The Abbey (a full-length suspense thriller)

by Chris Culver

  I nodded, and Mack straightened up. He put the test tube in a wire holder and pulled off his latex gloves.

  “Coke won’t stay suspended like this in many solutions,” he said. “My guess is that you have five vials of agua rica.”

  I was a philosophy major in college, and as part of my major, I was required to take four semesters of a foreign language. I took Spanish. I rarely used it, but I still remembered a few vocabulary words.

  “Rich water?” I asked.

  “Yeah. That’s what the farmers call it. It’s one of the steps in the extraction of cocaine from coca leaves. You want the crash course?”

  “Sure.”

  He nodded and walked back to his supply cabinet.

  “Coke’s actually a pretty easy drug to extract,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “Farmers will harvest about a ton of leaves from a coca plant and douse them in a bathtub or other pit with carbonate salt and water. After that, they’ll toss in a solvent like gasoline or kerosene and stir that around for a while.”

  Mack was quiet for another minute or so as he got things from his closet. When he turned around, he carried a metal tray laden with a squeeze bottle, a couple tablespoons of a purple powder, and a stack of beakers. He put the tray beside the test tubes he had been working with earlier.

  “When the cocaine is extracted, the farmer will siphon off the solvent and filter it to remove any leaves or dirt. Then he’ll add diluted sulfuric acid to that mix. The acid converts the cocaine into cocaine sulfate. Once that’s done, the farmer will siphon off the solvent again to reuse it. The leftover diluted sulfuric acid solution with the cocaine in it is called agua rica. That’s what you’ve got here, I think.”

  Mack picked up one of the vials I had brought and dumped its contents into an empty beaker on his tray. I furrowed my eyebrow and leaned against the counter.

  “Why do you know this much about cocaine?”

  “Went to South America a few years back with Doctors without Borders with some nurse I wanted to bang. I fixed up a bunch of kids and nailed her when I could. On our last day, a patient’s father asked if we wanted to see something the tourists don’t usually see. I figured he was going to take us to some Mayan ruins, but he took us to his coca farm. There was a lab nearby, so we saw the whole operation from cultivation to the production of cocaine base.”

  “You’re quite the humanitarian,” I said, scratching my head. “Why does it smell like breath mints?”

  He shrugged.

  “Someone probably cut it with wintergreen oil to cover up the smell. I do that with acetone, too. Otherwise, it smells like a nail salon in here.”

  I leaned back in my stool and nodded, trying to piece together everything Mack was telling me.

  “So I brought you liquid cocaine?”

  “I wish,” he said, chuckling as he pulled his ingredients tray closer to him. “And on a side note, agua rica doesn’t usually look like this. Most of the time, it’s yellowish brown. Someone dyed this lot. It usually looks like beer or even blood plasma.”

  I nodded, taking it in.

  “How do you go from this stuff to what’s on the street, then?”

  “You oxidize it with potassium permanganate,” he said. He put a pinch of the purple powder he had brought into a beaker containing clear liquid. He then dumped that whole thing into the agua rica solution. A brownish black clump formed at the bottom of the beaker, leaving a clear liquid on top. “Once you do that, you filter the liquid and discard the crap left over.”

  He put a piece of cheesecloth on top of a third beaker and poured the clear solution over it. The black clump stayed on the cloth while the liquid fell to the bottom. He took off the cloth and threw it, along with the black clump, in the trash.

  “What do you think we get if we add a base to this?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Gummi bears?”

  Mack grabbed a plastic squirt bottle labeled ammonia. He squirted a steady stream into the beaker. It was like a drug dealer’s version of a snow globe. White particulate formed and fell to the bottom.

  “That fluffy stuff at the bottom is about ninety–five–percent pure coke. A lot of people smoke that and get high, actually. If we were at a production lab, that fluffy stuff would be dried and then sent to another lab for further processing. It’d be mixed with ether and acetone. When that’s done, it’d be packaged and sent to the streets for sale.”

  “How much cocaine do you think is in these vials?”

  Mack held up a vial and swirled it. He shrugged.

  “Maybe five grams each. I can dispose of them if you want. I’m going to a party this weekend.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “My boss tends to frown on me when I supply cocaine for parties,” I said. “Just one of her crazy rules.”

  He shrugged.

  “Worth a shot.”

  I ignored him and leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table. If Mack’s figures were right, Robbie had been sitting on a fair amount of blow. It was no wonder Rachel had overdosed after ingesting part of a vial. I doubted she and Robbie would have done that if they had known what was inside.

  “Do you think a dealer would have these?” I asked.

  Mack shook his head.

  “I’m not an expert, but I doubt it. I’ve never seen agua rica in the states before, and I’ve seen a lot of drugs in my time. These came from a lab. Even if your victim dealt kilos at a time, he wouldn’t have these.”

  I nodded, trying and failing to fit the information into my puzzle. I was about to thank Mack for his time when my phone rang. I motioned to Mack that I'd be a minute before glancing at the caller ID. It was my wife.

  “Hannah, what’s going on?”

  “You need to come home.”

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “No. There’s a detective with a search warrant on our porch.”

  Chapter 12

  I thanked Mack for his time and promised to make it up to him before jogging to the parking garage. My mind was running in about nine directions at ninety miles an hour each. I couldn’t focus. I took a breath, forcing myself to focus on one thing at a time. There were detectives at the house, but at least Hannah and Megan were safe for the moment. I didn’t know what was going on, but at least I didn’t have to worry about that. I was considerably less confident about my case.

  I turned on my car. Within five minutes, I was on I–465, a seventy–five–mile loop of asphalt ringing the city. The monotony of expressway driving gave me a moment to order my thoughts. I had known Azrael was pushing drugs, but evidently it was more than that. He and Karen were tapped into a lab somewhere. That took the case to a different level, but it still didn’t tell me why Rachel and Robbie were killed. They were kids; even if they were involved with drugs, they wouldn’t know enough to bring down the whole enterprise. All I knew for sure was that they had gotten into something over their heads and died for it. That was starting to frustrate me.

  I pulled off the interstate and turned onto my street about fifteen minutes later. There were three marked patrol vehicles on my front lawn and an unmarked Crown Vic taking up most of the driveway. Hannah sat on the front steps while a uniformed officer stood watch. Since my driveway was taken, I parked in front of Mrs. Phelps’ house and jogged towards my front door. Hannah saw me, but she didn’t move. Her shoulders were pulled back, and her posture was uncomfortably straight. She was in handcuffs.

  Shit.

  I ran onto the lawn. The uniformed officer put his hand up as if he were directing traffic, stopping me. He was older than I was, maybe fifty, and his skin was pitted and gray. He looked like a smoker who should have quit years earlier. At his age, he must have pissed somebody important off to still be on patrol.

  “This is none of your concern,” he said. “Move along.”

  “Like hell it isn’t,” I said. “That’s my pregnant wife, you moron.”

  He took a step back and brought one hand up in a st
op motion while the other went to the butt of his gun. I put my hands up, palms towards him to show that I wasn’t going for a weapon, and took a step toward the sidewalk.

  “We have a search warrant,” he said. “She was interfering with that search. She didn’t tell us she was pregnant.”

  “That’s because it’s none of your business,” said Hannah, her voice gruff. “You shouldn’t even be here.”

  “We have a search warrant, lady,” said the officer. “We have every right to be here.”

  “I’d like to see that search warrant,” I said. “Get these handcuffs off my wife and get your CO out here right now.”

  He glared at me as if I had affronted him terribly.

  “You don’t give me orders, son,” he said. “Now back off, or I’m going to put you in cuffs like your wife.”

  I’d like to see you try.

  “I’m going to show you something. I’m not reaching for a weapon.”

  The guy nodded, but he didn’t remove his hand from his gun. I reached to my belt and unhooked my badge. The patrol officer took a step forward to get a better look. He took his hand off the butt of his gun and shifted on his feet uncomfortably.

  “You’re a detective?”

  “Detective Sergeant,” I said. “Now I’d suggest you get the handcuffs off my wife before I file an excessive force grievance against you for handcuffing a pregnant woman.”

  The guy didn’t even hesitate. His shoulders sagged.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  I nodded as he disappeared. When he was gone, I helped Hannah stand up. She was sweating, and her face was red. Police–issue handcuffs use a standard key because it keeps things simple when transferring prisoners, and thankfully, I still had mine. I fished my key chain out of my pocket and unlocked Hannah’s cuffs. She leaned against me, so I pulled her into an embrace and kissed her forehead.

  “How long have you known I was pregnant?”

  “About twenty minutes,” I said, pressing my face against her hair. It smelled like lilacs. “Are you okay?”

  I felt her nod against me.

  “Mrs. Phelps called my cell when she saw them kick down the door. That officer put me in cuffs as soon as I got here.”

  “Did you say anything to him?”

  She shook her head no.

  “He locked me up as soon as I got here. I was just going to ask if I could watch.”

  I nodded and ground my teeth.

  “I’ll take care of it from here,” I said. “If you want, you can sit in my car. Hopefully it won’t be too long.”

  She nodded and hugged me again once I handed her my keys. I pointed my car out, and she walked up the street towards it while I put the deputy’s cuffs on the porch. Lieutenant Bowers came out a few minutes later. He wore a navy blue T–shirt with the word ‘Police’ written across the chest. Like the last time I saw him, it looked as if he hadn’t shaved in a few days. The bags underneath his eyes were gone, though; instead, there was almost a twinkle. The corners of his lips were upturned.

  “Glad you finally made it. Thought I wasn’t going to see you this morning.”

  I crossed my arms.

  “What are you doing in my house?”

  “We’re searching it. Being a detective, I thought you would have figured that out.”

  “I understand that. What are you searching for?”

  Bowers shook his head, the smug smile widening.

  “This and that. And by the way, where’d you park? I want to search your car personally.”

  I tilted my head to the side, considering how I wanted to respond. They could search my house all they wanted, but they’d never find anything. My car was another matter. It still had the vials of agua rica in it.

  “You’ll have to show me the warrant for that.”

  “Gladly,” said Bowers, reaching to his back pocket. He held out a light–blue document and handed it to me. Two things jumped out at me. They were searching for the missing vial from my niece’s case, the one that supposedly disappeared from the crime lab. The vial was small, so it could have been hidden just about anywhere, which meant they could tear our house apart looking for it. On the other hand, the scope was narrow. The search authorized the police to search my house and curtilage, the standard terms our department used on search warrant affidavits.

  “You know what the word ‘curtilage’ means?” I asked.

  Bowers stared at me blankly.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Didn’t think so,” I said. “Curtilage is a legal term. When a warrant says you’re allowed to search someone’s house and curtilage, it means you’re allowed to search the home and surrounding grounds and buildings. My car is parked on the street in front of the neighbor’s house. I would have parked in my driveway, and you would have been able to search it, but some dip shit in an unmarked Crown Victoria took most of it up. As a detective, I thought you would have planned for that sort of thing.”

  The smile disappeared from Bowers’ face.

  “We’ll talk later,” he said before turning around and walking through my front door.

  I waited on the front porch for another twenty minutes for them to finish their search. They left in a big group. Bowers, Doran and Smith – the two detectives I had found staking out my house a day earlier – and three uniformed officers. None carried anything out. Hannah must have been watching because she joined me on the porch a moment later. Bowers smirked at us.

  “Guess you guys were clean after all. Sorry about the mess. We had to be certain you weren’t hiding anything.”

  I ground my teeth, but didn’t say anything. Hannah threaded a hand through the crook of my elbow.

  “Can we go inside now, Officer?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Yeah. Have fun.”

  She tugged on my arm, pulling me toward the house before I could say anything further. Hannah and I stepped through our front door a moment later.

  I had executed a lot of search warrants when I was a detective and always made a point of reminding everyone in my search team that our suspect was innocent until proven otherwise. We treated his or her possessions with as much respect and care as possible. That’s not a Constitutional requirement, just common courtesy. Most detectives have similar policies. Bowers was evidently not like most detectives, though, because our house was trashed.

  We checked out the living room first. Our coffee table was overturned, the foam from our couch cushions had been removed and it looked like someone had run beside our bookshelves with his arm stretched out so he could knock everything off. The damage was cosmetic, though. Everything could be repaired.

  I squeezed Hannah’s arm and stepped down the hall to our bedroom. Every dresser drawer had been pulled out and overturned, and it looked like the contents had been sifted through. My wife’s undergarments had been given special attention; they were strewn all over the floor. Our bathroom and closet had similar treatments. There were tubes of toothpaste on the ground in the bathroom, and our clothes had been thrown on the ground in our closet. It looked like an angry toddler had gone on a rampage.

  The kitchen was the same way. I tried to be careful, but I stepped on a wooden spoon, a wedding gift from one of Hannah’s aunts, cracking it. It was just stuff, and it could all be repaired and put back, but I felt violated. Worse, I couldn’t have stopped them if I tried. They would have slapped cuffs on me and thrown me in jail. I clenched my jaw so tight I thought I was going to crack my teeth.

  We walked into Megan’s room last. It was the smallest bedroom in the house and had just enough room for a twin bed, a dresser, and rocking chair. There were clothes on the floor, and the rocking chair was overturned. The room could be cleaned, though, and the clothes could be put back. Those didn’t bother me very much. I walked to the bed. There was a stuffed lion on it named Tom. I have no idea why the lion was named Tom, but it was Megan’s favorite toy. My mom had given it to her.

  Bowers’ men had cut it open along its ba
ck and pulled out the stuffing as if they were searching for something inside. It was a kid’s toy, and we could probably buy one just like it for a couple of bucks, but Megan loved it. And a stranger had come into my house and ruined it. I kissed Hannah’s forehead and whispered that I’d be right back. I didn’t bother looking at what I stepped on as I jogged through my house.

  There was something in me that I hadn’t felt before. I didn’t get mad, not exactly. It was more like I relaxed the constraints that held my anger at bay. It was visceral, black and bubbling under the surface. I had been bottling it up since Rachel died and probably before that. Bowers and his men were still beside his car in the driveway, which meant they were probably signing the warrant so they could return it to the judge’s clerk that afternoon.

  I slipped through the crowd and grabbed Bowers’ shoulder, spinning him around.

  “You went too far, Lieutenant. If you want to come after me, do it. Don’t you dare try to hurt my family again.”

  The officers around me formed into a semicircle of blue with Bowers at the center. He smiled, but his eyes were as black as any I had ever seen.

  “Are you threatening me, Rashid?”

  I shot my eyes to the officers around me to see if any had gone for their weapons. They hadn’t.

  “No, I’m not threatening you. I’m giving you some advice. Stop paying so much attention to my family and start paying attention to your own. I hear your wife gets lonely when you work such long hours.”

  That might have been uncalled for, but I didn’t care about civility. Bowers stepped forward and grabbed my shirt. The officers around us shifted on their feet uneasily, and I noticed more than a few hands stray towards their weapons.

  “What does that mean, Rashid?”

  “Ask around. I’m sure any number of guys in your station will tell you exactly what it means. Probably in graphic detail.”

  Bowers lunged at me as if to ram his shoulder into my midriff, but I stepped to my left and jammed my right knee into his side. I heard him grunt, but I didn’t have more than a moment to enjoy the situation before I felt arms pulling me back and to the ground.

  I hit the pavement hard. The jolt traveled through my body and into my spine. A sudden weight on my back pressed me forward, and my face was on the concrete before I could even gasp from pain. I twisted and tried to ball up, an instinctual move to protect my internal organs, but someone was pulling each arm flat to the side. I squirmed and thrashed, trying to get up anyway, but someone put his knee in my upper back and ripped my hands behind me. Steel cuffs bit into my wrists after that.