by Thomas Scott
Jenny looked him right in the eye. “How do I know you’re not in on this with him?”
Dakota let his face form into a question. “In on what? I told you we split up to look for work. I haven’t talked to him in more than a week. Look if Boyd don’t want me in there with you, I get it. But Kono and me, we was tight. Tell Boyd I’ll only stay for a few minutes.”
When Jenny started to cry, Dakota knew he had her. “Boyd is dead, Chase.”
Dakota ran his fingers through his hair like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What? What the fuck is going on?”
Jenny shook her head and walked into the room, the door swaying open as she did. Dakota followed her in, closing the door with the heel of his boot. “Jenny, start from the beginning. Tell me about Boyd.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed, and Dakota sat next to her. “I didn’t know Boyd was dead until the cops showed up.”
“But why did the cops kill Kono?” Dakota said. “I don’t get it.”
“Because he was getting ready to kill me. Everything is so messed up I can’t think clearly.”
Dakota reached into his pocket and pulled out the baggie and a small pipe. “Look, forget about everything for a minute.” He handed her the bag and said, “Get yourself straight, and then we’ll figure out what to do. You got a lighter?”
Jenny walked over to the table by the bathroom, dropped some meth into the pipe, and lit up. A few seconds later, she exhaled and said, “Oh, god, this stuff is good.” She still had her back to Dakota when she said, “Want a hit?”
Dakota was right behind her and she didn’t even notice. He’d pulled the knife from his boot and was holding it down next to his thigh. He let her take one more hit, then said, “No, I’m good.” Then he wrapped his arm around her throat, gently, the way a lover might.
Jenny let him, but said, “Oh, Dakota, I don’t think we should. God, this is good stuff. I mean, after everything that’s happened I just don’t think I’m up for it.”
“I am,” Dakota said. He tightened his grip on her throat, pulled her closer still, then swung the knife up and around and stabbed Jenny Nelson right in the heart. When he let go, he jumped back out of the way so he wouldn’t get any blood on his clothes. He kicked her onto her back, yanked out the knife, and wiped it on her shirt before tucking it back into his boot. Then he grabbed the pipe and bag of meth and stuffed them in his pocket. Her phone was on the nightstand next to the bed. He took that as well.
He was about to reach for the door handle but realized he didn’t want to leave any fingerprints behind, so he ran to the bathroom, grabbed a hand towel, and used that to both open and close the door once he was out. Then he got back into the truck and headed south.
Mission accomplished.
Virgil spent Sunday with his family, both because he missed them, and there wasn’t much he could do with the investigation anyway. He was still waiting on more research from Becky, the autopsy report on Boyd, and the forensics from Chip and Mimi. So: A day of downtime, which, Virgil knew, was something you took whenever you could get it.
Monday, however, was a different story. Virgil was in his office at the MCU typing up his report when DEA Agent Carla Martin walked in. Virgil told her hello, then invited her to sit down.
“Do you have anything for me yet, Detective?”
“It’s still pretty early,” Virgil said. “That’s police code-speak for no.” When he saw the look on her face, he could tell she was disappointed.
“The governor sort of indicated that you guys work pretty fast.”
“We do…usually. But all cases are different, Agent Martin. Surely you know that. I’ve got all my people working on this thing. One way or another, we’ll get it figured out.”
“I hope you do. I’m getting a lot of pressure from the higher-ups in my department.”
“If anything breaks, you’ll be the first to know.”
Martin nodded, then walked out without responding.
Virgil let out a sigh and was about to reach out to Becky when his phone rang. When he looked at the caller ID and saw it was the Marshall County sheriff, he sighed again before answering. “Detective Jones.”
“Let me ask you something. You ever handcuff a county sheriff before?”
Virgil let out a little chuckle. “No, but I did cuff a city cop to his own bumper in the central booking lot once.”
The Marshall County sheriff let out a little chuckle of his own. “So it’s a habit then.”
“Not exactly,” Virgil said. “What can I do for you sheriff?”
“Probably nothing. This is what we refer to as a courtesy call. That Nelson woman your boys saved by showing up when they did?”
Virgil was suddenly on edge. “What about her?”
“They should have saved the state’s gas money by driving all the way up here and back. She ended up dead anyway.”
Virgil rubbed the top of his forehead with his palm. “What happened?”
“We put her up in a motel since her house is still considered a crime scene. At some point late Saturday night or very early Sunday morning—the coroner hasn’t said yet—she took a knife to the heart. The maid found her this morning.”
Virgil knew what he was about to ask was hopeless, but he said it anyway. “She was pretty torn up over the loss of her boyfriend, then someone trying to kill her. Any chance the wound was self-inflicted?”
“Not unless she stabbed herself in the heart, then hid the knife somewhere we can’t find, all without leaving a trail of blood behind as she did it.” Then, before Virgil could respond, the sheriff finished by saying, “She told you someone sent this Kono fellow to kill her, is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Well, it looks like when they figured out he failed, they sent someone else.”
Virgil didn’t necessarily disagree, but he wanted to make sure they were on the same page. “She’s got quite a sheet, from what I understand. That means she’s likely hooked up with some pretty unsavory characters.”
“There’s no doubt about that,” the sheriff said. “But what are the chances that two different people tried to kill the same woman on probably the same day…one of them succeeding, mind you, and those two attempts are unrelated?”
“Probably slim to none,” Virgil said.
“And I’d say that slim is out of the equation. This Boyd fellow must have been up to his neck in it. My guess is whatever he knew, she did too. I’m thinking that’s what got her killed.”
Virgil was quiet for a long time. Finally, the sheriff said, “You still with me?”
“Yeah. But you know who got her killed?” Virgil said. “It was me. I should have put her in protective custody.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Detective. We tried. She wouldn’t have anything to do with it. That’s why we finally decided to put her in a motel. It’s the only thing she’d take.”
“I guess,” Virgil said. “Get me the autopsy results when they come back, will you?”
“Yep. I sent Kono’s prints to your forensics people. They should have them by now.”
“Thanks,” Virgil said.
“Want some advice?”
Not really. “Sure.”
“Figure out who killed that Boyd fellow, and you could probably wrap the whole thing up.”
That’s what I’m trying to do, Virgil thought.
Virgil had no sooner hung up with the Marshall County sheriff when Becky called him. “Why do you sound so down in the dumps?” Becky said.
“Ah, I screwed up…sort of. Jenny Nelson is dead.” Then he told her of the conversation he’d just had with the sheriff.
“I’d say listen to the man, Jonesy. It sounds to me like you did everything you could.”
“I don’t know, Becks. When I was on the pills, you guys did everything you could and it all worked out. But it didn’t for Jenny Nelson, and that’s because I didn’t do everything I could. Maybe I should have arrested her. If she would ha
ve spent the night in jail, this might not have happened.”
“Maybe,” Becky said. “But this woman was no stranger to the system. She’d have made bail eventually, and then who knows what would have happened? Stop beating yourself up because you did someone a kindness.”
Virgil told her he would, then said, “Sorry, I guess I sort of hijacked your call. What’s up?”
“Need you over at the bar. Got some things to talk about.”
“Can’t we do it over the phone?” Virgil said.
“Not this time. This is one of those off-the-books situations. Murton is already here, and he agrees.”
Virgil knew what she meant. “Got it. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
Chapter Twelve
Patty Doyle was having the type of Monday that no one wants. She’d only been at her desk two hours when her boyfriend, a Bureau of Indian Affairs agent named Anthony Stronghill walked in and said, “I think you’re right. We have a problem.”
“How many this time?” Patty said.
“Two more as of this morning. Their living quarters are cleaned out and they’re gone. I just don’t get it.”
Patty shook her head. “You know what I was thinking?”
“What?”
“This all started about a month ago when Johnny Hawk quit. At least he had the decency to give notice, even though the notice was the equivalent of, thank you very much, goodbye. Counting this morning, we’ve lost six people. That’s six Native Americans who came from the Rez with nothing, were offered good-paying jobs, an education, not to mention food and shelter. What the heck is going on?”
Stronghill shook his head. “I have no idea, but it’s time I started looking into it.”
Patty looked at nothing for a few seconds, then said, “Want me to call Virgil? I bet he’d be willing to help somehow.”
Stronghill crinkled an eye shut for a few seconds, then said, “I don’t think so. At least not yet. I’ll get with Sheriff Holden and have him keep an eye out for anything unusual, although I don’t know what it’d be. People quitting their jobs isn’t exactly illegal, you know.”
“I guess not,” Patty said. “Still, it’s odd, don’t you think?”
The traffic was a little worse than Virgil expected, and when he arrived at the bar, it was fifteen minutes later than when he’d told Becky he’d be there. On top of that, he had to answer a few questions that Robert had regarding the kitchen upgrades, and Delroy wanted to know if it was okay to replace the bar top. It’d been several years, and the bar top and brass railing were showing their age. “Of course, Delroy,” Virgil said. “Anything you need. You know that.”
“Yeah, mon. Just making sure it wasn’t someting you wanted to wait on, you.”
“Delroy, we’ve been over this before. You’re a partner here. You and Robert run the place, and you do it well. If someting needs doing, just go ahead and do it.”
Delroy laughed his big Jamaican laugh and said, “You hear dat, you? You said someting, just like Delroy do.”
Virgil clapped him on the back, and said, “I gotta run, Delroy. I’m late already.”
“Yeah, mon. Dat probably explain why Becky standing at the top of the steps with her hands on her hips, no?”
Virgil spun around and saw Becky standing there, her head canted to one side, her eyebrows arched. He was mildly surprised she wasn’t tapping her toe on the floor.
“Yeah, yeah,” Virgil said. “I’m coming.”
“I’m thinking of getting you a new watch for your birthday,” Becky said.
“I don’t wear a watch,” Virgil said.
“That might explain it,” Murton said.
Virgil plopped down on the sofa next to Becky’s desk. “I can’t control the traffic. Anyway, what’s up?”
“The other day you asked me to look into MedX’s system to see if there was any way that a driver could figure out the codes on the boxes to know what’s inside.”
“Yeah. So did you?”
“Not exactly,” Becky said.
“What does that mean?”
Becky sort of shrugged. “Their system generates the same code for the same product each and every time. That means code XYZ or whatever, is always the same for the drug XYZ.”
“That’s not exactly a huge revelation, Becks. The security chief at the distribution center told us that when we interviewed him.”
Becky was nodding. “I know. I read your report. But you asked me if a driver could figure it out, so I went snooping around inside the MedX computer system. What I found was that unless someone had the kind of equipment we have, not to mention the expertise to use said equipment, they definitely could not know what codes are used for what drugs. I mean, I figured it out, but it wasn’t easy, and I had to compile a script that sorted through the variables within—”
“Becky?”
Becky batted her eyelashes at him. “Yes, Jonesy?”
“Save the technical stuff for Mr. Taylor, would you?”
Murton yawned. “And you think Cool needs new material?”
Virgil ignored him. “Just dumb it down a little, okay?”
“Once I saw how difficult it was—again, even though I was able to do it—I pretty much ruled out that your basic delivery driver would be able to pull it off. So, I started looking at it from a different angle.”
Virgil rolled his wrist. A get on with it already look on his face.
“Don’t do that,” Becky said. “Anyway, I wasn’t getting anywhere with the whole shebang until I read your report. You had the answer the whole time, Jonesy. No one knows what those codes mean except the computer that generates them.”
Virgil looked at nothing for a few minutes, and Murton and Becky let him. It went on for so long that Becky finally looked at Murton and said, “Maybe we should go downstairs and get some lunch or someting.”
Murton winked at his wife and said, “No, I can see his wheels turning. I think he’s almost there.”
Then, a slight grin began to form at the corner of Virgil’s mouth. When he looked at Becky, he let the grin turn into a full-blown smile. “Terry Wade, the security chief at the distribution center.”
Becky tipped a finger at him and said, “Excellent.”
Virgil looked at Murton and said, “He was lying to our faces.”
“It sure seems like it,” Murton said. “If no one knows what the codes are for except the system that generates them, how would he know that each drug has its own unique code?”
Virgil looked at Becky and said, “Is it possible that Wade could get that information?”
“That was the first thing I asked myself,” Becky said. “And the answer is no. I’m sure of it.”
“How sure?” Virgil said.
“One hundred percent. MedX corporate is in Kentucky, and the system is set up like a one-way street. All the information flows out to the distribution centers, but the only information sent back to the corporate headquarters is whether or not the proper inventory has shipped. I took a peek at Wade’s computer, along with Ellis’s, and there’s no way in from the distribution center. It’d be like trying to call the space station with two tin cans and a string. It simply can’t be done.”
“That’s great work, Becks, but it still leaves us with a problem.”
Becky was already nodding. “I know. You’re going to ask me how did Wade know what the codes meant?”
Virgil shook his head. “No. I already know that. I just hadn’t tied it to Wade. Boyd figured it out. His girlfriend Jenny Nelson told me. It was pure chance. He saw the pharmacist open one of the boxes. Once he knew what the code was, he knew what it contained.”
“How do you want to play it?” Murton asked.
Virgil wasn’t exactly sure, and he said so. “Just because Boyd knew what the code meant doesn’t necessarily mean Wade did anything wrong. What if it was just shop talk? Maybe Boyd came in one day and said, ‘Hey Terry, guess what? I figured out one of the codes.’ That doesn’t exactly prove Wade did
anything wrong. And now that I think about it, it doesn’t really prove he was lying to us.”
“Pretty sure he was lying,” Murton said.
“Why?” Virgil said.
Murton tipped his head at Becky.
Virgil looked at Becky and said, “Did you run Wade yet?”
“He looks about as clean as they come. But sometimes looks can be deceiving.”
“In what way?” Virgil asked.
“In this way,” Becky said. “When I was looking through the MedX system, I discovered an anomaly. Apparently, one of the pharmacies that Boyd delivered to doesn’t exist anymore. They went out of business two years ago. And guess whose name is registered on the bank account that now makes the payments to MedX for a nonexistent pharmacy?”
“Wade?” Virgil said.
“You got it, Jonesy,” Becky said.
Murton stood and kissed his wife goodbye. “Nice work, baby.” Then to Virgil: “Come on, let’s go grab Wade and have a little talk.”
Virgil looked at his brother. “You in charge now?”
Murton snickered at him. “What do you mean, now?”
Virgil and Murton left the bar and drove north through the city, then up into Boone County. When they turned down the road that led to the distribution center, Virgil pulled over and stopped.
“Why are we stopping?” Murton said.
“Because chances are, Wade is going to jail today. We need the Boone County sheriff’s department to take him in. Plus, on the off chance that things go bad, I don’t want a repeat of what happened up in Plymouth.”
Virgil looked up the number for the Boone County sheriff’s department, then made the call. After he identified himself, he asked to speak with the sheriff. Two minutes later, he was on the line. “Sheriff Wagner speaking. How may I help you, Detective?”
Virgil told the sheriff what they were doing and asked if he could send one of his deputies out to the distribution center for a possible arrest and transport back to their jail.
