The J D Bragg Mystery Series Box Set

by Ron Fisher

  Taylor resided in a medical institution in Greenville now, and last year, when his teenage brother went missing, Taylor asked me to help find him. The police thought the kid had simply run away. Tayler suspected foul play.

  Alvin came down from Chicago to help too and we joined forces in the search. In the process, Alvin helped me through a situation with people who wanted me dead, and he and I became unlikely friends. Alvin watched my back then, and it looked like I needed him again.

  “J.D., my man, whassup?” He’d obviously seen my name on the caller I.D.

  “I need a big, ugly, black man to add a little muscle to a thing I’m looking into,” I said.

  “Ugly? Then you ain’t talking to me, bro. I’m so pretty I got women jumpin’ off the Sears Tower 'cause they can’t have me.”

  “Well, I don’t need the good-looking one, I need the bad-acting one.”

  “What you done got yourself into now, J.D.?”

  I told him about Kelly. The two got to know each other last year and quickly became fast friends. “I’m going to find the gentleman who did that to her.”

  He was silent for so long I thought we’d lost the connection until I heard him breathing. He wasn’t taking friendly breaths.

  “I’m on the next flight. I’ll rent a car at the airport. Where you want to meet?”

  “Call me when you land, and I’ll meet you at Greenville General Hospital.” I gave him Kelly’s room number.

  “Mother-fuckers who hurt her better be looking for someplace to hide,” he said.

  I knew that with Alvin, it wasn’t an idle threat. “Alvin? Thanks.”

  “You got it. I’m on my way.”

  I paid the Waffle House tab and headed out to the Greenville hospital to see Kelly.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  After an hour or so of sitting and holding Kelly’s hand, I headed back to Pickens County. Just outside of Pickens, I came across an auto accident. Traffic was down to one lane of the highway, moving slowly around a severely damaged, upturned minivan occupying the other lane. Two ambulances were leaving the scene as I neared it, and a wrecker was poised to remove the pancaked vehicle from the road. Debris from the van littered the highway around it, some of it children’s things. A forlorn stuffed animal lay near the shoulder. Cars lined the road before and after the wreck, both State Highway Patrol, and Sheriff’s Department vehicles. Sheriff Bagwell leaned against one of the county vehicles, surveying the scene.

  I pulled over to the side of the road just beyond him and got out.

  “You here as a rubbernecker or the press?” he asked as I approached. “Rubberneckers need to move on.” He wore a sour look.

  “Press, of course. What happened here?”

  “Stupidity, or criminal negligence, but you can’t quote me on that. A woman, speeding, it looks like. Lost it in that turn back there and barrel-rolled that top-heavy van. Had kids on board. She seems to have gotten out without a scratch, but not the kids. One of them, dead at the scene. The other one pretty bad off.”

  “Jesus, that’s tragic.”

  Bagwell turned and met my eyes. He still wore the sour look. “I don’t think tragic even begins to describe things like this, The carelessness of people never ceases to baffle me.”

  This had obviously gotten to him. I was glad I didn’t get there in time to see the children being taken away.

  Bagwell said, “I can’t give you any names yet. Got people to notify first. Call the department later and I may have something for you.”

  I understood and would put Vickie Sayers on it right away.

  “There’s something else I’d like to talk to you about,” I said. “Maybe this isn’t the time. I could come to see you later, if that would be better.”

  “You can tell me now. Maybe it’ll get my mind off this for a minute.” Bagwell glanced at the stuffed toy animal in the road. “Let’s get in the car to talk.”

  I joined him in the front seat of his cruiser.

  “So, talk,” he said.

  “I believe Kelly was working on a follow-up story to an editorial she wrote a few weeks ago about the opioid epidemic in Pickens County. There’s some bad people involved in that business, and if she was asking questions in the wrong places, she might have put herself in danger.”

  “I saw that editorial. How do you know that’s what she was doing?”

  “I’ve found some evidence of it. And it’s also what I would do if I were her.” I didn’t mention April Cheney. I promised her I’d keep her out of it, and maybe it was an outdated and even foolish convention, but I had this funny thing about keeping my word. I probably had my grandfather to thank for that.

  “What kind of evidence?” Bagwell asked.

  “I think she interviewed the doctor of the deceased woman from her first article, after the article ran. You may remember when we searched Kelly’s appointments at the Clarion, we found that she had visited a doctor that neither I, nor Eloise knew. That’s who he was. I plan to see him myself, when I can. So, now that we know that Hound-dog has an alibi and couldn’t have assaulted Kelly, it’s the only other thing I’ve found that could place her in harm’s way.”

  Bagwell considered that for a moment. “We can take a look at a drug-related angle, I guess, and see where that goes. Anything else you learn, let me know, you hear?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “Can you tell me a little about the opioid situation in the county? “I’m considering picking up Kelly’s story myself.”

  “Did you just put on your press hat?” he said and chuckled. “Is this an interview?”

  “Yes, I guess it is. Do you have the time?”

  “I do, if it means we keep a tit for tat working relationship, and you keep me informed of whatever you find out.” He looked at me, expecting an answer.

  “Deal,” I said. To a degree, I thought.

  “I can’t deny that it’s a big problem. We do what we can, but it’s out of control. We’ve never seen anything like this. It’s an addiction epidemic that’s growing out of all proportions. My officers and every other cop in this county are up to their ears in this thing. They’ve had to become both nurse and social worker, as overdoses sweep the county. They joined the force to solve crimes and make arrests, not spend all their time handling scene after scene of family tragedies and opioid-related deaths.”

  “What are you doing about it?”

  “To tell you the truth, we don’t know what to do about it. Nobody does—local, state, or federal. We just try to do the best we can. During the crack epidemic back in the nineties, it was easier to police. You could at least see that problem. You could spot a serious crack-head, not only because they were bat-shit crazy, but by the bad teeth and facial sores. And they were a different class of user. The lower class, you might call them. Opioids go across all socio-economic groups. Also, opioids are tougher to stop because many users have actual prescriptions for them.”

  “I thought that these pill mills with prescription drugs had dried up,” I said.

  “Well, the ones like we used to see, a single-wide out in the woods somewhere with a line of people out the door, have disappeared for the most part. But there’s still way too many doctors quick to prescribe pain killers, and big pharma is pushing out pills with incentives to sell them like never before. The government is starting to crack down on that. But what’s replacing it on the streets these days is worse than anything we’ve ever seen. Heroin, often spiked with fentanyl, is coming in, and addictions, overdoses, and deaths are exploding. Fentanyl is fifty times more potent than heroin. It’s manufactured in a lab, usually overseas, and smuggled in by the Mexican cartels. But more and more, homespun labs are popping up all over the country. It’s too easy to get and too easy to make. Now, anybody can buy the stuff from China off the internet. And there’s this latest drug, carfentanil, that’s 10,000 times more potent than morphine.”

  “Can’t you catch the guys dealing this poison?” I asked.

  “The street dealers, yeah,
” Bagwell said. “But there’s always somebody else in their place the next day. It’s harder to get the guys behind them. That’s who we want. But you can’t get a low-level guy to talk when he’s more afraid of his supplier than he is of the police. These are bad people.”

  “So, don’t you have some idea of who the big enchiladas behind this are?”

  “Yeah, we have ideas. You might be closer to it than you think with that word enchiladas.” The Mexican cartels are behind a lot of the drugs that are in the country.”

  “That’s the country,” I said. “How about just this county?”

  “We’re working on it. Along with the DEA.”

  I took that to mean he couldn’t discuss it, or he didn’t have a clue.

  “A lot of money is changing hands here, Sheriff Bagwell. You ever think that you might have someone in your department who’s being paid to turn their heads?” The second I said it, I regretted it. I saw that I’d pissed him off.

  “Of course I think about that, Mr. Bragg. “But I can guarantee you that none of my deputies are on the take. I would know.”

  “How about some of the city cops around the county?” I said.

  “I know all the chiefs. They’re all great cops who run tight ships, and it would shock me to hear that any of their officers are bent. We can’t know everything, Mr. Bragg, but we’re doing our best. Budgets keep going down year after year, and we’re all short-handed. So far, when we make an inroad into the upper echelon of these drug dealers, we’re faced with a wall of silence whenever we talk to anyone. The Feds are doing their best on all this too, but unless all governments—ours, Mexico’s, Chinas, or whatever country is making this poison, steps up, it’s a losing cause. I tell you, Mr. Bragg, we’re overwhelmed here.”

  I thought of telling him about Doughboy. What Bagwell said was probably right. If he arrested Doughboy, he wouldn’t talk and would take the rap if he had to—and someone new would be in his place tomorrow. Bagwell might even know about him already. Besides, as the old saying goes, better the devil you know. Turning in Doughboy would slam the door on anything Alvin could find out—I had a plan for Alvin to go under cover and try to get to know him. Selfish of me perhaps, but I wasn’t in this to end the opioid business in Pickens County. I was after something on a smaller scale, but much more significant to me—finding out who attacked Kelly. If Alvin and I found that person, then we would drop him into Bagwell’s lap.

  Or maybe we’d just drop him off a tall building somewhere.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  From there, I went to the Clarion for my second day as a hands-on publisher. Eloise said they were rolling along on this week’s issue, but nobody wanted to take a shot at writing the story of Kelly’s assault, which would pretty much be the whole front page and then some.

  “We all think it should be you, John David,” Eloise said. “Everyone thinks you’ll be so hypercritical about it, that nobody wants to touch it. So you might as well write it yourself.”

  I said, “You’re probably right.” Before I got started, I went to find Vickie Sayers. The young reporter was on her computer when I peeked in.

  “I know I promised you more exciting projects,” I said, “but until I come up with one, will you do something very boring for me?”

  “I guess I can’t turn you down after giving me a raise on your first day,” she said.

  “Can you help me with a little research?”

  “What do you need?”

  “Get me some info on opioids. Facts, figures, and any interesting stuff you come across. Especially as it relates to this area of South Carolina. I don’t want an encyclopedia—just the highlights and talking points. Don’t spend more than an hour on it.”

  I’d already gotten a lot from Bagwell. I wanted a little more detail.

  “And why do you want this?” she asked.

  “Just boning up on the subject. Every time I turn on the TV, I’m hearing about the opioid crises in this country. I decided I needed to learn more about it.”

  She held my gaze just long enough to suggest that she wasn’t buying that. My guess was that very little got by this girl. However I was the boss and she’d just have to do what I asked and keep her questions to herself.

  “You got it,” she said, and gave me a two-fingered scout salute. At least it wasn’t the one-finger salute.

  I returned to my office, found the number of Doctor Michael Stefans and dialed it. Based on what April Cheney told me, I thought I already knew why Kelly went to see him. It couldn’t hurt to make sure. He might even have more to tell.

  A very Southern female voice answered. I gave her my name and asked to speak to Doctor Stefans.

  “He’s busy with a patient right now. If this is a medical issue, I can make you an appointment to see him.”

  “I don’t need that kind of appointment. I just need to talk to Dr. Stefans for a minute.”

  “If you’re a medical or pharmaceutical salesman, I can make you an appointment for that too, but it will be a few days.”

  “It’s not that either. Can you have him call me?”

  “I can pass along your request, sir. Give me your number and the subject you’d like to speak to him about, and spell your name for me.”

  I did what she wanted. I gave her my cell number, spelled out my name, and identified myself as the publisher of the Clarion. The doctor had an excellent watchdog at his gate. I got the feeling that if I just showed up there, I’d never get past her to see him. I would just have to wait and see if he would return my call.

  After I hung up, I opened a blank MS Word document on my computer and began to write the story on Kelly’s assault..

  #

  Fifteen minutes later my phone rang. The caller ID showed it was Doctor Michael Stefans. I was amazed that he got back to me so quickly.

  “Am I speaking to Mr. Bragg?” he asked.

  “Yes, Doctor Stefans, thank you for returning my call.”

  “I had the pleasant opportunity of speaking last week with Ms. Mayfield, your associate at the newspaper. She is a lovely lady. How can I help you?”

  “That’s what I’m calling about. I’d like to go over what you and she discussed.”

  “I told Ms. Mayfield everything I know about how we doctors are dealing with this tragic opioid epidemic that is sweeping the country. She seemed to get what she came for in the interview and I do not think I have anything else to add. Ms. Is there some reason why Ms. Mayfield cannot tell you that?”

  “I’m afraid Ms. Mayfield has been injured and can’t speak. I’m taking over her work. If she made notes, we can’t find them.”

  “That is terrible. I was not aware of that. Was she in an automobile accident?”

  “No, but she did suffer acute physical trauma.” I didn’t see any reason to give him more details.

  “I am so sorry, what is her condition?”

  “She’s in an induced coma, and it’s wait and see at the moment.”

  “What hospital is she in, if I may ask?”

  “Greenville General.”

  He said, “At least that is good. They are a Level One trauma center. It is the best place for her. I hope she makes a good recovery.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  He was saying, “I will do whatever I can to help. As physicians, we face a major dilemma these days with opioids. We want to do our best to relieve acute pain for our patients, but we must do it responsibly. And that is the trick. Too often in these cases, doing good can go very bad. So, anything I can do to assist in this problem, I am happy to do. But I have patients waiting at the moment, Mr. Bragg. I wonder if you could meet me here after hours today, say about five? I should be free by then. As I said, I want to help any way I can on this issue.”

  I couldn’t think of anything else that I might learn from him with a personal visit, other than maybe getting some idea of the story direction Kelly’s questions were taking her, but what other avenues did I have at the moment?

  �
��Thank you, Doctor, I’ll be there.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I went back to writing the story of Kelly’s assault, keeping my door closed and trying hard to concentrate. The only interruption was Eloise when she brought me a ham sandwich she’d made along with a coke and a bag of chips from the office vending machine. I wrote in silence, trying to keep from being as nit-picky with myself as I would have been with anyone else. Everyone left me alone, with many of the staff going to see Kelly during the lunch hour.

  I did my best on Kelly’s story and realized I’d probably never be happy with it. I guess it’s always that way when you’re too close to something. Every line I wrote was so personal to me, I lost all objectivity. I thought Eloise was wrong. I wasn’t the best person at the Clarion to write this story. I was probably the worst. I decided to finish up what I had, at least including all the facts, then give it to someone else, like Vickie Sayers. Maybe she could turn it into news instead of an emotional ramble from a guy too worried that the story would eventually have an unhappy ending.

  There was a tap on my office door, and Vickie Sayers walked in.

  “I’ve got your research,” Vickie said, holding up several sheets of paper. “Want to take a look to see if it’s what you wanted? Or are you too busy right now?”

  “I need a break anyway. Come in and sit down.”

  She did and said, “Okay boss, here’s what I’ve got. I’ll just hit the high points as I see them.” She began to read from her notes. “When we talk opioids these days, we’re talking oxys and fentanyl. Fentanyl is a potent synthetic opioid, and all the rage of late. It’s a lot more potent than heroin, and far more profitable for dealers. It’s also the primary culprit for the growing opioid deaths in this country.”

  That much I’d heard from Sheriff Bagwell.

  “It’s been found mixed with everything from marijuana and heroin to animal tranquilizers and formaldehyde.”

  “Animal tranquilizers?” I couldn’t help myself.