Chapter 45: Overdose!

May 15, 1988, Chicago, Illinois

"Mr. Adams, we'll need to search the premises," the detective told me after the ambulance had taken Chrissy away.

"Why is that?" I asked.

"She clearly OD'd on something, most likely cocaine, based on the residue on the packet in the bathroom. I'll obtain a warrant if you insist, but then everyone will have to gather in one room and wait while we find a judge, have the warrant issued, and then do the search."

"I hate to say this, but I'd prefer you apply for a warrant."

He sighed, "OK. We'll do it your way. Everyone needs to gather in the room with all the windows."

"The sunroom," I said.

"Did anyone leave before we got here?" he asked.

"You'll have to ask my sister. She's the strawberry blonde standing next to the Latino guy. It was her party."

He nodded and walked over to a uniformed officer who spoke into his radio and then began herding everyone into the sunroom. The detective talked to my sister and started writing things in his notebook. A few minutes later, she came into the sunroom. I pulled her to the farthest point of the room from the uniformed officer standing at the door.

"Well, this is fun!" I sighed.

"Sorry, Big Brother. I had NO idea. I feel really bad because Kara, her mom, and Paul all got woken up and have to sit here with the rest of us. You refused to let them search without a warrant?"

"That shouldn't surprise you. They'll get a warrant to search for drugs, and they damned well better not find anything."

"They'll search everyone here. I don't know if anyone else has any drugs on them or not," she whispered.

"If they didn't flush them as soon as we found Chrissy, they're idiots," I said.

The detective came to the door of the sunroom.

"Who called 9-1-1?" he asked.

"I did," I said.

"And who found her?"

"I did," my sister said.

"Come out, you two," he said.

I walked over to Kara, hugged her, told her it would be OK, then followed my sister out the door. A female detective took her into the Indian room and the male detective took me into my study.

"You own the house, and you called 9-1-1?"

"That's right," I said.

"I need to pat you down. Do you have any weapons of any kind on you? Even a pocket knife?"

"No," I said.

I held up my arms, and he quickly frisked me, finding only my wallet, which he asked me to take from my pocket, and the key and other necklaces I wore around my neck.

"Were you using any drugs tonight?"

"No," I said, remembering the advice I'd had from my attorneys over the years to give short, succinct, direct answers.

"Were you aware that drugs were being used?"

"Not until my sister found Chrissy and called me out of the sauna."

"How does a kid like you own a house like this in Hyde Park?"

"I own it together with my dad, who lives in Ohio. I have renters and I run my own computer business based in Hyde Park. My wife is a doctor that works in the UofC Emergency Room."

"I see. So tell me what happened tonight."

That started a twenty-minute question-and-answer period about everything that I'd done that evening, who I'd talked to, what I'd seen, and where I'd been. I had considered insisting on having an attorney present, but in the end, thought that would only cause even more problems for everyone else. I was very careful with my answers, and when we finished, he returned my wallet and told me to wait in the great room for the detective who would be coming with a search warrant, and gave an admonition to not talk to anyone else about what happened.

"Detective, my wife is nine months pregnant, and I'd really like to let her go to bed."

"Not until we search," he said.

I sighed, "Can we make a deal? You can search my bedroom, and only my bedroom, for drugs, and only drugs, so that Kara can go back to bed? I'd hate for her to go into labor from the stress, or have complications."

He considered for a moment.

"You'll need to give blanket permission, otherwise it'll be your word against mine about what I could and couldn't look at."

"No deal," I said. "But you're on notice that she has never done drugs, I've never done drugs, and she's obviously very, very pregnant. Got that, Detective Miller, badge #9135?"

He sighed but didn't answer, just jerked his thumb towards the great room where a uniformed officer was standing. I walked in to find my sister sitting there, looking angry.

"You OK?" I asked.

"I got felt up by a chick and asked if I did drugs! Me! As if!"

"I got the same question, Squirt. But we're not supposed to talk about what happened tonight."

"Officer! Officer!" I heard Nancy say sternly. "My daughter is nine months pregnant and needs to get to bed. Now! I demand you let us out of here and let her get to bed!"

"Ma'am, sit down," the uniformed officer said.

"Officer, did you hear me? She's nine months pregnant! Do you want her to go into labor or have problems?"

"Ma'am, I said sit down or I'll have to arrest you!"

"Then arrest me! I'm taking my daughter to her bed. I'm doing what I need to do. You decide what YOU need to do! And if YOU can handle the consequences of harming an obviously pregnant woman!"

"Nancy," Paul cautioned, but Nancy ignored him.

"Kara, come with me! We're putting you to bed!" Nancy said firmly, staring into the cop's eyes.

I watched as they walked past the officer who looked at a sergeant who just nodded. Nancy took Kara to the elevator, and they disappeared inside. Nancy didn't come back, so I assumed that she had stayed with Kara. And I figured if the cops wanted to search my bedroom, they were going to need a SWAT team, and even that might not be enough. It took two hours before an officer arrived with a warrant. In that time, the two detectives had questioned everyone, and as far as I could tell, didn't discover anything.

Searching the house took over an hour, and they found nothing. My room was barely touched, with Nancy basically standing guard over Kara. By that point, it seemed the police had more or less decided that they weren't going to find anything. Finally, around 4:30am, the police were finished and allowed everyone to leave. I decided that I was going to walk over to the ER and meet Jessica and check on Chrissy.

"Steve?" Melody asked.

"Yeah?"

"Where are you going?"

"To the hospital. I'm going to check on Chrissy and meet my wife. She's an ER doc."

"Wait, I thought Kara was your wife and the doctor!"

I chuckled, "Walk with me and I'll explain."

I let Nancy know where I was going, and she and Paul went to bed, while my sister basically herded everyone else out of the house. Melody and I walked out the front door and down the steps onto the sidewalk.

"I'm married to both girls," I said. "Not legally, mind you. I'm only legally married to Jessica, but she, Kara, and I consider ourselves married to each other. We had a public ceremony for the three of us. Only two other people and the minister saw the private legal ceremony."

"Is the doctor Jesse's mom?"

I chuckled, "No. It's WAY more complicated than that. I guess my sister didn't give you all the details."

"No, she just said you had more freedom than a usual married guy."

"And why were you flirting with a married guy?"

"For fun! I'm in college. It's time to have fun before I have to be an adult!"

I chuckled, "I hear you on that one! But why mess with a married guy when there are plenty of single college guys?"

"Wait, you're not just talking about flirting or playing a bit?"

"Forget it for now, we're almost to the ER!"

"I think sitting naked next to you and letting you get an eyeful entitles me to an answer!"

"With the same restrictions I mentioned for 'Truth or Dare', I can pretty much do what I want, including screw you until your eyes roll back in your head and you pass out!" I teased.

We'd come to the door of the ER, so despite the shocked look on her face, she didn't have a chance to answer before we walked in.

"Tiger? You're early!" Jessica said. "And where is Kara? And who's this?"

"Kara's asleep. This is my sister's friend, Melody. I came early to check on Chrissy Teague," I said.

"How do you know about her?" she asked, surprised.

"You missed the paramedics, the police, the search of the house, me being frisked, you know, all the excitement."

"Oh no! What happened? Is everything OK?"

"I suppose so. Nobody was arrested, but my sister and I are going to have a long talk. How is Chrissy?"

"After I finish my shift. What's with your new friend?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Melody is one of my sister's friends, as I said. She's also a friend of Chrissy's. And other than dancing and a sauna, nothing happened."

We sat in the waiting room for about twenty minutes, and Melody told me about school and home. She was from Casper, Wyoming, and was majoring in archaeology with a minor in anthropology. She'd met my sister in a statistics class during her Freshman year, which was my sister's Sophomore year. She was planning on doing field work when she graduated, then getting her Master's, and eventually a PhD.

"I'm off," Jessica said, walking over to where we were sitting.

I stood up, gave her a kiss, and the three of us walked out of the ER.

"You sister's friend is in really bad shape. She had serious arrhythmia, which we controlled, but her nasal passages are shot. She's obviously been snorting for years. If her heart holds out, and she's willing to get into a program, we can repair the damage to her nose. Her heart, well, I'm not a cardiologist, so I can't say. She doesn't appear to have brain damage, well, beyond whatever it was that caused her to use coke in the first place."

"How did she OD?" I asked.

"If you take cocaine regularly, over a long period of time, you build up tolerance to the effects. That means you have to take more to get the same high. Was she snorting all night?"

"I have no clue," I said. "We'll have to ask my sister."

"She may not know, Tiger."

"I didn't know," Melody said. "And we hang out a lot!"

"Did you notice her sniffing a lot? Using lots of tissues?" Jessica asked.

"I thought she just had bad allergies," Melody said, sounding almost frantic. "She's from San Diego and I just thought it was allergies!"

"Melody, I'm not accusing you of anything," Jessica said gently. "I was just asking about the signs. Did she have bouts where she seemed hyper and other times when she seemed down?"

"Yes," Melody sighed. "I missed it!"

"No, you didn't know. But now you do. And remember, that the things I mentioned could have all had other explanations — allergies, stress, and so on. Did you guys get any sleep?"

"No," I said. "The party was still going on and a few of us were in the sauna just after midnight when my sister came to get me. Kara had gone to bed, and so had her parents. Needless to say, when I called the paramedics, the police came as well, and before I knew it, we had two detectives and three uniformed officers there."

"Did they cite anyone for underage drinking?" Jessica asked.

"No. Nobody was drunk. Penny had left around 11:30pm, so really there were only three or four under 21s, and two of them were in the sauna with me."

"You called 9-1-1?"

"My sister freaked out when she found Chrissy in the bathroom unconscious, with blood coming from her nose. Instead of calling 9-1-1, she came to get me. I grabbed my towel and ran upstairs. When I saw Chrissy, I checked to make sure she was breathing, which she was, and then I called 9-1-1. The Fire Department was at the house in about six minutes, though the first police officer was at the house about three minutes after my call. He was on patrol on Hyde Park Boulevard, so it took him less than a minute to get to the house once he received the radio call."

"And the rest of the cops?"

"Once the paramedics told the officer that it looked like an OD, and he found a small packet with traces of white powder, he called for backup and I insisted on a warrant before I'd allow them to search the house. They questioned everyone and patted them down, but nobody had any drugs or anything on them, so in the end, after they did an almost cursory search, they all left. That was right before I decided to walk over to the ER. Melody offered to walk with me.

"Nancy really gave the police 'what for' about Kara, and I think that, combined with nobody else having any drugs on them, caused the cops to back down. It's not as if we have rowdy parties or anything, so they've had no complaints about us. The only real run-ins were the FBI, and when Andrew called to report Bethany missing."

"Do you have your training session with Jolene this morning?"

"Yeah," I said. "I'll make you breakfast and then take a nap for a few hours. After I come back from the dojo, we have graduation, and then dinner. We'll just go to bed early."

"There's no race today?"

"No. The next race is in a couple of weeks at Charlotte."

We reached the house, and we invited Melody to eat with us. I fixed a quick breakfast of eggs and toast, and when we'd eaten, Melody headed back to the dorms. Jessica and I didn't want to disturb Kara, so we wrote a note on the board that we'd be in one of the guest rooms. I was getting up in about two hours to meet Jolene, so Jessica and I each went into a separate guest room. I set the alarm and quickly fell asleep.

I arrived home from my training session with Jolene and almost immediately, we left for IIT.

"Are you still up for going out to dinner after graduation?" Nancy asked.

"Sure," I said. "I took a nap, Jessica had her nap, and I guess Kara had enough sleep given she just got up."

"Tell me things aren't like that here all the time," Paul said.

"They aren't. I haven't had a chance to talk to my little sister yet, but I have a firm 'no drugs' rule in the house. I'm OK with caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine if you need to alter your mind or body, but nothing illegal. The only other run-ins I've had with the police were when I left Ohio after Kara and I broke up and my dad asked them to do a well-being check, and then when Bethany and Andrew broke up and he filed a 'missing persons' report. And the odd visit from the FBI because I have Russian friends. Our parties are really tame. If they weren't, the neighbors to the south would be calling the cops every time. They're real sticks-in-the-mud."

The graduation ceremony ended up being indoors because it was raining lightly, and, true to form, was about as boring as I had expected it to be. Kara was escorted by a marshal who helped her up the steps onto the stage, and by another one after she received her diploma, who helped her down the steps and back to her seat. She was positively glowing, despite being so close to delivering our baby. I just hoped that Birgit or Joshua would wait at least until the ceremony was over!

For dinner we went to Morton's The Steakhouse, and after we ate, we headed back to the house. Paul and Nancy were staying the night because Joyce had generously given them Monday off work. She'd also told Nancy to take as much time as she needed when Kara had the baby, and I'd thanked her profusely for that. Unlike Jennifer, Josie, and Elyse, Kara wanted her mom with her after the baby was born.

We had decided to turn in early, but before we did, I wanted to talk to Stephanie. The girls went up to our room and Nancy and Paul went to the nanny room, and I went to find Stephanie. I needed to give her a bit of grief about the drugs, but more about not calling 9-1-1 immediately.

"I need to talk to you, Squirt," I said, finding her and Jorge cuddling together in the great room watching TV with Elyse. "Now."