Slow Kill - Michael Mcgarrity [49]
She showed them the warrant and explained what the detectives were about to do.
“Where is Kim?” Baldridge asked. “He should be here for this.”
“I wish he was here,” Ramona said as she motioned to the officers to get started. Matt Chacon steered Tilly to a back office, while the other two men began looking through the filing cabinet and desk behind the pharmacy counter.
“Do you work for him full-time?” she asked Baldridge.
He shook his head and the folds below his chin jiggled. Ramona put him in his late sixties. The smock he wore bulged at his hefty waistline. His pasty skin almost perfectly matched his gray hair.
“No,” Baldridge said. “I’m basically retired. Kim uses me as his relief pharmacist. This is the last day I can be here for three weeks. The wife and I are leaving tomorrow on vacation.”
“Were you supposed to work yesterday?” Ramona asked.
“No, Kim called me at home early in the morning and asked me to come in.”
“Did he say why?”
“Just that he needed coverage,” Baldridge replied.
“Was that unusual?”
“I’d say so,” Baldridge said. “In fact, Tilly and I were just talking about it. He’s only called me to come in on short notice before when he’s been sick. We don’t know what to do if he doesn’t come back tomorrow, except refer his customers to other pharmacies. I only came in today because people were waiting to have their prescriptions filled.”
“What a nice thing to do before your vacation,” Ramona said. Baldridge smiled at the compliment.
“Do you know Dean’s customers well?” she asked.
“Most of them. I’ve filled in here for the past five years.”
“How about Claudia Spalding?” Ramona asked.
“Oh yes, she has several current prescriptions on file.”
“For what?”
“Unless your warrant specifically permits you to gather prescription information about our customers, I can’t tell you that.”
“It does,” Ramona said, showing Baldridge the appropriate paragraph in the search warrant.
“I’d have to look it up,” Baldridge said.
“Please do,” Ramona replied.
Baldridge spent a few minutes at a computer, then returned and rattled off Claudia Spalding’s current prescription information. Ramona had him translate it into language she could understand. Baldridge told her one script was for a mild muscle relaxant and the other was for a narcotic painkiller. She asked Baldridge to pull the hard copies, and while he went off to do so, she called the doctor who’d prescribed the medications and asked him to verify the information.
“The muscle relaxant, yes,” the doctor said. “But I never gave her any painkillers.”
“What did she need the muscle relaxant for?” Ramona asked.
“You know I can’t tell you that, Sergeant.”
“If you talk around the subject a little bit, Doctor,” Ramona said, “I might not have to pay you a visit.”
“Do you ride horses, Sergeant?”
“Not since I was a little kid,” Ramona replied.
“Let’s say you did, and you took a bad fall from a horse and strained the muscles in your back. Not severely, but enough to cause discomfort. The muscle relaxant, in a very low dosage, provides relief.”
“That helps,” Ramona said. “What about the narcotic painkiller?”
“It had to be forged,” the doctor said. “Mrs. Spalding has no medical condition I’m aware of that requires it.”
“Your records confirm that?”
“Absolutely,” the doctor said before hanging up.
Baldridge hovered next to her with the hard copy scripts in hand. Both looked real, but who better to forge a doctor ’s prescription than a pharmacist?
“Tell me about this painkiller,” Ramona asked.
“It’s hydrocodone acetaminophen, a Class III controlled substance,” Baldridge said, “which means it doesn’t have to be as strictly inventoried and accounted for as Class II drugs under federal regulations.”
“How is it accounted for?” Ramona asked.
“We do an annual report and give an estimate of how much was dispensed and what’s on hand. It doesn’t have to be absolutely accurate.”
“Would the painkiller give the user a high? Make them nod out?”
“It’s a downer, so I’d imagine so,” Baldridge said. “In normal dosages, other than relieving pain, it tends to cause drowsiness,