by Kimberly Rae
27
Saturday, January 3
11:00 a.m.
The interrogation room: a place of power. Steve stepped inside, letting his silence add to the tension. The new prisoner sat still but his eyes shifted from the empty black table to the blank white walls, to the mirror hiding Steve’s team, to the obvious security cameras. Let it sink in, Steve said internally. He moved to lean over the man’s shoulder. Get good and scared.
“State your name,” Steve ordered. He tossed a weighty file folder onto the table.
“Jerod.”
“Got a last name?”
The prisoner looked to the right. “Smith.”
Liar. Steve sat on the edge of the table at an angle so he towered over the suspect. The man did not look up at him, but kept his eyes on the table, on the folder. His left foot angled to face the doorway, but the man wasn’t leaving until Steve got some answers. Steve pulled three papers from the file and slapped them on the table. “Tell me about these people, Jerod.”
The prisoner picked up each paper and looked at the name and description. “I don’t know any of them,” he said.
Steve watched him rub the back of his neck with a wavering hand. Lying. “How did one guy get three falsified passports? Did you make the passports for...” He held the first paper two inches from the man’s nose. “Agatha Mooring?” Second paper. “Raymond Lester?” Third paper. “Damion Smith?” He dropped the three documents in front of the suspect. “Are they family? Maybe a brother, Jerod Smith?”
“Don’t have no brother,” Jerod mumbled. “I’m telling you, I just picked up the money today and that’s all. Hodge always picked it up before, but you arrested him, so they asked me to do it this time. I don’t know nothin’. I just went to get the money.”
His arms were crossed but his eyes had gone up and to the left as he talked, which implied, unfortunately, that he was telling the truth. “Hodge said he didn’t know anything either.” Steve leaned down and got in the man’s face. “So who has the information I want? Give me a name and we might make a deal. No name, and you’re in jail as an accomplice in an international drug operation. That won’t sit well with a judge.”
The prisoner put his palms out. “Don’t you get it? They don’t tell us any names. We don’t see any faces. We just get our job assignments, do the job, and get paid.”
“How’d you know Hodge’s name?”
Jerod bent his head and looked at his hands. “He’s my brother.”
“You said you didn’t have a brother.”
“I lied.”
This was going nowhere. Steve could just imagine the guys behind the mirror pulling off their earphones and heading out for a coffee break. He had to get something before they gave up on him. “So you’re saying your brother’s job was to pick up the money, and since he’s in the clink now you got the job today, but neither of you have ever seen the guy who brings the money, or the guy you give the money to?”
“Didn’t say that.” Jerod shifted in his chair again. Now both of his feet faced the door. “Hodge, he saw the guy a few times. Had to count out the money and then give the traveler his cut. Hodge used to sift a little extra for himself before he left it at the next drop-off place, but don’t tell him I told you that.”
Steve sat across from Jerod at the table and leaned forward. “Did your brother ever tell you anything about the guy, the traveler? A name? Description?”
Jerod shrugged. “No name. He told me once the guy was white, and older than he thought. Hodge used to make fun of his old-guy jacket.”
“What was funny about it?”
The man smirked. “It was plaid, like from a hundred years ago or something.”
Steve reached for the file and pulled out a still they’d made from the international flight surveillance camera. “Like this?” he asked, showing Jerod the picture.
Jerod shrugged. “I guess. I never saw it, but that does look old and dumb, like Hodge said.”
A knock sounded from behind the mirror. Steve stood. “Wait here,” he said.
“Like I have a choice.” The prisoner held up the picture and shook his head. “That is one ugly jacket.”
Steve left the room and walked around the outside corner where two of the men assigned to his case, Phil and Quinn, stood at a small table covered with monitors and cables. Both took their headphones off and Phil said, “We got a couple of calls.”
“Did they tell us anything helpful? All our leads have stalled.”
“Our guys in Florida found Darla Moore. She hasn’t been to Georgia in years. Moved away and left her kid when he was fifteen. She says he’d be the one using the car now. His name is Lucias Moore and he lives on a gravel road off Sugarsnap Drive.”
“Sugarsnap. How quaint.” Steve was already putting on his jacket. “Let’s go for a visit.”
The second man, Quinn, stepped forward. “We also got a call from the DEA. That bottle of colored sand they found in the briefcase isn’t sand.”
“Drugs?”
“Opium. India is a big manufacturer of it. Looks like our guy is not just delivering product overseas, but smuggling product back.”
“You stay here,” Steve told Phil. “Get Jerod ‘Smith’ into the system and find everything you can on Lucias Moore. Does he have a record? Get me a photo and work on getting a warrant to search his house. Get one for a Meagan Winston while you’re at it. Quinn, you’re with me. We’ll check out this address, see if the car is there, and try to get some information out of the guy. If we find any evidence today, we’ll bring him in and search the house later.”
Steve’s phone rang. He picked up the call on the way to the car. “Steve Campbell.”
“It’s Stephanie. I need you to bring the car back so I can use it.”
“Can’t.” Steve and Quinn got in the car and Steve turned the key in the ignition. “I’m on a case.”
“It’s Saturday.”
“We just got our first big lead—the name of the guy who was on at least two of the flights to India, and who delivered the drug money this morning.”
“Well that’s just peachy, but I need a dress for tomorrow. I don’t have anything to wear to a church.”
You mean you don’t have anything to wear that fits anymore. Steve shifted into reverse and pulled out of the parking space, holding the phone between his shoulder and chin.
“You’re going to get a crick in your neck doing that,” Quinn warned.
“You may not need to go to church after all,” Steve told her. “It looks like Meagan Winston might have been telling the truth that she didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Oh, no you don’t.” His wife’s familiar nag tone came through loud and clear. “I finally have something to go to and I’m going to look good when I go. You can pick me up on your way to wherever you’re going and drop me off at the mall.”
Steve gripped the steering wheel with one hand at the twelve o’clock position, and clenched tight fingers around his phone with his other hand. If it had been a drink can, it would have crumpled. He started to tell Stephanie he was not dropping her off at the mall and picking her up like she was some teenager, but a glance at Quinn in the passenger seat made him change his choice of words. “Fine. I’ll be there in less than ten. Be ready.”
He hung up and avoided another look at his fellow agent, keeping his eyes steady on the road. “I have to pick up my wife on the way.” He could feel Quinn’s smile beside him. Now would be the time to ask the kind of small-talk questions Steve hated. Was Quinn married? Did he have kids? Did his wife drive him insane, too?
Stephanie was the small-talker, and she was in high gear from the moment she got in the car. It was no mistake how she ignored her husband and talked to Quinn the whole drive. Steve didn’t mind. With Quinn in the car, she’d be sweet and friendly, and Steve wouldn’t have to defend himself against whatever her latest accusation was.
“The gravel road is half a mile ahead,” Quinn said after he checked th
e GPS map on his phone.
“Where are you going?” Stephanie asked.
Steve’s phone rang and he looked to see the number on the caller ID. He took the call. “Phil, what have you got for me?”
Phil got right to the point. “We’ve heard back about the Indian rupees. They’re counterfeit, all of them, but I don’t think our criminal knows it. We got word from a bank that someone exchanged almost a thousand dollars’ worth this morning—after we confiscated the briefcase.”
Steve pulled off onto the gravel road and slowed to keep the car steady. “Any leads on that?”
“The bank manager pulled up his security video and told me over the phone that the man was white, older, had light hair and wore a plaid jacket that the manager said looked like tweed.”
“That’s our guy. So the manager didn’t know the rupees were fake?”
“Not until afterward. That’s why he called it in. I’m sending someone to verify the information and get a copy of the video.”
“Get the rupees for me as well. Good work, Phil.” He closed the call and was reporting the new information to Quinn when Quinn gestured toward the back seat. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to bring your wife to this guy’s house?”
Steve caught Stephanie’s eye through the rearview mirror. “Why didn’t you remind me? We passed the mall five minutes ago.”
“I didn’t think you’d just forget about me back here.”
He gunned the engine a little and the crunch of tire displacing gravel gave sound to his frustration. A lone trailer came into view, set a ways off the drive. “Too late now. You can wait in the car.” To his surprise, she did not argue. He drove off the road and they bounced over uneven ground until he was yards from the run-down building. He parked the car at an angle facing the double-wide. The guy had chosen a good spot. All Steve could see in every direction were trees and a section of the gravel drive. Was this where the meth lab was? “Lock the doors when we get out,” he told Stephanie. He checked his gun, radioed in his location, then he and Quinn exited the car. Steve led the way to the front door, which sat crooked on its hinges, and knocked. “FBI. Anyone home? We have some questions for Lucias Moore.”
The unmistakable sound of shoes crushing dried leaves came from behind the trailer. Pulling their guns, Steve motioned for Quinn to go around the south side of the trailer and he’d take the north. He was just at the edge of the front panel of the double wide when he heard a vehicle start. He ran. “Behind the trailer!” he shouted to Quinn. “Block the car!”
Quinn was too far away to do anything but watch when the grey Oldsmobile raced around the trailer toward the road. Steve was running back around to the front of the trailer when he heard his wife’s scream.
28
Saturday, January 3
11:15 a.m.
Lucias swerved onto the main road and pressed hard on the gas pedal. Had they jumped into their car and followed him? Lucias had seen their guns. He’d almost hit their car, parked right in his path, in his haste to escape.
How did they find him? He recognized the man who had come running just as he pulled away. He was one of the two who took Meagan that afternoon, but not the one Agatha had run off the road. That guy was dead. Lucias had done his research on this other guy. That building where he worked belonged to the FBI and the man’s name was Steve Campbell. He’d found that out easily enough by sending Agatha into the building with a fruit basket. A few smart questions and he’d left with a name. The secretary had not even noticed Agatha kept the basket for herself.
Why was Steve Campbell at his house? Lucias looked into his rearview mirror and saw Raymond. “What are we going to do?” he asked. He still had his money; they wouldn’t get that from him. He had arrived only minutes before they did, and was about to put the first bills between the wooden slats of the emptied hive left there from a previous owner’s beekeeping days when they arrived. No bees produced honey there anymore, but if people ever did come to the house, they would fear going near the hives, making it a perfect place to store cash.
He kept one hand wrapped around the curved top of the flower vase so he could take the turns sharp without it falling over and the water spilling out. With a quick look at the flowers came an urgent desire to go to Meagan. If he was with her, he could calm down. Feel better. He pulled off to the side of the road just before he reached her drive and put the car in park. Leaving it running, he popped the trunk and ran back to retrieve the wads of cash hidden under the tire. It was a good place in general, but if the FBI was after him, they’d find it there for sure. He bundled the stacks inside his partially-zipped coat and fought the wind back to the front passenger seat. The passenger door, still mangled some from the wreck, took extra strength to open. Inside, he considered the section of upholstery that had a slash in it from that night long ago, the night Claudia had laughed at him. He stretched open the torn section and jammed the bills inside.
Once the seat cushion was back in place, Lucias returned to close the trunk. Before he did, his eye caught the colored powder in a sealed sandwich bag, the extra he had bought in India for himself. Could he keep that hidden under the tire and, if the police checked, tell them it was a souvenir? Or a drink mix?
A police car came toward him on the road and Lucias slammed the trunk shut. The squad car slowed next to him and the policeman put his passenger window down to call out, “Need help there?”
“No,” Lucias said, keeping his face to the side as much as possible. “Just checking my spare tire.”
“Good idea, but next time check it at home or in a parking lot, okay? You’re too close to the road to be safe.”
“Okay, thanks.” Lucias got into the car and clenched his hands against the wheel to get them to stop shaking. If the officer had checked his trunk, he’d have found the powder. Lucias had to get rid of it. The policeman drove on and Lucias searched his mind for options. He couldn’t just pour it out on the ground. Snow was still piled up alongside the road and since the section of powder he’d taken from the bottle was red, it would show too much. He could visit the bathroom at Meagan’s house and flush it down the toilet, but that would be such a waste. He moved the car forward, but then stopped when the huge vase of flowers tilted to the side. That was it!
He stopped the car again and went back to the trunk. He lifted the tire and reached for the small bag that would incriminate him in any court of law, and carried the bag back to his seat in the front. Opening the bag, he poured the powder into the water under Meagan’s flowers. At the florist shop, the lady had given him a small packet of white powder to put in the water. “Flower food,” she’d called it. He had left the packet at the store, wary of anything that looked so much like cocaine. But now, if for some reason someone found traces of the powder in the water, he could just claim it was flower food. A few days from now, he would go back to Meagan’s house and offer to change the water for her. Then he could take his powdered water home and drink it in intervals. It might not work as well, but would be better than wasting it altogether.
Thus resolved, and rather proud of himself for outwitting the police and the FBI in one afternoon, he turned his car back onto the road and drove with a smile toward the home of the woman he loved.
Meagan was going to be so happy to see him.
29
Saturday, January 3
11:15 a.m.
Steve called in an APB on the grey Oldsmobile while he ran around Lucias’ trailer to the car where Stephanie continued shrieking. Her voice could get like fingernails running down a chalkboard. He opened the car door to the backseat. “What’s the matter? What happened?”
“Where did you go?” Her hands clutched his shirt front. “He almost ran into me!”
That was it? “You’re not hurt? Nothing happened?”
He noticed for the first time that she was wearing makeup. And she’d dressed in jeans and a nice shirt. “That maniac could have killed me!”
“Okay, well, he didn’t, so that’s
good.” Quinn caught up to him at the car. “Quinn, let’s take a look around and see if we can find anything.” He turned back to his wife. “Do you want to come with us, or wait here in the car?”
She shook her head with vigorous enthusiasm. “This place is scary. I don’t like it. Can’t you take me to the mall and then come back here?”
“We need to find what we can while we’re here. It won’t take long. You can stay in the car, but if you get scared, come find us.” He shut the car door and holstered his gun. They didn’t have a warrant yet, but they would soon. If they left now, the guy might come back and remove evidence. Steve didn’t see any “No Trespassing” signs. There wasn’t a law against wandering through the woods. “Let’s go check around outside, Quinn. We need to find those stacks of money he got from exchanging the rupees. And if we could find a stash of his drugs, we’d have enough to arrest him when he gets back.”
They split up, rounded the structure, and met again behind the home. Steve looked at the piles of clutter and trash and made a face. “The unpleasant side of investigation.”
Quinn smiled. “I.e. digging through the trash. Shouldn’t we wait for the warrant, though?”
Steve wasn’t above bending a rule or two if it meant moving forward. “If we find something, one of us can wait here till the warrant comes.”
“If you say so.” Quinn chose a smaller bag. “I’ll take this one.”
“Yeah, give me the big jobs.”
“You could leave and take your wife to the mall.”
“Ha ha.”
Quinn laughed. “Looks like your bag is all dishes. Are they broken?”
“Not all broken, but definitely all dirty.”
“So we can rule out our guy being a neat freak.”
“What, the trailer falling apart and empty toilet set out in the yard didn’t give that away?” Steve pointed across the back yard, if it could be called a yard. “Are those the things people keep bees in to make honey?”
“I think so. They don’t look like they’ve been used in at least a decade.”