Chapter 6 - The Shadows of 4th Avenue
The Care-Rite Pharmacy on 4th Avenue was a small, independent drugstore sandwiched between a dry cleaner and a defunct bakery. Its neon sign flickered weakly against the approaching twilight, casting long green and red shadows across the cracked concrete sidewalk.
Peter stood outside the glass doors, his hands buried deep in his pockets. After leaving the district attorney’s office, he couldn't simply go home and wait for the slow gears of the legal system to turn. He needed to see the place where the poison had been prepared, the place where his brother’s execution had been quietly rubber-stamped by a man with a medical degree.
He walked inside. The store was quiet, the air smelling of plastic wrap and old paper. Behind the elevated prescription counter at the back of the store sat an older man with thin silver hair and gold-rimmed spectacles. Dr. Arthur Pendelton was meticulously sorting plastic medication vials into neat rows, his movements precise and entirely devoid of emotion.
Peter walked up the small carpeted ramp to the counter, his boots loud in the empty store. He stopped right in front of the glass partition, looking down at the doctor.
Dr. Pendelton looked up, a professional smile forming on his lips before he recognized the sharp, striking resemblance between Peter and his late brother Aaron. The smile vanished instantly, replaced by a sudden, nervous twitch in his left cheek.
“Can I help you, sir?” Pendelton asked, his voice thin and reedy.
“You signed my brother’s death certificate, Arthur,” Peter said, his voice quiet, flat, and devoid of any inflection.
Pendelton stepped back slightly, his hand moving instinctively toward the phone on the counter. “I... I have many patients, Mr. Calder. If you have a question about a past file, you need to contact the main administrative office at the hospital. I am currently filling prescriptions.”
“You didn't fill a prescription for Aaron,” Peter said, leaning forward against the counter, his eyes locking onto the older man’s face with a terrifying intensity. “You filled a prescription for Digoxin for Eleanor Vance, and then you helped her daughter alter the medical records to show my brother had a pre-existing heart condition. You knew exactly what was in those formula boxes she gave the twins three years ago, and you knew what she was doing to Drew and Lily in that basement.”
“This is slander!” Pendelton hissed, his face turning an angry, blotchy red. “Get out of my store or I will have the police remove you!”
“The police are already on their way, Arthur,” Peter said softly, pulling his phone from his pocket and laying it flat on the glass. The screen displayed a live digital transmission from Detective Vance’s unit—a copy of the pharmacy’s secure server log files that the department’s cyber unit had just cracked twenty minutes ago.
“We found the secondary ledger,” Peter continued, his voice cutting through the doctor’s rising panic. “The one where you recorded the private cash payments from Vance Development Group. Fifty thousand dollars paid to your private account the day after Aaron died. Another twenty-five thousand paid last month when you signed the fraudulent medical affidavits stating Drew and Lily were too unstable to visit their relatives.”
Pendelton’s hands began to shake violently. He reached for the counter to steady himself, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. “I... I had no choice, Peter. You don't understand the kind of people the Vances are. Eleanor... she held the mortgage on this building. She was going to ruin my practice, strip my license over an old prescribing error I made ten years ago. Reena told me the children would be taken care of! She said they were just going to a special school!”
“They were in a hole in the ground, Arthur!” Peter roared, his control finally snapping as he slammed his palm against the glass partition, causing the thick pane to rattle violently in its metal frame. “My six-year-old nephew broke his own leg trying to dig his sister out of a concrete tomb while you sat here in your white coat counting your blood money!”
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The front doors of the pharmacy burst open, the sound of heavy boots echoing through the aisles. Detective Vance and three uniformed officers moved quickly up the ramp, their weapons drawn but low.
As they led Dr. Pendelton away in handcuffs, his white coat crumpled and stained with sweat, Peter stood by the counter, looking at the rows of plastic medicine bottles. The monsters weren't just hidden in dark alleys or broken houses; they wore suits, they held degrees, and they signed their names in neat, professional script on documents that killed with the quiet efficiency of a disease.
