Normally, Evan did the work of processing the drugs into individual units. Ounces of pot, grams of cocaine, small quantities of pills, but Evan was in St. Louis visiting friends. Henry didn’t mind doing it. He was restless and the work calmed him. He popped one of the Valium Clare was so fond of. Maybe it would mellow him out, because he was nearly twitching with worry.
When Stingy delivered the drugs that morning, Henry had asked about Morgan. Stingy fell into a chair as if he’d just carried a mule up a mountain. He was ridiculously fat and out of shape.
“You haven’t heard?”
Henry’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“He’s gone, man.”
“Gone as in he’s left town?”
“Gone as in dead. I guess your associates didn’t want to take any chances he would testify.”
A clamp squeezed his heart. He was the one who’d floated the idea of killing Morgan. Was this what an executioner felt like? He wasn’t as relieved as he thought he’d be to have the threat neutralized.
“No,” Henry said. “I hadn’t heard.”
Stingy got up and handed several ziplock bags to him. “Try to relax, Henry. Now’s the time to be cool. This is a business and businesses have problems all the time.”
Henry led him to the door. “Thanks for dropping these off.”
He locked the door, closed the blinds, and got started on processing the delivery. As he finished up the sorting and packaging, his phone rang. He saw it was his mother calling and reluctantly picked up. She always seemed to know when something was wrong with him.
“Hi, Mom.” He tried to sound cheery.
“Hello, sweetheart. What’s new?”
His mother regularly made these check-in calls, ostensibly to say hello, but Henry knew she was really trying to keep tabs on what he was up to. Ever since the incident at Princeton, she hadn’t seemed to trust him. He was constantly under the microscope. There were things that happened at Princeton other than the drug dealing that his parents didn’t know about. Like the time he was called before the student body board for what they called the relentless bullying of a sophomore named Brandon Montgomery. He was a rich little prick who’d purposefully humiliated Henry by leaving a party with the girl Henry brought. He was teased about it the next day when his club met, and then he set his sights on Montgomery. Henry physically intimidated him, slashed the tires of his Audi, accused him of cheating in a math class, and turned as many people against him as possible. The board issued him a warning and that proved the end of it. Montgomery transferred to Dartmouth halfway through the school year. It was no big deal, but he was glad his parents hadn’t heard about it.
“Nothing’s new. I’m getting ready for midterms.”
“How’s that going?” His mother’s tone was light.
“Same as last time you asked. It’s going fine.”
“I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself. I’m only making conversation.”
Even if she was too much in his business, he knew she did it out of love. She’d never made Henry feel anything but loved.
“Listen, I’m having a small dinner party I want you to come to,” she said.
“Oh?”
“Sunday supper. If you come at five, we’ll serve at six.”
“Who all is coming?”
“You’re the first I’ve invited. I was thinking of asking Clare and Freya Saucedo and her partner.”
“You mean Jo from your office?”
“That’s over already. She was moping around the office today and told me they’d broken up. I meant Freya’s detective partner, Ben.”
Great. Dinner with the drug task force. But Clare would be there so there was no question about going. “I’ll be there.”
“Wonderful. I hope Clare can make it. I think she’s been lonely since moving to town.”
He’d love to make her feel less lonely, if only he could find a way through to her that didn’t involve blackmail.
* * *
Clare was the first into the office again, a few hours short on sleep but anxious to continue work on the outline she was preparing for her brief. Freya was equally on her mind. She was like a kid waiting to open Christmas presents. She knew something good was going to happen and she was alive with the possibilities. The attraction was now impossible to deny, and she didn’t want to.
Elizabeth poked her head in the door. “How was your meeting with your new client?”
Clare kept her voice casual. “Great. I got a ten-thousand-dollar retainer from him. I gave it to Donna to deposit.”
“Good work. Did he agree to have Hank handle the transactions?”
“I’m afraid he insists it be me.” It was painful to mislead Elizabeth.
“How did you say you came to meet this man?”
She hadn’t said. And now she had to make something up. “I don’t know what this says about me, but I met him in a bar. We got to talking.”
“And his name again?”
“Ray Barnes.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “No. Don’t know him. It seems odd he’s putting so much faith in you after a barroom conversation. You must have really impressed him.”
Clare smiled. “What can I say. I know how to work a tavern.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Ask Hank any questions you may have. Having malpractice insurance doesn’t mean we want to use it.”
She continued down the hall and Clare breathed out. She had a way of partially holding her breath and talking from the top of her chest. An observant person would know Clare was anxious, but Elizabeth didn’t seem to be one of them. She went back to her outline and worked until eleven, when she thought it was late enough to call Henry. Her speed supply was perilously low, and she hadn’t heard any more from him on when he was going to get more. She didn’t want to wait for the party with Ray and Bobby if she didn’t have to. She closed her office door and dialed his cell number.
“This is Evan.”
Clare looked at her phone. “Why are you answering Henry’s phone?”
“Who is this?”
“I think you know. It’s Clare Lehane.”
“Clare! Good to hear from you. I’m watching Henry’s phone for a little bit.”
“You are at his beck and call, aren’t you?”
“I live to serve.” His tone was not ironic. “Henry won’t be back for another couple of hours.”
“He leaves the house without his phone? How’s that even possible?”
“Well, the truth is he’s still sleeping. Don’t tell him I told you that.”
“How could that matter?”
She could hear him sigh. “Henry doesn’t like me to say anything about him to anyone.”
She decided not to tease him. The only thing she was interested in was the speed. “Did he say anything to you about a shipment of speed coming in?”
“That’s a negative. And I have a ton of students breathing down my neck.”
“Shit. Would you make sure I get a cut before it all goes to them?”
“I’ll do my best, Clare.”
“You don’t need to tell Henry I called.” She hung up. The situation was becoming serious. If he didn’t get anything by Saturday she would be completely out. She pulled out the apple she’d brought for her lunch and forced it down. She had no appetite. Her stomach was sour with stress.
When she got home from work that evening she wanted to watch bad TV and not think. She settled into her couch after dinner and brought Netflix up on her screen. Her phone pinged and there was a text from Henry.
Heard you called. No shipment yet. Party on Saturday at my country house. You’ll want to come to it, trust me. Four o’clock. Henry.
No, she didn’t want to go to the party. Henry didn’t know that Ray had already commanded her attendance. If she quit drugs she would be free of them, but could she do it? The thought terrified her. She didn’t have the strength to get through the physical discomfort, let alone the raw feelings that would emerge. She would need to taper
the Valium. She’d never once progressively taken less of a drug rather than more. If being coerced by a gang of drug dealers wasn’t motivation enough to quit, she didn’t know what would be. She no longer denied she was a drug addict. But that seemed as far as she could go.
Chapter Nineteen
“We picked up a DUI last night you might be interested in,” Sheriff Phillips said.
Freya and Ben were in their office, brainstorming ways to find Stingy. Without him they couldn’t move forward in their investigation. It was clear that control of the drug traffic was concentrating on manufacturers funneling through a single buyer, Stingy.
“Why’s that, Sheriff?” Ben said. The sheriff was standing at the door of their small office. He seemed to fill the entire space.
“We picked him up on Woodlawn, weaving through traffic and running a red light. The guy’s name is Drew Lee.”
They looked at him blankly.
“We ran the name, of course. He has a sheet, mostly for drug possession with intent to sell. I think it’s your man. At least the artist sketch looks like him.”
Freya nearly spewed her coffee. “You have Stingy in custody?” She was incredulous.
“Yeah. His arraignment is this morning. If you want to talk to him I’d do it now. Chances are he’ll be released on bail for the DUI.”
“Holy shit,” Ben said. “How can we be this lucky?”
“Not lucky, but let’s not blow this. We need to bring Morgan or Dunning to pick him out of a lineup. Dunning can leave the hospital for it. I want to make sure we’re talking to the real Stingy.”
She picked up the phone to have a panel assembled, which was going to take some time. Timson County Jail was not brimming with bodies to populate a lineup. It was early afternoon before Dunning looked at the lineup and reluctantly identified Stingy as the man he sold his drugs to. The deputies couldn’t find Morgan.
They waited in the interview room for Stingy. When he arrived, the deputy plunked him down in a chair and handcuffed him to the table. Stingy looked indignant.
“I’m here on a drunk driving charge, not murder one. Can we get rid of the handcuffs?”
Freya looked at Stingy and then up at the deputy. “You can let him loose. We’ll be fine.”
The deputy looked doubtful but did as he was told. Stingy immediately crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Ben and Freya. He was a chubby man with thick, soft forearms, a double chin, and white teeth gleaming through his sardonic smile. He wasn’t a user of his product from the looks of it, but he was a bit rough from his night in jail. “What’s this about?”
“You go by the name of Stingy, correct?” asked Freya.
“That’s what you’ve been told, apparently. I’ve never answered to the name.” He was relaxed, as if it was Freya who had the problem, not him.
“This is going to go more smoothly for you if you tell the truth. You were picked out of a lineup.”
He continued to stare but said nothing.
Ben leaned toward him. “You’re a person of interest in an investigation of ours. If you cooperate, we can probably make this DUI disappear.”
“You haven’t asked me a question yet.”
Ben jumped the gun with that offer. Now they looked more desperate for his cooperation. Freya sounded casual as she looked at Stingy. “Our witness, who identified you in the lineup, says he sells meth exclusively to you.”
“And who might that be?”
“We’ll keep that name to ourselves. Who do you work for?”
Stingy looked insulted again. “You’re saying I sell meth? Please.”
“What is it you do for work?” Ben said.
Stingy hesitated for the first time. “I have some family money. I’m between careers at the moment.”
“You know how easy that is to check, don’t you? Freya said. “What work did you do, then?”
“I was a manager at the AutoZone. I quit a few months ago.”
“I believe that following your career with AutoZone you signed up with some meth manufacturers to be their middleman. That would be a lot more lucrative a career, wouldn’t it?”
Stingy looked relaxed. “Undoubtedly. But I wouldn’t know. As I said, I don’t have any work at the moment and I don’t know anything about meth manufacturers”
“We’ve looked at your sheet, Stingy. There’re several arrests for possession of fairly substantial quantities of drugs.” Freya said.
“Yes, but what kind of drugs? Marijuana is a far cry from meth.”
“But you would have had contact with someone who sold you the pot,” Ben said.
“True. But it was a long time ago.”
“From your sheet it looks like your last arrest was two years ago and your probation ended a few months ago.”
“Two years is forever in that business. I’m sure I don’t know anyone who’s out there now.”
They spent the next half hour asking the same question in a variety of ways, and still Stingy would not admit to any association with drug dealing, despite being identified by a witness. An unreliable witness. He didn’t ask to lawyer up. They decided not to charge him at the time. He would have to stay in the area to deal with the drunk driving charge. They returned to their office.
“That got us nothing,” Ben said.
“One of us needs to get over to court to see what happens at his arraignment. The other should be ready to tail him when he leaves. We have an address for his current residence, but I don’t think that’s the first place he’ll go.”
“I’ll take the car,” Ben said.
Of course, Ben would take the fun part. Freya didn’t argue and walked over to the courthouse. She couldn’t hope to run into Clare because she knew she was downstate taking depositions. She’d been thinking about her a lot. There wasn’t any other interpretation for how things were on Monday night at Abe’s. They were flirting, they were getting to know each other on a deeper level, they were moving in one direction. It appeared Jo was right about Clare—whether she knew it or not, she was into women. Freya wasn’t in the business of converting straight women, but she couldn’t turn away from the energy between the two of them. It was as tangible as the gun on her belt.
When Stingy was released on bail, Freya called Ben to give him the heads up and returned to the office to ask the sheriff for a surveillance team. She could only hope he might lead them to a meeting with his employers.
“I was just going to call you,” Sheriff Phillips said when she entered his office.
“Oh, yeah? What’s up?”
“Some kids snowmobiling outside of town found a body. The first deputy on the scene recognized him. It was that Morgan fellow you picked up.”
Freya sank into a chair. “We knew it could happen, but I didn’t think it really would. How’d they find him?”
“Said they were taking a rest on the trail out at the state park. The body was lying right off the trail, uncovered.”
“Whoever did it wanted the body to be found.”
“Looks that way,” the sheriff said. “They’re taking it to the medical examiner now. The deputy said he’d been shot once in the chest and once in the face.”
“The shooter was sending a message—this is what happens if you talk to the cops. It’s got to be the drug cartel.”
“I’d say so.” He leaned back in his chair. “We’re not used to any kind of murder here, let alone one involving drug cartels.”
“This tells us a lot about what we’re up against. We’ve got Dunning in lockup, which is fortunate for him. I don’t like his chances once he gets into the prison system.”
The sheriff gave her a rotation of deputies to keep an eye on Stingy, who might also be under threat. Freya left to contemplate the radically changed landscape of her investigation. Things had become darker, more urgent. She called her boss to request more people, but he couldn’t pull anyone off any of the other local task forces. That left her Ben, Sheriff Phillips, and his deputies. It would have to do.
<
br /> * * *
Thomas stepped into Clare’s office for their meeting on the Peterson summary judgement motion. She’d given him the task of assembling all the current evidence and writing it up in a memorandum. She concentrated on the legal issues but had overall responsibility for both projects. She’d been working long hours to get everything done by Elizabeth’s deadline, but lost precious time when she spent the entire day in Carbondale taking the rest of the depositions at the lagoon company, which had corroborated what John Lyons had testified to. Now she was eager to get back to the brief.
He handed her an outline of the memorandum and she read it thoroughly while he sat there.
“Has your name come up yet in the pro bono wheel of fortune?” he said.
She looked up. “What are you talking about?”
“The county can’t afford staff defense attorneys so they tag all of us in turn to represent the pro bono cases.”
“Great. I hope my name doesn’t come up in the next two weeks.”
“It’ll happen soon, I’m sure. I caught one yesterday and it was kind of interesting. This guy got picked up Tuesday night on a DUI and it turns out he’s a person of interest in that drug investigation Freya and Ben are conducting.”
That got her attention. “Did he give anything up?”
“I wasn’t with him for the initial interview, but he told me later he didn’t know anything about what they were asking him. I saw him through the DUI arraignment, and they cut him loose.”
She’d have to ask Henry who this man was. If he knew anything that could bust Henry and the others it would be bad news for her. There wouldn’t be any other drug connections she could hope to make.
“Did you talk to Freya about it?”
“There’s nothing I could say to Freya and she’s not likely to tell me what they plan to do with Stingy.”
“Stingy?”
“It’s his stage name.”
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