Money Creek

by Anne Laughlin

  Clare knew the amount was cutting things close, but she had a reprieve. “Thanks. But I’ll pay for them. I don’t want to owe you anything.”

  “Do you have a hard time letting people be nice to you?” He looked as if he really cared whether she did or not.

  “Is this more of the therapy you seem to want to give me?”

  Henry laughed. “I find people interesting and you’re an interesting puzzle. What else do you want?”

  “As I said, any depressant you have in stock. Valium or any benzo, Vicodin,” Clare said, looking at him hopefully.

  “I understand. You need something to take the edge off the speed. This isn’t a town that’s big on Valium use. There’s not that much anxiety in Money Creek. But I can look into it for you. I never have had any Vicodin, but the oxy is usually available.” He finished his beer and stood from the table. “Let me go look and I’ll let you know what I have.”

  Relief flooded her. Now she could start to moderate her intake without having to go cold turkey. She drank her beer and enjoyed it. Henry came back into the kitchen and put a plastic bag of pills on the table.

  “Ten Adderall and twenty oxy. Will that hold you until we get more in?”

  Clare raised her eyes from the bag. “It depends on when that is.”

  “I can’t be certain, but it’s supposed to be Wednesday of next week.”

  That was six days away, which should be fine. Henry watched her.

  “I have some meth if you want to have something more to tide you over,” he said.

  She raised her hand as if she were pushing the meth away. “No, I don’t do meth.”

  “Wise woman.” He looked down at the bag. “That’ll be one fifty.”

  She reached into her backpack and pulled out her wallet. The cost was about half of what she’d pay in Chicago. Maybe her current salary would cover her drugs. She paid him and stood to put her jacket on. “Thank you, Henry. You’ve really helped me. What’s the best way to get in touch with you next week?”

  “Grab your phone and I’ll send you my cell number. You can call me, but never say anything specific on the phone. You’re smart enough to remember that.”

  He saw her out the door and Clare took a deep breath of the cold air. The walk to her car was refreshing. The terrible stress of where to find a regular supply was lifted like a yoke off an ox. Henry was patronizing and judgmental, but he was a source. That was all that mattered.

  Chapter Seven

  Freya and Ben walked into their tiny office following a brief meeting with the sheriff to bring him up to speed on their investigation. She knew that working with local law enforcement was often confrontational, the fight for jurisdiction seeming to be a matter of honor rather than anything having to do with effective investigations. But the sheriff, Mark Phillips, welcomed the help in trying to control drug activity in his county. He was young, college educated, and knew the limits of his department. He vowed to assist the state police in their operations. In return, they made the sheriff an official part of their task force on drugs. It was all working out well.

  Ben leaned back in his chair and pushed the door to their office closed. Freya drank her coffee. He pulled a pad of paper in front of him and looked at her.

  “We’ve got the phone conference with the lieutenant at three. We need to figure out what and how to report to him.”

  “We report everything. Don’t we?” she said.

  He leaned toward her. “I’m not looking forward to telling him the undercover operation was blown.”

  She shrugged. “It happened. We have to tell him.” She unwrapped a cherry Danish and took a huge bite.

  “I know. I was wondering if there was any spin we could put on it.”

  She looked at him curiously while she finished chewing. “Here’s the spin—both our man Jason and Morgan had good intel. Real information that changes everything. We’re much closer to identifying those who are running drug distribution in the area than we were before.”

  During their interrogation the night before, Morgan said he’d been approached by a man who told him he was now going to sell exclusively to a group of businessmen. He had to conform his lab to their standards and the man had given him supplies, ingredients, and a day’s training on how to cook meth and maintain a laboratory. All he knew about the man was he arrived once a week to pick up product. Morgan’s other buyers were pissed he’d stopped selling to them.

  “You’re right,” Ben said. We knew there were several major players in the area, but a cartel? Are we in Columbia?”

  “Cartel might be too big a word for what’s going on here. One thing it will do for us is clear out the small meth labs all over the place. They want a monopoly on production. That’ll leave us with clearer targets.” She took another bite of the Danish.

  “If we can identify the members, that is,” Ben said. “I’m worried the level of violence will go way up. Look how scared Morgan was when we interviewed him. He was terrified.”

  “He was. He has more information to give us. I’m supposed to talk to the state’s attorney at eleven thirty to see if we can offer him a deal. Maybe that’ll help his recollection.”

  Ben opened the door. The little office had quickly become stuffy and overheated. “Why don’t you take lead on the phone call this afternoon?”

  She was surprised. Usually Ben liked to be the face of the task force whenever possible. “Why?”

  “You sound more optimistic than I do.”

  She settled in to make notes for the conference call. She saw that Ben was alarmed at the idea of taking down a big organization. She should be too. They could call in the DEA and give the case away, but the challenge was too alluring. She tried not to think about the fact that even if they did take down the organization, it would only briefly interrupt drug sales in the surrounding rural counties. Meth labs would spring up like dandelions and they’d soon be back to where they were now. If she thought about that, she’d not be able to go to work every morning. She could have been a lawyer. She took all the pre-law courses in college and her LSAT scores were good. But the promise of action drew her to law enforcement. She hadn’t anticipated how frustrating it would be.

  At eleven thirty, she walked to the nearby courthouse. There were entrances to the building on all four sides, each leading to the rotunda inside. Two of the entrances were closed off and the other two had sheriff’s deputies manning security posts. She breezed by the guard and into the rotunda, up the grand staircase to the second floor where the state’s attorney was.

  Don Golubivic’s office was at the end of the hallway that ran behind the large reception room. On her way there she passed a couple of offices occupied by assistant state’s attorneys. One of them was Lorell Stoker, who was the first stop Freya should have made. She bypassed Lorell to get to Don who was the top dog. She wanted to get a quick decision on what they could offer their witness to induce him to give up more. She knocked on his closed office door and went in. Don sat at a desk overrun with files and boxes and he looked a little harassed when he glanced up at her. He was middle-aged and gaunt, his love of running having turned into a bad habit.

  “Freya Saucedo. What a great way to start the week,” he said. Surprisingly, he seemed to really mean it.

  “Thanks. You may not think so after I tell you why I’m here.”

  He gestured her to the chair in front of the desk. “Let me hear it.” He took a drink from his ISU coffee mug.

  “We talked to the guy we busted at the meth lab last night. He’s tipped us to the fact he sells his product exclusively to one buyer and he’s heard that buyer is part of a larger organization. I think our drug problem is a lot bigger than we thought.”

  He placed the tips of his fingers together and nodded, like a priest handing out a benediction. “You want a deal? Isn’t it a bit soon to offer one?”

  “We need names and Morgan isn’t motivated enough to give them to us. I’m asking that you drop all charges in exchange for his g
iving us those names.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “I’m fine with that. Another dude in prison doesn’t advance our game much. I’ll tell Lorell to expect your call.”

  Freya walked out before he could change his mind. He hadn’t seemed particularly concerned about the amount of drug trade in his jurisdiction, probably because he was moving on soon to private practice. Twenty minutes later, she and Ben were in the interview room with Morgan. He looked rough after his night in jail, but not much worse than he looked the night before. He was clearly a prime consumer of his own product. His thin face made his brown eyes appear to bug out and the skin was peppered with acne. His stringy hair was combed straight back from his forehead and fell in greasy clumps to his shoulders. He was with his court appointed lawyer after having been arraigned earlier in the day.

  “My client wants a deal,” David Ricketts said. He sounded unenthusiastic, like a government clerk in his fortieth year of service, though he appeared to be under thirty years old.

  “I’m sure he wants a deal,” Freya said. “With two previous tags, he’ll be making a return trip to Pontiac.”

  “My client is in fear for his life. In exchange for the extent of what he knows, we want the charges dropped and entry into a witness protection program.”

  “Let me see what the DA’s office says,” Freya said. They stepped out in the hall.

  “You’ve got the okay to drop the charges, but it’s a no-go on witness protection. This is Timson County, not the FBI,” Ben said.

  “I suppose we could see if the state would provide witness protection.”

  “Forget it. I don’t want to use up our resources on this guy. Let him run if he’s scared he’s going to get killed.”

  “You’re all heart, Ben. Let’s hear what he says before saying no.”

  He turned quickly to re-enter the interview room, a quick flash of annoyance on his face. He never liked it when they disagreed. They settled into their chairs facing Morgan and his lawyer.

  “If your client has quality information, we have authorization to drop all charges,” Ben said.

  “And the witness protection?”

  Freya pulled her notebook out and picked up a pen. “That all depends on how helpful he is.”

  “I’m not saying anything until I get protection,” Morgan said. A front tooth was missing, making his words slightly sibilant.

  “Fine. Then you’re right back to the manufacturing charge.”

  There was a silence as Morgan considered his options. If he betrayed his customer, he’d be a sitting duck for retribution once he was in prison.

  “Fuck it,” he said. “I hardly know anything.”

  “Give me the name of the person you sell your product to,” Ben said.

  “He goes by Stingy.”

  “His real name.”

  “The fuck if I know. I know him as Stingy. He buys anything I make and pays me a bonus for not selling to anyone else.”

  “And do you sell to anyone else?”

  “Hell no. He made it pretty clear he has the muscle to mess me up if they find me selling elsewhere.”

  “What did Stingy say, exactly,” Freya said. “Who’s the muscle?”

  Morgan shifted in his seat and looked at his attorney, who nodded for him to continue. “All I know is there’s three different guys. Stingy said they have a big organization and plenty of ways to keep everyone in line. And that’s it, man.”

  “What are the names of these three men?”

  “You think they’re going to let someone like me know that?”

  “How do you get hold of Stingy?”

  “I don’t. He calls me every Monday and says he’ll pick up product on Thursday. I mean, I don’t sell to him every week. Sometimes they don’t need it, and sometimes my batches don’t come out too good.”

  “I can only imagine,” Freya said. They drilled him with more questions until satisfied he had no more to tell. She looked at Ricketts, who appeared half asleep. “We’ll drop the charges against your client.”

  “Right on,” Morgan said.

  “But no witness protection. There’s nothing holding you here. If you’re truly afraid of reprisals, I’d suggest you leave town.” She pushed back from the table and led the way out the door.

  They left the jail to return to their office. “That’s good intel. Now we know the scope of the organization,” he said.

  “Now all we have to do is find Stingy.”

  He popped a stick of cinnamon gum in his mouth. “Piece of cake.”

  * * *

  Clare and Elizabeth went through the rear door of the office into the firm’s parking lot. Elizabeth unlocked her Lexus GS with her fob and Clare got in. She glanced around the other cars in the lot—two SUVs, an Audi, and a Mercedes E 300. It seemed the lawyers of Nelson & Nelson spent their money the same as city lawyers did. She wondered if the other associates were as laden with student debt as she was. Between student loan payments, rent, and her drug supply, a used Subaru was a stretch.

  Elizabeth pulled out of the lot and headed to the Peterson Agricultural property where the methane lagoon swallowed up Mr. Oleg. She drove west onto Woodlawn Avenue, the commercial strip in town where everyone did their shopping. As the county seat, Money Creek drew shoppers from the large surrounding rural area, which rated them a Target in addition to a Walmart. Elizabeth pulled up at a light in front of a huge Kroger grocery store.

  “Have you gotten familiar with the town yet?” Elizabeth said, glancing at Clare. She was relaxed at the wheel, the sunglasses she’d slipped on giving her a flashy, out-of-the-office look she hadn’t seen before.

  “I’m comfortable along this strip, but still get confused in the streets around downtown.”

  “It’ll be back of your hand before you know it. There isn’t much to remember once you get the hang of it.” Elizabeth accelerated onto the interstate and drove south. “The farm is about a twenty-minute drive, so why don’t you tell me where you’re at in the document production.”

  Clare shifted in her seat. She was completely on top of things—up to speed on the case file and comfortably in charge of the documents.

  “Jo and I are working our way through. I’m sifting through correspondence and she’s looking for any prior incidents with the faulty gate.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “That would kick up the punitive damages about threefold. Keep your eyes peeled.”

  She usually found it irritating when bosses told you to do the very thing you just said you’re doing, as if they’d thought up the idea. But she was inclined to like Elizabeth and gave her the benefit of the doubt. She was about as opposite of Carlton Henning as was possible.

  “How is it going with Jo?” Elizabeth asked. “Is she helping you? Giving you attitude? She has a perfectly nice side to her, but can be a little prickly.”

  “She seems completely neutral—neither friendly nor unfriendly. She knows what she’s doing, so she’s a big help. We should be done by next week.” So far, Jo had remained aloof around Clare and kept their talk strictly to business, which was fine with her.

  She looked out the window as the car sped silently along the highway. Everywhere she looked were empty fields, waiting for the spring planting of corn and soybeans. It seemed endless. She thought about living in an area whose whole purpose was to feed the country and in many ways was more profoundly important than anywhere else. She found her attitude adjusting from judging the area as unsophisticated to appreciating the perfect function it served.

  Elizabeth exited the interstate and drove for another ten minutes along rural roads. She stuck to talking about the trial preparation for the case, not interested in grilling Clare about her personal life, which was no small blessing. She pulled into a gravel lot that fronted a squat brick building. It was nearly surrounded by more empty fields as far as she could see. Inside the building was a front room with two desks and a dozen file cabinets. They could hear what sounded like a large machine running behind the room. A m
an sat at one of the desks.

  “Hey, Mrs. Nelson,” he said, getting to his feet. He was around retirement age, dressed in jeans with suspenders. “I didn’t expect to see you today.”

  “I’m here to show the lagoon to my new associate, Charlie. You don’t have to come with.” Elizabeth said the last with some emphasis.

  “Whatever you say,” he said, sinking back into his chair. He turned to the papers on his desk as Elizabeth and Clare walked out of the building toward the lagoon in back. Clare had a hard time taking in what she was seeing. There were about three acres holding an octagonal shaped pond covered by a tarp. Pipelines ran both vertically and horizontally through the lagoon, leading toward an enormous tank that then led to the rear part of the brick building. A cement ledge ran around the pond’s circumference with a metal railing acting as a safety fence. She expected to be overpowered by the smell of animal waste, but it was minimal.

  “I don’t understand,” Clare said. “How did Oleg die falling into a tarp?”

  “After the accident they decided to finally spend the money on covering the lagoon, as most of the larger farms had already done. This was wide open when Oleg fell in and the gate’s been since removed. He fell face first and died before anyone got to him.”

  “Seems to me putting the tarp on is acknowledgement of the previous danger,” Clare said. She gingerly followed Elizabeth up a short ladder to the four-foot-wide ledge. Tarp or not, she didn’t want to fall in.

  “We’re hoping a jury will find they didn’t know of the danger at the time.” They stared at the huge lagoon for a few moments. Elizabeth looked at her. “Do you understand more how the accident happened?”

  “This helps a lot. Was anyone in the building when he fell in?”

  “Charlie was working that day. He called for an ambulance when the other man ran into the building to let him know what happened and went into the lagoon to save Oleg, but it was too late.”

  They walked to Elizabeth’s car and started the drive back.

  “Are you looking forward to the party tomorrow night?” Elizabeth said.