Ed McBain_87th Precinct 47 (32 page)

“You hear me?” he asked.

“Sí ya
lo oí,
no soy sordo,”
the doorman answered in Spanish, apparently figuring Parker was more fluent than he actually was, most of his exchanges before
now having taken place in Cathy Herrera’s bed—
Caralina’s
, who was kidding who?

“Huh?” Parker said.

“Luis Rivera,” the doorman said.

“Listen, Luis,” Parker said, “nobody’s tryin’a get you in any trouble here. All we want to know is does Andrea Packer live
alone here or does somebody live with her? If so, who is it? That’s all we want to know, You stand here at the door all the
time, protectin the tenants here in this building, ready to defend them with your life day and night, twenty-five years you
been here, that’s a brave thing you done, Luis, that takes real
cojones
. But now we’re dealin with a homicide here, Luis, which is murder, as you know,
homicidio,
we call it in Spanish, a very serious crime, Luis. So just tell us yes or no, she was living with somebody or she wasn’t,
and we’ll take it from there, what do you say,
amigo?”
Parker said, and winked.

“I call dee. super,” Luis said.

There were four pharmacies within a six-block radius of Andrea Packer’s building. Meyer and Hawes entered the first one at
ten minutes past six that Saturday evening. By now, all of the detectives were very conscious of the time. Tuesday at nine
seemed very close, and tomorrow was not only Sunday, it was
palm
Sunday. In this city, things had a habit of slowing down on holidays even when the holiday was merely a prelude to a bigger
holiday—like the Passover and Easter celebrations
next
Sunday.

“They’re both spring festivals, anyway,” Meyer said, apropos of nothing. “Joyous celebrations of life.”

Hawes didn’t know what he was talking about.

The pharmacy was one in a chain of big impersonal discount stores that on television advertised courtesy, friendliness and
personal attention. There were six pharmacists in white coats scurrying around behind the counter, all of them women. There
were twice that many people standing in line in front of the counter. Hovering over everything was an air of absolute panic.
Meyer was happy he wasn’t here to have a prescription filled. The people on line gave both detectives dirty looks as they
stepped up directly to the counter. A man wearing sweats and running shoes seemed about to say something to Hawes, but Hawes
merely glared at him and he changed his mind.

“Police,” Meyer said, and showed his shield. “May we speak to your head pharmacist, please?”

The head pharmacist—or
chief
pharmacist, as she introduced herself—was an exceedingly tall woman named Felicia Moss, her eyes a piercing brown, her hair
pulled back into a severe bun that emphasized startlingly beautiful features in a face as chiseled as a Roman marble.

“I’m sorry,” she said when they told her what they wanted. “That would be completely contrary to policy.”

“What policy?” Meyer asked.

“Company policy.”

“Why?” Hawes asked flatly.

“Pharmacist-patient confidentiality,” she said.

“There’s no such thing,” Hawes said.

“All we want to know is whether or not you’ve filled any prescriptions recently for a woman named…”

“Yes, I…”

“Andrea Packer, and whether one of those…”

“I quite understand what you’re looking for. The answer…”

“Miss Moss, let’s not be ridiculous, okay?” Hawes said. “We’re in investigating a homicide here…”

“And
I
have prescriptions to fill,” she said. “Good day, gentlemen.”

It was going to be one of those days.

The superintendent of Andrea Packer’s building was a burly white man not quite as bald as some people Parker knew, but plenty
bald enough. His scalp was red and flaking. It looked as if he’d spent a lot of time up on the roof taking the sun. His eyes
were blue and piercing and suspicious.

Brown asked him if there was a tenant named Andrea Packer in the building.

“I’m not required to give out information on my tenants,” he said. He had not yet given them his name or offered them his
hand. He had simply materialized from the bowels of the building when the doorman picked up a handset at the entrance desk
and punched out a mysterious number.

“What’s your name, sir?” Parker asked.

He had found over the years that using the word “sir” very often caused them to wet their pants.

“Howard Rank,” the super said.

“Mr. Rank,” Parker said, “I don’t know what you mean by required or not required, who’s saying you’re
required
to do anything here? We’re asking a simple question we can get the answer to just by looking at the mailboxes in your hallway
there, for which we don’t need any authority but the shield in our pocket. We did you the courtesy of asking
you
the question instead of walking over there to the mailboxes, so why don’t you do
us
the courtesy of giving a simple answer instead of required or not required?”

“She lives in the building, yes,” Rank said.

“Good, now can you tell us what apartment she lives in, or do we have to go look at the mailbox for that, too?”

“She lives in apartment 4C.”

“Thank you,” Parker said. “Now can you tell us whether she lives alone up there, or whether there’s somebody living with her?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Rank said.

“Why not?” Brown asked sharply, glowering.

“Super-tenant confidentiality,” Rank said.

The drugstore on the corner of Easton and Hedley had been at this same location for fifty years; it said so in gold-leaf lettering
on the front plate-glass window. Stepping into the shop, Carella had the feeling he was walking into an apothecary somewhere
in London, though he’d never been to London and didn’t really know whether or not they were called apothecaries there. But
there was something reminiscent of Charles Dickens here, something about the little bell tinkling over the paned-and-paneled
front door, in itself a rarity in this city of instant break-ins. The heavy glass-fronted cabinets, the thick wooden shelves,
the bell jars and decanters all seemed to contain rare oils, ointments, and unguents transported from the farthest reaches
of the world. There was something ineffably timeworn and musty about this shop and the creaky old man behind the counter.
This was a shop to enter on a rainy day.

“Yes, gentlemen?” the man asked. “How may I help you?”

Like the Dickens character he most surely was, he wore a long-sleeved lavender-colored shirt and a little purple bow tie,
and a plaid vest over which a watch chain ran from pocket to buttonhole. He squinted at them through narrow little glasses,
dark eyes bright behind them. His skin was the color and texture of thin parchment paper.

“We’re police officers,” Carella said at once, though the man seemed not at all afraid of imminent robbery.

“How do you do,” he said, “I’m Graham Quested.”

Dickens for sure, Carella thought.

“We’re trying to track a prescription,” Kling said.

“Ah yes,” Quested said.

He told them he’d had many such requests from the police over the years, usually in cases where overdoses of prescription
drugs seemed indicated during autopsy. He also told them he’d been held up sixty-two times at this location since he opened
the store fifty-one years ago come August.

“All sixty-two of the robberies took place during the past twenty years,” he said. “I guess that says something about the
way this city is changing, doesn’t it?”

Carella guessed it did.

“What we’re looking for,” he said, “is a prescription you might have filled for a woman named Andrea Packer.”

“Not a name that’s familiar to me,” Quested said. “Which doesn’t mean anything, of course. She could have been someone who
just walked in off the street, rather than one of my regular customers. When would this have been, would you know?”

“I’m sorry, we don’t.”

“A prescription for what?”

“Dalmane.”

“Very popular sleeping pill. Its generic name is flurazepam, one of the benzodiazepines. More than fifteen, sixteen million
prescriptions written for it each year. Do you know her doctor’s name?”

“No.”

“Andrea Packer, did you say?”

“P-A-C-K-E-R.”

“Do you have an address for her?”

“714 South Hedley.”

“Right around the corner. Was she a suicide?”

“No, sir,” Carella said.

“Because benzodiazepines are rarely used in suicides,” Quested said. “Have to take ten to twenty times the normal dose to
do yourself in that way. Dalmane’s got the longest half-life of any of the ben…”

“Half-life?”

“That’s the time it takes to eliminate
half’
the drug the person ingested. If you took a ten-milligram capsule of something, for example, and its half-life is two hours,
then an hour after ingestion there’d still be five mils in the bloodstream.”

“What’s the half-life of Dalmane?”

“Forty-seven to a hundred hours,” Quested said.

Kling whistled.

“You said it. A person using Dalmane can sometimes have as much of the stuff in his blood during the day as he has at night.
Let’s have a look at the files, shall we?”

And then, surprisingly for a fellow out of
Great Expectations
or
Oliver Twist,
he led them to a computer in a back room brimming with mortars and pestles, and searched first for Andrea Packer’s name,
and then her address, and then the brand name Dalmane and next the generic name flurazepam and lastly the chemical group benzodiazepine
and came up with nothing each and every time.

“Oh gentlemen,” he said, looking truly regretful, “I’m so terribly, terribly sorry.”

The door to apartment 4D was opened by a young black man wearing blue jeans, a gray T-shirt with a maroon Ramsey University
seal on its front, and horn-rimmed glasses that gave him a peering, suspicious look. He had asked them to hold their badges
up to the peephole in the door before he’d opened it for them, and now he studied their shields and ID cards at greater leisure
and with closer scrutiny. Satisfied at last, he said, “What’s the trouble?”

“No trouble,” Brown said.

“What’s your name, son?” Parker asked pleasantly.

He had determined over the years that using the word “son” also caused them to wet their pants, especially when they were
nineteen years old and black, the way this kid seemed to be.

“Daryll Hinks,” the kid said.

“Do you know the lady who lives in 4C next door?”

“Only by sight.”

“Andrea Packer, that her name?” Brown asked.

“I don’t know her name. Long blond hair, nineteen, twenty years old, good-looking girl. What’d she do?”

“Nothing. Ever see her going in or out of that apartment?”

“Sure.”

“Apartment 4C, right?”

“Yeah. Next door.”

“Ever seen anybody
else
going in or out?”

“Sure.”

“A man, for example?”

“What is she, a hooker?”

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re asking about men going in and out…”

“No, no, we’re just thinking of a
specific
man.”

“Did this man do something?”

“Yeah, he threw himself out a window,” Parker said.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.’
^.

“Gee.”

“So would you have seen a guy maybe six feet tall, husky white guy, twenty-six years old, brown hair, brown…”

“Yeah,” Hinks said.

“Liked to wear painter’s coveralls, high-topped workman’s…”

“Yeah, I’ve seen him. Talked to him in the elevator, in fact.”

“Ever see him going in or coming out of apartment 4C?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“Well, I leave for school early in the morning…”

“Ever see him coming out of there early in the morning?”

“Oh sure.”

“What time in the morning?”

“I leave at seven.”

“Thanks,” Brown said.

“What’d she do?” Hinks asked again.

The pharmacist at G&R Drugs on Hedley and Commerce knew Andrea Packer by name and by sight. She was, in fact, a regular customer
at the store. He described her as a “lissome” blonde, maybe twenty years old or so, with dark brown eyes and a kind of “flamboyant”
manner.

“I think she’s an actress or something,” he said. “Or a model. One or the other. We had some interesting talks about movies.
Did you see the movie
Orlando
? We had some interesting talks about that movie. It’s about gender exchange, I guess you’d call it. It was very interesting.
You should try to get it from your video store. We also talked about
Speed,
which is a different sort of film, but also very interesting. Either of the two are well worth…”

“When was she in here last?” Hawes asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, she’s in and out all the time. Toothpaste, lipstick, deodorant…”

“How about prescription drugs?” Meyer asked.

“I’d have to look that up. She had a cold recently, I know, and was taking an antibiotic…”

“How about sleeping pills?” Hawes asked.

“Oh, yes, she had a running prescription for those.”

“Running?”

“Refilled it every month or so.”

“When’s the last time she refilled it?”

“Couple of weeks ago, I guess. I’d have to check the computer.”

“What drug?”

“Dalmane.”

AFFIDAVIT FOR SEARCH WARRANT

BEFORE ME, R JUDGE of the entitled COURT, personally came:
Detective/Second Grade Stephen Louis Carella,
a POLICE DEPARTMENT officer to me well known, and who being by me first duly SWORN, made APPLICATION for SEARCH WARRANT, and
in support of this APPLICATION on OATH says:

That he has REASON TO BELIEVE, and DOES BELIEVE that the LAWS OF THIS STATE, particularly:

Penal Law §125.25

to wit:
Murder in the second degree

have been violated by:
Andrea Packer