Decision (Diversion Book 8)

by Eden Winters

  Maybe another night.

  ***

  Bo stopped by Lucky’s cube. “The guard came to shortly after we dropped him at the hospital, but we can’t get anything out of him other than he’s been working there for about three weeks.”

  “Undocumented?”

  Bo nodded. “Yes. I.C.E. has him in custody. Apparently, Loretta didn’t hurt him too badly.”

  “Shame. She shoulda knocked some sense into him, gotten a confession.” US Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t normally play into Lucky’s cases.

  Welcome to the new normal.

  “That would be too easy.” Bo settled into the chair across from Lucky, at the desk he used to call his. “What’s next?”

  Lucky’s first instinct screamed at him to keep quiet. Oh hell, Bo’d already caught him in the act, helped him even. “A van shows up every night shortly after ten. I want to know where they go. Plus, a bus brings the workers to the warehouse, then they leave again. I plan on tracking down where they go.”

  And figuring out how drugs from the warehouse found their way to Ty’s school. “I’m still waiting on lab results from all the bottles we brought in.”

  Bo nodded. “Didn’t you say the workers don’t stick together after leaving the apartment complex?” Lucky spilled the details of his case last night after they’d dropped the guard at the hospital.

  Bo had refused to let Lucky out of his SUV otherwise.

  Lucky nodded. “Johnson says they all head in different directions.”

  “You talked about a pregnant woman.”

  “Yolanda.”

  “I’m not going to ask how you know her name. At least, not right now.” The warning scowl said a long heart-to-heart lurked on the horizon. “Do you have any other names?”

  “No.” Lucky probably should tell Bo about Cruz’s involvement. Maybe later. He should’ve at least asked Cruz to get more names, though if they were afraid, the victims would lie. “What do you have in mind?”

  “There are three of us. Tonight, I’ll follow the van, you stick with Yolanda, and we can assign Loretta to track some of the others.”

  Well, shit. Lucky’s case, taken over by Bo. But hadn’t he taken it from Johnson? “Works for me.”

  “Okay. Touch base with Loretta. Tomorrow we’ll share our findings. And Lucky?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t do anything the department will have to explain later. We’re still under investigation for the whole Landry thing last year. Not to mention Rogers’ family trying to sue us for his death.”

  “Suicide by special agent doesn’t make us liable.”

  “Even so, keep your nose clean. You’ll probably have to testify and the last thing you need is a tarnished reputation.”

  As if Lucky Lucklighter didn’t have a sullied enough reputation. Of course, so far, Simon Harrison had managed not to get caught doing anything the law might frown on. Much. “Will do.”

  ***

  Lucky followed after the bus left the warehouse, noting all passenger stops. At approximately 11:30, the bus opened its door for the last three. Yolanda slowly made her way off the bus, assisted by another woman and a young man.

  They waited until the bus pulled away to amble down the sidewalk. This part of town appeared deserted, mostly small businesses. Lucky left the car and kept to the shadows. The three stopped in front of a small Mom-and-Pop pharmacy. Though only dim lights shone from within, they opened the unlocked door and went inside.

  A camera faced the front and back doors, but he’d bet good money someone inside monitored the feed, and likely cut certain parts out.

  Like after-hours visitors.

  He waited a count of two and slipped in after his prey.

  Shelves stocked the darkened front room, full of over-the-counter medicines, some candy, and other odds and ends like chips and bandages. No sign of anyone. Voices came from the back.

  He crept to the door, hugging the wall, gun held down in a double-handed grip.

  Barrels, similar to the ones from the warehouse, waited inside. Brought in the van, perhaps?

  Yolanda and the two others wore aprons, but no masks or gloves. The only other man in the room was Caucasian, about Bo’s height, with medium-brown hair, cut short. Average build. In fact, nothing stood out about him at all.

  A two-sided bench, shelves running down the middle, sat dead center of the floor. Several big jars of tablets took up surface space. A quick search on his cell phone showed this to be a compounding pharmacy, where pharmacists specially blended medications for a specific prescription.

  By law, pharmacists required a valid prescription to compound, so the quantities on hand should’ve been limited to that month’s estimated script volume. In the past, pharmacy techs filled smaller bottles from big amber ones, attached a prescription label, and passed the bottles along with a shipping label. All operations were overseen by a registered pharmacist.

  The pharmacist checked the labels and contents, and then passed the shipping label and vial to a different tech who shoved everything into an envelope. Narcotics couldn’t be mailed, limiting the operation to anabolic steroids and benzodiazepines.

  Narcotics required package services such as FedEx or UPS.

  Yolanda disappeared into a back room and closed the door. Damn it!

  The other two workers stuffed pills into bottles, but didn’t apply labels. Instead, they packed the bottles into the same kind of cartons found at the warehouse.

  Gawdawful thudding came every few seconds from behind the closed door. Caucasian guy stood with hands on hips, barking out orders in Spanish. That’s it. Turn a bit toward me…

  Lucky took a few pictures with his cell phone. Several times he pulled away from the door when the woman looked his way. She said nothing, so she either didn’t see him or didn’t care. Did she think him another one of her bosses?

  The overseer kept glancing at his cell phone. Checking the time, or getting a text or call?

  The thudding stopped, and Yolanda emerged from the back room with a jar of pills, different from the ones the pair currently packed.

  The apparent boss barked out another order. The woman filling bottles winced, but picked up her speed.

  Hour after hour passed. Damn, but Lucky had to piss. At last the three workers headed out the door, Yolanda swaying slightly on her feet.

  He’d go with them, but soon he’d pay this pharmacy a visit in the daylight.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next night, Lucky didn’t even bother hiding his activities from Bo. “We’re going to a movie,” he said, nodding toward his partner.

  Ty perked up from his spot on the couch, even pausing his video game. “Oh? What movie?”

  “Ty, let them have a date night,” Charlotte admonished.

  Nice save. “We don’t know yet.” Hand at the small of Bo’s back, Lucky ushered him out the front door.

  They met Johnson and picked up their loaner-mobile. “I can’t believe you still use this old thing,” Bo said. “As much as you hated it the first time Judy assigned it to you.”

  Judy. Of course Bo knew the name of the keeper of impounded vehicles. “No one’s tried to steal it yet, except for those gawdawful rims.”

  “True.”

  This time Lucky drove, Bo beside him in the front, with Johnson crammed into the back, slurping a Big Gulp. Just another exciting night in the world of drug enforcement.

  They parked the car on a side street with a visual of the warehouse parking lot. Sure enough, the van pulled up at ten fifteen.

  Lucky followed them for two hours as they made their way around Atlanta, dropping off deliveries. Soon they’d hear bitching about the missing bottles Lucky had taken.

  After five a.m., once the workers left the pharmacy, the van pulled up. He recorded the van being loaded and pulling away—headed back to the warehouse.

  ***

  “Where would you like to start?” A sixtyish woman with graying brown hair and intelligent g
reen eyes led Lucky through the front of the pharmacy to the back. She didn’t appear alarmed at their unannounced visit. Records showed several SNB audits in the past, never turning up anything of importance.

  “How many people work here?” he asked.

  “Three pharmacists, plus myself, five technicians, and two clerks to mind the front counter.” She kept her delivery matter-of-fact, answering the question without volunteering more information. So, she knew the drill.

  Lucky read from the audit list he’d used many times before during inspections. “What are your normal hours of operation?”

  “We open at ten, and close at five-thirty.”

  “Is anyone on the premises before or after those times?”

  “I get here before nine every morning, make sure the place is ready to go. I leave as late as seven.”

  “No one at night?”

  “No.” She gave a throaty laugh. “We’re just a small, family-run business, not Walgreens.”

  Pictures of smiling faces hung from a wall behind the register. “Are those all your employees?”

  “Yes.” The edges of her mouth curled up. She finally volunteered information. “Most have been with me for more than five years.”

  Five years gave time to build trust. Hopefully, she hadn’t trusted the wrong people. “Who has keys to the building?”

  “Lloyd, our pharmacist-in-charge, and myself, that’s all.”

  Lucky glanced at the photos. The one labeled “Lloyd” was of an African American man in his mid to late fifties. Not the pharmacist Lucky saw last night. “Anyone have access to your keys?”

  “No. Just me.”

  “Are all your pharmacists here today?”

  “No. Benjamin works on weekends.”

  “Is his picture on the wall?” He didn’t see a Benjamin in the group.

  “No. He’s new.”

  Lucky’s hackles rose. He likely had a photo on his cell phone she could use. How this Benjamin got a key was another matter. Not hard to make a copy.

  God, but Lucky should’ve slept a few more hours. Trailing Johnson and Salters, he ambled through an aisle crowded with cold and headache remedies. Damn but the place looked different in daylight.

  A trio of lab-coated pharmacy techs now stood where the two had the night Lucky stopped by, stuffing pills into bottles. This time, they passed along the bottles with the expected labels. At eleven a.m., he hadn’t really expected to find the man who ran the illegal night shift.

  He peered through the glass at the pharmacy’s sterile compounding room, scales and other utensils lined up in neat rows. Stainless-steel sinks took up the far wall.

  Mystery solved in the thudding. The back room held two tablet presses. Shutting them behind closed doors didn’t muffle the sound much.

  Nobody on call, because no emergency business. They didn’t keep much in the way of schedule II narcotics on hand, mostly bio-identical hormones in a gazillion strengths, estrogens, androgens, thyroid medications. Following along like an obedient lapdog, Salters recorded everything Lucky called out.

  The employees danced well-practiced steps, veering around each other when necessary.

  The moment he left the tablet room a tech darted inside and closed the door.

  Thud.

  A now-familiar sound.

  ***

  Once more Lucky and Rett waited outside the apartment complex where the workers stayed, this time in a white panel van, with the department’s biggest asshole, Keith.

  All morning they’d watched the comings and goings, one of Keith’s trainees aiming a camera at the front of the building.

  Lucky and Johnson compared the images to a database of known felons.

  “Right there.” Lucky enlarged an image of one of the gangster wannabes hanging out on the front steps. “He’s wanted in San Diego on drug charges.”

  “Looks like this one is the brother of the one I broke.” Johnson pointed to another man in the photo, her tone implying she didn’t have a single fuck to give about the guy she’d brained with a fire extinguisher. “No outstanding warrants—yet.”

  She laced her fingers, turned the palms out and stretched, popping her knuckles. The van couldn’t be very comfortable for someone of her height and build.

  A blocked warrant, workers kept prisoner, an illegal pill operation. Lucky didn’t like it. Seemed whoever—or more likely whoevers—were behind this sure wanted to prevent authorities from interfering with their little business. A little business that dumped who knew what drugs into the local high school, several pharmacies, and a neighboring nursing home, so far.

  If Ty wouldn’t give him answers on the school front, Lucky knew someone who might.

  ***

  Lucky sat at a picnic table outside a burger joint, a freckled, red-headed kid on the other side of the table, drowning French fries in ketchup.

  Bo couldn’t fault him for making his informant feel at home by getting his own burgers and fries, right?

  “What you wanna know?” the kid asked, stuffing more fries into his mouth. He pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and checked the face. “Make it fast, I have to be at work in thirty minutes.” Kenny, the kid who normally rang up Lucky’s groceries, slurped his soda.

  “You attend Clifton High School, don’t you?”

  The kid nodded, but didn’t stop chewing long enough to answer with words.

  “Tell me, do you know of anyone supplying ADHD drugs to students on campus?” Lucky didn’t really expect an answer, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

  Kenny placed his drink on the table, suddenly aging a good five years. “I don’t have anything to do with that shit.” He lifted his nose in the air. “I study and get good grades. I don’t need to cheat.”

  Oh, Kenny likely gave away more than he meant to. “Do you have any names?”

  Kenny narrowed his eyes. “Who wants to know?”

  Lucky sighed and pulled his badge from his wallet. “Agent Simon Harrison, Southeastern Narcotics Bureau—”

  “You’re a cop? I knew it!” The kid slammed his hand down on the picnic table.

  Kenny’s answer didn’t indicate if he thought Lucky’s job a good thing or bad thing. “I’m not a cop, I’m a narcotics agent. There’s a difference.”

  “I knew you were some kind of bad-ass.” Kenny slurped his drink again.

  Bad-ass? Lucky? Oh, hell yes! “We’ve found a student in possession of counterfeit drugs. We’re tracking down where they’re coming from.”

  Kenny’s eyes grew impossibly wide. “I told you. I don’t do that shit.” He slapped a hand over his mouth. “I mean, I don’t do drugs, sir.”

  “‘I don’t do that shit’ is fine by me.” Lucky regarded his newest informant. “I’m not suspecting you of anything, I just thought you might go to that school and might know something.”

  Ignoring the remainders of Lucky’s fast food bribe, Kenny paused a few moments, face an unreadable mask. Finally, he nodded. “Mostly jocks take ‘em. They worry about grades and staying on the team. Then there’s a few of the rich kids, trying to get accepted into the right colleges.”

  “Do you know anyone personally?”

  “No, but it’s hard not to hear talk around school.”

  How Lucky wished Ty brought him this information. Kenny would do in a pinch. “Think you can find out names for me?”

  “Maybe.” Kenny narrowed his eyes. “What’s in it for me?”

  “What do you want?” How much would Walter allow him to pay the kid?

  Kenny grinned. “I want to go on a raid.”

  “Nope. Too dangerous.” And would also make him Lucky’s problem, however temporary. “How about a ride along in a police car?”

  “Sure, that’d work.”

  Lucky wouldn’t tell him that officers let citizens ride along all the time as part of the local Citizens Police Academy. “Done. Anything else?”

  “Yeah. Give me a ride to work so I won’t be late.”

  Okay, teenaged info
rmant in place.

  What would he do if Ty was involved in an on-campus drug ring?

  ***

  Why hadn’t Lucky researched Ty’s school before? This wouldn’t be the first situation to put Clifton High under the microscope.

  Three teachers had been caught helping students cheat on standardized tests and SATs. Shit. For the last four years the school failed to meet its educational goals. One more year of failure meant they might be forced to restructure. Change of administration and staff. More kids pulled by parents who saw the writing on the wall. Rich kids yanked and placed in snooty private schools. What would be left were less-advantaged kids whose parents worked too many jobs to properly care for their children or, worse, who didn’t give a fuck about the kids at all. No wonder drugs found their way into the place.

  The reason Ty got on the soccer team. The guy he replaced hadn’t moved town, merely changed schools. Shit, given their low rating and apparent drug problem, maybe he should talk to Charlotte about pulling Ty out of there too.

  But he might not go. He’d made the soccer team. His girlfriend attended the school. He’d started making friends. To suggest putting him in yet another school might trigger more rounds of “I hate Uncle Lucky.”

  No, better to fix the problem, for Ty and all the other students. No mystery why grades needed improving though.

  Lucky stared at a list of names, athletes from Ty’s school skating by on borderline grades, and those who’d applied to Ivy League schools. You mean there are any kids left there who’d qualify? As good a place to start as any.

  The next part of his plan called for strategy. His best smile and a phone call from Walter got him a much nicer loaner car than the piece of shit Malibu.

  He stopped by the house, enlisting Charlotte’s help to dress him up nice. He stared at himself in the mirror. Fuck. He’d never convince anyone to believe his story.

  He gave up on making himself presentable, retrieved Bo from work, and drove to the doctor’s office he’d followed the apartment guard to, stopping two blocks away. Turned out Doctor Keel took a week off, calling in his usual replacement.

  “Remember,” Bo said, straightening his tie, “you’re there to observe, notice what I don’t.”

  “Sure thing.” No need reminding Bo that, as department trainer, those words normally came out of Lucky’s mouth. Lucky got out of the car and trudged the rest of the way. If anyone watched, Bo arrived in the Lexus alone.