The Narrows

Dr. Hansen got it. He told me about it. And he was calling because there were things missing from the scan that should have been there but weren't. CellCept and Prograf. They weren't in his blood when he died."
    "And they're important."
    She nodded.
    "Exactly. He took seven capsules of Prograf every day. CellCept twice a day. These were his key meds. They kept his heart safe."
    "And without them he would die?"
    "Three or four days would be all it would take. Congestive heart failure would come up quickly. And that is exactly what happened."
    "Why did he stop taking them?"
    "He didn't and that is why I need you. Someone tampered with his meds and killed him."
    I pushed all of her information through the grinder again.
    "First, how do you know he was taking his medicine?"
    "Because I saw him and Buddy saw him and even their charter, the man they were with on the last trip, said he saw him taking his meds. I asked them. Look, I told you, I'm a nurse. If he wasn't taking his meds I would've noticed."
    "Okay, so you are saying he was taking his pills but they weren't really his pills. Somebody tampered with them. What makes you say that?"
    Her body language indicated frustration. I wasn't making the logic jumps she thought I should be making.
    "Let me back up," she said. "A week after the funeral, before I knew anything about all of this, I started to try to get things back to normal and I cleared out the closet where Terry kept all his meds. You see, the meds are very, very expensive. I didn't want them to go to waste. There are people who can barely afford them. We could barely afford them. Terry's insurance had run out and we needed Medi-Cal and Medicaid just to pay for his medicine."
    "So you donated the meds?"
    "Yes, it's a tradition with transplants. When somebody…"
    She looked down at her hands.
    "I understand," I said. "You give everything back."
    "Yes. To help the others. Everything is so expensive. And Terry had at least a nine-week supply. It would be worth thousands to somebody."
    "Okay."
    "So, I took everything across on the ferry and up to the hospital. Everybody thanked me and I thought that was that. I have two children, Mr. Bosch. As hard as it was, I had to move on. For their sake."
    I thought about the daughter. I had never seen her but Terry had told me about her. He'd told me her name and why he had named her. I wondered if Graciela knew that story.
    "Did you tell Dr. Hansen this?" I asked. "If somebody tampered with them you have to warn them that-"
    She shook her head.
    "There's an integrity procedure. All the containers are examined. You know, the seals on bottles are checked, expiration dates checked, lot numbers checked against recall and so on. Nothing came up. Nothing had been tampered with. Nothing I had given them, at least."
    "Then what?"
    She moved closer to the edge of the couch. Now she would get to it.
    "On the boat. The open containers I didn't donate because they don't take them. Hospital protocol."
    "You found tampering."
    "There was one more day's dosage of Prograf and two more days of CellCept in the bottles. I put them in a plastic bag and took them to the Avalon clinic. I used to work there. I made up a story. I told them a friend of mine found the capsules in her son's pocket while doing the laundry. She wanted to know what he was using. They ran tests and the capsules-all of them-were dummies. They were filled with a white powder. Powdered shark cartilage, actually. They sell it in specialty shops and over the Internet. It's supposed to be some sort of homeopathic cancer treatment. It's easily digestible and gentle. Contained in a capsule, it would have tasted the same to Terry. He would not have known the difference."
    From her small purse she pulled out a folded envelope and handed it to me. It contained two capsules. Both white with small pink printing running along the side.
    "Are these from the last dosage?"
    "Yes. I saved those two and gave four to my friend at the clinic."
    Using the envelope to catch its contents I used my fingers to pull one of the capsules open. It came apart freely without damaging the two pieces of the casing. The white powder it had held poured into the envelope. I knew then that it would not be a difficult process to pour the intended content of the capsules out and to replace it with a useless powder.
    "What you are telling me, Graciela, is that when Terry was on that last charter he was taking pills he thought were keeping him alive but they