What a Meth

by Jamie Lee Scott

  There was a sharp change in her demeanor.

  Then she whispered, “You may not want to come back quite yet.” And she disconnected.

  9

  Cortnie was holding court with two men and a woman when Charles and I walked in the back door of the office. The three were sitting at the kitchen table, and Cortnie, dressed in a lovely floral sheath, and red ballet flats, stood leaning against the counter, holding a large glass of iced tea.

  The people at the table wore suits, not expensive suits, but not cheap, either. And navy seemed to be the preferred color, though in different shades.

  When Charles and I came through the door, the oldest of the three, a man in his fifties, moved his suit coat to expose his shoulder holster and massive sidearm. When he stood, he also offered his badge.

  Charles reached in front of me and grabbed it. "D.E.A.?"

  Fiftyish guy said, "Special Agent Luke Fisher." He pointed to the woman first, "This is Helen Burrman, and Michael Julien."

  Helen, thirtyish, wore a masculine looking navy suit, and when she stood to shake our hands, I guessed her to be close to six feet tall. She was plain, with mousy brown hair, and a dull smile.

  Michael had the build of a college football player on steroids, and he stood about five-seven. His suit fit a bit on the tight side, as if he was trying to say, "See my muscles?" and his pockmarked skin told of the possibility of actual steroid use. He at least had a genuine beaming smile.

  "What can we do for you?" Charles got right down to business.

  I could tell he wasn't happy to see these people in our building.

  Fisher looked at me. "We're here to talk to Mimi Capurro about her interaction with Alyssa and Jeff King."

  "What do you want to know?"

  Michael took over. "Why were you harassing Alyssa in the week before the explosion?"

  Heads turned as Cortnie, Charles and I exchanged looks. Charles grinned as if to say, "I told you so."

  "I'm sorry, I don't understand." I wasn't about to give them any more information than they specifically requested.

  "What don't you understand? The part about harassing, or the explosion?" Helen turned out to be bad cop.

  I looked at her as if she was a rat, no more than a rodent in my kitchen. Screw her if she thought I was going to grace her with an answer.

  Luke said, "What exactly was your relationship with Jeff King?"

  "I had no relationship with him whatsoever. I’ve never even seen him." Still I wasn't going to make their job easy. If Helen was going to be a bitch, I'd make her work for her answers, and the men would have to work, too.

  "Let me be more specific: why were you shaking Alyssa down for money? And what were you doing at their house this morning when it exploded?" Helen spoke slowly, as if speaking to a mentally challenged child.

  I looked at Charles before saying, "Helen, was it?"

  "Detective Burrman," she snapped.

  "Well, Helen, I don't think I'll answer any of your questions until you change your attitude. I don't respond well your particular tone." I turned and walked out of the kitchen.

  Behind me there was dead silence. I smiled, even though no one could see me.

  Charles was the first to speak, and I heard him say, "So, if that's all, there's the door." I could see him gesturing to the door, even if it was only in my mind.

  I heard the door open and close, and then I heard Luke's voice. "Can we go somewhere and talk?"

  By this time I was sitting behind my desk, waiting. Within a few moments, Charles entered with Luke in tow. Cortnie trailed behind them, with her glass of iced tea still in her hand. No way was she going to miss out on this, and I didn't blame her.

  "We're going to speak like civilized adults now?" I asked, as everyone took a seat.

  Luke sat back and crossed his ankle over his knee. "Sorry. Helen is used to dealing with drug dealers and liars; she's not good at changing her tone."

  Charles leaned forward. "What exactly is this all about?"

  "We've been watching the Kings for some time. Then last week, Alyssa contacted our office, saying she was in fear for her life. She said Mimi had been calling her for a week, and demanded she come up with five hundred in cash, or Jeff would never make it to the trial date."

  My eyes widened, but I didn't speak.

  "She said you had been hired by the man Robert Jackson works for. She said you wanted to know exactly what Jeff had intended to say in his deposition and that, for five hundred dollars, you would make it all go away."

  "If you checked my phone records, you'd know that I never had any sort of contact with Alyssa before yesterday."

  Charles chimed in. "Not that we're giving you permission to check anything, or tap our phones."

  Luke looked at Charles. "I don't need your permission, but thank you."

  Well, crap, that was scary.

  "In my line of work, the people we deal with are manipulative. Usually, if their lips are moving, they're lying about something. In this case, it's odd that Alyssa contacted the D.E.A. about the harassment. Helen was her caseworker, and we were working with the Kings to get deeper into this particular family of dealers. She contacted Helen before she came here yesterday."

  Cortnie stood and quietly exited the office via the kitchen. She looked over her shoulder before she closed the door behind her.

  "If you were working with the Kings, didn't you have a tap on their phone lines?"

  Luke laughed. "They only look stupid. It's all about throwaway phones and untraceable contacts. At the higher levels there are layers of encryption. We were hoping to get up at least another layer from Jackson through the Kings."

  "So you don't know that much about the drug trail in this case?" Charles was curious; his body language, leaning toward Luke, said it all.

  "We know plenty. I need to know how involved you are in this whole ordeal."

  Fine, I'd give in and tell them my part in the whole thing. Luke seemed nice enough, and the last thing I needed was the D.E.A. on my back. So I told him in detail about my contact with Alyssa, and what I'd witnessed that morning.

  "What I don't understand is why she wanted me to see the house explode," I said.

  "I'm not sure if the explosion was part of the plan." Luke relaxed a bit. "There was supposed to be a meeting this morning. It would have occurred about the same time the emergency vehicles arrived."

  "Really?" This was a revelation. "So I wasn't there to witness the explosion?"

  "I think you were there to witness Jackson's boss taking down the King family," Luke sighed. "We were in the house on the property where you were parked. We were waiting to see who showed up for the meeting."

  "So it was going to be a bust?" Charles asked.

  "No, not a bust. We'd watch and record the meeting, then follow whoever showed. We were hoping for a trail back to the 'boss'."

  It was a relief to know that I wasn't there to watch the house explode, but it was scarier that I was there to see a drug kingpin. "Was it a meeting? Or was it going to be a hit?"

  "Apparently someone got wind of the meeting, and we think the explosion was set up in advance. No one was ever coming to that house to see the Kings, at least as far as we can tell."

  "So now Jeff King won't be testifying about anything," Charles said. "But they did have a deposition from him, right?"

  "No deposition was needed if he was testifying in person." Luke shook his head. "Part of Helen's demeanor was the fact that this was her case, and it got away from her."

  "So the Kings are dead?" It occurred to me that some of what was flying through the air, from the explosion, may actually have been body bits and pieces.

  "As far as we can tell. We have crews sifting through the rubble for any clues."

  "Like I said, I didn't even know who these people were, and I'd never seen or spoken to Alyssa before yesterday."

  Suddenly Luke looked uncomfortable. "Mrs. Capurro, may I be frank with you?"

  I held my breath and n
odded, having no idea what was coming next.

  10

  Luke opened his suit coat and pulled out several pages that were folded in half. It was white paper with typing on one side, but I could see the print through the thin sheets. He unfolded the pages, stood, and put them on my desk. Before I looked at them, I waited for him to say something more. Anything more. I don't know why, but I was terrified to look at what was on those pages.

  Charles stood and grabbed for them. Luke moved fast and cut him off. "This is for Mrs. Capurro's eyes only at the moment. If she chooses to share, that's fine."

  As I looked at the sheets of paper in front of me, Luke asked, "Do you know anything about your husband's family?"

  I looked back up at him. "I'm a widow. My husband died in a plane crash several years ago." I could feel tears welling in my eyes and I willed them away.

  I'd heard that if you cleared your throat, you could cut off the mechanism in your body that produced tears, so I cleared my throat and swallowed.

  "Are you sure about that?" Luke asked. There was something in his tone that said he wanted to share more, but wasn't sure how to say it.

  Now I was mad. Was he saying I didn't know my dead husband? "What are you trying to say?"

  "Mrs. Capurro, we believe that Dominic may not have even been in the plane that went down. Or if he was, he and the passengers parachuted to safety, and evacuated before the emergency vehicles arrived on the scene."

  My throat tightened, heart swelled, and stomach flipped. It couldn't be. Dominic loved me, he wouldn't abandon me. I couldn't speak, hell, I could barely breathe.

  Charles jumped to his feet. "Get out!"

  He reached to grab Luke by the arm and escort him out when I finally found my wits.

  "No. I want to hear what he has to say." Though I wasn't sure I was ready to hear any of it. "But as for my husband's family, they are in the produce business. They’re brokers, like Dominic was, buying produce for several grocery store chains on the East Coast."

  "The Capurro family is based out of Detroit. Yes, they do work out of the terminal markets there, but not as brokers." He paused, then said, "Well, not only as brokers. The Capurro family didn't make their millions from lettuce."

  Charles’s face reddened. "What exactly are you implying?"

  Luke looked at him. "Dominic was the third generation of Capurros to transport drugs for the Mafia. Only it's not your father's mafia. This particular cartel is run out of Canada, and the Detroit Terminal Market was their cover."

  I knew Dominic had family in Canada, but I didn't know his family that well.

  "The papers in front of you, Mrs. Capurro--"

  "Mimi, call me Mimi." I couldn't stand to hear the Capurro name associated with me at this moment.

  "The papers in front of you, Mimi, are summaries of our surveillance of you since Dominic supposedly died. We've been waiting for the family to contact you in some way. Or for Dominic to contact you."

  A sob hiccupped in my chest. I sucked in air through my nose and blew it out forcefully through my mouth. "This can't be true. Dominic loved me."

  Luke breathed in and out several times before responding. "Yes, we do believe Dominic loved you, and therefore the surveillance. We were hoping for some contact. When Alyssa contacted us about you, we assumed the Capurro family was involved. Someone put her up to involving you."

  Now I cried openly. "So Dominic just left me? He left me with a broken heart, just like that?" I could hardly speak, I cried so hard.

  Charles came over to hug me, but I didn't want to be touched.

  "They could be wrong about Dominic. This is all speculation, right?" He looked pointedly at Luke.

  "The part about Dominic is speculation, but the Capurro family is definitely involved in the major cartel out of Canada. Heroin mostly, but also large quantities of marijuana, and more recently, crystal meth."

  Charles said to me, "See? Dominic loved you. He would never do this to you."

  I looked up at him. "But remember? I saw him."

  Charles shook his head vehemently. "No, you aren't sure who you saw. You were sleepy, and you weren't positive it was him."

  This lit a fire under Luke in a big way. "Who did you see?"

  Through the sobbing, I said, "Dominic."

  Before Luke could get too happy, Charles explained what and when I thought I saw him.

  Luke calmed a bit. "Okay. I can pretty much assure you that wasn't Dominic. He's been in the wind since the crash. I doubt he'd ever come back to Salinas."

  I took several deep breaths. It was weird how Luke showed no emotion regarding my mini-meltdown. I did believe that Dominic had died in that plane crash. Luke was just fishing. He thought I knew more than I did about the Capurros.

  "I promise you I knew nothing of the family business. Dominic's family disowned me as soon as he died. They didn't even acknowledge me at the memorial." The memory of that time stabbed my heart.

  "You were no longer of use to them. They wanted an in with the FBI." He said this so matter of fact, as if it wouldn't cut me to the soul. He was so wrong.

  My breath caught at his words. "So you're saying Dominic married me because I was FBI? I wasn't even really FBI, I was Secret Service."

  "I'm not speaking to anything Dominic may have done. So far, we can't even connect him to his family's drug running, except that he was part of the produce brokerage. We're fairly sure they were using the long haul trucks to transport drugs from Canada to various locations within the US. As far as we can tell, they still are."

  Charles said, "Back to the Kings. What does this have to do with Alyssa hiring us?"

  "Since you say she hired you, but she told us in advance that you were threatening her, I believe someone wanted you involved." Luke picked at his sleeve. "Alyssa King wouldn't have five hundred dollars in her possession, ever. An extra twenty would have been burned up in meth if she had it. Saving up even a hundred would have been a stretch. Someone gave her that money and told her to contact you."

  Still standing near me, with his hand on my shoulder, Charles said, "Why the hell are you telling us all of this? What exactly do you want?"

  "We want to know if the Kings were doing business for the Capurros," Luke stated. He stood, adjusted his suit jacket and leaned on my desk. "You are in this up to your eyeballs whether you admit it or not. Why did Alyssa King come to you? Of all of the people she could have contacted, why you? Why did she lead us to you?"

  Before I could answer, my office door flew open and Nick came charging in. He grabbed Luke by the back of his jacket and tossed him away from my desk like a ragdoll. Then Cortnie appeared in the doorway with a huge grin on her face.

  Luke regained his balance and went for his firearm. I reached into my desk at the same time and pulled out my Glock. No way in hell was this man taking someone else from my life. I aimed my weapon at Luke, who looked beyond stunned.

  "Who the hell do you think you are? If you don't have solid proof of Mimi's involvement in anything, you have no reason to be here. Now get out." Nick's voice was so low, it was more menacing than if he'd been yelling. Nick flashed his badge and gun at Luke.

  The tension eased, and Luke re-holstered his firearm. With that, I put mine back in my desk. There was a moment of silence before Charles said, "That was fun."

  A veil of anxiety was lifted with Charles’s remark.

  "I'm Special Agent Luke Fisher, D.E.A."

  "I know who you are. What I don't know is why you are harassing Mimi Capurro." Nick hadn't let down his guard.

  My turn to step in. "This is Nick Christianson, Salinas Homicide." I nodded at both of the men. "Nick, Luke was explaining to me about the Capurro family business."

  Nick looked puzzled. "The produce business?"

  I raised my brows and said, "The drug business."

  Nick sat in the chair Charles had been sitting in, before standing to comfort me. Luke, still tense, sat down in the chair he'd been sitting in, and Charles stayed by my side. It w
as time to make nice.

  It was at this point that Lola decided to grace us with her appearance. She must have sensed the tension in the room, because she gave a low moan, and turned right back around and left the way she came in.

  Even with the momentary distraction, the anxiety didn’t ease.

  Nick's face tightened.

  There was a general recap, and everyone was up to the moment on the wonderful happenings in my life. And even after hearing it all over again, this time with less emotion, I still didn't understand why I was being involved.

  "Do you think the plan was to blow up the house all along?" Nick pondered, not really directing the question at anyone.

  "All we know is that there was supposed to be a meeting this morning, and Mimi was supposed to witness it. Whether things when south and someone killed that couple, we still don't know," Luke offered.

  "Then it's a homicide." This lit up Nick's face. "This is now my jurisdiction."

  I expected Luke to balk at the liaison. "Your crime scene techs were there all morning. I really hope they found something that will be of help to us. And if you want to investigate the homicide angle, go ahead. My job now is to follow the drugs, not the murderers."

  "Is there anything else you need from us at the moment?" I asked. I was ready to be done with this meeting.

  "Here’s my card." He handed me an official looking business card, with the government seal and all. "If you think of anything at all that would be helpful..."

  I took the card graciously, and placed it on the center of my desk. Then I stared at it for a moment. Nick stood and broke my gaze from the card.

  "I'll walk you out," he said to Luke.

  Luke stood. "Sorry for all of this, Mimi. I know it's a lot to take in, and we did bombard you."

  I just nodded, and he and Nick walked out the back way.

  As soon as Nick and Luke were out of sight, Cortnie popped in with a grin on her face. She put a piece of pink scratch paper on my desk, and I picked it up to read. It was the name and address of the drug dealer. I smiled, and then handed the paper to Charles.

  Cortnie moved the chair closer to my desk and sat. She put her feet up on my desk, and said, "Is there a change in plans now?"