ON The Rocks (An Ozzie Novak Thriller, Book 3) (Redemption Thriller Series 15)

by John W. Mefford

  We saw more than that earlier, at least in the glimpse Captain Prick had shown us.

  Brook held up her phone and scrolled for a few seconds. Then she asked her next question with the nonchalance of a person ordering deli meat at a grocery. “And what’s the big event you’re getting ready for?”

  That seemed to fluster Deborah. “I just like looking nice, you know, for my husband.”

  “And when do you expect him to get home?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe six or so.”

  “So he doesn’t come home for lunch?”

  “Never. He’s way too busy for that.”

  “So you’re getting yourself all ready for a big event—which you said was your husband coming home from work—which is about eight hours from now. Did I hear that correctly?”

  Deborah’s neck and ears started turning red. “I think I’m ready for you to leave now.” She walked—more like a fast saunter—over to the door.

  “Just a couple of follow-up questions.”

  Just then, the sound of a siren whooped throughout the house. A light near the hallway started flashing red.

  “Crap,” Deborah uttered. She broke into a jog and headed for a hallway.

  “Is there something wrong, Mrs. Dixon?”

  “It’s nothing,” she yelled out, cutting to the right, down the hallway.

  Already impatient with the way this interrogation was going, I took off after her.

  Brook was on my heels. “Ozzie, we…uh, I don’t have a warrant.”

  “I’m looking for a bathroom. Gotta go. Bad.”

  I took the same right down the hall. My eyes caught a swath of flowing pink going left at the end. I moved into my new mode of running—an accelerated shuffle—and got to the end of the hallway and hooked a left. This hallway was much darker. No sign of Deborah, but there were four doors. I approached the first. The crack under the door was dark. Same under door number two. At the third door, I noticed it wasn’t closed properly. So, like any uninvited guest, I barged in.

  I said, “Hello, Tawdry Tara.”

  Deborah, hovering over a computer and video setup, flipped her head around. She grabbed a stapler from her desk and threw it at me.

  I ducked.

  “Fuck!”

  I turned to see Brook standing there, rubbing her jaw.

  I shrugged. “Oops.”

  We both looked at Deborah and the entire setup she had in this room full of S&M gear and video cameras.

  Brook stepped forward. “How about we go sit in the living room and you can start telling us the truth about your online business and where all your money has been going?”

  40

  My hunch had played out. Billy Dixon had roped in a legitimate porn star. Brook, via the Austin Police Department’s IT Forensics Squad, had run facial recognition on Deborah and found that she was better known by millions of followers as Tawdry Tara. Captain Prick had actually verified her home website personally. Going the extra mile.

  Brook and I followed Deborah into the living room. Deborah went straight to the mantle, stuck her hand in a blue vase, and fished out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She popped the top of the pack a couple of times and then pulled out a stick and lit up. The ember flashed orange as she sucked the cigarette to life. I tried not to draw analogies to her day job, but it was inevitable.

  “Okay, Deborah. We’ve done our research, and—”

  “How did you know about my business?” She nodded toward the back and took another puff.

  “Not something you need to be concerned with. Part of the investigation.”

  Deborah dropped her head and paced across the marble hearth.

  “Like I was saying,” Brook continued, “we know about your online porn business. You’ve apparently made large sums of money. Has all of it been reported to the IRS?”

  That stopped Deborah midstride. “That’s what this is all about? Not paying fucking taxes? What if I haven’t? Whoop-dee-doo,” she said, circling her finger in the air. “Just tell me how much I owe, and I’ll write a check.”

  She sounded more confident than a UFC boxer about to step in a ring with a man who hadn’t lost a boxing match in forty-nine fights. Wait—that actually happened.

  Brook said, “I don’t collect taxes, Deborah.”

  Deborah’s eyes went to me again. This time, there was no hint of sex appeal or flirtation. I said, “I don’t either.”

  Pointing at me, she opened her mouth, as if she were finally going to question my presence, but Brook spoke up again.

  “Don’t get me wrong, not paying taxes is a serious offense. The IRS has been contacted and could very well be on their way to the house at this moment.”

  “Crap.” Deborah gritted her teeth, paced a few more steps. “This arrangement might have ended my career.”

  “Arrangement?” I asked. “Are you talking about your marriage to Billy?”

  Again, she stopped and glared. Words seemed to hang on her lips, but, instead, she took a drag on her cigarette.

  Brook eyed me, which was her way of telling me to put a lid over my mouth. Then she was back to Deborah. “What can you tell us about a company named CEALDT?”

  She kept pacing, smoking.

  “Deborah, we can keep this Q&A casual, or I can cuff you, bring you down to the station, and let you sit in a jail cell for hours on end. Do you know about the type of people who spend lots of time in jail cells? They’re not very friendly.”

  “But they probably wouldn’t mind a free show.” I couldn’t help myself.

  Daggers from both ladies again. I shrugged.

  Brook snapped her fingers. “Deborah, I’m serious. We need information. Here or the station. Your choice.”

  She dropped her hands to her side. “I can’t go to the station. I have to pick up my son this afternoon,” she said in a pleading tone.

  “Okay. Well, it’s all up to you then. Before we’re forced to call a family member to help out with your son, I need you to tell me about the transactions sending thousands of dollars to this CEALDT.”

  Deborah rested her chin on her hand. “We have a lot of investments. I’m trying to recall this particular one.” She looked off to the corner as if she were truly cranking the gears of her brain to remember the facts, or the facts as she knew them.

  “Let me help you out.” Brook swiped her phone screen a few times. “It’s a company based in Delaware.” She paused, waited for a response. Deborah kept her eyes on the corner of the room. Brook continued, reciting the company description. “...that focuses on the development of processes and procedures around the multiple layers of the governmental procurement function.”

  A dramatic nod. “Right, that one. The processes and procedures.” She waved a hand. “And that government procurement. I know that one.”

  Hopefully, she put on better performances in her natural setting. This one, however, was about as believable as Ryan Gosling playing the role of a baby goat.

  “So,” Brook said, “we’re very curious about what they do, how they operate.”

  “Okay.” Deborah began pacing again, nodding, her hands clasped behind her back. It looked like a choreographed move. “So, in the government—federal government, that is—they have a need to improve how their procurement function works. They hire CEALDT to create processes and procedures to help them improve.” She stopped and looked at us, as if she were waiting for a nod of approval.

  Brook and I both obliged, which brought out a full-blown Deborah smile. She was very proud of herself.

  “Has this been a profitable business?” Brook asked.

  Deborah momentarily squeezed her eyes shut. I could see the slightest line on her porcelain face. “Very much so.”

  “How much so?”

  “Well, I’m not into numbers that much. But the profit has been in the double digits.”

  “Is that an actual number or a percentage?”

  “Yeah, percentage.”

  Brook said, “Deborah, how i
s that possible? CEALDT is listed as a nonprofit.”

  Her eyes stayed on us, but a shadow crossed her face. She puffed on what remained of her cigarette and then snuffed it out in a potted plant on the table. Classy. “I want to call my lawyer.”

  “That’s fine. Turn around and let me cuff you.”

  “What? No, I want to call him now. From home.”

  “If you want to call your lawyer, then we’ll be forced to formalize our interrogation. Right now, we’re just chatting. You’re helping us out; we’re helping you out. You do want to see your son this afternoon, right?”

  Brook was a black belt in this game.

  “I love Jared. I can’t let anything happen to him.”

  Wasn’t sure why that was necessary to say.

  “Okay, we don’t want anything to happen to him either.” Brook was back to being the good cop. I wanted to give her a pat on the back, but I’d withhold my applause until the end.

  Brook kept jamming. “So, let’s talk more about CEALDT. What does it really do?”

  A door slammed, rattling windowpanes. A second later, Billy walked into the living room, his eyes boring holes through me. “Both of you, leave my wife alone. You need to leave the house right now.”

  “Mr. Dixon, your wife has admitted to a crime of not paying taxes related to her, uh, online business.”

  He looked at Brook. His hand started to ball into a fist, but it quickly slackened.

  “Billy, it’s okay. They’re going to find out anyway. You might as well tell them,” Deborah said.

  His eyes dropped to the floor. “CEALDT is for my sister.”

  “What?” Brook said.

  “Sara Saunders is your sister,” I said.

  He looked up at me and nodded. “She’s got a disease that is killing her. And I might be getting it too.”

  41

  Brook and I stood in stunned silence. No one moved for at least a minute, not until Deborah reached for another cigarette. Billy waved a hand at her. “That’s a disgusting habit.”

  “Screw you,” she said. “I do all the real work around here. How do you think we’ve funded this dummy corporation all these years? From your shitty paycheck? Come on, Billy. Be a real man for once, will ya?”

  So this was the made-for-TV family. Cutting each other off at the knees. But I was still trying to understand Billy’s claim of this life-threatening disease.

  “What is this disease you’re talking about?” I asked.

  Brook interjected. “First, Billy, tell me how you knew to come home?”

  He held up his phone. “I have the feed to the cameras sent to my phone.”

  “State-of-the-art setup,” Brook said.

  “It is needed. I might not be a lot of things, but I knew we had to protect our investment.” Wiping a hand across his face, he sat on the arm of a chair. “I guess it’s all over now.”

  “We came here to look into how this company was set up,” Brook said, “to see if it, if you had ties to organized crime or some type of money laundering.”

  He nodded, his eyes flat. Did that mean what Brook had said was true?

  “CEALDT. What’s its purpose, Billy?” Brook prodded.

  I really wanted to get back to the discussion of this disease Billy had mentioned. I figured it had to do with what I’d witnessed him saying on the phone—the brain swelling. But I didn’t know the details. We’d get there eventually, I assumed, although patience wasn’t my strong suit.

  He sighed and said in a soft voice, “Sara is going to be so upset with me. I’ve let her down.” He seemed to be talking to himself, as if none of us were in the room.

  We waited. Deborah then moved over to the couch and sat down. She didn’t look at Billy at all, or any of us, really. She just stared off into the distance as if waiting for a train.

  Finally, Billy said, “Corruption Exposure for the Advancement of Lyme Disease Treatment.”

  I had to replay that in my mind a couple of times. “I get the Lyme disease part, I guess, but what’s this ‘corruption exposure’ stuff you’re talking about?”

  Billy glared at me, but his eyes were as sad as they were mad. “You think you know about Lyme disease. But believe me, you don’t know shit.”

  “We’re getting off topic here,” Brook said.

  Billy smacked the cushion on the chair. “You wanted to know. I’m telling you. This is about the story of Lyme disease, specifically what’s been called, by the real experts in the field, ‘chronic Lyme disease.’”

  “What’s the difference?” I asked.

  Brook nudged my arm. Maybe she thought I was falling into his game of bait-and-switch. I wasn’t. I was genuinely interested.

  “Some people affiliated with the National Institute of Health, up until a year or two ago, wouldn’t even acknowledge that the symptoms of Lyme disease could continue, even after a four-week treatment of antibiotics. Just recently, after we pushed some money around and got rid of some board members, the NIH has altered that theory, now saying it’s ‘post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome.’ Their definition of this syndrome is when a patient has a so-called cluster of symptoms, like fatigue, aches and pains, and concentration issues. But it’s just a bunch of bullshit lies so they can avoid calling it a disease.”

  Brook and I traded a glance.

  “Does your sister have chronic Lyme disease?” I asked.

  His eyes welled up. He looked at Deborah, who wouldn’t give him the time of day. “I know I’ve done some bad things in my life, but I’ve done all of this…” he said, flapping a hand at Deborah, “for my twin sister, Sara. She endured ten surgeries…ten fucking surgeries until anyone had a clue what was going on.”

  “I’m confused. What does this internal battle at the NIH have to do with your sister being misdiagnosed?”

  “Insurance companies, state boards of health…they all take their cues from the CDC. That group of jokers is given direction by the NIH. And the NIH is heavily influenced by its precious boards. Most board members are doctors, but many others have their hands in the pockets of big insurance companies, those who would lose the most if Lyme disease was really called out for what it is: a hidden epidemic. They’d lose their shirts!” He began to weep, doing his best to wipe the tears as they flowed down his face.

  “So you started this live-chat porno business with Deborah to pay for your sister’s treatment?”

  He nodded. “Not just for Sara’s treatment, but to outthink and outmaneuver these big companies who essentially paid off these corrupt board members at the NIH. We funded nonprofit companies and ran ads about the board members who were the dirtiest. Slowly, things are changing.”

  He got up, grabbed a picture of his family from the mantle. His breathing became labored.

  “What’s up, Billy?” Brook asked.

  “My son, Jared. The real experts in this field, the true heroes, believe that Lyme can be passed along to your children.” He closed his eyes for a moment.

  “You’re afraid Jared might have it,” Brook said.

  And then I said, “And you could have it as well?”

  “Yes.”

  I shifted my sights to Deborah. Her leg was kicking, but she didn’t seem to be very emotionally invested.

  “Is your whole marriage just a scam?” I asked.

  They both nodded. “I found Deborah in Vegas. She was trying to make some money on the side. We got to talking, and we realized we could essentially go into business together and split the profits.”

  “What about Jared?”

  “We both wanted kids, but she was artificially inseminated. She never had sex with me. She refused to have sex with me, thought the whole idea was quite funny, in fact.”

  Wow.

  “But I didn’t care. I only wanted my sister to get the help she needed and to rat out those greedy bastards who refused to admit how they’re killing so many innocent people.”

  I thought more about the history of Lyme disease. I recalled the first case popping u
p sometime in the mid-1970s.

  “So, where do we go from here?” he said.

  Brook huffed out a breath and put a hand on her waist. She was definitely stressed, and I knew it was because the whole investigation had just become very funky. Where do you even begin with a series of revelations like these?

  “I’m fucked. That’s for sure,” Deborah said. “My money-maker will be shut down, and then what? Well, once we get through all the legal proceedings, I’m taking my son back to Vegas. There I can start banking again.”

  “The hell you will.” Billy jumped to his feet.

  Brook quickly moved between the pair.

  Deborah pushed off from the sofa, jabbing a finger at her husband. “You little limp-dick Leprechaun, your ass is going to jail.”

  Brook snapped at Deborah, “Back off. I’ve had enough of you, Twerky Tanya or whoever the hell you are. Maybe he can plea out of this, since his intent was in the right place.”

  She shook her head, her eyes mere slits. “He killed Stuart Benson. He’ll be going to jail for a long, long time.”

  42

  And I thought my desk was a disaster.

  I shoved a messy pile of manila folders, loose paper, and chewed-up pens to the side and propped my feet up on Brook’s desk. Brook and her charming captain were buzzing in and out of three different interview rooms, one each for Billy, Deborah, and Rosie. My stomach growled, so I fished through the drawers until I found a bag of peanuts and downed a few while I watched the circus from afar.

  Thankfully, back at the Dixon house, while Brook called in backup and arrested both Deborah and Billy, she allowed Billy to call a cousin to pick up his son. That would suffice for a night. If both parents were convicted of a felony, then it might last a lifetime. Even worse, I wondered how a kid would survive if they were forced to grow up in the foster-care system. And the Texas system, under the supervision of the state-run Child Protective Services, might be one of the worst out there. I’d heard and read about countless horrific stories.

  A door popped open on the other side of the detective pen. Brook’s fingers were in her hair again, but she had a little hop in her step. Porter said a couple words to her, nodded, and walked off.