“It’s an effective treatment,” Whitt added. “It also generates tons of cash for private clinics. They’re popping up all over the place and it’s a huge business. There are national companies that own hundreds of these clinics in regions with high rates of opioid abuse and they’re getting rich.”
“You said it’s effective.” Ty shrugged. “If it’s helping, what’s the crime?”
“That’s not the crime.” Whitt lowered her voice. “I had an informant reach out to me and say that the clinic she’s going to, one of these national chains, gave her a counseling session where they basically offered to buy her children if she was having trouble taking care of them.”
Ty raised an eyebrow. “Do you trust this informant? An addict might say anything to buy brownie points with the cops.”
Whitt looked him dead in the eye. “This particular informant is a former cop. She was injured on the job and became addicted because of an overzealous doc who thought he was helping her by prescribing all these pain pills. By the time she figured out what was happening, she wasn’t able to stop on her own. I worked with this woman when she was a cop. She’s solid and has good instincts. I don’t think she’d make this up. She wasn’t trying to bargain with me—she contacted me because it felt wrong to her.”
Ty returned his gaze to Baxter. “What’s your take on this?”
“If you asked me twenty years ago I’d have said that someone doing private adoptions was performing a service for the community that an overwhelmed social services system couldn’t do. A situation like this might be considered good for all parties involved. You take a child from an unstable home and place them in a stable home. A few corners are cut but everyone benefits, right? This has been happening under the table forever, even though it’s illegal. These days, though, you have to question everyone’s motives. With the growth in trafficking, you have to wonder if there’s a reason these placements are off-the-books.”
“So excuse my ignorance here,” Ty said. “You can’t just adopt someone’s kid under the table? That is illegal, correct?”
“It is,” Whitt said. “You can do a private adoption between two parties who are in agreement but social services and the courts are still involved. There’s a paper trail and oversight to ensure that the best interests of the child are seen to.”
“And you think this is something other than that?” Ty asked. “You think this is the sale of a child outside of the legal system?”
Whitt took a sip of her water and carefully placed the glass on the table. “I think my informant believes that’s a possibility and the things I see on the job anymore make me distrustful of everyone. I hear stories at the station every week about some parent being arrested for allowing people to have sex with their child for drugs. All ages, Ty. It’s insane. It’s stuff you’d never believe and I don’t want to repeat. Not because it’s confidential but because it’s evil. When I took this job, I never imagined seeing the kind of things I’m seeing now.”
Ty looked down at the table, jabbing his straw at an ice cube. “I’ve been training with DKI for most of the summer, learning to do undercover operations. Learning how to stomach the things you hear and see out there. How to compartmentalize and lock it away so those memories don’t eat you alive.”
Even the thought of such things started pulling Ty down a rabbit hole and he felt himself losing track of the conversation. He began to disassociate, feeling like he was slipping out of his body and watching this entire conversation from somewhere else. He was rescued by the arrival of the waitress with their food order. As much as Ty wanted to dig in, it was piping hot and needed to cool a minute before he could eat it. He took that moment of admiring his pizza to pull himself together.
Baxter leaned forward and spoke quietly. “Ty, the lieutenant and I were wondering if this might be a situation where a joint task force of the FBI, Virginia State Police, and Door Kickers International might be the best way to investigate this. Understand that I haven’t taken this up with my superiors yet. I’m just brainstorming here. I think my regional folks would probably want to talk to the Tucson Field Office before they agreed to it. They’d want to know a little more about the process of working with your organization since it’s new to us here in Virginia.”
Ty held up his hands as if he were warding off the question. “Dude, it’s not my organization. I’m not in the position to make a commitment like that. I’m the newest kid on the block. A peon at DKI.”
“We’re not asking for a commitment today, Ty,” Whitt said. “I guess I’m asking if you might take this to Mr. Mathis and see if he’d be willing to meet with us. If this is real, we don’t want to screw it up. We don’t want to march into the clinic asking questions and damaging what could be a bigger investigation. He's got experience here that would benefit all of us.”
Ty nodded. “I can ask him. Like I said, I’m a complete newbie here. I’m still learning the ropes. I don’t know all the details of what cases they take or why they take them. It’s a big company with a lot of different divisions and I don’t know how it all works yet.”
“That’s fine,” Baxter said. “That’s all we’re asking. Without more information I don’t think this case will go anywhere in our system. The clinic we’re looking at is owned by a national corporation. I’m not sure this is something the FBI would devote a lot of resources to off a single tip from a clinic patient. It could be sour grapes or something. Maybe the patient isn't satisfied with her treatment and she’s getting even. But maybe not.”
Ty took a bite of his pizza and decided it was cool enough to devour. While they ate, Baxter and Whitt provided Ty with a few notes, which he photographed with his phone. He’d text them to Cliff when he spoke with him later. When they were done, Baxter picked up the tab and Ty promised he’d get back to the lieutenant as soon as he’d spoken with Cliff.
12
Washington County, Virginia
With his run and his meeting with Whitt completed, Ty had some time on his hands. He was supposed to have dinner at Deena’s house but had a few hours to kill. Since it was a beautiful day he decided to head to the range and get some drills in. Shooting was a perishable skill and he wasn’t interested in losing the edge he’d spent years developing.
Back at his apartment, he spent a few minutes banging out a text to Cliff and attaching the pictures he’d taken of the background notes. In the short time he’d spent with DKI, Ty had learned that Cliff was always knee-deep in something. It was best just to fire off a text and ask him to call when he had a few minutes.
That done, Ty loaded his truck with his range bag, the handguns and holsters he used most often, and his Tavor X95 in .300 Blackout. He had a membership at a private range outside of town that had excellent facilities. A lot of ranges he’d been to over the years had dozens of rules about what you could and couldn’t do, designed to keep unskilled shooters from hurting themselves or someone else. That was one of the reasons Ty preferred going during the quieter weekday periods. Fewer people used the range. If he needed to practice rapid fire, he could do it. If he needed to practice his draw, or needed to move and shoot, that wasn’t a problem either.
He drilled with his full-size, his compact, and his subcompact carry pistols. He shot two-handed, single-handed, and off-handed. He shot from standing and from his back. When he’d blown through all his loaded mags, he returned to the bench to thumb rounds into a dozen more.
After two hours, he was sweaty, dirty, and felt like he’d covered the basics. He piled all his gear into the cab of his truck and changed out of his filthy t-shirt. As he stood there in the open door he couldn't help but notice the rank odor of sweat pouring from his truck. It was starting to smell like a gym bag. Between the gym and the shooting range, his seat covers were overdue for a washing. At this point, he could probably hang a carcass from the rearview mirror and it would be an improvement in the scent.
Before he pulled out, he checked his phone and found he had a message from Cliff.
Received your message. I’ve got someone on it. We’ll talk tonight.
Ty cranked the AC to the max, flipped through his phone, and found a playlist from the Texas Hippie Coalition. He started it loud, then turned it up just a little bit more. As he drove toward town, banging his thumb on the steering wheel, he downed a quart of Gatorade. He had just enough time to hit the gym before he had to run to Deena's house.
13
The Suboxone Clinic
Glade Spring, Virginia
Tonya Terry sat in the waiting room, legs crossed, bobbing her foot with the mindless repetition of a metronome. Several times the receptionist looked up to check on this anxious new patient, but it was nothing she hadn’t seen before. The people that came here were often in distress. They were nervous and detoxing. Sometimes they were facing legal troubles and their lives were in disarray. That was the nature of the business.
That first appointment was never easy, either. It required honesty and admitting weakness. It required that the patient be able to admit the problem was something they were unable to tackle themselves. It meant asking for help, something many people were hesitant to do. Enlisting the services of the clinic also required a financial commitment and that was perhaps the scariest part for most people. Sobriety came at a price. Could they afford it? It was cash only, paid when you arrived for your appointment.
Yet Tonya had no interest in sobriety. She’d long ago accepted who and what she was. Her life was about her and her only. She was fine with that. The people she hurt along the way, the people she stole from, the lives she ruined, were all collateral damage. It was a consequence of entering her orbit. In her way of thinking, all those people should all have known better. They could hardly lay their blame on her.
She’d used drugs for as long as she could remember. She had memories of her parents’ friends letting her sip beer and mixed drinks when she was a toddler. They’d let her toke off joints that passed around the room, laughing hysterically at everything she did while she was high. By the time she was ten years old, she’d snatch a stray pill off the coffee table and take it without even knowing what it was, just to see what happened.
Using drugs was a part of her and she had no intention of giving that up. Every day was about the hunt, the quest for the high. Along the way you experienced things and had adventures. Sometimes they were good and sometimes they were bad, but she couldn’t imagine the life of an ordinary person when her life felt so amazing. Normal people were grounded and boring while she lived ten feet off the ground most days.
Tonya had tried suboxone before, but only on a recreational basis. She’d tried nearly every drug out there as far as she knew. Some she liked better than others. She had no interest in kicking drugs though. That wasn’t why she was here. She’d heard a rumor from a woman at a party and she wanted to know if it was true. There was only one way to find out.
A door opened at the far end of the waiting room and a nurse stepped out. “Miss Terry?”
Tonya looked up and saw that the nurse was holding the door open for her. She stood up, crossed her arms in front of her, and strode across the waiting room, her sandals flapping.
“How are you today?” the nurse asked.
Tonya could tell the nurse didn’t really care. She was just asking because that was the kind of thing nurses and counselors always said when they were leading you from the lobby to wherever you were going. “Reckon I’ll live,” was all she could think to say.
And it was true. Tonya should have died a thousand times over in her reckless life, but she hadn’t. She had the resilience of a roach; of a four-hundred-year-old tortoise; of a virus extracted from Antarctic ice.
They stopped at a scale and the nurse weighed Tonya, then collected her height. When she was done, she pulled out a plastic cup with a lid from a green cabinet, scrawled something on it with an ink pen, and held it out to Tonya. “I’ll need a sample.”
“I ain’t sure I’m interested in the program yet. I’m just here to talk,” Tonya said, not taking the cup. “Besides, how do I know you won’t test me for drugs then turn it over to the cops?”
The nurse didn’t flinch. She heard some version of this every week. “You don’t give a sample, you don’t see the doctor. That’s how it works.”
“Fine then,” Tonya spat, snatching the cup and heading off into the bathroom. She was pulling the door closed behind her when the nurse stopped it with her foot and stepped inside.
“I’m sorry, honey, but this has to be an observed sample.”
Tonya rolled her eyes and sighed, but she’d been down this road before. "Whatever floats your boat." She had her shorts yanked down before the door was even closed and filled the cup. She handed it over with a look that said “satisfied?”
The nurse took it and insisted that Tonya wash her hands. She was still wiping them on her shorts as the nurse led her into an exam room and had her take a seat on the end of the table. The nurse opened a laptop and began working her way through an extensive list of demographic and personal questions. Tonya had been down this road before too. She answered them on automatic pilot. It was always the same questions with these people.
They wanted to know about your legal problems and your living situation. Were you homeless? Were you safe in your home? What was your family income and your ethnic background? Did you finish school? How long have you been using drugs? What drugs do you use? What is your most frequently used drug? When did you last do drugs? Have you ever stolen to support your habit? Have you ever ended up in the hospital as a result of drug use? Have you ever traded sex for drugs?
She was glad when the interrogation finally ended. These were treatment questions and she wasn’t here for treatment. She was only here for one thing, but it was clear she wasn’t getting anywhere without going through this witch of a nurse first. She reminded herself to stay cool. In the scheme of things, she’d been through a lot worse in her life.
Finally, the nurse stood and shut her laptop. “The doctor will be in to see you in a moment.”
When the nurse was gone, Tonya let out a sigh of relief. She looked around the office, seeing if there was anything that might fit in her pockets, but these people must have dealt with the likes of her before. All the cabinets were locked and the items laying out were useless. Nothing she could sell or trade. There was a knock at the door and it swung open. Tonya jumped as if the larcenous thoughts crossing her mind were visible, as if the thought bubbles of comic strips indeed existed.
“Miss Terry?” the doctor confirmed, giving her a tight smile. "I'm Dr. Jacoby."
His expression didn’t fool her. She’d seen it on a lot of faces in her day. It was a contempt that bordered on loathing. She understood that this doctor was questioning himself, thinking about the kind of people he had to deal with to make a living. She didn’t take it personally. In fact, she assumed that nearly everyone she dealt with in her life was going to look at her that way. It was expected. There were his kind of people and there were her kind of people. They were a world apart.
He opened his laptop and briefly scanned the social assessment and history the nurse had just completed. She knew he didn’t have time to read the entire thing, he was simply looking for the key pieces of data that he found relevant. When he was done, he spun the stool until he was facing her and leaned forward, hands splayed on his thighs. He was staring at her belly.
“So can I ask you a question?” he asked.
“Does that one count?”
He laughed. “No.”
“Then you can ask one. When you’re done, I get to ask one. Deal?”
He chuckled again. It was condescending, as if she was a child and he was allowing her to feel clever, but he conceded. “Okay, that’s a deal. Here’s my question. Not to be rude but you’re clearly pregnant. How far along are you?”
She shrugged. Of course he’d noticed. She was rail-thin and her belly stuck out like a watermelon. “Ain’t rightly sure but it has to be getting clos
e. Might be eight months along or so. Where I’m a bit scrawny I tend to show early.”
“This isn’t your first child?”
She grinned at him, her smile a jagged range of blackened nubs, broken and missing teeth. “You done had your turn, doctor. Now it’s mine.”
He grinned back and held his hands up in surrender. “You got me. What’s your question?” He was expecting something about the cost of treatment or how often she’d have to come in. Maybe she’d ask about the frequency of drug testing. Instead, she took him completely by surprise.
“What’s it worth?” she asked, the simple question almost a hiss as the air moved across the irregular surface of her damaged teeth.
His eyebrows gathered behind his glasses, an expression of confusion. “What’s what worth? Suboxone? Sobriety?”
Tonya lowered her eyes to her rounded belly. “No, doctor. The baby. What’s a baby worth to you people?”
14
Suboxone Clinic
Glade Spring, Virginia
Tonya was unsophisticated and a little backward. While many of the actions she took in her life were poorly thought-out and impulsive, she had some innate strengths. When you have little else your survival instinct becomes finely-honed. You learn how to read people.
For a moment she was uncertain if he understood her or not. Maybe the rumor she'd heard was completely false and he had no idea what she was talking about. Then she saw a flicker of awareness in his eyes, a hint of shame. He did know what she was talking about.
“I think you need to speak to the counselor,” he said, standing abruptly and closing his laptop. “I’ll send her right in.”
Child With No Name Page 6
