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“Veronica Cain?” I stand in the Montego Bay shopping square, my partner right across from me, Tim on my left, and Felix on my right. Because despite telling the latter two to keep their asses on the boat and not insert themselves in police business, there’s not much a man can do when Timothy and Felix Malone decide they want to be included. “The event planner?” I press. “Are you sure?”
“Tox labs have sent back their final findings,” Fletch exhales. “Doctor Raquel has pulled out some really distinctive fucking ingredients in the poison that killed Savese. I took those findings to the scientist over at the research center, and he’s gone ahead and pinpointed the exact same compounds right in his own lab.”
“So… Veronica works for the lab?” I question. Confused. “Dude, she’s an event planner. She’s not?—”
“She began with a double major in chemistry and biomedicine, Arch. She ran that track for two years before throttling back and switching over to events instead.”
“Those are wildly different degrees,” Felix grumbles. “What kind of science nerd drops the science and takes up party planning instead?”
“A science nerd who gets pregnant her second year of college,” Fletch answers. “She was running at the top of her class for those two years. Almost perfect scores in every assessment. But she got knocked up and probably realized she couldn’t do the mom thing and the lab tech thing at the same time, so she pulled things back and completed the degree that would eventually pay her bills. She’s not an event planner who struck out on her own. Rather, she sought employment at the conference center, which means she’s not reinventing the wheel each time a new client walks in. She’s using the same banquet rooms, same menu, same building, same island, same same same, each time. This provided her and her son that work/life balance she needed.”
“She didn’t seek the Evicta conference out, Fletch. She didn’t manufacture that event out of thin air. They came to her.”
“Yes. They come every single year. Might be a new drug they’re championing each time, but Ramsey Cate was the ringleader. Two years ago, they were selling a weight loss drug that took the world by storm. Cate made a fortune because obesity is a multi-billion-dollar industry. But cancer,” he shakes his head, “trillions. People want so badly to find a cure, and Cate found that gap in the market. Research shows he was talking about Evicta at last year’s event, so it’s no stretch to assume Veronica Cain overheard. Perhaps she was friendly with him after so many years planning his events.”
“Alright.” I rest back on my heels and drop my hands into my pockets. “I’ll play. Veronica knows Ramsey. Ramsey makes a fortune selling drugs to desperate people. The conference is held at the same venue, same time each year. And what? This year, she decides to poison them?”
“Professor Bailey told me he invites her into his labs on a regular basis. She doesn’t have the degree, but she’s not an uneducated woman. Her passion was chemistry, but paying the bills meant planning events. Bailey admits to Veronica’s constant visitation over the last six or so months. But trust had been built, so he never looked over her shoulder.”
“So she created this poison inside his lab?”
“Yep.” He sets his hands on his hips and stares into my eyes. “That’s what I’m saying. She had the knowledge and opportunity to create the poison. And she had the ability to drop it into selected meals within the conference.”
“And motive?” I press. “What was it? And if she had one, why would she so casually tell me to speak to Professor Bailey when I questioned her? If she’s guilty, she should want to keep that lab way off our radars.”
“I dunno, man.” He lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “I can’t claim to know everything that spins around in a killer’s mind. Maybe she wanted to get caught. Maybe she’s done, now that Cate is dead.”
“And motive?” I repeat.
“That kid she had in college?” He lifts a single, challenging brow. “Diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.”
“Shit.” I drop my head back and groan. “She pushed her kid into the trial after Cate hawked it at the conference last year?” Exhaling, I bring my eyes down again. “He was promising miracles, and she was too scared not to try.”
“The little boy wasn’t gonna survive no matter what,” he sighs. “His disease was too aggressive. But the traditional treatment plans were working okay. It was slowing things down, and the doctors were able to manage pain well enough. The kid was home most of the time, living a reasonable existence while heading in for treatment every week. But then Cate came alongwith his miracle, Cain was desperate, and to her, it seemed she had nothing to lose.”
“But she did,” Tim rumbles. “She had a lot to lose still.”
“What could have been months, or maybe even a year,” Fletch continues, “of management, flipped when they started Evicta. The kid’s hair was growing back. His skin was clearing up. Of course, with the absence of chemo from his body, he bounced back for a moment. It seemed they’d gotten their miracle. He had energy again. He was eating. Life was good. For a month, anyway. Then everything came crashing down. By the time Veronica had realized her mistake, it was too late. Traditional treatments would no longer work. The disease was too advanced. That baby wasn’t coming back.”
“He died,” I grunt. “Jesus.”
“He did. And now we have a woman in mourning. She was going to lose him anyway. And who knows, maybe it’d have been just as quick. Nothing is promised. But they were managing before Evicta came along. Then they were in the pits of hell and had no way out.”
“So she poisoned sixty-three men in a single evening?” Felix rolls his bottom lip between his fingers. “Sounds fair to me. They shouldn’t be selling miracles to desperate mothers and lying through their fucking teeth about it.”
“Oh good.” I push away from our grouping and start toward the conference center. “Felix Malone has decided where he stands on the line of morality. Selling drugs and torturing a man?” I glance back. “All in the course of a day. But selling a specific drug labeled as medicine is where the line is at.”
“First of all, jackass,” he jogs to catch up, “the things I trade come clearly labeled. Everyone knows what they’re buying. Second, I’m filtering out those ventures that blur the lines. So shut the fuck up and give me space to annihilate the businessplan our father put in place, and his father before him. These things aren’t Maybelline, ya know?”
“Wait.” I come to a screeching stop and hold my ground when he crashes into my shoulder. “What?”
“What?” A deep line forms between his brows. “What didn’t you understand?”
“You’re cutting out the shit? You’re making Malone legit?”
He scoffs. “I have never, ever, in my life sold a woman. Our father did. But not me. So even before Mayet and Solomon came rushing in with their ‘don’t be a naughty boy’ spiel, I was already cleaning house. There are already too many guns on our streets, so I’m doing my best to slow that shit down. And drugs are bad for your health. So…” verging on shy, he shrugs and looks anywhere but into my eyes. “Drugs destroy families.”
