by Jon McGoran
I paused for a moment, wondering again how the whole flu thing fit in. Maybe I paused longer than I thought, because Rothe prompted me with an elaborate clearing of his throat. Unless he was coming down with something, too.
“Sorry,” I said. “Thanks for getting back to me. I was just wondering, with all those different sellers, how are you managing to complete all those deals in such a short time?”
“Right. Well, normally yes, something like that would take a long time, especially since there’s a one-month lease-back.”
“A what?”
“A lease-back, so the purchase is completed, but then the land is leased back to the seller for one month, to give them time to vacate or find another location. It’s not unusual, although it’s more common with smaller deals.”
“Isn’t that risky, leasing it back? What if there’s a problem with the property?”
“Real estate is always risky, especially in a market like this,” he said with a nervous laugh. “But I doubt there will be any problems a dozen bulldozers can’t rectify. We’re re-grading the entire site anyway.”
“I was wondering about that, actually. Just out of curiosity: Why are you investing in a big development way out here, right now?”
“Between you and me, I think it’s kind of crazy, too. But I’m getting an amazing deal on the real estate. That’s what’s driving the whole thing. I think some of these other developers overpaid on their land, couldn’t make it work. Now they have to get rid of it. So I get a great price. I keep my inputs low, keep my costs down, I can offer a killer price on new construction. I know for sure I can sell enough units to pay for the land and the infrastructure. If some of the parcels sit until the market turns around, that’s fine. It’s still a good investment.”
“You said you were breaking ground next month. Isn’t it unusual to start construction so quickly?”
He took a deep breath. “Look, Detective Carrick, I don’t have time to go into all of the nuances of this deal—it actually get’s kind of complicated when you get down to it—but the sale of the main parcel includes a clause that construction on the infrastructure must begin by a certain date. That’s probably part of why it was such a good deal.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Not terribly.”
“Okay, and the lease-back, doesn’t that make the deal even more complicated? And that brings me back to my first question, how are you getting all those deals closed so quickly?”
“The lease-back was no big problem, and the deals were all structured the same. Plus, we’re dealing with the same local listing agent on all of them. We’ve structured the deals to make everything as smooth as possible.”
“The same agent for every one of those deals?”
“That’s right. She made a lot of money from it, but she’s been pretty helpful in putting the whole thing together.”
“And who is that?” I asked.
“Her name is Sydney Bricker.”
56
Sydney Bricker didn’t pick up, so I left her a message saying I wanted to talk to her. I didn’t say why. I drove in the direction of her office, but I wasn’t sure yet if that’s where I wanted to go. I wasn’t entirely satisfied with Rupp’s answers, and I hadn’t gotten a chance to ask all my questions, but he had made it pretty clear he didn’t want to talk to me anymore.
When I saw signs pointing toward Pine Crest College, I turned to follow them.
I was looking for Simpkins’s office, but instead I found Simpkins himself, walking across the quad in the middle of a small cluster of young women.
He must have seen me out of the corner of his eye because his head whipped around and our eyes met. He looked back at one of the girls who had been talking. When he glanced back a moment later, there was resignation in his eyes; I was still there, and getting closer. He took a few more steps, then turned in my direction.
A couple of the girls almost stumbled as they tried to adjust their stride. One of them stifled a cough.
“You’re Nola’s friend. Carrick, right?”
“Detective Carrick, that’s right.”
“What brings you to Pine Crest?” Simpkins asked. “Thinking of taking some classes? We have a great continuing ed program.”
“I spoke to your friend Rupp, and I wanted to ask you a couple of the questions I asked him, or tried to ask him. Do you have a moment?”
He sighed heavily, then turned back to his retinue. “Okay, everyone, I will see you tomorrow. Remember, if your lab partners were out sick, you need to get them your notes. And Maria, don’t forget you owe me a lab report.”
As they drifted away, Simpkins indicated which way he was walking and I fell in step beside him.
“So, what can I answer for you?”
“I have a question about genetically engineered pharmaceutical crops.”
“I doubt I can help you any more than Rupp can,” he said. “He’s much more up on that sort of thing than I am.”
“Maybe so. Would it be possible to genetically engineer apples to produce opioids?”
“Would it be possible? Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Sure, I would think so. Why not? I mean, I don’t think anyone has done it, but they’ve done things like it, so why not? I’m sure there would be hurdles to get past, but there are all sorts of drugs being genetically engineered into plants. The bigger question is why?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why would you do it? Why would you engineer a plant to create a substance that is already created by another plant? Heroin comes from opium poppies. Why go to all that trouble when you can already get it from them? It would be like engineering apples to produce orange juice. Why bother, when there are already oranges, right?”
“Maybe because heroin is illegal and orange juice isn’t.”
“Point taken.” He shrugged.
“And poppies only grow in certain places, forcing people to go to great lengths to transport heroin to other places.”
He shrugged again. “I guess it makes some sense, but it seems like a lot of trouble. Then again, people have done much stranger things in transgenics.”
“Like what?”
“You mean apart from the glow-in-the-dark puppies and the mice with human ears on their backs?” He laughed. “It’s a strange new world out there, Carrick. Why do you ask about the apples and the opioids?”
“When I asked Rupp if it could be done, he said no.”
“Really? He probably thought you meant had it already been done.”
“He said it was very unlikely, and that only someone with an astonishing intellect could pull off something like that.”
Simpkins laughed. “I don’t know Rupp all that well, but I think the only intellect he would be astonished by is his own.” Simpkins stopped and turned toward me. “Look, I have another class in ten minutes, and I have to prepare. I don’t know what you’re getting at, but Rupp is much more of an expert in these matters than I am.” He shrugged. “Maybe there is something about that plant and that compound that makes them ill-suited for each other. Maybe there is some other reason I’m unfamiliar with as to why it wouldn’t work, okay?” He looked at his watch.
“Right. Well, thanks for your time.”
* * *
As I was getting back into my car, another call came in. I thought it might be Bricker, but I didn’t recognize the number. I considered not answering it, but that hadn’t worked out so well for me lately. “Hello?”
“This Doyle Carrick?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“Charlie Brand, at Brand Agricultural Aviation. You were out here looking for me?”
“I was out there looking for a red biplane crop duster with a black-and-white stripe. You got one?”
“Nope. Why you looking for it?”
“I just want to talk to whoever owns it.”
“Why’s that?”
“Someone sprayed my property in the middle of the night. I wanted to find out
what it was and why he did it.”
“Right. You’re a cop?”
“Philly PD. But in this matter, I’m just a landowner.”
“Guy’s name is Ricky Spetzer. I got a few questions for him myself. You get here in the next ten minutes, I’ll take you along with me.”
“I can be there in twenty.”
He grunted. “Hurry up.”
* * *
Charlie Brand came out of the office to meet me. He was a big guy, a couple of inches taller than me and maybe twenty pounds heavier. He had the posture and the demeanor of someone who had left the military with a full pension.
He eyed me appraisingly then smirked as I approached him with my hand outstretched. I gave his hand a firm shake, but that didn’t seem to count for much.
“Come on,” he said, turning on his heel. “We’re out back.”
The hangar door was open, and the yellow single wing was out on the grass, waiting to go.
“You’re lucky I got a two-seater,” he said over his shoulder.
“We’re flying?”
My lack of enthusiasm must have been apparent, because Brand’s face opened up in a cruel smile. “Yup.”
He gave me a helmet to wear and climbed into the front compartment. I put the helmet on, and as he went about checking readouts and flicking switches, the helmet speakers crackled.
“Buckle up,” he said. The engine growled to life, then settled into a loud purr. A moment later, we were bouncing down the runway and skipping up into the air.
The scenery was beautiful, but the sensation in my stomach was not. Above the noise from the engine, I could hear a hiss coming from the helmet speakers, so I knew they were on. But apart from an occasional grunt or sigh, Brand didn’t say another word during the rest of the half-hour flight.
When the sound of the engine changed and I felt like we were getting lower, I looked down and saw a small clearing below. Off to the side was a double-wide trailer and a large, rusted metal hangar. The clearing grew larger as we made our descent, but it didn’t seem to grow larger enough.
I could see that the big doors on the side of the hangar were open, and inside I could see a bright red wing. As we bounced onto the grass field, a door opened in the metal shack and a skinny guy in overalls stepped out. He had a wispy beard, and he looked up at us, squinting into the late afternoon sun. He seemed to tense up, and he took a step back. His head snapped from left to right as if he was trying to decide which way to go, then he took off at an unsteady sprint toward a pickup truck parked on a driveway.
We came down gently and Brand kept the engine going, pulling the plane across the field and angling it toward the truck. As we overtook the guy in the overalls, he looked over at us, did a double take, then slowed.
Brand killed the engine, and when we came to a stop he jumped out of the plane, striding menacingly toward the guy with the beard. The guy took a couple of steps backward and smiled nervously. I hurried out after them, wondering what I had stepped into.
“Where you going, Ricky?” Brand asked, in a gravelly voice that sounded a bit too much like Clint Eastwood to be wholly unintentional.
“Hey, Charlie,” Spetzer said. Then he looked at me. “Who’s this?”
“Guy’s got a couple questions for you.” Brand walked right up to Ricky, standing close and looking down at him. “I got a couple myself.”
“Sure, Charlie. Whatever you say,” Ricky said, taking another step back.
Brand stepped to the side so he was no longer between Spetzer and me.
“That your plane?” I asked, hooking a thumb at the red plane in the hangar.
Spetzer smiled, like maybe he was hoping to make me an ally. “Sure is.”
“That plane sprayed my house in Dunston the night before last.”
The smile disappeared. “Did it?”
“Yes, it did. And I’d like to find out what it was spraying, and why.”
Spetzer looked down and laughed nervously.
“I’d also like to know why you were doing it in the middle of the night.”
Brand looked at me, then cocked an eye at Spetzer, waiting for an explanation.
Spetzer laughed again. A jittery smile played across his lips, then trembled for a second and fell. His eyes welled up. “You’re the guy who shot at me.”
Brand turned to look at me, but I don’t think he entirely disapproved. He turned back to Spetzer and waited.
“They had guns,” Spetzer whined. “They meant business.”
Brand snorted. “You mean they were business. How much did they pay you?”
I held up a hand to stop him. “So what was it you sprayed?”
Brand gave me a look to let me know he didn’t like my hand. I ignored him, and he got over it.
Spetzer shrugged. “Nothing, they said.”
“What do you mean, ‘nothing’?”
“They said it was harmless. It was like … flour or something. They said it wasn’t going to hurt nobody. One of the guys ate some of it in front of me.”
It was flour. In my mind, an image flashed: sacks of white powder in the back of that van. “Why were you spraying it?”
He shook his head. “They wouldn’t say. All they said was, if I did it, no one would get hurt, but if I didn’t, somebody would get hurt plenty and it would be me. I figured maybe they was sending someone a message.”
“Why was it at night?”
“I don’t know. ’Cause they had guns and they said so, man.”
“Why were you flying so low?”
Brand turned to look at me again. “It’s always low. That’s part of the job.”
“No, Charlie, he’s right,” Spetzer said. “It was low. They said it had to be. I figured it was part of the message, or ‘cause I was just doing a small area. I wasn’t crazy about that part neither, flying so low and at night. But it wasn’t like I could say no.”
“Right,” Brand said, mimicking him. “‘They had guns and they said so.’”
“Fuck you, Brand, you weren’t there!”
“All right, all right,” I said. “So who was it, anyway?”
Spetzer shook his head. “I don’t know. There was a couple of them. They was foreigners. They just showed up.”
“What’d they look like?”
“One guy was young, a little taller than me, had this long blond hair, like a fucking shampoo commercial. The other guy was bigger, meaner. Had all this junk stuck in his face.”
“Junk like what?”
“You know, earrings and stuff.”
“In his eyebrows?”
“In his eyebrows, his nose, all that. I think he was the one in charge. He was a scary motherfucker.”
Scary, indeed, I thought, picturing the badass who had leveled me behind Branson’s. “Get any names?”
“The big guy was called Levkov, I think. The guy in charge. That’s all I heard.”
“Levkov,” I repeated. Now he had a name.
“You done this before?” Brand asked.
He looked down. “Twice before this.”
Brand looked over at me, shaking his head, like this proved what kind of lowlife Spetzer was.
“They pay you?” I asked.
Spetzer nodded.
“Cash?”
He nodded again.
“How much?” Brand asked, stepping closer to him.
“Five grand a shot.”
Brand stepped even closer. “So here I am, trying to let you keep your fucked-up little territory that you can barely manage to service, and you’re doing midnight runs spraying some mystery bullshit in my backyard?”
Spetzer shrank away from him, looking away to the side. “I know Charlie, and I’m sorry. Maybe they knew you wouldn’t go along. But I mean it, man, these guys were scary.”
“You don’t think I’m scary?”
Spetzer laughed at that, then winced, like he was expecting a smack. “Charlie, you can kick my ass or ruin my business, whatever, but no, you ain’t scary like th
ese guys was.”
57
When we got out of the plane back at Brand’s little airfield, he gave me a nod, then turned and walked back to the house.
I yelled thanks, and he gave me a half wave without turning around. My entire body felt rubbery and weird. I wondered if it was the plane ride or the Narcan wearing off.
When I got in my car, I checked my phone and saw I’d missed another call from Sydney Bricker. This time, I listened to her message right away.
“Mr. Carrick, I need to see you, as soon as possible.” She didn’t sound like a shark in a power skirt. She sounded small and frightened. “I’m at my office. Please call me. It’s important.”
I called her back and got her voice mail.
“This is Doyle Carrick. I got your message, so call me back at this number. I’m on my way over to your office right now. I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”
My mouth felt dry, and I wondered if my limbs were starting to feel heavy again or if I was imagining it. I started to put my phone away, but instead I made one more call.
Danny Tennison answered the phone with a sigh. “I’m going to start blocking your calls.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Seriously, Doyle, I know that bust went sour, most of it was bullshit. You’re in the shit, and you need to lay low. Way low. Tell me how the weather is out there, and then leave me the fuck alone.”
“Guy named Levkov, just one name. But I think he’s at the center of whatever’s going on up here.”
“Doyle! Knock it off! There is no center of whatever’s going on up there. If you got something, give it to the locals and walk away from it. If they drop the ball, fine. Leave it dropped.”
“Danny, it’s just one name—”
“No! I’m hanging up now, Doyle, and if you don’t have stories about fish that you caught or movies that you saw or even a goddamn dump that you took, anything other than police work, then I don’t want to hear from you until you’re reinstated. But I got to tell you, at the rate you’re going, I don’t see that happening.”
“Jesus, Danny—”
“Don’t ‘Jesus, Danny,’ me. You need to grow up, Doyle. You’re not a kid anymore, and that whole cliché, rebel-against-authority thing is just you being a fuck-up.”