by Jeff Siebold
“They say I’m not old enough,” said Carrie. She was smoking a cigarette, dropping gray ashes on the floor by the sleeper couch. The couch was extended, and the wrinkled sheets were piled in one corner.
“So I gotta keep selling this stuff,” said Seth, “so we have enough money. That’s why I gotta spend so much time with Jack.”
“And Lizzy,” said Carrie, sarcastically.
An episode of Judge Judy was playing on the television. Seth said, “Whatever.”
“Besides, you still have money that you took from your dad’s stash.”
“Yeah, but it won’t last forever, you know.” Seth lit a joint and took a deep puff. “I’m going out with Jack tonight. He said he knows some guys that’ll buy everything we have to sell.” He was referring to pills, mostly, and some weed.
“What are you doing for merchandise?” asked Carrie.
“Well, you’re smoking it up as fast as I can get it, I think,” said Seth. Then he had a thought. “What about housecleaning?” he said, his lungs still filled with smoke. “Or daycare? Something you could do off the books, like for cash.”
“What are you gonna do, then? Stay here and play with Lizzy?”
“I’d rather play with you,” he said.
“Not in the mood,” said Carrie, whiney.
Seth pulled a face. “You haven’t wanted to do anything except watch TV since we moved in here,” he said.
“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly motivated, you know?” Carrie said in her Whatever! voice.
“I’m doing the best I can,” Seth shouted, and he walked back out the door.
* * *
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” said the voice on the phone.
The killer said, “Good,” and hung up. It was a burner phone, pre-paid and purchased at Walmart.
The killer waited another five minutes before driving the car into the Storage Nation Self-Storage facility located on Henderson Road near Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. The rented storage unit was located in an aisle between two storage buildings, which guaranteed the most privacy. The security cameras focused on the exterior of the building would record only indistinguishable images in the evening twilight. And the cameras were recording on a timed loop, which would write over the current images in two days.
The location is perfect, thought the killer, unlocking and opening the orange overhead door. Minimum exposure time all around.
A few minutes later a late model green Ford Explorer turned into the aisle and pulled up next to the open orange door. A man climbed out of the vehicle and opened the back hatch before lifting a large box out. He walked the five steps into the storage facility, nodded to the killer, and set the box on a metal shelf that had been affixed to the interior wall of the unit. Then he returned to the truck and repeated the process twice more.
“Everything good?” asked the killer.
“Yep, good,” said the driver. “Heading home now.” He got back into the Expedition and drove away.
The killer pulled the overhead door shut, affixed the Abloy padlock to the hasp, and drove off.
* * *
“What’s next?” asked Kimmy.
“There are several directions we can move in,” said Zeke. “But I think Dylan Jones is the next logical step in the chain.”
“Should we have him arrested?” asked Kimmy.
“His stepsister said he lives in Overbrook,” said Zeke. “Detective Harrison has that information already and will pass it on to the Overbrook Police Drug Unit. My guess is that it’ll go through channels, which means it’ll be a while before the police take any direct action against Dylan. They’ll stake him out first, follow him and try to catch him with the drugs. So, if we want to talk with him, now’s the time.”
“What do you think he knows?” asked Kimmy.
“Well, according to Kevin McCarthy, Dylan is the real head of the organization. He paid Kevin to act as the straw man and to tell everyone that he was in charge, particularly the dealers down the line, like the college kids and the Philly street dealers.”
“And Kevin did that for money?” asked Kimmy.
“Well, initially I think he did it for money and prestige. He could act like a big man, a seriously dangerous mobster of some kind. That would have appealed to his ego.”
“I can see that. But he would have been tapped for that position by someone who knew him, knew his personality and his situation,” said Kimmy.
“I agree,” said Zeke. “Probably someone he’s known for a long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kevin McCarthy and Dylan Jones have known each other for years. We should get to Dylan quickly, before he has time to fix the situation...or disappear.”
“Where do we find him?” asked Kimmy.
“He owns a bar nearby called the ‘Olive or Twist’, his stepsister said.”
“OK, I’ll track him down,” said Kimmy, tapping away on the screen of her smart phone.
* * *
The establishment was quiet when Zeke and Kimmy parked in a nearby vacant lot and walked the short distance to the Olive or Twist. The tavern was at street level, the first story of a three-story Victorian-style home built in the 1940s. It was located on Front Street in West Conshohocken, a few minutes drive from Ardmore.
Zeke held the door for Kimmy, who stepped in and waited a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room. There were three men sitting at the wooden bar, each separated by several bar stools.
The bartender picked up a menu and waved it in their direction. Zeke shook his head and stepped up to the bar to ask the bartender, a smallish woman with brown hair and a friendly smile, if Dylan Jones was around.
“What are you selling?” she asked, her smile slipping away.
“Nothing. We’re here on personal business,” said Zeke.
“I’ll tell him that you’re here,” she said. “What’s the name?”
“Zeke Traynor,” said Zeke. “He should be expecting us.”
They waited in the bar area as she disappeared through a door behind the bar. The interior of the tavern was covered with maple colored wood on the walls and the ceiling, while the floor was made of a mosaic of small black and white tiles. The stools and chairs were a contrasting dark wood, and most of the fixtures were made of brass.
A large man with longish, curly white hair and muscular arms emerged from the doorway behind the bar, followed by the bartender. He stopped and looked around, saw Zeke and Kimmy and turned and sat at a four-top table in the far corner. He looked at them expectantly.
Kimmy walked directly to the table and sat down across from Dylan Jones. Zeke joined her a moment later and sat in one of the open chairs.
“Well then, how can I help you, Mister Zeke Traynor?” asked Dylan. He was wearing a polo shirt and long shorts under his green apron. His biceps and calves were thick and muscular.
“We’re here to chat about prescription drugs,” said Zeke.
“Well, I never use the stuff myself,” said Jones with a smile. “I’m more of a holistic sort of guy.”
“Kevin McCarthy was arrested for his part in a local prescription drug distribution ring, part of the group at UPenn that the police broke up last year. Do you know anything about that?” asked Zeke.
The smile left Dylan’s face.
“That’s a serious accusation,” he said. “You come into my business and accuse me of being involved in drug sales?”
“Right, prescription drugs,” said Zeke. “Kevin McCarthy rolled over and gave you up.”
“I don’t think I know a Kevin McCarthy,” said Dylan. “And I know that I don’t know anything about prescription drug sales.”
“How about the murder of the two kids over at Suburban Square?” asked Zeke. “Were you involved in that?”
Zeke watched as Dylan Jones’ face quickly reddened. He sputtered and said, “Get out of here before I throw you out!” He stood abruptly and his chair fell backward and banged loudly on the tile floor. “Get out!” he roared, pointing at the
door.
Dylan Jones was a large man, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest. There was an expression of outrage on his face.
“Sure,” said Zeke, calmly. “We’ll go. We got what we needed here.”
Chapter 46
“Can’t let this go sideways,” said Bruce Coffey.
He was standing at the second tee-box on the River Bend golf course, looking down the fairway of the 427-yard par four.
Brandon Hart said, “Third hardest hole on the course.”
“I know,” said Coffey. He teed his ball and in one smooth motion swung and drove the ball what looked like 250 yards. The white ball was barely visible in the short grass of the fairway.
“Nice,” said Brandon, stepping up into the tee box.
“Thing is, there’s too much invested in this. We’re kidding ourselves if we think it’s going to go away.” Coffey frowned, which itself was a terrifying thing to see.
“I see that it won’t,” said Brandon. “I just need to be sure that Angela’s protected, that’s all. We don’t want anyone going after her.”
“Do you think they will?” asked Coffey.
“Don’t know. The phone call scared her. And killing the dog, Zoe, was unnecessary. It makes you feel helpless, you know?”
“Yeah,” said Coffey. “I guess it was supposed to.”
“Angela says she hates that someone came into our backyard, our personal space,” said Brandon. “Says she’s scared all the time. She won’t go out there alone.”
Brandon stroked the ball. It sliced right but ended up on the edge of the fairway, about 230 yards away.
“That’ll work,” said Brandon to himself. Then to Coffey, “I take those things as a warning, so I bought some protection for Angela. To keep her safe while we do this.”
“OK,” said Coffey. “But we’re good on the rest of it, right? You’re on board?”
“I’m in. I don’t have a choice,” said Brandon. “Who knows about this besides you and me?”
“Just the two guys we talked to. The guys in Vegas.”
“Think they’ll keep it a secret?” asked Brandon.
“Yeah, it’s in their best interest to,” said Coffey. “The money’s too good.”
* * *
“So I haven’t been able to exactly put my finger on it, but something isn’t right about the Harts’ situation,” said Zeke. He and Kimmy were back at Kathy’s Café. They met there after Kimmy’s protection shift with Angela Hart.
“I haven’t noticed anything, Zeke. We haven’t run into anything out of the ordinary since we started watching Angela,” said Kimmy.
“There are some things that just don’t add up,” said Zeke. “Have you and Carla been with Angela full-time for the past few days?”
“Pretty much,” said Kimmy. “One of us goes with her whenever she leaves the house. We ride up front in her car with her. Nothing has happened.”
“Is she receiving phone calls at odd times? Or is she being secretive about who she’s talking with?”
“No, not really. She talks with her mother a lot, almost every day,” said Kimmy.
“Is there any indication that she may be having an affair? Or that she may have had one recently and broke it off?” asked Zeke.
“A jilted lover?” said Kimmy. “No, I haven’t seen anything like that.”
“OK. But there’s more to this than meets the eye,” said Zeke. “Zoe was an eighty-pound trained attack dog. It looks like she wasn’t drugged, but her neck was snapped. That’s really odd.”
“How so?” asked Kimmy.
“Well, to break a human’s neck you need about 1,200 foot-pounds of torque,” said Zeke.
“I remember,” said Kimmy. “It’s all about the leverage.”
“Right, but if you try to twist someone’s neck while they’re standing up, their body follows the rotation. It doesn’t work like in the movies, and it takes a huge amount of strength,” said Zeke.
“What about the dog?” asked Kimmy.
“That’s another complicating factor,” said Zeke. “The dog’s body would have to be stabilized and held in place while the dog’s neck was severely twisted. The dog’s neck muscles, especially the cleido-occipitalis and the sterno-occipitalis, are much stronger than human neck muscles. Dogs are built differently, and they need the stronger muscles to hold their heads up constantly.”
“Right.”
“Also, dogs have stronger neck muscles because they kill their prey by shaking their head to snap its neck,” said Zeke.
“I’ve seen that,” said Kimmy, nodding.
“So, for someone to break Zoe’s neck would take extraordinary strength and exactly the right angle, while dealing with an eighty-pound animal that’s biting, twisting and clawing for it’s life.”
“I see what you’re saying. It would have been much easier to shoot it, stab it, or beat it with something,” said Kimmy.
“Correct,” said Zeke.
“In our training in the Mossad we spent some time learning to defend against dog attacks. Among other things you have to stand your ground and move in close so they know you’re not afraid.”
“Right,” said Zeke, “but in most cases, you expect to be bitten at least once. It doesn’t seem at all prudent in this situation. Unless...”
“Unless?”
“Unless it was someone the dog knew well.”
* * *
“So I have the info on the Harts,” said Sally in her best Marilyn Monroe imitation.
Zeke was standing behind her, looking over her shoulder at the computer screen. They were in The Agency offices in the heart of Washington, DC.
She smells like lavender, thought Zeke. Today, Sally’s curly blonde hair was pulled back away from her face. She wore a red fabric covered headband to keep it in place.
“What’ve we got?” asked Zeke.
Sally scrolled through several pages of information on the screen and then opened two more windows. “Here,” she said, “I sent all of this to you. But,” she paused, “the Harts are a football family. Brandon has played since he was five, and Angela was a high school and college cheerleader. She also ran track for her alma mater.”
“Both are athletes, then,” said Zeke.
“No children,” said Sally. “They’ve been married for three years or so. He grew up in Tennessee and went to school in Michigan on scholarship. That’s where they met. She was from San Diego and also went to the University of Michigan. Partial scholarship.”
“OK,” said Zeke. “Criminal record?”
“None. These two are squeaky clean,” said Sally.
“Good credit?” he continued.
“Well, they have the expected debt, house, cars, some small student loans, but mostly they pay their bills on time. They seem to have stretched financially for the house, but they’ll probably be able to pay everything off when his contract bonuses kick in this year,” she said.
“Sally, can you check their bank statements against Brandon Hart’s contract to see if the money matches up?” asked Zeke.
“I can,” said Sally.
“Any indication why they might be receiving strange phone calls and visits?”
“I don’t see anything. They look like the All-American family to me,” she said.
“Well, not quite,” said Zeke. “I remember something about Michigan football. Let’s invite Clive to join us.”
* * *
“They lost a lot of scholarships the following year,” said Zeke.
“How does that work?” asked Sally. They were in Clive’s office and chatting about the Harts.
“Well, the NCAA takes a hard look at football teams, particularly the top ten winning teams each year. They look for Booster rules violations, recruiting irregularities, any sort of money changing hands, that sort of thing,” said Zeke.
“They tend to focus on the top teams because it’s more likely that they cheated?” asked Sally.
“Often it is,” said Zeke. “After they fi
nished third in the country in 2013, Michigan was put under the microscope. The regulators were looking for rules violations that could have resulted in Michigan having an unfair advantage during the season.”
“What happened?” asked Sally.
“They found some problems with the program and ultimately the coach resigned. The school was fined and they lost a number of athletic scholarships. But, the NCAA stopped short of taking their number three ranking away.”
Clive looked over at them from the window. He’d been looking at Pennsylvania Avenue and listening to the explanation. “Was Brandon involved?”
“Well, he’d graduated and moved on to the Redskins by then,” said Zeke. “And he had won the Heisman Trophy that year. So he was sort of untouchable.”
“Was he involved, though?” asked Clive.
“Very likely he was,” said Zeke.
“You think someone found out and is trying to use it as leverage on the Harts?” asked Sally.
“Could be. There does seem to be leverage being applied. The phone call to Angela, and the dead dog could have been warnings. I still suspect that the Harts know more than they’re sharing,” said Zeke.
“Did you see something?” Sally asked.
“They seemed surprised when we told them that we’d be looking into who was behind all of this,” said Zeke. “For one thing, Angela stopped talking and looked at her husband. It made me feel as if they’d only expected protection, but they couldn’t figure out how to limit our efforts.”
Chapter 47
“I’m thinking that it’s an odd combination of drugs,” said Zeke. He was back in Philly and he and Kimmy were looking over the police files from the UPenn drug arrests last year, developing some background about the related incidents. Clive had assigned a replacement for Kimmy’s Angela Hart protection detail.
“Well, there were some that you’d expect, but there were some popular drugs missing, you’re right,” said Kimmy, standing behind him and reading over his shoulder.