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repeated, “Can I help you?”
    Was I really going to tell this stranger that before my husband committed suicide, he’d drugged me so I wouldn’t be able to stop him? How could the pharmacist dispute or confirm that Brendan planned his act a week in advance? I wondered if I would be better off trying to contact Doctor Bradley, although the man had a reputation for distance and remove, answering mainly to the Chief.
    I extended my hand. “What can you tell me about this medicine?”
    The pharmacist reached over the counter and took the bottle. “Sonodrine is a sedative,” he said, before handing it back. “For when someone’s having trouble sleeping. Also dulls aches and pains, although that’s a lesser use. A hospital might administer it that way.”
    He wasn’t telling me anything the computer hadn’t. “Yes,” I replied. “But more specifically?”
    The pharmacist smoothed his strands of hair into place, an unconscious gesture instead of a vain one, which somehow lent it dignity. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
    I bit my lip, considering what to say. “I found this with—with my husband’s things. But as far as I knew, he wasn’t taking any medication. Can you tell me why it would’ve been prescribed?”
    â€œPerhaps your husband was having trouble sleeping,” the pharmacist suggested. “Or had some slightly more than minor ache or pain.”
    Which of course didn’t tell me anything besides the indicated uses.
    I breathed out a sigh of frustration, studying the bottle. And then I saw something on it that I hadn’t noticed before. “Mr. Brannigan? Donny?”
    The man nodded, delivering another finger swipe to his scalp.
    â€œWhat does this little red mark mean on the label?”
    The pharmacist reached across the counter again and took the bottle from me.
    â€œI can’t really say,” he replied. Swipe, swipe. “Could just be a blotch of ink from our printer. Never did get the hang of using that thing. But Medicare says everything has to be electronic.”
    I nodded, though it didn’t really look like a smudge from a printer. The mark wasn’t quite even enough to have been made by a machine.
    â€œWhy don’t you let me hold on to this for you?” said the pharmacist. “Technically, any kind of prescription meds, especially painkillers, are supposed to be turned over as soon as they’re not being used.” He gave me another friendly grin. “There’s even a whole campaign about it. National Hand In Your Medications Month or some such. You have a good day now.”
    Clearly dismissed, I turned and walked out of the store, troubled by the feeling that in addition to being no closer to finding anything out, I had just lost the one clue I’d really had.
    I ran between snowflakes, dwindling now, less driven in their assault. When I reached my car, I blasted the heat, hoping it might melt enough of the snow that I wouldn’t have to get out and scrape. Where could I drive to anyway? Was there anywhere for me to go?
    I had a sudden, compelling need to return to my house, take up some project that would let me dig and scrape and peel at plaster, real things, instead of the unknowables that were seeping in all around me. Maybe call Ned Kramer, get back to the paying kind of work I would have to rely on from now on. I poked around in my bag, pushing stuff around to locate my tools, testing their tips. My phone sat underneath. Until I’d started my business, I’d seldom had need of a cell, and this one had probably gone unanswered in the past week. I figured out how to scroll through the list of calls that had come in, seeing an unfamiliar number repeated. Almost idly I began to press
send,
wondering who would answer on the other end, when a glimpse through the windshield distracted me. There was a cop strolling around, his uniform a faint