Benedict must have guessed my intent, because he produced a pack of tissue from his pocket for me.
We located office 514 with no major difficulties. Dr. Booster's name was still on the plaque next to the door. The waiting room was full of screaming children and frustrated mothers. I approached the front desk and got the attention of a nurse.
'I'm Lieutenant Daniels. This is Detective Benedict. We have a few questions concerning Dr. Booster.'
She looked up at me with the greenest eyes I'd ever seen. It took me a moment to realize they must be contacts.
'Have you caught him?'
'No, ma'am. Not yet. You knew Dr. Booster?'
'I worked for him for seven years. He was a good doctor. He didn't deserve that.'
'Can I get your name, ma'am?' Benedict had his notepad already in hand.
'Rastitch. Maria Rastitch.'
The phone rang. She picked it up, said a few words, and transferred the call.
'We're hoping to look at a patient list.'
'We already supplied that other officer with a list.'
Which we'd seen. There was no Charles Smith. No one even had Charles as a first name.
'We wanted to see a list that cross-referenced names with prescriptions. Dr. Booster wrote out a prescription for a large amount of Seconal before he died. Were any of his patients taking Seconal?'
She frowned and swiveled her chair over to the computer. After a few seconds of punching keys she shook her head.
'Nope. No Seconal.'
Benedict said, 'How about patients of Dr. Kuzdorff and Dr. Potts?'
'This includes them. There's no one. Years ago we used Seconal for sleep disorders, but flurazepam is the preferred method of treatment now.'
'Do you have copies of all Dr. Booster's prescriptions?'
'The ones he fills out here, yes. It would be on the computer. Our database lets us pull information by patient name, social security number, illness, visitation date, appointment date, and prescription.'
'Is it possible that the doctor wrote a prescription after office hours?'
'For Seconal? It would be odd. It's a Control two drug. I don't see why he would prescribe it at all, in the office or out of it.'
'But it's possible?'
'Sure. All he'd need is the prescription paper.'
'Doesn't the pharmacy call here to confirm prescriptions?'
'Sometimes. But if it's after office hours, they may fill it without calling. The hospital pharmacy never calls. The pharmacists there know all of the doctors.'
I handed her my card.
'Thank you, Ms. Rastitch. Please call if you think of anything that may help. If it isn't too inconvenient, we'd like to speak to a few other employees.'
'Not at all. I'll announce you.'
Herb and I spent another hour talking to Booster's staff and fellow doctors. They all echoed what the green- eyed nurse had said. No one knew why Booster would write a prescription for Seconal, and no one knew any patient who took it.
But Booster had written the prescription, as confirmed by the Illinois Department of Regulations, and someone calling himself Charles Smith had filled it and presumably used it in the abduction of our Jane Doe. If no one in Booster's office remembered him, maybe the pharmacist who filled the prescription would.
Benedict and I left the doctors' building, walking over to its ugly twin, where the hospital pharmacy lay in wait. There was a line. But one of the many perks of having a badge was the ability to bypass lines. This seemed toirritate the dozen people we cut in front of, but you can't please all the people all the time.
The pharmacist looked like I'd picture a pharmacist to look: balding, fortyish, WASP, with glasses and a white coat. His name was Steve, and he informed us he'd been working there for three years.
'Were you working here last August tenth?'
He double-checked his schedule and informed us that yes, he was indeed working that day.
'Do you remember filling out a prescription for sixty milliliters of liquid Seconal on that date?'
His brown eyes lit up. 'Yes. Yes, I do. It practically depleted our stock.'
'Could you describe what the individual looked like?'
He furrowed his brow. 'It was a man, I remember that much. But what he looked like? I'm drawing a blank. I fill hundreds of prescriptions a day, and that was two months ago.'
'Was there anything unusual about his appearance? Very tall or short, old or young, skin color, eyes?' Herb asked.
