Chapter 9 - The Pharmacy on Highway 9
The sheriff called me at 8:14 the next morning while I was still at the neighbor's kitchen table, watching Lily eat dry cereal one piece at a time.
"We got a hit on the pharmacy," he said. "Don't bring Lily. Meet me at the office, then we'll drive out to Highway 9 together."
The sheriff's office smelled like old coffee and floor cleaner. He had a manila folder open on his desk and a copy of my driver's license taped to a piece of paper next to a pharmacy pickup log.
"Ray Dawson," he said, tapping the log. "Your brother-in-law picked up your refill ten days ago. Zolpidem. Your doctor called it in. Pharmacy says he had your ID. You missing an ID?"
I stared at it. I kept my old license in the junk drawer in the kitchen, the one with the expired address. I hadn't thought about it in months. "I have a spare in the drawer," I said. "He had access to the house. He watches Lily."
"He didn't just pick up the prescription," the sheriff said. "Hold that thought till we talk to Karen."
The pharmacy on Highway 9 sat between a feed store and a gas station, a flat brick building with a buzzing fluorescent sign. Inside it smelled like plastic and cleaning spray. The pharmacist, Karen, was a woman in her fifties with short gray hair and reading glasses on a chain. She remembered me, and she remembered Ray.
"Mr. Moretti, yeah, your refill was ready last Tuesday," she said, pulling the screen toward us. "A man came in, said you were sick, showed your license. I thought it was a little odd because you usually pick up yourself, but he knew your birthdate and address. I scanned the ID."
She turned the monitor. There was the time stamp, 4:32 p.m., and a signature that wasn't mine but tried to be.
"Did he buy anything else?" the sheriff asked.
Karen nodded and scrolled down. "That was the thing. He asked if we sold empty gelatin capsules. Size zero. Said it was for turmeric or some supplement his wife made. We keep them behind the counter. He bought a bottle of a hundred."
My stomach turned. I thought of the glass on the nightstand, the half-filled water, the way Lily had pointed with her small finger and whispered, "He puts something in your water."
The sheriff kept his voice level. "You keep video?"
"For ninety days by the register," she said. "I'll burn you a copy."
Back at the office, the sheriff slid another paper across the desk. It was a bank printout he'd gotten with Ray's probation officer's help, plus a copy of a text thread Ray had sent me three weeks earlier that I had almost forgotten.
Sheriff: "You deny him a loan?"
I looked at the texts. Ray: Hey man can you float me 4k till next month rent due. Then: Come on it's for Lily's uncle too you know I help with her. Then me: I can't do that right now Ray, I'm sorry. Then Ray: ok.
I hadn't thought it meant anything at the time. Ray had been staying in the apartment over the garage since he got out last spring, doing odd jobs, offering to watch Lily when I had late foundation meetings. He'd asked to watch her overnight for cash the week before, said he'd give me a break, that I looked tired. I'd said no.
"He's two months behind on rent over at the Miller complex," the sheriff said, pointing to the bank record. Negative balance, overdraft fees, a cash deposit that didn't cover it. "Landlord filed notice last week. He told his boss you were going to help him with a loan but you backed out."
I remembered Ray standing in my office doorway two nights before Lily said anything, asking if I had my checkbook handy because his truck needed work. I had told him it was in the desk. He'd lingered by the filing cabinet where I kept the title papers for the house.
"He wasn't trying to hurt me," I said quietly, the word feeling strange even as I said it. "He just needed me out."
"Needed you deeply asleep," the sheriff said. "Deep enough to go through your office while you were down. Checkbook, title papers. If he could get you to sign something or just take a signed check while you were groggy, you'd never remember. The empty capsules fit. He could open your prescription, dump a little extra into a capsule, drop it in your water. Dissolves fast."
We sat there for a moment with the hum of the air conditioner. I could see the pharmacy bag in my head, the gray capsules, Ray's hand dropping one into the clear glass on the ornate nightstand while Lily watched from the hallway through those tall double doors left slightly ajar.
"What now?" I asked.
May you like
"Now we show the video and the pharmacy log to the lab with the water sample so they know what to test for," he said. "And we don't tell him we know. You keep the routine normal. He thinks you're still taking that water every night."
I nodded. My mouth was dry. For the first time since Lily had whispered that warning in bed, I understood why he had needed me sleeping and not just gone.
