“What scene?”
“There’s something I need to check.”
“I see. Well, it’s difficult to communicate when I don’t know where you are much of the time, today being a perfect example. You never mentioned you were leaving town until you were already gone.”
She continues to complain as I find a spray bottle, hydrogen peroxide, a liter of distilled water.
“And now you’re headed out into the night, and won’t tell me where or why,” she adds. “You’re making it almost impossible for me to do my job.”
Putting on a pair of exam gloves, a face mask, I measure fifteen grams, about a tablespoon of the luminol powder, sprinkling it into the plastic bottle.
“If I don’t inform you, it’s because I can’t.” I sound like a broken record. “Certainly, it’s never my intention to make things more difficult.” I screw on the spray top.
“I’ve never worked for anyone who marginalizes me the way you do,” she says.
I feel her eyes fastened to me as I pack up my scene case, closing it with louds snaps, and I don’t like her choice of words.
“I’m not marginalizing you or anyone,” I reply, and that’s what I call lawsuit talk. “As a rule, my government responsibilities aren’t open for discussion. Sensitive investigative information isn’t either.” Taking off my mask and gloves, I notice the thick manila file on my desk chair.
“As you requested,” she says as I walk that way. “I also e-mailed the electronic version to you. Why the sudden interest? Is this related to where you’re going tonight? What scene do you need to check? Are you talking about Daingerfield Island?”
“Officer Fruge mentioned the Cammie Ramada case when I was with her last night,” I reply. “And speaking of? Before you leave, I need you to track down a current phone number for her mother, Greta Fruge, the toxicologist. She’s now retired from the state but works for a private lab in Richmond.”
Carrying the case file to the conference table, I add that I worked with Greta years ago, and what a small world.
“Imagine my surprise when I discovered her daughter is an Alexandria police officer,” I add.
“What do you need Greta for?” My secretary’s face is granite. “Why would you want to stir up that hornet’s nest?”
“Which hornet’s nest are we talking about?”
“Exactly. There have been so many. That’s what happens when your ego is as big as the great outdoors.”
“The information I have for Greta probably isn’t good anymore.” I’m learning not to answer Maggie’s impertinent observations and probes. “But I’ll share what I have with you anyway.” As I’m saying this I do it from my phone’s contact list. “Please see if you can track her down.”
I pass along the name of the biotech company Officer Fruge mentioned when we were going through Gwen Hainey’s townhome.
“Why don’t you ask Officer Fruge yourself how to get hold of her mother? That would be the quickest way to get the information,” Maggie suggests as if I’d never think of such a thing on my own.
“I don’t want to discuss the matter with anyone else at the moment.”
“Well, commonsense would dictate that Greta Fruge is best avoided.”
“She’s extremely good at what she does,” I reply. “More to the point, in the private sector she’s going to be familiar with new technologies that labs like ours might not have access to for years.”
Because of our prior relationship, I’m hoping Greta might help me out, especially since we’re in the midst of an ongoing opioid crisis that the public seems to have forgotten about during the pandemic. She’s also not na?ve about the potential for drugs being weaponized, and I remind Maggie that we’re having an uptick in overdoses that come up negative in toxicology testing.
“The fear is some new designer drug might be in the area.” I’m reminded unpleasantly that we don’t know what was laced into the Bordeaux I tasted.
My toxicology screen would have been negative had my blood been tested after I was poisoned last night. I could have been the fourth pending overdose of the day, one of those pouched dead bodies headed to a funeral home or crematorium.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to run back to things that didn’t serve you well.” Maggie means more than one thing.
She was by Elvin Reddy’s side for twenty years, and it must have devastated her when he resigned. I suspect she was just as upset when I took his place.