GRAVE PROGNOSIS: A NOVEL
By Daniel Kalla

Chapter Fourteen

He sat in his black sport-utility vehicle, sipping coffee while he waited. They were slower every time, he thought disgustedly. When the last of the conservation officers had double-locked the door, his frustration subsided. He waited another five minutes after he saw the officer’s car depart, then approached the building.

This was the second time in as many months that he was breaking into the West Vancouver Wildlife and Conservation Office. He wished he could have done it all on the last trip, but being cautious by nature he knew this trip was unavoidable. Such was life, he thought as he extracted a small kit from his pocket. The first lock opened easily. The second lock, as it had been the last time, was more difficult. It took him at least two minutes before he felt it give.

Once inside, he switched on his flashlight, placed the small case he carried on an empty table, and removed the laptop computer. After booting it, he waited as the preprogrammed batch files automatically loaded the necessary software. The building’s alarm system was disabled without having to touch the keyboard. He consulted his watch and noted he had twenty seconds to spare.

Next, he turned his attention to a small shelving unit on the back wall of the main room. It was a computerized drug-dispensing system called Fixus. Many hospitals and other facilities that housed restricted drugs, or drugs of abuse, used the system. Apart from being efficient and expedient, it also provided state-of-the-art security and rigorous records of all drugs dispensed.

He typed a few lines of code on his laptop. After a few moments, one of the drawers on the Fixus unit slid open. He walked over, slipped a gloved hand in the drawer, removed three vials, and brought the flashlight beam to his hand. The labels read "Carfentanyl 3cc, 100 micrograms per cc." He extracted three vials from his pocket that looked identical but contained only saline and put them into the drawer, then closed it.

When he checked the stock listed on his computer screen, he confirmed that no carfentanyl had been removed in the past month. Afterward, he carefully tidied his workspace, ensuring no one could tell he had been there.

Once in the car, he couldn’t help laughing when he visualized a poor wildlife-control officer trying to subdue an angry bear or cougar by shooting it with a dartful of salt water.

The next day Ken Takuchi and Armit Singh paid a visit to Katie Turco’s most recent roommate. She confirmed much of what both Nick Turco and Marco Faldini had said. She also told them about Faldini’s friend, Jimmy Dimitropolis. Her remarks implied that Dimitropolis and Katie might have been romantically involved.

By the time they returned to Homicide, Ken was sure he recognized Faldini’s sidekick’s name from his days with the Drug Unit, so he wasn’t surprised to discover the man had an extensive record. "It seems the Colombians keep breaking into Jimmy’s car and leaving behind all kinds of stuff," he explained to Armit. Dimitropolis had been arrested a dozen times but only convicted twice for possession of narcotics and once for profiting from their proceeds.

Through the parole office they found a current address for Dimitropolis and went directly to his impressive condominium complex in the West End. "Nice place," Ken said, whistling when they arrived at the front door. "He probably invested wisely while in prison."

"Yeah. Your usual balanced portfolio—blue-chip stocks, mutual funds, bonds, oh, and heroin," Armit cracked. When Dimitropolis didn’t answer the first buzz, he added, "Maybe he’s not in."

"Are you kidding? It’s 10:00 a.m. That’s the drug dealer’s equivalent of three in the morning."

Sure enough, on the third buzz, a sleepy voice rumbled, "What?" through the intercom.

Ken introduced himself, and after a protracted discussion, Dimitropolis agreed to let them up. When the drug dealer opened the door to his twenty-second-floor condo, he was wearing a black silk robe and slippers; although slightly overweight, he was tall and handsome. Armit introduced them, while Ken walked in as if he owned the place. He took a quick tour, then said, "I don’t get it, Jimmy. What is it with you pushers? All the money in the world and you still can’t buy taste."

"Go ahead and look around. You’re not going to find any drugs here."

"If we bothered to look, we’d find enough drugs to make a pharmacist drool. But, Jimmy, we didn’t come to harass you. We came for some information." Ken walked over to the fireplace mantel, picked up an expensive Inuit soapstone carving of a walrus, and made a face. "We need to ask you about Marco Faldini’s ex-girlfriend, the dead one. Wait, that’s unfair. Let me narrow it down for you—Katie Turco."

Dimitropolis sat on a leather couch against the wall. Armit remained standing, while Ken paced. "Damn shame about Katie," the drug dealer finally said.

"Yeah, drug overdose. A guy can lose a lot of customers that way," Ken said.

"Jimmy, we understand you saw her the night she died," Armit added.

"I’m not sure. I don’t even remember if I was at the club that night."

"No problem, because about twenty staffers say you were there," Ken said as he tossed the soapstone carving over his shoulder. It landed softly on a couch.

"Hey, watch that!" Dimitropolis shouted. He looked at Armit. "Oh, sure. I think I saw Katie earlier in the evening."

"Jimmy, one of the bartenders asked you to check on her when she stumbled out of the bar to her death. Did you?"

"Nah, she seemed okay to me," he said, rubbing his arm as if he had a rash he could never satisfy.

Ken picked up a glass vase from the mantel and juggled it. Dimitropolis eyed him anxiously, but said nothing. "Your buddy, Marco. He’s Italian?"

Jimmy nodded.

"I don’t like to generalize, but they’re a passionate group. I bet old Marco has a temper. Do you think he minded you fucking Katie?"

"I never touched her!"

Ken tossed the vase in the air a few more times, catching it with one hand. "Jimmy, you’ve done nothing but bullshit us since you opened the door. So we’re going to find out if bullshit runs in your veins by taking some of your blood."

"What for?"

Armit grinned toothily. "We’ve got some DNA from the semen found in Katie. We just need to match it to you."

"So big deal. Katie and I made love. It doesn’t mean anything."

"Jimmy, I doubt you’re capable of making love. But if you’re admitting it was your semen, then you’ve saved yourself a needle. Now we need to know how much heroin you gave Katie."

"I don’t—" When Dimitropolis saw the expression on Ken’s face, he said instead, "I didn’t give her any stuff that night."

"When we prove you did," Ken said, tossing the vase even higher, "we’re going to charge you with manslaughter. Meantime I’m going to get in touch with Faldini and tell him you were fucking his girlfriend and laughing about it."

Dimitropolis gulped. "What am I supposed to say?"

"For starters, tell us about you and Katie on the day she died."

Sighing, Dimitropolis said, "I saw her that afternoon. That’s when we usually met here. Anyway, both of us had some shit to do, so I didn’t see her again until the club. When I saw her there, she begged me for some stuff to pump up the party. So, against my better judgment, I gave her a couple of grams of smack. Next time I saw her, maybe half an hour later, she was stumbling out the front door. I went after her, but she told me to fuck off, so I went back into the club. That’s the truth!" He paused, then wistfully added, "I loved her. I’d never let anything bad happen to her."

Armit shook his head. "She died of a drug overdose! Do you have any clue what the word irony means? Never mind. How did she look when you last saw her?"

"She was pretty messed up, but I’d seen her worse. Katie was tough. I never thought—"

"When you checked her, did you see anybody hanging around the bathroom or maybe outside the club?"

"Now that I think of it, there was a guy near the bathroom after Katie went in. I said to him, ‘Unless you got to piss sitting down, the men’s room is over there, asshole.’ He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me real cool for about three seconds, then walked away."

"What did he look like?"

Dimitropolis scratched his thick neck while he thought. "He was tall, maybe six-three. He had a beard, glasses. Brown eyes, I think. He was dressed casual-like and he had a better gut than I got.

"Do you think you’d recognize a picture of him?"

"Sure."

"Good. Because you and a police artist are going to make one."

"Why should I help you?"

Ken snorted. "I don’t know, Jimmy. Maybe because you’re concerned about the rising crime rate and you want to do your civic duty. Or maybe because if you don’t I’m going to tell Faldini about you and Katie. Then, while he’s breaking every bone in your body, me and a couple of drug dogs are going to tear apart this fancy crackhouse of yours." Ken threw the vase he was holding onto the couch beside the carving.

As they were riding the elevator down, Armit turned to Ken. "What was it about this Katie Turco? She was like a Helen of Troy for habitual criminals."

Ken just grunted. Sometimes he didn’t have a clue what his partner was talking about. "I don’t know about you, Armit, but Monica’s got my vote. I’ll take live over dead any day."

Mike and the same group of detectives reassembled at the Homicide Squad’s conference room that afternoon. The noteboard Trevor had begun to fill stood unchanged from their previous meeting.

"Ken, why don’t you start with the first victim’s story?" Trevor suggested.

Ken reviewed what he and Armit had learned about Katie’s rapid descent into a drug-infested world of prostitution. He told them about her unconventional relationship with Faldini, including her abortion and her affair with Dimitropolis. Ken concluded by saying, "We also dug up a potential connection between Katie and the second victim. Katie did some modeling for a lingerie store in town called Softer Touch. Sounds pretty minor, but it’s the only link we could find."

"Do you like Faldini or Dimitropolis for suspects?" Sandy asked.

"Neither of those clowns are bright enough to pull off this thing. Besides, they’ve both got alibis."

Trevor summarized what he and Sandy knew to date about Monica’s life. "We have a number of loose ends to follow up—her ex-boyfriend, Keith Kozak, her roommate’s overdose, and why she up and quit her job last month. But except for the weak modeling connection, we haven’t really linked the two victims yet." He scribbled a few more notes on the board, then said, "Okay, let’s look at the nights of the poisonings. Armit, tell us about the first victim."

The detective described Katie’s last day, from her afternoon tryst with Dimitropolis to her collapse on the street in front of Shaken Not Stirred.

Ken looked up from the paper-clip chain he was making. "We interviewed a bunch of people from that night, but nobody remembers much except Dimitropolis. Problem is, we got him so scared, he might remember talking to the iceberg before it sank the Titanic. For what it’s worth, he claims he saw a tall, bearded guy hanging around the bathroom about the time Katie was in there shooting up."

"Describe him," Sandy said excitedly.

Ken consulted his notes and repeated Dimitropolis’s description verbatim.

Sandy smiled. "Boys, I think we’ve caught a break here. We found a guy at our club who describes a bearded guy hanging around the bathroom right around the time Monica got poisoned. This witness is supposed to be meeting a sketch artist today. We should run the picture by Dimitropolis."

"Better do it the other way around," Ken suggested, grinning. "Jimmy’s liable to identify the guys who really shot Kennedy if we show him enough pictures."

Under the heading "Suspects," Trevor added the bearded man. Then he covered the details of the night Monica was poisoned.

"So we got some psychopath hanging around the cans at bars and choosing women to stab with syringes of poison," Ken said, adding another clip to his chain.

"Let’s stick with what we know for sure," Trevor said. He counted the facts with his fingers as he listed them. "First, the victims were both regulars at these bars. This may be a coincidence, or it may mean someone was stalking them. Second, we haven’t ruled out a connection between the victims. Third, these women were poisoned at remarkably different bars, probably to reduce the likelihood of the perp being spotted at both places by the same person. Finally, we have a solid lead on a suspect, but how come so few of the other patrons identified this bearded guy? We’ll need to circulate the sketch to see if we can produce some positive IDs."

When the meeting broke up, Mike said to Trevor, "The way things are going, you’ve got to be feeling pretty optimistic."

"I suppose. Look, I don’t want to be the voice of doom, but some of my most frustrating cases have started very promisingly. This perp isn’t stupid. Maybe he’s letting himself be seen, but that still doesn’t mean he’ll be easy to find."

To Be Continued . . .

Daniel Kalla practices emergency room medicine in Vancouver, Canada. He co-wrote the film script To Love and To Perish for Highwire Entertainment (now in pre-production). His forthcoming novel is entitled Lethal Assistance. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].