The Price of Innocence Read online

  ‘What went wrong?’

  The happy memories went up in smoke. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t know who that guy was who died and what he screwed up to make the place go up like that. DaVinci thought it had something to do with the sodium hydroxide. He was mad as hell, too. I never saw him that mad.’

  NaOH – otherwise known as lye, it could explode on contact with water, but that shouldn’t have occurred during the meth process. Unless Joe McClurg had made a mistake. ‘What did sodium hydroxide have to do with it?’

  ‘You have to condense the pseudoephedrine crystals with the iodine and red phosphorus over a hot oil bath. Then you add sodium hydroxide to bring the pH up, but DaVinci seemed to think that the guy added ammonium hydroxide instead,’ Bilecki explained morosely. ‘I don’t know, and I didn’t really care. He kept muttering about NaOH and NH-four-OH and the oil bath, and I kept asking where were going to cook meth now.’

  ‘Where did you?’

  His face crashed into wrinkles of pain. ‘We didn’t. DaVinci said he was tired of the whole mess and he couldn’t do it without Doc anyway. Time to go our separate ways. I thought maybe he wanted to start again on a smaller scale, cut the rest of us out – because by then he thought I had gotten kind of … unreliable. But if he did, he did it somewhere else, because the whole campus went into a meth shortage without us. I flunked out and so did Marty and Lily. It just fell apart.’ He sighed. The best time of his life had ended.

  ‘Did the police suspect you?’

  ‘Nope. I mean, they questioned all of us, everyone who lived in the building, but no one ’fessed up and they couldn’t tie us to it. Any of the tenants could have broken into the kitchen.’

  ‘The other students staying there didn’t tell them—’

  ‘We were careful going in and out of the lab, we’d use this back service hallway from the restaurant. Everyone in the place knew someone was cooking meth, but I guess they didn’t know who.’

  ‘What about the money?’

  ‘Cops never found the dummy accounts. Bean officially closed them, even wrote a letter to the suppliers that the school had discontinued the study program, so that no one would be calling the school looking for our fake department. Then he closed the bank accounts the next day. Even if the cops found them, they couldn’t tie them to any of us. DaVinci thought of everything.’

  Quite the criminal mastermind. ‘Did you know Joe McClurg?’

  ‘The dead kid? No.’

  ‘Then what was he doing in your lab?’

  ‘Cooking, I guess. I never knew who did all the cooking. DaVinci wouldn’t let me near it.’

  ‘Wasn’t Joe who you call Doc?’ she pressed again.

  ‘Sure, could’a been. What difference would it make?’ he asked, still mourning the loss of twenty-five years ago.

  ‘Because maybe someone shot Marty in revenge for his death.’

  Bilecki snorted.

  ‘Maybe it was DaVinci.’

  ‘Hah!’ The more Bilecki thought about it, the funnier it seemed, and he burst into giggles. ‘DaVinci never cared about anyone else in his life. And besides, why would he blame Marty? Why would anyone blame Marty? He only worked as a collector now and then, he had nothing to do with the lab or the actual cooking.’

  ‘Then maybe someone who didn’t know that, someone who knew Marty was part of the operation but not what part. Or who didn’t care, held you all equally responsible.’

  Bilecki paled a bit. ‘Wow.’

  ‘Did this Joseph McClurg have parents? Brothers or sisters?’ Siblings often attended the same school and might know the same players. Though why it would take them twenty-five years to catch up to Marty Davis – whose name and address appeared in the phone book, she had checked – Theresa could not guess.

  ‘I told you, I didn’t know him.’

  ‘What did it say in the newspaper? Reporters would have interviewed the family.’

  ‘I don’t read the paper.’ He made it sound roughly equivalent to joining the rowing team or wearing a pink tutu. ‘You think this person killed Lily too?

  She tried to keep him on topic. ‘What did DaVinci say about Joe? You all must have rehashed the incident over and over in the next few weeks.’

  ‘Not really. He said to scatter, stay away from each other so the cops and the teachers wouldn’t notice us. We had to find other places to stay anyway. The apartments were condemned. The few times we were together, DaVinci kept talking about the sodium hydroxide and getting Bean to close all the accounts, and telling me that we couldn’t cook more meth.’

  He sighed. Theresa hoped that, with the years fallen away, he could see how truly callous their actions had been. A boy their age, a friend or at least an acquaintance, had been killed working by their side and they had covered their tracks and denied even knowing him.

  But then Bilecki said, ‘It really was the sweetest set-up ever.’

  In the story she had told Frank, the fingerless addict learned to work a cigarette lighter with his palms in order to continue smoking meth. The single-mindedness of the addict. ‘And no one ever came looking for McClurg’s acquaintances, asking questions about what he’d been doing? I mean, after the original canvass regarding the fire.’

  ‘Canvass?’

  ‘When the cops questioned all the neighbors to see if anyone saw anything or knew anything. It’s called a canvass.’

  ‘Oh. No. No one ever asked us another thing.’

  ‘What about other than cops? Other students? The victim’s family?’

  ‘No. No one knew we had anything to do with it. We got away clean.’ At least he did not seem triumphant or even proud of that, simply stated it as fact. They had gotten away, and DaVinci, at least, had had the sense to quit while ahead.

  A thought struck her. Instead of the shooter tracking Marty down to get revenge, perhaps Marty had done the tracking – but not for revenge. For blackmail. ‘DaVinci, and Bean – were those their real names?’

  He blinked, slurped his cola. ‘I guess.’

  ‘First names or last names?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Could be nicknames?’

  ‘I guess.’

  She stifled a sigh. ‘What happened to them? Did you ever see them again?’

  ‘Nah. Went out of state. Probably never came back.’

  He seemed a little squirmy on this point, though he seemed squirmy in general. ‘Are you sure? This could be really important, Ken.’

  ‘Pretty sure.’ Slurp.

  Frank had once arrested a meth cooker who had been outside when the police arrived. Instead of going into his house, which contained an arsenal sufficient to hold the cops off for days, the man had stretched out, face down, in his yard’s drainage ditch, convinced the officers would not be able to see him there. Most of Ken’s life could well be a blur by this point. ‘Could Marty have looked one or both of them up? Maybe demanded some money or he’d go public with the fact that they’d been partially responsible for Doc’s death?’

  ‘Marty? Blackmail someone? You got to be shittin’ me, man. When Marty became a cop, he became a cop. Straight arrow. No drugs. No bribes. No shakin’ down hookers.’ Bilecki grew more adamant with every word. ‘He didn’t do none of that. I knew him, man.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ she soothed. ‘Why would he wait twenty-five years, anyway? He could easily have found them before that, right?’

  ‘Yeah, exactly. He was a cop, he could find anybody. Besides, he never tried to get anything from Lily or me, and he certainly knew where to find us.’

  She didn’t point out how there would be no sense in blackmailing people who couldn’t pay. But again, why wait twenty-five years, unless he had lost track of his fellow students? Or if they didn’t have any money to take until now, or if he didn’t particularly need any until now.

  But she had no reason to think Marty had any sudden need for cash. To all appearances he had been perfectly content with his life.

  What about the accountant? �
�What was Bean’s real name again?’

  ‘It was Bean, man. But I hardly ever saw him. He stayed on one end of the production line and I stayed on the other.’

  She swallowed, then enunciated each syllable as she asked: ‘Was his name David Madison?’

  ‘No.’ But the question gave him pause. He drained the last of his Coke with a noisy gurgle, and frowned.

  ‘Do you know David Madison?’

  ‘No … yeah! I know who he is!’

  Her throat seemed to plummet to the bottom of her stomach, like a dumb waiter with a cut rope.

  ‘He’s married to the chick teacher who slept with the little boy!’

  The rope began to repair itself. ‘I thought you didn’t read the papers.’

  ‘I saw it on TV, a couple of years ago. They say she’s still in touch with the kid. That’s messed up, man. That’s really messed up.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Theresa agreed.

  ‘I mean, why couldn’t they have teachers like that when I was in school?’

  Theresa rubbed her forehead.

  TWENTY-THREE

  She bought Ken Bilecki another sandwich, two cookies and a Coke for the road, and headed down the alley to Carnegie. The spring sun had fallen behind the buildings, plunging the streets into a night-like gloom. The nine-to-fivers had already fled to their respective ’burbs and she passed no one.

  Even Carnegie’s traffic had dropped far below daytime levels and she could cross it in safety, pondering what she had learned from Ken Bilecki. All in all, it didn’t seem to be much, save for the intricate details of their illegal methamphetamine lab operation. A student had died back then but this seemed unlikely to have any connection to Marty Davis dying now. Maybe she should leave the cop’s death to those who got paid for it, like her cousin, and get back to her own job of examining clothing and analyzing gunshot residue and figuring out just what they were going to do with that garage crammed with old evidence.

  She paused, the heels of her shoes sounding abnormally loud against the concrete sidewalk.

  Four men were hanging around her car; one had actually seated himself on the hood. Not that they had a lot of vehicles to choose from, as only hers remained on the street. They wore a common uniform of oversized pants, oversized athletic shoes, skintight Tshirts with warm-up jackets lettered with embroidered words so large she couldn’t make sense of them. Shiny jewelry. A bulge at one’s hip that had to be a gun. At least two cell phones each hanging at their waistbands. Expressions that bore no resemblance to the spaced-out, uncaring looks she’d seen in the methadone clinic waiting room – these faces seemed thoughtful, guarded and very, very aware.

  She stopped, considering her options. She could call their bluff, get in her car and drive away, leaving the one on the hood to fall or jump to the pavement. There might be women with the right attitude to pull that off, but Theresa knew she was not one of them, and even if she were would not want to bet her safety on a risky play like ‘attitude’. Nor did she fool herself into thinking that because she was in a public place before dark, nothing bad could happen to her.

  She could retreat inside the methadone center, call for a patrol drive-by, but the clinic’s closed, dark door made it clear that the staff had gone.

  The men didn’t move, didn’t speak to each other. They merely watched her, and waited.

  A car drove by. A man in a jacket and tie spoke on his cell phone, eyes on the road, not glancing at Theresa. She considered throwing herself in front of him, but figured he would simply run her over and continue on.

  That left turning and running – unlikely to help if they truly pursued, since she had never been able to run very fast, and making her look quite foolish if they didn’t. But she had looked foolish before and surely would again.

  Or she could take out her cell phone now and dial 911. She hated to take up their time with escort service, but she had heard it a million times – trust your instincts. If something feels wrong, it probably is.

  She didn’t have time for this. Didn’t these guys know she had a date tonight?

  She had dialed the first digit when someone grabbed her.

  A strong hand clenched her arm, and her mind mentally clenched a fist. You idiot! How could you not think to look around you, that they might be a distraction while one came up behind—

  ‘Good evening,’ Sister Betty said. ‘Did you and your friend have a nice chat?’

  ‘Uh.’

  ‘Is that your car, my dear?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  The little nun looped one bony hand though Theresa’s arm. ‘Well, you’d better move it. I think the meter expired. It’s after hours, but we don’t want some traffic cop getting any ideas, do we?’

  ‘Um – no.’ Theresa allowed herself to be guided up the sidewalk, toward her own car and the waiting group, keys clutched in her trembling hand, wondering if the tiny knife attached to them would discourage or merely annoy the men. ‘But, Sister—’

  ‘Mario, get off this lady’s car. I hope you didn’t scratch the paint.’

  The man on the hood slid off with a sheepish grin. Sheepish or wolfish, Theresa couldn’t decide. ‘No, Sister Betty. No scratches.’

  ‘Good boy. Good evening, DeJean, how is your mother?’

  ‘She’s a little better,’ the biggest of them said. He stepped backwards, carefully, scraping his soles along the concrete, his feet checking for obstructions before taking the next step. His gaze never left the two women.

  Theresa sucked in shallow breaths. Perhaps this was not smart, perhaps Sister Betty was relying on attitude as well and that might not be the best course … she tried to get the key in the lock without looking away from the men, failed, and chanced one split-second glance to do it. ‘Can I drop you somewhere, Sister?’

  ‘Oh, no, these boys are going to walk me home.’

  Door open, men on the other side of the car, sufficient time to get in and close it, but first she turned to the little nun. ‘Are you sure? I could—’

  ‘Oh, quite sure,’ she trilled. ‘They do it every night. Now you have a pleasant evening, dear, and bless you.’

  ‘You too,’ Theresa breathed, and got in, shutting the door but not locking it, as some sort of show of good faith and apology, boys, for assuming you were a bunch of gang-bangers. She turned the key but waited there until Sister Betty had crossed in front of her grill and climbed back on to the sidewalk, where she took DeJean’s arm and began to stroll up Carnegie Avenue. The other three fell into a tight grouping and all of them began to chat with no little animation.

  Theresa said some extra prayers on the way home, including several for Sister Betty.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  She had not yet passed the Denison Road exit before her phone trilled.

  ‘You wanted to know the toxicology reports on the Simpson woman?’

  ‘Yes, Oliver. Thank you.’

  ‘Whatever. Normally, of course, I would not be allowed to release this sensitive and confidential information, but our new doctor of the unpronounceable name left an imperious and illegible sticky note instructing me to do so.’

  ‘Kotylyarevsky. He’s from Moldavia. And if it’s illegible, how did you know what it said?’

  No response, until she began to wonder if he’d hung up or if she’d truly stumped him, not a wise thing to do when she needed information. But he went on with: ‘Here are the results – the unfortunate Ms Simpson had taken a lot of meth.’

  Theresa braked, momentarily stuck behind a box truck driving, of all things, at the speed limit. ‘No surprise there.’

  ‘A lot of meth.’

  She found herself glancing at the cell phone in surprise. Oliver didn’t usually emphasize, or repeat himself. ‘Define a lot.’

  ‘Enough to intoxicate five men of greater body weight than her.’

  ‘But she didn’t seem out of her mind. And she didn’t overdose.’

  ‘No,’ Oliver agreed. ‘She did not.’

  ‘Are you saying that she
took enough meth to overdose?’

  ‘I’m saying she took enough meth to die instantly.’

  ‘Move, buddy!’ she fumed at the driver of the box truck. To Oliver, she said: ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘No. It does not,’ Oliver agreed again. ‘Are you driving while you’re on the phone?’

  ‘Hey, you called me. My eyes have never left the road.’

  ‘Refusing to check your mirrors once in a while is nothing to be proud of.’

  ‘How do you explain that? The meth levels?’

  ‘I can’t. Not to you, or to anyone else who doesn’t have at least a master’s in organic chemistry.’

  Theresa looked over her shoulder, signaled and merged into the right lane with a quick jerk. Her bottle of lightly flavored water fell on to the passenger seat floor and she left it. After three Diet Cokes with Ken Bilecki, the last thing she felt was thirsty. Then she said, ‘Try.’

  ‘You know that methamphetamine stimulates the nervous system by releasing neurotransmitters, norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, etc.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The amphetamine then metabolizes to four-hydroxymethamphetamine. That’s what I find in her bodily fluids, more or less. But there’s another compound present, some form of amphetamine but with a few extra – OH bonds. So I checked the residues from that baggie and pipe you took out of her pocket. Same thing – extra compounds.’

  ‘A designer drug?’

  ‘A new one, if so. It’s not MDA, it’s not ecstasy, it’s not one of the local variations.’

  She slowed through the notorious Linndale speed trap. ‘New, and dangerous. It makes the user much higher?’

  ‘Not exactly. Try to follow: the meth stimulates the neurotransmitters to release dopamine into the system. The person feels high. Normally, the cells have safety mechanisms that take up this excess dopamine, but meth blocks those reuptake transporters. The meth also blocks the synthesis and release of serotonin. Levels of the dopamine and other neurotransmitter levels become low as the ones dumped into the system pass away and fresh ones are not immediately available.’

  ‘The downside,’ Theresa said, meaning the crash and depression that most users experienced.