Page 95 of Tough Justice

“Have a seat.” Dr. Shuren indicated a metal chair then sat in a fancy leather rolling one on the other side of the desk. “I printed out Damon Sanchez’s medical file for you.” He handed a manila folder to Deck.

As he reached for the folder with his right hand, a twinge of pain shot to his shoulder. He began flipping through the pages in the folder, trying to make sense of all the medical jargon. “Sanchez was only thirty-five, but he had heart arrhythmia.” Confirming what was in Sanchez’s records Suzie had pulled up for him back at North Metro.

“Yes,” Shuren said. “We get so many inmates passing through here, I can’t remember all of them, but I reviewed the folder before you arrived. He was diagnosed with arrhythmia, but it never gave him any problems, at least not while he was incarcerated here. Sanchez was young and in good health.”

Yet the man was dead. “Did he ever come to you for anything else?”

Dr. Shuren shook his head and pointed to his computer screen. “I didn’t administer them, but his records show he came in for allergy shots during the height of pollen season.”

“When was his last one?”

Shuren looked back at the screen. “About fifteen months ago, right before he was released.”

Deck felt he was on the brink of figuring this out but still missing an important piece of the puzzle and didn’t know which line of questioning would help him find it. “You said you didn’t administer allergy shots to Sanchez. Who did?”

“There are two other doctors on staff here. Drs. Medici and Stollen. We each work an eight-hour shift, but I wasn’t on call that day.”

Deck continued flipping through the pages. Sanchez’s last allergy shot was administered by—

He had to read the name twice to be sure.

Dr. W. Barnett.

In her message, Tori said she overheard Sanchez accuse two doctors of giving him something that nearly killed him in Sheridan. This could be the missing piece he was looking for.

“Why is there a different doctor listed as having given Sanchez his last allergy shot?” When Shuren raised his brows in question, Deck added, “It says here the shot was given to him by Dr. W. Barnett. Not by Medici or Stollen.”

“Oh, I forgot.” Relief washed over his face. “If one of us takes a vacation and we can’t get coverage from either of the other two physicians for some reason, we all have qualified prison fill-in doctors we can count on.”

“Who did Dr. Barnett fill in for that day?”

“Me. During the timeframe we’re talking about, I went up to Copper Mountain for a long weekend ski trip.”

Maybe he was missing something, but an ER position seemed like a prestigious gig. Filling in at a prison every now and then seemed like a step down. “How did Dr. Barnett find out about these fill-in opportunities?”

“Wil Barnett and I went to med school together at U Penn. One of his first jobs was at a prison outside Philadelphia. He worked there for years.” Shuren shook his head and laughed. “I never understood why, but even after he landed the ER position at North Metro, Wil still made a point of saying that he was always available to fill in. He’d even send me occasional emails as a reminder.”

So Barnett had a history in Pennsylvania where the DEA had been investigating an opioid dealer who’d vanished. Interesting, but circumstantial. Sounded like Barnett had an ulterior motive for wanting to fill in at the prison. Like experimenting on prisoners? It sounded farfetched, but it was a possibility he had to consider. Whatever he’d injected Sanchez with, it sounded as if the guy either hadn’t consented or hadn’t known what it would do to him.

Again, he thought back to Tori’s voicemail. “Has anyone ever had an adverse reaction to an allergy shot?” he asked.

“I suppose it’s possible, but I’m not aware of an inmate here having had such a reaction.”

“If Sanchez had a bad reaction to a vaccination, would it be here in his records?”

“Of course. We document everything. There are no secrets here.”

Deck couldn’t stop from arching a brow. Prisons held as many secrets as the Pentagon. He returned his attention to the last few pages in the folder and reread the last line twice.

Sanchez may not have had a bad reaction to an allergy shot, but on the same day as that last shot, he overdosed. An opioid overdose.

He tapped the record he was looking at. “It says here that Sanchez was treated for an opioid overdose right after he received his last allergy shot.” But the man’s criminal record indicated he’d been imprisoned for car theft and burglary. There was no history of drug use or distribution.

Shuren nodded. “There was a time last year when we experienced an unusual number of overdose cases.”

“How many?”

“Oh,” he said, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture, “just a few.” The doctor’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed repeatedly.