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Claire laughed. “You’re my hero, Lindsay.”
“Yeah, yeah, hit me, Butterfly.”
“Ready? There were no usable prints on the run-over, crushed-to-powder sux vial and no DNA on it, either.”
“Oh, great. I’m having a hard time imagining the good news.”
“Brace yourself. I know where that vial came from. The lot number told me so.”
“Ya-hooo.”
This wasn’t a case of good news. This was a case of fantastic, groundbreaking, possibly case-breaking news.
“You’re my hero,” I said to Claire.
“Oh, shut up,” she said. And then we both laughed.
As soon as I arrived at the squad room, I briefed Rich and Brady, who stood up, clapped his hands together, and said, “Get on outta here. Don’t forget to phone in.”
Rich and I stopped at Claire’s office for a photocopy of the vial label with the lot code. And then we took off.
Saint Vartan’s is a big, well-respected teaching hospital that takes up the whole block between Pine and Bush. When I say it’s big, I mean fourteen floors, three hundred beds, physicians, and a thousand employees.
That big.
After my partner and I cleared the expected bureaucratic steeplechase, we met with Dr. Merrilee Christianson, the director in charge of the hospital’s in-house pharmacy.
Dr. Christianson was a tightly wrapped sixtysomething woman, all business, moderately defensive as she explained the storage and dispensing system at Saint Vartan’s in-house pharmacy. She ticked off the protocols, including the passwords, key cards, and required records every time a unit of medication was moved from locked drawers and cabinets to mobile carts.
Conklin said, “Dr. Christianson, we’re trying to track the source of a vial that was sold to Saint Vartan’s and was found on the street. It may be evidence in a murder. Please take a look.”
I handed her the copy of the sux vial label, with its ten-number code highlighted in yellow.
“Can you wait?” she asked.
She left her desk and returned only ten minutes later.
“This product expired last year. This lot was destroyed.”
I said, “All except for this vial?”
“Naturally,” she huffed, “I can’t account for individual vials, but what remained of this case lot is on our ‘Destroyed In-House’ list.”
Conklin, the best guy with women I’ve ever met, pushed his brown hair out of his eyes and asked a number of questions: “Where and how are expired drugs destroyed?” “Was it possible for those vials to be stolen after they left the pharmacy?” “Could they have been lifted, for instance, from the OR?” “How long is sux effective after its expiration date?”
Dr. Christianson replied in depth.
No one could have stolen the vial from the dispensary without leaving a trail, and no such trail had lit up the tracking software. That went for the surgery unit, too. Saint Vartan’s had a facility in the basement, an incinerator cleared by the DEA, that was dedicated to destroying expired drugs. Records were meticulously made and maintained, of course.
“Of course,” Conklin said.
Christianson went on, “Sux would still be effective for five to eight months after expiry. After that the potency would be diminished.”
“But it would still paralyze an individual who was injected with it?” I asked.
“Of course. But we would never use a drug after the manufacturer’s expiry date, okay? I’ve got to get back to work,” she said with finality.
Conklin asked to see the drug disposal facility so we could complete our report. Christianson made a call, and Kelly Caine, a young pharmacy assistant, took us down to the B Level.
