Drake was sure of it.
“Yeah, looks like I'm going to need another favor.”
Hanna giggled, and she held out her hands and started shaking again as she’d done for Twig and Max.
“Can I shock you first? Just a little?”
Drake shook his head.
“I don’t think my body could handle an elevator ride, let alone an electric shock. But you’re right—I need to get away for a while. Just a week. Is that… is that possible?”
Hanna walked to the door and held it open.
“Anything’s possible, Drake. Didn’t your mother tell you that?”
Drake frowned; there was no way that it could be this easy. Surely a man who was charged with assaulting and kidnapping a police officer couldn’t just walk out of a psychiatric facility, could he?
But he also knew that even though Hanna technically just worked Oak Valley’s front desk, she held a curious power over people who worked here.
People with titles much more impressive than her own.
Hanna suddenly snapped her fingers.
“Shit, I almost forgot. You're missing something.”
She stepped into the hallway for a moment before returning with a pile of clothes.
“I see that you’ve slimmed down a little since the last time I saw you—a liquid only diet will do that to you—but I think these will still fit,” Hanna said, holding up a pair of jeans and a plain black t-shirt. “Go on, get changed. We can't have you walking around looking like a Buddhist, now can we?”
Chapter 19
Leroy set the bag down on the table and unzipped it. No sooner had the zipper been pulled all the way back did Screech start to reach inside.
Leroy stopped him.
“We should probably put on some gloves,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out two pairs of cheap, wool finger gloves.
Screech nodded and took a pair and put them on.
Whoever this guy was to Drake, it was clear that he wasn’t an ex-cop like him.
Leroy slipped his own gloves on and then let Screech do the honors.
“And this… this is what you stole from the police car? From the two officers that beat you up?”
Leroy raised an eyebrow. He couldn’t remember if he’d told Screech that part when he’d first entered Triple D or if his lawyer had called ahead.
“Yeah,” he said hesitantly. “This is what I took.”
Screech nodded.
“And they didn't see you? There’s no way that they can identify you?”
Leroy pictured the bottle smashing on the windshield and then Pontiac and Dalton getting out and chasing after the three young black kids.
“Nah,” he said. “They never saw me.”
Apparently satisfied, Screech turned his attention back to the bag. He reached all the way inside and pulled out the first item and placed it gently on the table.
It was the brick-sized object wrapped in brown parchment paper. The neat wrapping was secured with clear tape that was adorned with a black symbol. When he’d first seen the package in the trunk, Leroy had thought that it depicted a snake eating the world. Now, however, he saw that the world was actually an eyeball.
Screech stared intently at this symbol before reaching into the bag again and pulling out another item: the envelope full of cash. Surprisingly, he only briefly glanced at the money before putting it down beside the brick.
The third item Screech pulled out was the shotgun. He gave this even less of a once over than the cash.
“That's it,” Leroy informed him. Unconvinced, Screech dug into the bag with both hands this time and searched the interior. When he came up empty, he held it upside down and shook it.
Nothing fell out.
At long last, Screech raised his eyes and looked at Leroy.
“And you don't deal any of this stuff? This isn’t your gear?”
Leroy frowned.
“No, I've never dealt anything… shit, I smoke a joint every now and then, but I don’t deal with this shit. I wouldn’t…” Leroy’s sentence trailed off as he pictured his brother lying on the pavement, blood spilling from between his lips.
He cleared his throat.
“No, no, I don't deal drugs. Like I told you, I grabbed this stuff off the cops.”
Screech turned his attention to the items on the table.
“A brick of heroin, an envelope of cash, and a sawed-off shotgun walk into a bar.”
“What?”
Screech shook his head.
“Nothing. It’s just—finding this in the trunk of a cop car?” he shrugged. “Meh, if Drake says you’re cool… I mean, he’s always got such sound judgment.”
Leroy watched the man curiously as he reached down and picked up the brick with one hand.
“You know what this is?”
Leroy shrugged.
“Heroin, probably.”
Screech nodded.
“Heroin. And it wasn’t in some sort of evidence bag or something like that?”
All of sudden, Leroy felt as if he was getting the third degree. And he didn’t like it.
“Look, man. I already told you, I got it from the trunk. These are crooked cops; they gave something like it to my brother. I dunno if he was just a snitch, or if he was doing some undercover shit, or what the hell he was doing. But I saw the cops give something to him, something that a bunch of street thugs killed him for.” Leroy’s voice hitched, and he took a deep breath to calm himself. “Can you use it? Will it help get these guys or what?”
Screech just stared at him.
“Well? Is that a yes or am I just wasting my time here?”
Just when it looked like the man was going to answer, there was a knock at the door and they both froze.
Chapter 20
“Took you long enough,” Drake grumbled as he forced his way past Screech and entered Triple D.
After opening the door and realizing who it was, his partner hadn’t so much as blinked. He just stood there, frozen in place.
Drake left him that way and nodded at Leroy who also looked as if he’d seen a ghost. He walked briskly to his office, opened the door, and made his way to his desk.
“Wh—wh—what the hell? What are you doing here?” Screech said from somewhere behind him, but Drake ignored the man.
He grabbed the bottle of scotch and a glass from the top drawer of his desk and poured himself two fingers. It hurt like hell going down his raw throat, but when it was done, he poured a second. Then he walked over to Screech and Leroy, who were standing with their hands at their sides, their mouths agape.
“Nice to see you too, Screech,” Drake grumbled as he surveyed the items laid on the desk.
There was a brick of something that looked like heroin, an envelope of cash, and a sawed-off shotgun.
“It looks like you’ve been busy,” he said, sipping his scotch.
Screech finally blinked and started to animate.
“Drake is that… what the hell are you doing here? Last I heard you—”
Drake shook his head.
“What can I say; I guess there’s someone out there who still likes me, after all.”
In his mind, he pictured Hanna’s face, the woman who was so eager to help him that it was slightly disturbing. He’d heard of people like her, people who attached themselves to serial killers, writing them notes while they were in prison or even marrying them after just a few conjugal visits. On the flip side, there were also those who clung to high profile members of law enforcement, particularly those who’d experienced significant loss in their lives.
But Hanna didn’t seem to fit either of those molds. In fact, she seemed to fall somewhere exactly in between.
He shook his head.
“You’re out on… bail?”
“No, not bail.”
Drake was reaching for the brick of what he suspected was heroin on the table, when Screech suddenly reached out and grabbed his arm. The much smaller man spun him around.
Drake scowled.
“If I had a nickel…” then he sighed, and as he did he was surprised that his breath hitched. He was exhausted, of course. Not just physically, but mentally as well. “Look, it’s a long story, but, no I’m not out on bail. I couldn’t let your guy F. Lee Bailey get me out on bail. The second I left the courtroom, I’d have three of Ken’s goons following me around. And, if for some reason they decided not to off me right then and there, there’s no way I’d be able to do what needs to get done.”
Screech’s eyes narrowed.
“Which is what, exactly? See your son? Find out about your brother? Figure out if he’s still alive?”
Drake felt a pang of guilt. Sure, he wanted to do those things, needed to do those things. He also had to check on Jasmine and Suzan and of course Beckett, but they had to wait.
His other matter was more pressing.
“To get Ken Smith. To make him pay.”
Screech’s face contorted, and he snatched the glass from Drake’s hand before he could react. Then he surprised Drake by chugging what was left of his scotch.
“Give it up, Drake. Ken isn’t the Skeleton King. The Skeleton King was Ray Reynolds, and he’s dead now. You need to focus on what matters.”
Drake felt his face flush, which caused the spot in his gums where his tooth had once been to throb uncomfortably.
“You’re wrong, Screech. Ken is the Skeleton King. He’s the one behind all of this shit, the dead Colombian girls, the drugs, what happened to Dane. And I need to stop him.”
“What you need to do, is not kill yourself. Over the past six months, you nearly died from methanol poisoning, you got shot in the leg, and you got arrested for assaulting and kidnapping an officer. And now—” Screech waved a hand in front of Drake’s face. “—now, it looks like you’ve been skull fucked by a buzz saw. When will you stop this? When will it ever end with you, Drake? Is death the only way out for you?”
Drake picked up the brick of heroin and weighed it in his hand.
“It will end when—”
“Beckett was right about you, Drake.”
Screech’s oddly calm tone drew all of Drake’s attention.
“Yeah? And what, exactly, did Beckett say about me, huh?”
Screech suddenly lowered his gaze.
“He said that no matter how hard you try to do good, everything around you goes bad—everything around you goes to shit. And I’m…” Now it was Screech’s breath that hitched. “I’m afraid that you’re gonna take me down with you, Drake; I’m afraid that you already have. I’m afraid that I’m no longer the person I once was.”
PART II - Overdose
Chapter 21
Sergeant Henry Yasiv brought a cigarette to his lips with a trembling hand. He stared blankly up the street as he smoked, not bothering to even acknowledge the uniformed officers that milled around him.
His only focus was on his cigarette.
Besides, there was nothing he could do now; Yasiv couldn’t do anything until the ME arrived and cleared the bodies.
The sun was beginning to set over New York City, and it seemed that every time it did, there was another body.
And nobody seemed to be doing a damn thing about it.
There were bad people in New York, bad people with more power than they knew what to do with. And no matter how hard he tried to get ahead of them, Yasiv never seemed to make any progress. He was hamstrung by the fact that if he did anything overtly, if he stepped out of line, he feared that he would either become the newest casualty on the 24-hour news cycle, or find himself in a similar predicament to Damien Drake.
Drake…
Yasiv’s thoughts turned to the man, the man whom he thought of as a friend. They’d been through a lot together in the short time that he’d known him, during which Yasiv had gone from a greenhorn detective to sergeant in record time. And he’d learned a lot from Drake.
For instance, he’d learned how to burn a career and get yourself entangled with bad people with the power to ruin your life. All in the quest of trying to do the right thing.
A car suddenly pulled up to the curb and two men hopped out.
Yasiv shook his head and focused his gaze. He took a final drag of his cigarette and then flicked the butt onto the street.
“Dr. Campbell,” he said extending his hand.
The medical examiner with the bleach blond hair shook it.
“Just Beckett, please. It’s nice to see you again, Hank.”
Beckett looked more tired than the last time Yasiv had seen him, even though that had been an incredibly trying time. A time when Boris Brockovich was trying to import women stuffed with heroin, both of which he intended to sell.
“Who’s this?” Yasiv asked, turning his head to the man beside Beckett. He was a young man, young and good looking, with a hawkish nose and shaved head.
“Doogie Houser,” Beckett said out of the corner of his mouth. He snickered. “Naw, this is Dr. Grant McEwing. He’s doing a ride along today.”
Yasiv nodded and then started back up the stairs towards the house behind them.
“What’ve we got?” Beckett asked.
“More of the same,” Yasiv said quietly. “More of the same…”
***
The first thing that struck Yasiv was the smell. There was the undeniable odor of death in the room, an artificial stillness to the air, but there was something else, as well: vinegar. It smelled as if someone had just cracked open a bag of salt and vinegar chips.
He followed the smell to the bodies. There were three of them, all women, all between 30 and 40 years of age.
They were lying on their backs in identical poses: arms out at their sides, palms up, their feet slightly splayed. These weren’t your typical street junkies; they were women who lived in upscale apartments on the Upper East side.
The woman in the middle had short blond hair tucked behind her ears, which were adorned with expensive looking earrings. Rubber tubing was still wrapped around her arm.
Heroin didn’t care about your socioeconomic status: it killed you just the same.
“Got the call about an hour ago; one of the girls was scheduled to work the night shift at a local brewpub and never showed up. Neighbor came over and found the door open. He ran when he saw the bodies.”
Beckett indicated several generic things about the corpses that the young doctor scribbled on his notepad. Then he got more specific; he paid close attention to the women’s mouths, leaning in close with a gloved hand to point at the foam that had formed at the corners. Then he pointed at their lips, which were swollen and moderately discolored.
“Pulmonary edema; indicative of an overdose,” Beckett said. Yasiv wasn’t sure who the comment was directed at.
After a few more comments, Beckett stood and turned to face Yasiv, a frown on his face.
“It’ll take a few weeks to get the tox screens back, but I’m positive that they died from an overdose—all three of them.”
Yasiv nodded. He’d figured as much, but still needed the ME to clear the bodies before he could start with his investigation, as rudimentary as it was likely to be.
“No track marks,” he said absently. “I bet these girls were trying heroin for the first time.”
“They didn’t die from heroin, Hank.”
Yasiv raised an eyebrow.
“No?”
Beckett shook his head.
“They were shooting the stuff, sure, but they didn’t die from it. If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on ohmefentanyl as the cause.”
Ohmefentanyl?
Yasiv shook his head. He’d never heard the term before.
Beckett must’ve seen the clueless expression on his face because he quickly clarified his point.
“A drug 25 times more powerful than even fentanyl. And deadlier.”
>
Beckett’s eyes drifted to the bodies and Yasiv felt a twinge of sorrow for these girls. Sure, they might have made the ill-fated decision to shoot heroin, but he doubted that they knew exactly what they were getting into.
Which evidently was ohmefentanyl, or whatever the hell Beckett had called it.
“You could tell that from the bodies?”
Beckett shook his head again.
“No, we’ll need to tox to confirm it. But these are the seventh, eighth, and ninth victims that I’ve cleared in the last two weeks alone. All previous corpses came back with ohmefentanyl in their system. It looks like there’s a new player in town, Yasiv, one that doesn’t like the competition. Shit, it doesn’t even look like he likes his clientele, given how many he ends up killing.”
Chapter 22
“I’ve got one week,” Drake said with a frown. “One week until I have to be back at Oak Valley to be taken to court. I can’t deal with all your soap opera bullshit and catch Ken Smith at the same time. I appreciate everything that you’ve done for me, Screech, including covering my lawyer fees.” He glanced over at Leroy. “And for helping Leroy out, too. But you need to make a decision; you need to decide whether you are going to help me and if not, you need to get the fuck out of my way.”
Drake hated speaking so bluntly to one of the few people in this world that he could trust. And, judging by his expression, his words had stung the man.
But he forced his feelings aside. They didn’t matter now. What mattered was finding something incriminating on Ken Smith.
“You’re a real asshole, you know that?” Screech said.
Drake didn’t disagree; in fact, he didn’t so much as blink.
Eventually, Screech’s shoulders sagged and he looked away.
“What’s your plan then, Drake? What’s this master plan that will ensnare the man who has everyone on the police force in his back pocket except for you? How do you expect to catch the Mayor of New York City wrapped up in a drug smuggling racket?”
Drake hesitated before answering. Screech had succinctly verbalized the main issue. He’d tried relentlessly to catch Ken Smith for the past year or so, but everything to date had failed.
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 2 Page 43
