Page 84 of High Density

Chapter Twenty-Six

Janey

“Who has access?”

After Special Agent Kramer and JD left, Sheriff Ewing asked to see the clinic.

I figured it would be about the ketamine.

We walk over, finding the clinic still locked up. Frankie isn’t here yet but I expect she’ll get here shortly.

“To the clinic? Frankie Bastian, my assistant, and you met my intern, Logan.”

“Yes, I know Frankie, her brother is one of my deputies, and Logan is the son of council member David Osborne.”

“That’s correct.”

I open the clinic door and invite him inside.

“Nobody else has a key?”

“No. Not as far as I know. But I never changed the locks after I took over the clinic from Doc Evans. I guess it’s possible he may have given a key to someone at some point I’m not aware of.”

“You’re keeping drugs, you should change your locks.”

“All medication is in a locked, steel cabinet and I’m the only one with a key to that. I bought it new when I moved in,” I react a bit defensively. “I also keep careful track of what I’ve used.”

I show him into our surgical room where I keep the drugs, and unlock the cabinet.

“Who does inventory?”

“My tracking system does it for me. I don’t carry a lot of stock, and as I said, I mark everything I use off the inventory list. When we get down to a certain level, I ask Frankie to order more, and we tend to order a set amount. Ketamine, for instance,” I start to explain. “Yesterday morning I noticed we were getting low when I needed it for surgery on a miniature donkey. We were down to two vials, so I alerted Frankie, who was going to put in an order.”

“And you’ve never had one go missing? Not even a half-empty one?”

I shake my head. “No, never.”

“Is that the log?” Ewing asks, pointing at the notebook hanging on the front of the cabinet door.

I grab it off and hand it to him.

“You can see every use is marked by date and time. The amount is then deducted, and we list what is left in inventory. Because I only stock small numbers, it’s easy to track.”

He flips to the section marked ketamine, and starts scanning the entries.

“Who stocks the cabinet when a new shipment arrives?”

“I do that myself. If I’m out on a call, Frankie will sign for the package and hang on to it until she can hand it over to me. Unopened,” I add.

I watch him lift the remaining vials of ketamine off the shelf and examine them.

“These are still sealed.”

“Yes, like I said, I used some yesterday for a surgery. That vial was empty.”

“What did you do with the empty vial?”

“Garbage.”

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