by Thomas Scott
“I’m sure it’ll all work out,” Rosencrantz said. Then he pointed at the Nav display and said, “Got your turn coming up in two miles. How about we drop it out of warp?”
Ross slowed down and a little over a minute later, they turned down the road that would take them to Jenny Nelson’s house.
Kono turned into Jenny’s drive and saw two cars he didn’t recognize, parked behind Jenny’s crappy Toyota. He tucked the gun in his waistband and covered it with his shirt. He was about to knock, then thought, the hell with it, and walked right in like he owned the joint. He found her in the bedroom with two other men, all naked and rolling around on top of the sheets.
When one of the men saw Kono—and his gun—he jumped off the bed, his hands out in front of him, and said, “Hey, hey, hey. What the hell, man?”
That got Jenny and the other man’s attention as well. They both got off the bed and stood there staring at Kono. The men had their hands over their genitalia, and Jenny had her hands on her hips, her lack of timidity on full display.
“It was her idea, man,” the first guy said.
The other guy was nodding rapidly. “He’s right. We come over to party a little last night, and then, uh, wait…are you her boyfriend? We didn’t know she was hooked up with anyone.”
Kono looked at the two men, then said, “She’s not. Not anymore.”
Jenny brushed her fingers through her hair, then scratched at her left boob. “Put the gun away, Kono. And what do you mean by not anymore? Where’s Boyd?”
“There it is,” Rosencrantz said. “Up there on the right. The place with all the cars.”
“Maybe she already found out about Boyd.” Ross parked behind the other cars, and when they heard the gunshots, they ran toward the house.
“I ain’t putting the gun away until I’m done using it,” Kono said. Then he shot both men in the chest. Jenny screamed, then tried to run away by jumping over the bed. Kono caught her by the hair and flung her face down on the mattress. “I’m supposed to do you, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Twice, if you know what I mean.”
He set the gun next to his leg, dropped his pants, and was just about to start in on Jenny when the front door crashed in. Jenny screamed again as Kono grabbed the gun and tried to pull his pants back up all at the same time. That’s when he saw the two men bracing either side of the doorway, their guns pointed straight at him.
Ross and Rosencrantz heard the scream at almost exactly the same time they hit the front door. They followed the sounds coming from the bedroom and ran that way, their handguns leading them down the short hallway. Ross had the lead, and the better angle on the door, and when he saw the man start to bring the gun up, he fired a quick double-tap. The first shot caught him right in the center of the chest, and the second in the middle of his neck. He dropped on the bed, and the gun fell on the floor.
Rosencrantz looked at his partner and, with a whiff of sarcasm said, “Police. Nobody move.”
Jenny screamed again.
Virgil and Murton were in the office above the bar going over their notes with Becky. She’d already gathered about as much information on Boyd as she was going to get.
“There just isn’t much there,” Becky said. “He’s been a MedX employee for nearly ten years, his taxes are in order, his credit is a little iffy, but nothing too terribly bad, and other than a few various minor traffic violations going back over the same length of time, he’s what anyone would call a regular Joe.”
“What about his girlfriend?”
Becky took a pencil from behind her ear and pointed it at Virgil and Murton. “She’s a different story. Her taxes are a mess, her credit score is so bad I’d be surprised if anyone would lend her a nickel without asking for a dime as collateral, her work record is spotty at best, and she’s been in and out of jail more times than the prison guards. Everything from drugs to sex.”
“What kind of drugs?” Virgil said.
Becky looked at her computer screen for a few seconds. “The whole smorgasbord. Weed on the low end, right up to coke, crack, heroin, and what looks like her drug of choice, meth.” Becky turned her monitor slightly so Virgil and Murton could see. “Take a look at her last booking photo. Half her teeth are gone, and the other half look like they’ve been replaced by matchsticks.”
Virgil and Murton looked at the photo for a few seconds. Then Murton turned to his brother and said, “Those feelings, or memories, or whatever that you were mentioning earlier?”
“What about them?” Virgil said.
“Would they have made you do that to yourself just to keep feeling them?”
“I don’t know, Murt. I don’t dwell on it anymore.”
“Make sure you don’t, or I will,” Murton said. There was no mistaking his tone.
Virgil put his arm around his brother and said, “No worries, Murt. I promise.” Then to Becky, “I’ll want you to go deeper on Boyd. I find it hard to believe Nelson is that far gone, and Boyd was clean as a whistle. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I’ll look if you want, Jonesy, but my basic search goes pretty deep.”
“I know, I know, but keep at it. On one hand, we’ve got an ex-con who is apparently a meth-head, and her boyfriend works for this MedX joint delivering pseudoephedrine across the northern part of the state. It doesn’t make sense. Boyd must have been in on it. Maybe he was trying to wean her off or something.”
“Doesn’t sound likely,” Murton said. “You heard what Wade and Ellis told us. These guys don’t even know what they’re carrying.”
“Unless Boyd figured it out somehow,” Virgil said. He looked at Becky. “Forget what I said earlier. Get into MedX’s system and see if you can figure out their codes. Wade told us that the boxes are all coded, and they are because that’s what we saw when we were up there. But I want to know how hard it’d be to figure it out if you were a driver.”
Becky started to say she would, but when Virgil’s phone rang, it cut her off.
When Virgil answered, Rosencrantz said, “I’m glad you didn’t let us take the helicopter.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to want it.”
“Why?” Virgil said again.
“Because we’ve got a hell of a mess up here, that’s why,” Rosencrantz said. “Three dead, one of them officer involved, and the Marshall County sheriff isn’t too happy with us right now for showing up in his county unannounced, and in his own words, ‘shooting the place up.’ We could sort of use your help.”
Chapter Nine
Virgil got in touch with Cool and told him to get the helicopter ready. A half-hour later they were airborne and headed up to Marshall County. Since Boyd’s house was only a few miles from the Plymouth airport, they landed there. Rosencrantz was waiting for them when they touched down.
Cool stayed behind, and after Virgil and Murton were in the car, Rosencrantz dropped it in gear and they took off back toward the crime scene.
“Run it for us,” Virgil said.
Rosencrantz hit the flashers, then said, “When we arrived there were four cars in the driveway, which looked like too many cars for the size of the joint, so we sort of assumed that maybe someone had already told this Nelson broad that Boyd was dead.”
“No wonder you’re still single,” Murton said. “I don’t think anyone uses the term broad anymore.”
“It’s an apt description in this case. Anyway, we were walking up to the front door and didn’t even get a chance to knock when we heard gunfire coming from inside the residence. We made entry, heard a scream coming from the bedroom, and ran that way. There were two male victims already down and when the shooter—some guy named Brian Kono—turned our way, he had a gun in his hand and was bringing it up, right at us. We didn’t have a choice. Ross took him out.”
“He okay?” Virgil said. “Ross?”
“Yeah, the shooter didn’t get a chance to fire. You know, Ross is Ross.”
“Why are you driving his car?” Murton
said.
“Two reasons,” Rosencrantz said. “We rode up here in his vehicle.”
When Rosencrantz didn’t say anything else, Virgil said, “Rosie?”
“As I said, Ross is Ross. Things got a little heated between us and the county guys,” Rosencrantz said. “When the sheriff tried to do something that Ross didn’t want him to do, there was what any reasonable person might describe as a minor scuffle.”
“How minor?” Virgil said.
“Ross is currently being detained for assault on a police officer and resisting arrest.”
When they arrived at the scene, Virgil saw three county squad cars, two boxy EMT trucks, a county homicide van, a fire truck, and the coroner’s vehicle. Ross was leaning against one of the county squad cars, his hands behind his back, with two deputies standing on either side of him. Virgil gave him a wait-a-minute finger. Ross turned the corners of his mouth down and nodded like he didn’t have a care in the world. Then he tipped his head slightly toward one of the EMT trucks.
When Virgil looked that way, he saw one of the medics pressing an ice pack against the sheriff’s left eye. When the sheriff saw Virgil coming, he pushed the medic’s hand away, then stood from the back of the vehicle and said, “Who the hell are you now?”
Virgil already had his badge out, hanging from a chain around his neck. Murton did as well. Over the entire course of his law enforcement career, Virgil had learned that at their core, cops are no different from anyone else. In other words, look hard enough, and you can find either a nice guy or a bully. And, he knew that he had two choices when it came to handling the sheriff. He could try diplomacy, or he could try aggression. In this instance, he decided to try the middle ground, and let the sheriff choose how the whole thing would play out.
He looked the sheriff in the eye and said, “I’m either your best friend or your worst nightmare. You get to pick.” He smiled when he said it, but there was no light in his eyes.
The sheriff rubbed the skin under his eye with his middle finger…a not-so-subtle opening statement that didn’t require any words. “I saw you fly overhead in that fancy state helicopter, so I imagine you’ve got some juice. But here’s the thing, I don’t give a damn. Your boys come racing into my county without any sort of notice, start a gunfight, and now I’ve got three dead bodies to deal with.”
“Sounds to me like you’re in the wrong line of work,” Virgil said.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“For starters, you don’t have your facts straight,” Virgil said. “My men came up here for exactly two reasons. One was to notify Jenny Nelson of her boyfriend’s death. The other was to interview her regarding said death in an effort to further our investigation. When my detectives arrived on the scene, they heard gunfire and screaming from inside the residence. What would you have them do? Go make a doughnut run? No, no, wait, you asked me a question, and I’m not done answering yet. My men didn’t start a gunfight as you say. They finished it. In other words, they did their jobs. Earlier you asked me my name.” He got right up in the sheriff’s face. “It’s Detective Virgil Jones. You can call me Sir. Now, I’m going to start asking the questions, and your answers better be good.”
The sheriff looked at Virgil from head to toe. “You don’t look like a detective to me. When was the last time you had a haircut? And your buddy here looks like he’s trying out for the Tommy Bahama brochure.” He spat close to Virgil’s feet, and a few droplets of spittle landed on his boot.
Virgil looked down at his boots, then glanced at Murton, a look both men knew well. Murton winked at the sheriff before he walked away. Then he and Rosencrantz began to move toward the deputies guarding Ross.
Virgil looked back down at his boot for a moment, and said, “Technically, under the laws of our state, that’s an assault on a police officer.” Then, before the sheriff ever knew what was happening, Virgil had him on the ground, face down, and used the sheriff’s own handcuffs to secure him. When he turned and looked back at Ross, he was rubbing his wrists. The two deputies who’d been guarding him were also restrained, courtesy of Murton and Rosencrantz.
Virgil rolled the sheriff on his side, grabbed his arm, and lifted him to his feet. “I could feel your resistance when I was trying to detain you for your safety and my own. That’s called resisting arrest. Now, do you want to play nice, or do you want a trip down to your own county lockup?”
“Try it and see what happens,” the sheriff said.
Virgil laughed out loud. “Based on what I’ve seen so far, I don’t think it’d be that big of a problem unless you count the embarrassment factor into the equation. I’m thinking your chances of reelection would be so far down in the garbage dump it’d be an insult to dumps everywhere. Last chance. Now tell me what happened.”
The sheriff finally decided he was beaten. “We got a report of shots fired. My boys and I rolled up and found your men armed as they were exiting the residence. They didn’t have their badges out, and they’re in street clothes, so we took cover and told them to drop their weapons. They refused.”
“But I’m guessing they re-holstered them, and then identified themselves as state detectives, and explained what happened,” Virgil said.
“They did. Then everything was fine. They told us what they encountered, and we all went back inside. The Nelson woman was dressed, and restrained, sitting on the living room sofa. When we went to inspect the bodies, the gun was on the floor. When I went to secure it, your man grabbed my arm to stop me. What happened next was pure reflex. You know how it is…you don’t put your hands on a cop. I pushed him away, but he was a little quicker than I thought because he threw an elbow at me and I caught it right in the eye.”
“So essentially, both of you were acting purely on instinct,” Virgil said.
“I guess that’s one way of looking at it.”
“Do you have a better way of looking at it, Sheriff?”
The sheriff stuck his tongue in his cheek. “I guess not. How about it on the bracelets?”
“Your men going to be a problem?”
“No. They do as they’re told.”
“Then tell them,” Virgil said.
The sheriff told his men it was over, and to behave themselves. When Virgil saw that they were going to, he nodded at Murton and Rosencrantz. Once everyone was all unhooked, the sheriff did something that surprised Virgil. He walked over and apologized to Ross. “I get a little wound up sometimes.”
“Your eye okay?” Ross said.
The sheriff nodded. “Yep. Didn’t even really realize I’d been hit,” he lied.
Ross let him have the lie, which later, everyone agreed was something of a minor miracle.
Virgil and Murton went into the house and escorted Jenny Nelson outside. They removed the handcuffs from her wrists and sat her down sideways in the back of Ross’s squad car, her feet resting on the pavement. Virgil leaned against the side of the car.
“Am I in trouble?” Nelson asked. She’d been crying, and her makeup was smeared all over her face.
“That depends,” Virgil said. “Do you have any drugs in the house?”
She shook her head. “Not no more.”
Virgil tried hard not to look at her teeth when she spoke. “Then probably not…at least this time. There are places where you can get help, you know.”
“Yeah, and they cost something like twenty grand. Does it look like I have twenty grand? I don’t have twenty bucks.”
“There are free clinics, too,” Virgil said.
Nelson actually laughed. “Ever heard the saying, you get what you pay for?”
“I have,” Virgil said. “But if you don’t change your ways, you’ll be dead inside a year. I guarantee it.”
“Yeah? How would you know?”
“Because I’ve been through it myself. Not meth, but I had a pretty good run on pills several years ago. I’m living proof you can beat it if you want to.”
“I do want to. That’s what Boyd was trying
to do for me. He was trying to wean me off. He said if I could do it, we could get married, and then I’d be on his insurance. Said I could get my teeth fixed and everything. But I guess that’s not going to happen now, is it? Right before the county showed up one of your guys told me about what happened to Dave.”
“I guess not,” Virgil said. “And I want you to know how sorry we are about Mr. Boyd. We’ll catch whoever did this to him. But I have to ask you something, and I need you to tell me the truth. And not to put too fine of a point on it, if you lie to me, then you will be in trouble. Big trouble. This is a murder investigation we’re working on, and if you lie about something material to our case, then you could be considered an accessory after the fact in the murder of your own boyfriend.”
“You don’t have to threaten me.”
“I’m not threatening you,” Virgil said. “I just want to make sure you understand the gravity of the situation.”
“I get it. What’s the question?”
“Was David Boyd stealing pseudoephedrine from MedX so he could make his own meth?”
“Yeah, sort of. He had bad sinus problems, so the doctor gave him a script. Cheaper than over the counter, and it keeps you off the state registry. One day when he was making a delivery to his own pharmacy, he also asked them to fill his latest prescription. They said it was a good thing he showed up when he did because they were out. That’s how he found out which boxes contained the pseudoephedrine.”
“How many was he stealing?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. He never told me.”
“How long had he been trying to wean you off?”
Jenny shrugged. “Two or three years.”
“That sounds more like feeding your habit than weaning you off.”
