The Friday Edition (A Samantha Church Mystery)

by Ferrendelli, Betta

  “North American Free Trade Agreement,” Jonathan said. “It went into effect a few years ago.”

  “I know what it is,” Sam said to Jonathan, in a short tone as she jotted down the acronym “NAFTA” in her reporter’s notebook and underlined it.

  “What does that have to do with this?” she asked.

  “NAFTA has made it a breeze for drug dealers,” Wyatt said.

  “NAFTA has?” Sam’ voice sounded surprise. “I thought NAFTA was supposed to bring trade benefits for Mexico, Canada and us?”

  Wyatt nodded and said, “Since NAFTA started, trade with Canada and Mexico has climbed more than forty percent.”

  Sam examined her notes then looked at them. “What does NAFTA have to do with smuggling drugs?”

  “For starters, drug smugglers aren’t stupid,” Wyatt said. “They’ve learned that truckers, because of NAFTA, are waved through border checkpoints without having their cargo checked.”

  Sam couldn’t help showing her dismay. “You mean they aren’t inspected?”

  “On many occasions, because of the enormous volume of traffic at border checkpoints, they go right on through,” Wyatt said.

  “Anything could be in those rigs,” Jonathan added. “Cocaine, heroin, it could all be in there and no one would know.”

  “Let me give you an example, Sam,” Wyatt said. “Last fall, two undercover operations aimed at Mexican drug runners resulted in eighty-nine arrests in nine U.S. cities, and the seizure of tons of cocaine, marijuana and millions in cash. The probes also disclosed major inroads into the New York City drug market.”

  Wyatt’s attention flickered toward Jonathan. “Tell her what the combined haul of the two operations totaled.”

  “Eleven tons of cocaine, six tons of marijuana and ten million bucks cash.”

  “Thirty people were arrested as a result of the sting,” Wyatt went on. “Including truckers who hauled narcotics from Mexico and El Paso and brought back millions of dollars in cash in their cabs. Arrests were made all over the country.”

  “What does it all mean?” Sam asked.

  “It means,” Jonathan said, “these operations dramatically demonstrate that Mexican drug traffickers are displacing some of the Colombian cocaine organizations that have traditionally dominated the U.S. market. Much of the Mexican success is due to NAFTA. So thank them.”

  Wyatt glanced at his watch. “I’m late for a meeting,” he said getting up from the chair.

  “Wyatt, I do have one comment for you, but it has nothing to do with drug smuggling,” Sam said and smiled.

  “Sure,” Wyatt said and flashed a quick smile.

  “Brady was here when I came. I know he’s been having a difficult time with Robin’s death since the funeral. If you need help with him for anything, I’d be happy to do what I can. I know he’s not crazy about me, but I want to try and make it up to him. Keep me in mind, please.”

  Wyatt saluted Sam with two fingers. He glanced briefly at Jonathan and left the office. Jonathan watched as Sam gathered her things to leave. He waited until she stood before he spoke.

  “April’s birthday is in a few days,” he said.

  “I know,” she said without looking at him.

  “She wants to have a few friends over …” Jonathan hesitated. “So if you were planning to stop by …”

  “Well, of course I ... I was ...” Her voice trailed off. The pain that had been beating in her heart over April pierced her a little more. She swallowed hard, trying to push down the hurt from places she never knew were so deep. She kept her attention fixed on a dull pattern on the floor.

  “Jonathan, please don’t do this to me. It’s her birthday.”

  “I don’t want to upset her, Sam. You saw what happened the other night,” he said.

  “You’re taking this custody thing too far,” she said and the weight of her words seem to bring her down.

  Jonathan stared mutely at her, refusing to budge.

  She felt his resistance.

  “It’s a Saturday,” she heard herself say. “Are you going to take the kids to McDonald’s?”

  When Sam looked at Jonathan, he nodded. “And to the zoo if it’s nice. If not, I’ll think of something.”

  Sam was insistent that the weekend would not pass without seeing her daughter. “I’ll come for a little while on Sunday. We’ll go to the zoo if you don’t.”

  “If you like,” Jonathan said.

  Sam remembered the night April bolted from the kitchen to her bedroom. The image of April running past her remained as she left Jonathan’s office and headed out into cheerless gray drizzle.

  Twenty-five – Reporter’s Notebook

  Sometimes the only problem I wish I had in life was trying to parallel park.

  I am so tired. I close my eyes, but sleep does not come.

  It is amazing what you’ll tell someone sitting in a police cruiser with a thermos of coffee between you. The compartment of a car is a closed space when you think about it. It is, perhaps, being able to look out the window that provides a sense of freedom and the willingness to open up and tell. I told Rey the trashiest parts of my existence last night and I can’t believe how good I feel this morning.

  I told him that just shy of my thirteenth birthday, my life went in a new and dismal direction. I have my father to thank for that. He came into my bedroom one night after I had put Robin to bed. He came to my bed and I could smell the alcohol on his breath. I thought he had stumbled into the wrong room by mistake.

  My room. By mistake. I learned quickly that it wasn’t a mistake. He came often. When he was there I could do nothing but wait until it was over. I might be on my bed, the floor, or wherever he’d trap me. Then I’d stare at the ceiling and wait.

  Wait. Wait. Wait.

  I waited with desperation and fear. With hope and with prayer that he’d finish quickly and leave.

  I told Rey that it was in that darkness, as I waited for the connection to be broken, that my faith faded to gray and then to … nothingness. I used to always pray he would stop coming in my room, but he always came. I prayed he wouldn’t hurt me, but I always felt the pain. I prayed it wouldn’t last long. But when he entered my room, time had a way of stretching out like taffy.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Rey said to me. “Robin never said.”

  I nodded knowingly and told him, “She wouldn’t. It was our secret. We promised each other to never reveal it. Todd knows because Robin wanted to be open and honest with him.”

  Rey talked of his own beautiful daughters. They were innocent and pure, still in the simple and fragile stages of their young, tender lives. Like April, I told him.

  “Did your father abuse Robin, too?” he asked me.

  I was quiet for a time, thinking.

  “No,” I said simply. And still can’t believe I told him why.

  I did not want Robin to go through what I had to. I did the only thing I knew would keep him away from her. When I told Rey that I had everything in just the right places, his face clouded in confusion, then flushed when I told him that I began to prostitute myself. I felt as trashy and cheap as I was certain a prostitute did. I told Rey I bought clothes that showed every contour of my young shapely body.

  “But I only wore them in front of him,” I told Rey. Then I had to look away.

  I felt odd, almost ashamed, saying that. Even after all these years, it seemed I spoke in a tone to Rey that suggested I had to defend what I’d done so many years ago. But it worked. My father never had the same desire or interest in Robin. I made it too easy for him. Rey shook his head when I told him that I was fourteen when I took my first drink. And the older I got, the more I drank. I felt so small against the car seat, diminished by our conversation. I can still see the look on Rey’s face. He probably thought that I felt as empty as I looked.

  “It’s therapeutic to talk, you know,” he told me.

  I scoffed at his remark, then nodded. My chin protruded slightly, the way it does sometime
s and I can’t seem to help it, as though I know someone is talking nonsense to me. And I can still see him now lifting that container of bottled water off the seat beside him and handing it to me to hold.

  “Now imagine that dirt and grime has settled at the bottom of this bottle of water,” he said to me, his face soft, his eyes burning holes into me. “If you were to shake it, the debris would filter throughout the water.”

  “So?” I said.

  “That’s what happens when you experience a significant loss in your life. Everything you’ve suppressed, everything you’ve buried, comes right to the surface when your vulnerability and your emotional levels are highest. And if you don’t deal with it, eventually the dirt settles again and you continue until the next crisis. It’s really not a very good way to live, Sam.”

  What he said was true and I turned away and looked out the window into the darkness, too embarrassed for him to see my face. I’ve been living like that for years it seems.

  It seemed to take all my strength when I told him, “I’m just grateful to have someone to talk to. It’s been such a long time.”

  Rey put his hand lightly on my shoulder. I believe he cares.

  “When my father started coming into my room, I promised myself to get us out of there as soon as I could. I wanted to be as far away from him as I possibly could.”

  “He made it easy for you, didn’t he,” Rey said.

  “That he died one night after he drank himself into a stupor? It was the best thing that ever happened to Robin and me.”

  I stopped talking and looked at him. “I sound horrible talking like that, don’t I?”

  He shook his head. I saw that his eyes were soft and sympathetic. I wondered if that look would also be one he’d give his own daughters someday, when they were old enough for heart to heart talks.

  “No, you don’t. I doubt I could’ve survived half as long,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything for what seemed a long time, but I’ve wondered since if I really did survive and the person walking around inside me isn’t really someone else.

  I don’t know who I am half the time.

  Rey told me it wasn’t my fault.

  I nodded and said, “I know it wasn’t, and I keep telling myself that. Maybe that’s why I drink sometimes to take the edge off. You know, blur things a bit. But sometimes seems to be a lot lately and it’s hurting me. Not physically, but in other ways.”

  He asked me how.

  My heart sank when I told him I had missed April’s Christmas play. She was a little Christmas tree. I made her costume. But I arrived too late to see the play. And I didn’t pick her up Christmas Eve. I went to see her the other night and when she saw me, she ran from me upstairs to her room and slammed the door.

  For what seemed a very long time, silence hung between us until Rey whispered that his faith had never been tested like mine.

  I laughed when I told him that if I’ve been tested, then I’ve failed miserably.

  “You haven’t failed, Sam, you’re still learning, just like the rest of us.”

  I looked out the window, shrugging off his words. Though our conversation had drained me, I’ve found it odd that it had also left me feeling reflective and relieved. The intimate, private details of my life played out before Rey like a home movie. I felt I had been set free.

  “No one is entirely certain what causes a person to become an alcoholic. In fact, alcoholism is a complex addiction that has only recently come under study as an illness not a moral dilemma.”

  I was still looking out the car window when I heard myself say that to him. But I’ve lost track of the times I’ve said that to myself standing in front of my own bathroom mirror.

  He nodded. “They say there are many factors that could cause a person to become an alcoholic.”

  I said, “Some scientists believe that alcoholism is primarily a biochemical phenomenon, set off by a bodily trigger that might be anything from a genetically caused nutritional deficiency, to a dysfunctional endocrine system, to the presence of alcohol-vulnerable genes.”

  He looked at me as if he knew I had read that in some textbook.

  He was right. But I didn’t feel the need to offer that I had researched alcoholism on many, many occasions, but still didn’t know a thing.

  I may not know much when it comes to addictions and I’ve certainly made my share of mistakes, but at least I know one thing is true:

  I can parallel park.

  Twenty-six

  Captain and Roy Rogers spoke softly, careful not to raise their voices. It was late and the outer offices were deserted.

  “She knows too much already. We have to stop her,” Roy Rogers said.

  “She surprised me,” Captain said. “I certainly didn’t expect such determination from a drunk and a sloppy reporter.”

  “There’s a leak,” Rogers said. “It has to be how she and Robin have been able to find out so much. We have to find that leak and seal it permanently.”

  “What about Sam?” Captain asked.

  Roy Rogers was silent a moment, considering the alternatives.

  “Warn her once,” he said finally. “Tell her to stop while she’s ahead and no one else will get hurt, including her. If she doesn’t get the message at first, remind her what happened to Robin. She’ll get the message then.”

  Captain nodded clenching the muscles in his jaw.

  It was near midnight when Captain keyed the text message and sent it to Sam’s cell phone.

  This is your only warning. Stop what you’re doing.

  Quit while you’re still ahead and alive.

  Do you want to share your sister’s fate?

  At 12:15 a.m. Sam’s cell phone chirped loudly from the nightstand by her bed, rousing her from a deep, dream-filled sleep.

  Twenty-seven

  The snow had finally stopped falling and he was relieved.

  Captain could remember a time when he found it comforting to watch snow fall. It once brought him a certain level of peace. He would often walk in it for hours as it fell softly around him.

  Tonight he found it irritating and a great distraction. Denver had been in the clutches of raw, snowy weather for the last three days. It set him on edge.

  The snowstorm had already forced the cancellation of one shipment. When he woke that morning, he immediately looked out the window. The sky was cast in a deep gray, but it hadn’t snowed more than an inch overnight. He hoped the weather would hold and the drop could be made tonight.

  He left the sedan and turned his coat collar against the biting night air. He checked his watch. Ten minutes to midnight. Before long he should hear the sound of the Cessna’s engine overhead. He stuffed his hands in his overcoat and walked a short distance along the county road, kicking randomly at small stones that protruded through the snow.

  The county road could not compare with the newly built 7,500-foot runway at the Truman County Airport, but it would do. As he walked, he saw the other sedan parked just down the road. When the time came, he would radio his signal and the headlights in both vehicles would be activated. The road made a crude runway, but it had been used before when inclement weather disrupted the county airport schedule.

  They had scouted for a place for weeks before deciding that, though precarious, County Road 676 was best suited for a makeshift landing. Captain knew the plane, a customized Cassia 206, could handle the landing. The aircraft had been customized by the drug cartel to carry up to a thousand pounds of cargo and was designed specifically for short takeoffs and landings.

  Captain knew the fairly well traveled road led to a small subdivision of homes at the county’s north end, but it was seldom used late at night.

  He liked it better, however, when the drug smugglers could land the plane on one of two runways at the county airport. It became the standard way of making drug drops after the cartel put one of the air-traffic controllers on its payroll.

  The unrelenting snow had thrown everything off schedule, inclu
ding flight operations at the Truman County Airport. The drug smugglers weren’t pleased when Captain called and said to use the county road to unload the shipment.

  It was just after midnight when he returned to his sedan. When he slid into the warm car, Robin flashed into his mind. It was the look in her eyes in those final moments that he remembered as he tried to blow warmth into his hands. He had always known Robin to be calm and collected. But not Christmas Eve. She looked as if she knew what was about to happen. He had betrayed her and fear radiated from her eyes.

  He tried desperately to push his thoughts away. He was unsuccessful usually, as he was tonight. She had a determined way of positioning, then planting herself deep in the recesses of his mind. He gave in. He had learned to let these thoughts nag at him until they eventually subsided of their own free will.

  Robin had been on his mind all day, perhaps because the drop had been planned for tonight. She had told him Christmas Eve that she knew County Road 676 was just one of several methods they had employed to bring drugs into the city. He remembered he wanted to hit her then.

  He forgot Robin momentarily when his radio crackled. It was the Cessna pilot. They would be landing within minutes. He signaled the other driver and in unison they turned on their headlights. He felt relieved when he didn’t see snow falling in their beams.

  Captain wanted to finish the drop quickly and get the plane back en route. He rolled down his window, looked to the sky and listened. The night air was still and, for a brief moment, he heard nothing but the sound of his own heart beating.

  The plane’s engines were faint, but grew louder as it approached the vehicles. He watched as the Cessna flew directly over his car and touched down inches from him, easily, smoothly and efficiently.

  The Cessna taxied to a stop. The two sedans drove and stopped within inches of the aircraft. The men left their cars to meet the plane.

  There was no preamble. The men met and made brief eye contact. They started to unload the shipment, black-tar heroin packaged neatly in bundles. The men worked quickly to load the drugs into the trunks of the cars. Their breathing became labored and the steam from their breath drifted quickly and frequently into the crisp air.