“Nothing yet along the lines of a contaminant,” Peter told her, “but with that huge new sample I got yesterday, we might be in luck.”
“What kind of sample?” Laurie asked. “Blood?”
“No,” Peter said, “pure cocaine taken from the gut.”
“Whose gut?” Laurie asked.
Peter checked the specimen tag before him. “Wendell Morrison. One of Fontworth’s cases from yesterday.”
“But how did he get a sample from the gut?”
“I can’t help you there,” Peter said. “I have no idea how he got it, but by giving me as much as he did, it makes my job considerably easier.”
“I’m glad,” Laurie said, puzzled by this unexpected bit of news. “Let me know what you find.”
Laurie left the toxicology lab and went to her office. After finding his number in the office directory, she called George Fontworth at home. He answered on the second ring; Laurie was relieved not to have awakened him.
“Don’t tell me you’re in the office,” he said when he heard who it was.
“What can I say?” Laurie said.
“You’re not even on call,” George said. “Don’t work so hard. You’ll make the rest of us look bad.”
“Sure,” Laurie laughed. “I’m not impressing anyone around here. You know what Calvin told you: you weren’t even supposed to talk with me yesterday.”
“That was kinda stupid,” George agreed. “What’s on your mind?”
“I’m curious about the first case you did yesterday,” Laurie said. “Wendell Morrison.”
“What do you want to know?” George asked.
“Toxicology told me that you had given them a cocaine sample from the deceased’s gut. How did you come by that?”
“Dr. Morrison took the drug orally,” George said.
“I thought you told me both your cases mainlined it,” Laurie said.
“Only the second case,” George said. “When you asked me the route of administration, I thought you were only referring to that one.”
“All of my cases took the drug IV, but one of Dick Katzenburg’s took it orally only after trying to take it IV.”
“Same with Dr. Morrison,” George said. “His antecubital fossae looked like pincushions. The guy was overweight and his veins were deep, but you’d think a doctor would have been a bit better at venipuncture.”
“There was still a lot of cocaine in the gut?” Laurie asked.
“A ton,” George said. “I can’t imagine how much the guy ate. Part of the gut was infarcted where the cocaine had closed down the blood supply. It was just like one of those cocaine “mule’ cases where the condoms break in transit.”
“Was there anything else of note?”
“Yes,” George said. “He had a CVA from a small aneurysm. It probably burst during a seizure.”
Before Laurie hung up she told George about the little bit of tissue she’d taken from beneath Julia Myerholtz’s fingernail and sent up to the lab.
“I hope you don’t mind my butting in on your case,” Laurie said.
“Hell no,” George said. “I’m just embarrassed I missed it. With the way she had excoriated herself, I should have looked under her nails.”
After wishing George a good weekend, Laurie finally settled down to her paperwork. But as she experienced lately, she couldn’t take her mind off the troubling aspects of her overdose series. Despite her conversation with Lou, some of the details of the Myerholtz case continued to bother her.
Laurie pulled out the folders on the three cases she’d posted on Thursday: Stuart Morgan, Randall Thatcher, and Valerie Abrams. Using a scratch pad, she jotted down each of the three’s address.
In another minute, Laurie was out the door. She caught a cab and visited each of the three scenes. At each residence, Laurie talked with the doorman. After explaining who she was, she obtained the names and telephone numbers of the doormen who had been on duty Wednesday evening.
Back at the office, Laurie began her calls. The first she put through was to Julio Chavez. “Did you know Valerie Abrams?” Laurie asked after explaining who she was.
“Yes, of course,” Julio said.
“Did you see her Wednesday night?” Laurie asked.
“No, I didn’t,” Julio said. “At least I don’t remember.”
Lou was probably right, Laurie told herself after she’d thanked the man and hung up. She was probably wasting her time. Still, she couldn’t resist dialing the next name on the list: Angel Mendez, the evening doorman at Stuart Morgan’s apartment.