“No, ma’am.” Agent Nick Shelton, head of the field station, didn’t touch the laptop in front of him. Instead, he jammed his fingers into his eyes as he shook his head. “I’m trying everything I can. Are you sure it’s not on your end?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Amanda snapped. “I can’t see anything but the GBI logo. There’s no video at all.”
Nick shook his head at Faith. He held out his hand to Will.
“Agent Trent.”
“Is Will there?” Amanda asked. “I can’t see a thing.”
Will tried to make his voice as strong as he could. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Why are you whispering?”
Faith said, “Because he was nearly strangled to death.”
Amanda showed her usual concern. “Sit close to the speaker, then. I don’t want to have to ask you to repeat yourself every two minutes.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m going to have a word with that idiot who set up my computer,” Amanda complained. “He’s been out here three times, and it stops working the minute he leaves.”
Faith couldn’t help herself. “You know you can catch more flies with honey.”
“Yes, Faith, thank you. That’s exactly what I need is more flies.”
Will slumped into a chair as the two women exchanged more helpful suggestions. The table was set up for a formal meeting. Five bottles of water were in front of five chairs. Notepads and pens were laid out beside them. Will had been at a lot of briefings where a lot of cops lost their jobs, but he felt sorry about this one. Denise Branson had made a career-ending mistake, but she’d probably done it for reasons she felt were right.
It was just a matter of time before Lena Adams did the same.
Will looked at the digital clock on the wall: 3:01 in the morning. He should be exhausted. Maybe the caffeine in the Cokes had sparked him up. Or maybe his body had finally accepted the fact that he was going to live.
He stared at the water bottles Faith had shoved into his hands. One was about a quarter empty. Will’s mouth was bone-dry, but just thinking about taking another drink made his throat hurt. He felt like he was drowning in the ocean.
The door opened. Nick stood up. “Ma’am, Chief Gray and Major Branson have entered the room.”
Denise Branson was no longer in her shiny uniform. She wore jeans and a loose-fitting blouse. Her previously erect posture was gone. There was something beaten down about her. The leather briefcase was the only indication that she was the same woman they’d talked with in Atlanta yesterday morning.
For his part, Lonnie Gray was decked out in full regalia. His gold epaulets glimmered in the overhead light. He carried his hat under his arm. He was older, but had the look of a guy who started his day with a hundred push-ups before the sun came up. He also looked furious as hell. His mouth was a barely visible white line under his mustache. His forehead was furrowed like a plowed field.
They all shook hands. Will stayed in his chair, hoping they would understand.
“Chief Gray,” Amanda said. “I’m sorry for the technical difficulties. I’m doing the Skype program from my home.”
Will didn’t know which was worse, the photo of Amanda playing tennis or the thought of her talking to them in her nightgown.
“That’s fine.” Lonnie Gray sat across from Will. He did a double take. So did Denise Branson. She slowly sank into the chair beside her chief, lips parted in surprise.
Will guessed he was going to have to get used to people staring at him for a while.
Nick said, “Ma’am, we’re all seated.”
“Thank you,” Amanda said. “Lonnie, my condolences on your son. I hadn’t heard that he passed away.”
“Thank you.” Gray obviously didn’t want to talk about his personal life. He quickly got down to business. “Mandy, I want to apologize to you, your agents, and your agency for the actions of one rogue officer. Rest assured, my house will be put in order.” He shot Branson a look. “Starting now.”
“I appreciate that, Lonnie.” Amanda didn’t sound like she appreciated it at all. “Major Branson, I need to inform you that because you are officially under investigation, this conversation is being recorded. Anything you say may be used against you. You’re entitled to an attorney—”
“I don’t need an attorney,” Branson said, though they all knew she did. “Give me the form.”
Nick was prepared. He pushed a sheet of paper over to Branson so she could officially acknowledge that she’d been Mirandized.
Branson didn’t read the form. She’d probably seen it thousands of times. She clicked the pen and signed her name on the line before pushing the paper back toward Nick.
Lonnie Gray gave her a nod to begin.
Branson didn’t start immediately—not because she was playing games again, but because she probably knew this was the last briefing she would ever give.
Finally, she took a deep breath and jumped in. “Approximately three and a half weeks ago, Detective Adams came to me about a suspected shooting gallery off Redding Street. I authorized her to investigate. She monitored the house for a few days and determined the intelligence was good.” Branson paused. She started playing with the ballpoint pen, balancing it between two fingers. “During the course of surveillance, Detective Adams realized that the shooting gallery was being run by a man named Sidney Waller.”
Gray took over. “Waller’s an extremely violent, high-level drug runner. When I came in two years ago, my number one priority was capturing and prosecuting him. Even with the full force of the department behind it, we were never able to make any charges stick.”
Will thought it was pretty decent of the man to acknowledge his failure.
Branson seemed to appreciate it, too. She nodded at him before continuing. “We knew we could shut down the shooting gallery pretty quickly, but with Sid Waller involved, we saw an opportunity. I spoke with Detective Adams and decided that we should expand the operation with the goal of capturing and convicting Waller.”
Gray provided, “This was where I came in. We got the DA on our side, formed an intra-agency task force. There were a lot of moving pieces. Denise and I had to coordinate together.”
Will saw Branson flinch when he used her first name rather than her rank. Still, she said, “We were ten days into the operation when we realized that catching Waller was unlikely. We couldn’t turn anyone. People were terrified of him. The junkies went to ground. No one would wear a wire. It was looking like we would have to go into the house and settle on rounding up whomever we could find. We could time it so Waller was there, but that wasn’t much of a consolation.”
Amanda said, “Because you couldn’t prove that Waller was in charge, he’d bond out with the rest of the junkies.” She sounded impatient. “But obviously, something changed?”
Branson said, “Detective Adams was contacted by a confidential informant. He was in lockup for selling pills to Mercer students. Not on campus, but at one of the coffee shops.”
The distinction was important. Sale or distribution of illegal substances inside a school zone jacked up the prison time exponentially.
Amanda asked, “This was one of Adams’s usual CIs?”
“No, she’d never met him before. He was locked up less than two hours, and he asked for her by name.” Branson added, “Adams has a reputation with the junkies around town. This wasn’t necessarily a red flag.”
Amanda’s brain was working faster than Will’s. “The snitch was Tony Dell?”
Branson hesitated. “Yes, ma’am. He told her that he would trade Sid Waller for immunity off the drug deal.”
Will glanced at Faith. At least now they knew why Lena had sent Will the email. She didn’t want Dell to skate.
Amanda told Branson, “You got Waller on tape, which gave you probable cause for an arrest warrant?”
“Yes,” Branson confirmed. “We commenced the raid four days later. The snitch said a big shipment was coming in. Detective Adams and her team breached t
he house. They found this.” She nodded to Nick.
He tapped some keys on the laptop and Amanda’s tennis shot was replaced by a crime scene photo.
Will stared at the screen. Two dead men. Hispanic. Shirtless. They were sitting on a tattered old couch. Their throats were slit open.
Nick asked Amanda, “Can you see it, ma’am?”
“Yes.”
Branson said, “The one on the right is Elian Ramirez, an Oxy freak who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. The guy on the left is Diego Nuñez. He was Waller’s right-hand man. Professional thug. He spent his twenties inside for manslaughter coupled with time-plus for bad behavior.”
Branson nodded for the next photo, and Nick slid over the laptop so she could do it herself.
Branson narrated the next picture, which showed a man with the top of his skull chopped off. “Thomas Holland. He’s new to the scene, got hooked on crack his senior year. We don’t know why he was there except to get high. He was taken out with an ax.” A picture of Holland’s scalp flashed up, then his face from another angle. He was young, probably seventeen. Blond hair, piercing blue eyes. Except for the missing part of his head, he could’ve been on a poster for a Disney movie.
Branson flashed through some more innocuous photos, showing stills of the bedrooms, the bathroom, the dining room. Will had been inside shooting galleries before. The scene was familiar: crack pipes and needles scattered on the floor, mattresses in every room. He never understood where the mattresses came from, or why someone who was shooting poison into their veins required a comfortable place to pass out.
“Here.” Branson stopped on a photo. It showed an open basement door. There were metal braces on each side. A two-by-four was on the floor.
She said, “The basement. This is where Sid Waller was hiding.”
Will wondered if his head was still messed up. If someone locked you in a basement, you weren’t hiding. You were trapped.
Branson said, “Two detectives breached the basement. Mitch Cabello and Keith McVale.”
Faith stiffened. They both recognized the detectives’ names. McVale had taken leave from his job and Cabello had been admitted to the hospital the day of the raid.
Branson said, “Detectives Adams and Vickery stayed in the kitchen. Cabello and McVale called the all-clear on the basement. They relayed to Detective Adams that they’d found a large amount of money. We believe it was shortly after this that Sid Waller came out from his hiding place.”
She pulled up the next photo, which showed a hanging piece of wall paneling with a dark, wet hole behind it that someone had dug into the earth. The photo was not great, but Will could tell the hole was deep enough to hide a grown man.
“Waller knocked out Cabello with a strike to the head. He then took McVale hostage—quietly. Shortly after, Detective Adams went downstairs to help secure the money. She walked into the hostage situation. She drew on Sid Waller, who had a gun to McVale’s head. There was a standoff. Rather than being taken in by Detective Adams, Waller shot himself in the head.”
Will silently replayed her words, which were wholly unexpected. He managed, “Sid Waller shot himself?”
“All three detectives told exactly the same story.” She held up her hands, stopping the obvious question. “The crime scene techs support every word of their statements. The autopsy confirmed the wound was self-inflicted. The tox screen showed there were enough pills in Waller to make a Buddhist monk go postal. At no point do the facts diverge. Everything says Waller took his own life.”
Amanda wanted a second opinion. “Lonnie?”
Gray stirred in his chair. “Our snitch recorded Waller referring to a breakdown in supply. One of his trucks was rolled by some Cubans down in Miami. I made a call to some contacts I still have down in Florida. Waller was on the verge of a war with the Cuban cartel.”
Branson said, “Sid knew he wouldn’t last more than a day in prison. Better to eat a bullet than take a shiv from some Cuban in the yard.”
Amanda moved them along. “Where does Big Whitey fit into all of this?”
Gray looked at Branson. He seemed sad, like one of his children had disappointed him.
She told them, “I was working the case off-book. Chief Gray told me not to pursue it, even on my own time, but I was obsessed with tracking Big Whitey down.”
Amanda asked, “This is connected to Waller?”
“Tangentially,” Branson conceded.
“Is there a reason you’re not taking us down that tangent?”
Branson reached into her briefcase again. She took out a file that was several inches thick. Then she took out another one. Then another one. She stacked them on the table.
Faith wasn’t shy. She grabbed the whole pile and slid it toward her.
Branson said, “Big Whitey came onto my radar eighteen months ago. I like statistics. I like to run the numbers, track the crimes, see where we need to move people around to stop the bad guys.” She paused. Will could tell she had just realized she wasn’t going to get to do this anymore.
“Anyway,” Branson said, “it’s what you said yesterday, the same thing that happened in Savannah and Hilton Head. It felt like there was a larger, organizing factor. Our usual lowlifes were stepping up. There’s a law firm here they all use, ambulance chasers, sloppy and cheap. Suddenly, they merged with a white-shoe firm out of Florida.”
“Vanhorn and Gresham.” Faith looked up from the report she was reading. “The shooter who went after Jared Long is represented by the firm.”
“Correct,” Branson said. “We started seeing low-level cons like Fred Zachary walking on solid charges because of these guys. I started talking to folks, meeting with my detectives, and figured out there was a new player in town.”
Faith said, “Big Whitey.”
“Correct,” Branson repeated. “Whitey started out banking legit through a series of pain management clinics. It’s the usual deal. They were using junkies to cash the scripts. Rednecks, mostly. They control the meth trade, so it was natural for Whitey to tap into an existing market.”
Gray felt the need to explain himself. “I wasn’t persuaded Big Whitey existed. There were some sketchy details from Florida, but no name, no description, no affiliation. He was a ghost.” Gray shrugged. “And we had a lot going on at the time. There was a rash of heroin overdoses at one of our private schools. Young women from good homes. Not the type we were used to seeing in that situation.”
“Rich white girls,” Faith supplied, skipping the political correctness. “They die or just end up at the hospital?”
Branson said, “Three died. Six went to the ER, then got carted off to white-girl prison.” She meant rehab. “They were from some of our better-known families. There was a lot of heat to make arrests. Like I said, Whitey was running pills through rednecks. Most of our non-pharmaceutical dealers were black and Hispanic. It’s easy to spot who’s working for whom.”
Faith put it more succinctly. “So, the white people freaked out and demanded justice. You arrested a bunch of blacks and Hispanics.” She used sarcasm to make her point. “I’m sure that went over well.”
Gray was obviously uncomfortable with Faith’s directness, or maybe he was more conscious that the conversation was being recorded. “We arrested the dealers who were known to sell heroin. My department is not in the business of racial profiling and never will be.”
Will assumed from Gray’s tone that he’d faced these accusations before. Atlanta had enough political scandals of its own to fill the local news, but Will had a vague recollection of seeing some reports about the mayhem down in Macon. Lonnie Gray must’ve gone to work every day wondering if he was going to keep his job.
Branson spoke reluctantly. “Because of the clampdown, we crippled Whitey’s competition in the streets. We created a racial firestorm that split apart the city and made all the politicians start screaming for blood.”
Gray admitted, “That’s when I shut down Denise’s investigation. We had too much go
ing on to waste resources on a man we weren’t even sure existed.”
“This—” Will tried to clear the squeak from his voice. “This was Big Whitey’s endgame? To take over the heroin trade?”
Branson answered, “He took over everything. Remember, chess, not checkers. He comes into town and makes friends, pays up the food chain to guys like Sid Waller so that everybody stays happy. Whitey has operating capital. He opens up some pain clinics, gets his regulars, puts the junkies on his payroll so they start dealing. Then he spreads out his business to the malls, into the suburbs. He gets the kids with money hooked, then when they want something more, he moves them on to heroin.” She shook her head, though he could tell part of her was impressed. “Once his business model’s up and running, he starts taking out the competition.”
Amanda asked, “You know this is a pattern how?”
“Because I drove to Savannah and talked to some retired detectives who were too scared to tell me this over the phone.”
Gray’s clenched fists indicated he was just hearing this. He shot Branson a withering look.
Will couldn’t let go of something. He asked, “Chief Gray, you didn’t think Whitey existed?”
Gray reluctantly turned his attention away from Branson. “We’re not used to this level of sophistication in our criminal underworld. Mandy, you know I’ve worked all over the state, but this is more like something you’d see out of Miami or New York.”
There was a big fish/little pond logic to Whitey taking on the smaller cities. He’d also managed to pick two areas in Georgia where the population was predominantly African American. It was as if he was franchising his business model.
Will asked Branson, “Major, why were you so sure Whitey existed?”
“May I?” Branson was talking to Faith. She wanted one of her file folders back.
“Help yourself.” Faith pushed the stack back across the table.
Branson flipped through one of the files until she found a photograph. She put it on the table. The young girl in the picture was pretty and blonde, posing for the camera in that seductive way that teenage girls don’t know is dangerous.
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