The Second Lie

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “I also discovered a faulty valve. I’m considering the loss the result of evaporation due to the leaky valve, but it was significant enough that I want you all to know what’s happened. And if any of you have seen someone on my farm without me, or know of anyone using methane, I hope you’ll inform me.”

  Several men came up to Kyle as the meeting adjourned, James Turner among them.

  No one had seen anything out of the ordinary. They asked questions and gave advice, but no one acted the least bit suspicious.

  And he now had a loyal posse on the outlook for unusual chemical possession. They’d check with their kids. Their wives. Ask around. And, Kyle knew, they’d be watching his place like a hawk.

  Just as he would do for them.

  This was life. Not the frenetic world that Samantha Jones inhabited.

  Here you knew who your friends were.

  Chuck and Sam were on football duty again Friday night—in a neighboring community, since Chandler didn’t have a home game—and had the new 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. shift. Up by noon that Friday, Sam asked Chuck if he’d meet her for a game at the tennis complex.

  When Chuck had first been divorced they’d played every week. Until rumors had started that there was something going on between them.

  Half-afraid Chuck was behind the rumors, Sam had called off their regular dates.

  If he’d been interested, he took the hint. And they’d been good friends ever since. She wasn’t sexually attracted to Chuck, but she liked him. Respected him. He was truly dedicated to the town. Her people. The job.

  He was also a damned good tennis player and had her at six-zero after their first set.

  “You want to quit?” He met her at the net.

  “Hell, no, do you?” She’d beat Chuck to the complex earlier and had talked to Delia, the full-time equipment manager who’d been there since the complex first opened. Delia told Sam about the tennis club for underprivileged kids who couldn’t afford to play sports at their high schools.

  She’d shown Delia Maggie’s picture, and the woman confirmed that Maggie was a member of the club.

  Chuck served. Sam returned long. He served again and she managed to fire a shot straight down the line, just out of his reach. And then to break his serve.

  They were tied three-three when two young men, dressed in basketball shorts and T-shirts, took the court one over from them. The boys looked to be about sixteen, had rented rackets and balls and, in the next half hour, didn’t manage a single volley. Not one returned serve.

  Nor did they seem to know how to serve. Or to care to learn.

  They took turns slamming shots across the net and chasing balls.

  But what Sam noticed most, as she won the next two games, was that both of the boys had tattoos, long hair and used despicable language.

  After she lost the second set by a respectable six-five, she joined Chuck for a burger and soda at the place across the street and told him what she thought about some of today’s youth.

  She was going to tell him about the tennis club, too, leaving Maggie out of things for now because of her promise to Kelly. Like Kelly, Sam understood how easily a kid with Maggie’s background could be branded and she wasn’t going to do that to her.

  “Life is sure different than when we were kids,” Chuck agreed, biting into his double-size burger. He’d foregone the fries for more meat.

  Sam, who’d insisted on paying for her own lunch, though Chuck had intended differently, had given in to the fries and passed on the burger, ordering a salad instead. She’d also traded the soda for coffee, which was so rancid it needed four creams.

  “Crime’s different,” Chuck continued. “Life for a lot of people doesn’t seem to be about following the law so much as finding ways to do what you want without getting caught. Or just ways to get around the law.”

  He was right. Things had changed from her father’s day when right was right and wrong was wrong and everyone knew that. “It sure makes our jobs a lot harder,” she said, thinking of those tennis players who couldn’t play tennis.

  She was also thinking of Maggie Winston. Talking to Kelly about an older man and being curious about sex.

  And the tattoos on those kids on the court that morning. The piercings and long hair. She was judging by appearance. Stereotyping. But something about those kids bothered her.

  She asked Chuck if he’d heard of the club.

  “Sure. They call themselves the Ramblers,” he said, surprising the heck out of her. “Because they’re from all parts of the Dayton area.”

  “How’d you know about them?”

  “Remember Shane? That boy we busted last Friday who sold the Hatch girl the meth?”

  Sam nodded. She wasn’t likely to forget.

  “Shane’s mom was telling me about the Ramblers,” Chuck said. “The group is part of the reason I decided not to press charges against the kid. He’s one of their charter members. The idea actually came from a conversation Shane had had with his mom when the school levy failed and he knew they wouldn’t be able to afford for him to play football this year.”

  Sam listened, finishing her fries and looking at the salad, trying to talk herself into wanting it.

  And trying to keep from showing any sign of the adrenaline rush she felt to learn that Shane Hamacher, who’d just been busted for selling drugs, played in the same tennis club that Maggie was in.

  “Football to tennis is a pretty big stretch,” she said, trying to put the pieces together.

  “A group of the kids went around with a letter Shane’s mother helped him draft, looking for anyone who would let them participate in a sport for free. They went to the Y, to a soccer park, bowling alleys. Delia’s the only one who did more than shake her head and wish them luck. So they’re learning to play tennis.”

  “You’re sure that’s all they’re doing?”

  “Absolutely. I talked with Delia and a couple of the other parents—all single moms, by the way.”

  Parents, sponsors, didn’t always see what was going on right under their noses.

  “Shane’s dealing. Maybe the others are involved with drugs, too.”

  Please God, no. She couldn’t just sit and watch them fall, one by one.

  Not sweet girls like Maggie Winston.

  “Shane made a mistake. A one-time thing. He’s not a dealer.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “He told me all about it and his story checks out. He got the crystals from a guy in Indiana. Some guy he met while he was at his dad’s for the weekend.” Sam already knew Shane’s dad was an ex-convict.

  “The guy was offering five hundred dollars to anyone who could sell one thousand dollars worth of meth. Might as well have offered Shane a million dollars right then. His mother had just told him that they were facing eviction because she couldn’t pay the rent. He figured this was their answer. He didn’t have to make any contacts. There were notes left in his locker at school. He just had to deliver and collect.”

  “So how does a guy in Indiana get notes into a locker in Chandler, Ohio?”

  “Obviously he has someone in the school system working for him. I’m checking on that. And looking at other schools, too, to see if there are similar setups throughout the area.”

  “Have you found anything?”

  “Not yet. But I’m not giving up.”

  “Shane could be lying.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Chuck was sharp. The best.

  But Sam wasn’t as apt to believe the kids.

  The drugs were here. No one could argue with that. And if they were being produced here, as Sam suspected, their problem was not just identifying a delivery service. They had to find and shut down an entire company. If there was a superlab in Ohio, they were only seeing the beginnings of a spike in drug use. And it was already nearly impossible to keep up with what they had.

  She opened the packet of dressing. Put it on her salad.

  “And Shane has no idea who
left the notes?”

  “None.”

  “I don’t suppose he kept any of them, either.”

  “No. He’d been told to flush them.”

  With the plastic fork she’d just taken from its wrapper, Sam mixed the dressing into the salad.

  “Whoever’s behind this is thorough.”

  “Nobody wants to get caught. Stops the money flow.”

  “Yeah, but you have admit, this is a pretty elaborate setup. Money splitting in several ways. Seems like big business to me.”

  “I grant you that,” Chuck said. “But maybe now they’ll know we’re on to them. If we make it hard for this guy to do business here, he’ll move on. The last thing he wants is cops on his trail.”

  Sam wanted to believe him. To be relieved of her suspicion about the superlab.

  “I don’t know, Chuck. I look at the child welfare statistics and the Holmes case and…this isn’t just in the schools. Or one guy selling drugs. With the quantities we’re seeing, the lower cost, the use across all sectors of society, I’m really afraid we have mass production going on right here in Fort County.”

  She wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t heard before. From her.

  With a quarter of his burger lying uneaten on the paper in front of him, Chuck looked at her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Just…I wasn’t going to say anything, but…”

  “What?” she asked a second time.

  “You need to let that idea go, Sam. The whole superlab thing.” He wiped his hands on his napkin and leaned forward. “People watch you, don’t you know that?”

  “People? You mean my brother. And Kyle.”

  Shaking his head, he glanced away, and then, as though he’d made a decision, pinned her with his most serious look.

  “I figured you knew, but…everyone watches you. From the sheriff on down.”

  Shocked, she just stared at him. “Why? I’ve never done anything wrong. My record’s exemplary.”

  “It’s not about anything you’ve done. Or not done, for that matter.”

  “Then what?”

  “You’ve been under scrutiny from the day you put on a uniform. Surely you knew that. You have to try harder, be more perfect than anyone else.”

  Chuck was right. She did seem to have to answer a lot of questions about routine things. Always had.

  She’d just thought the sheriff was looking out for her.

  “Because I’m a woman.” Chandler was a small town. A little old-fashioned.

  But she wasn’t the first—or the only—female cop in the area.

  “No, not because you’re a woman. Because of your dad.”

  The quietly spoken words hit her hard.

  “You idolized your old man,” Chuck said. “Everyone knows that. Some of the older guys say you’re just like him in your loyalty to the job. Your refusal to relax and let anything go. Your passion for police work. And they’re afraid that—”

  “I’ll be just like him and make a mistake.”

  “From what I hear the job was everything to your father.”

  “Just as it is to you.”

  “With one difference,” Chuck said. “I do the job I’m given. I don’t go looking for more.”

  Sam’s father had. Which had made him a better cop in Sam’s opinion. The best. He gave over and above. And the people of Chandler had been safer for it. She had the medals and awards he’d won that showed their gratitude.

  Just because he’d had a problem, as well, a sort of personal vendetta, didn’t take away from all the lives her father had saved.

  “Like it or not, you are your father’s daughter.”

  She’d give anything to be as good a cop as her father was. “I was ten when he died, Chuck. Hardly enough time to model myself on him.”

  “But aren’t you doing just that? You’ve talked about your meth lab suspicions to everyone. And I know your brother is worried. You aren’t on meth-lab detail, Sam.”

  “I’m asking questions. Which is what any good cop would do if he or she had suspicions.”

  “And in anyone else, it would just be put down to being a good cop, but not for you, Sam, don’t you see? They’re looking at you. Looking for a sign that you’re going over the top, as he did. And you’re giving it to them.”

  Sam forked a bite of her salad. What could she say?

  “They don’t want to lose another cop. Or have to visit your mother a second time with the news that a member of her family is dead in the line of duty.”

  “So I’m guilty by association.”

  “Just be careful, Sam,” Chuck said, picking up his burger. “Don’t feed them. Drop this meth thing. I’ll talk to the sheriff again, tell him that we need to dig a little deeper about a possible superlab nearby. In the meantime, I promise you, I’m aware. If I see anything, feel anything, hear anything that raises suspicion I’ll be on it.”

  Sam nodded because she had to.

  Not because she’d made up her mind to let go.

  11

  Chandler, Ohio

  Friday, September 10, 2010

  I was tired when I got home Friday night, but picked up the call that came in just as I was sitting down with a glass of wine because Sam’s name popped up.

  She sounded all cop and official-like. “As far as I can see Maggie spends a lot of time with that girlfriend I told you about, and she plays tennis. I haven’t seen her so much as smile at a man across a street, let alone be in contact with one.”

  “I’ve seen her a total of three times,” I said. “Talked to her mother twice. Neither of them mentioned that she plays tennis.” Didn’t necessarily mean anything, though.

  I took a sip of wine, glad I had a full bottle. I might need a rare second glass tonight. “It’s an expensive sport.”

  “Yeah. But not for the kids Maggie plays with. There’s a group of them.” Sam told me about the tennis club the kids had formed. Said she’d gotten a list of their names from some Delia woman who worked at the complex.

  “Do they have an adult sponsor? A coach of some kind?” I was pretty certain there was a man in Maggie’s life, and that she was savvy enough to know she had to be discreet. I also knew that if I was going to help my young client, we had to find this guy before Maggie had sex with him.

  Camy lifted her head from my lap—her usual place when I was sitting at our dinner table.

  After a questioning stare and a cursory sniff that revealed no food was being consumed with my wine, she settled back down.

  “No,” Sam reported. “They’re on their own. But there’s more.”

  Of course there was. Sam wouldn’t be telling me about it otherwise.

  “What?” I asked, twiddling a pen between two fingers.

  “I busted a kid last week for selling drugs at a high school football game. He’s a member of this tennis club.”

  Okay. I didn’t like it. But… “When we played basketball that Miranda girl was a user. Remember? Heck, these days, it’s pretty much impossible for a kid to go to school without being exposed to users. And probably dealers, too.”

  “I saw a couple of the other kids in the club this afternoon. At least, I think they were from the club. If I met either of them on the street, I’d keep an eye on them.”

  “Not someone you’d want your fourteen-year-old hanging out with?”

  “Nope.”

  “But not adults, either.”

  “No.”

  Fine. We were looking for an adult. Period.

  “Who else works at the courts besides this Delia woman?”

  “Some kids work part-time. Mostly doing cleanup stuff. But that’s not what I’m worried about.”

  “What are you worried about?” I asked.

  “I think that tennis club could be a front for drug dealing. And if it is, this guy Maggie’s going for could be their supplier. Or a client.”

  Overreaction. I made my first note since the conversation had begun.

  Sam was seeing dru
gs everywhere.

  I wondered if maybe I should consider giving her that prescription she’d been after me for.

  She didn’t seem to be shaking the Holmes case.

  She’d told me about practically accusing Kyle of being involved with meth production.

  “I’m not sure how it would work,” Sam said. “I haven’t figured it all out yet. But I know that one of the kids was busted for dealing within the past couple of weeks. I mean, it’s kind of a stretch, a bunch of these kids suddenly wanting to play tennis. And they don’t seem interested in learning the game. Watching them on the court, it’s like they couldn’t care less.”

  I said nothing, just let Sam talk.

  “How they get their drugs and what they do with them, I have no idea. And how does tennis fit in? Why not just deal drugs? Unless they deliver at the club. Maybe buyers come to the courts to make the deals.”

  “It seems kind of far-fetched to me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It probably is. Kel? Do you think I’m irrational?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Obsessing?”

  “There’s a difference between being dedicated and being obsessive,” I said.

  “Which do you think I am?”

  “Dedicated. And overtired. And I think you’re worried about the upswing in drug use. You’re overwhelmed with your seeming lack of ability to do anything about the problem, and like any good cop, you’re brainstorming every possible scenario you can think of.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You’ll tell me if you think I’m losing it, right?”

  “Not that you’ll listen.”

  “I know. But you’ll tell me?”

  “Yes. You know I will.”

  “Gotta go,” Sam said abruptly, as she’d done many times before. I could hear the crackle of her radio in the background. “Chuck needs backup on a domestic-abuse call.”

  The line was dead. I hadn’t had a chance to ask the deputy if she’d found out anything about Maggie’s mom.