, stringent taste, like quinine.”

“I’ve had some that does and some that doesn’t,” Leona said. “Now what about the Petrosin?”

“That I don’t know. It’ll require a lab analysis.”

“I have some, you know.”

“Petrosin?”

“Yes. You remember I said that Dr. Grona changed my prescription? I kept the medications.” She scrinched up her face like a guilty child. “I keep things, you know.” It took her only a moment to produce the bottle, still containing two dozen or more tablets.

“Also from Trombley’s pharmacy,” Estelle said, looking at the label.

“Now surely, he wouldn’t…” and Leona let the sentence trail off. “What was it that you wanted me to do?”

“Leona, may I take these with me?” She held up the two evidence bags.

Leona Spears snorted. “I don’t have much choice there, now do I.” Then she smiled eagerly. “Whatever you want to do. I have other prescriptions from Trombley’s as well…would you want those?”

“I’d appreciate it.”

In another moment, Leona had assembled a row of nine bottles, some out of date by more than a year. She watched with satisfaction as Estelle nudged them into another plastic bag. “I hope that helps,” Leona said. “If this is all you wanted of me, it’s the easiest thing in the world.”

“I think this will serve the same purpose, Leona,” Estelle said. “I think it will. Do you understand that if this ends up in court, you’ll be asked to testify about the circumstances of your acquiring these medications? And that you received them from Guy Trombley?”

Leona nodded. “I’m no stranger to the courtroom, my dear. It doesn’t frighten me one little bit. And now a fair trade, Mrs. Guzman.
What
,” and she leaned heavily on the word, “is going on? I’ve known and
trusted
Guy Trombley for just years and years. I just can’t imagine…”

“We have reason to believe that counterfeit pharmaceuticals are being brought into the country, Leona. There is evidence that some of them were dispensed at local pharmacies, including in Posadas.” She smiled ruefully. “That’s all I can really tell you at this point.”

The engineer’s eyes narrowed, and she leaned back against the slanted surface of the drafting table. “Oh, my. Don’t tell me that the new place is involved, too. Your husband must be just beside himself.”