“Really? My bad.”
Bitsy Peck was a round, snub-nosed woman in her fifties with light brown hair that she wore in a pageboy. She had always been very warm and friendly toward Des, and got on extremely well with Mitch. It was Bitsy who’d taught Mitch the joy of gardening. “I did invite Bella,” she said, her gaze following Des’s. “But she told me she couldn’t make it.”
Des drank down some of the wine. “I know,” she responded quietly.
Bitsy studied her shrewdly. She was one of those Dorset housewives who gave the impression of being unfailingly merry and dim, and was neither. She was smart and tough. Had lost her husband right after Des came to town. And seen her daughter, Becca, battle heroin addiction. “Are you okay, Des?”
“Never better.”
“We’re going to lose you, aren’t we?”
“Excuse me?”
“I can see it in your eyes as you look around. It’s as if you’re trying to memorize everything. My kids looked at this place that way when they were getting ready to leave me.”
“Bitsy, I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.”
Some of the Town Committee members were starting to trickle back to their cars. Bitsy scurried off to say her good-byes. Des stayed put, sipping her wine.
Brandon found her there a few minutes later. He was all pumped up, his eyes gleaming. “Man, this is some way to live,” he exclaimed, taking in the remains of the sunset over Long Island Sound. A few sailboats were still out on the water, taking advantage of the breeze. “It’s almost enough to make you want to be white.”
She smiled faintly. “But not quite.”
He turned and looked at her. “This is going to take you some getting used to, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Same here. I still have to get over my long held personal belief that all politicians are assholes.” He let out a big laugh. “But we did good tonight. Huge thanks, Desi. These people carry a lot of weight.”
“Brandon, there’s something serious I need to talk to you about.”
“So talk to me. But smile or it’ll look like we’re having a fight.”
“I got pulled over by a fed named Grisky just before I came here. He told me to keep away from Sour Cherry Lane. I phoned my C.O. right away and got another earful from him-mostly about Grisky and his strong-arm tactics. But he confirmed that the guy’s legit. It seems there’s been an independent operation going on here in Dorset.”
“And you’re telling me this because…?”
“When I asked Grisky what it was he told me to ask you.”
Brandon’s face dropped. He said nothing.
“I ran criminal background checks on Clay Mundy and Hector Villanueva. Both out of Atlanta, supposedly. I came up empty. Brandon, what’s going on?”
“I can’t discuss it with you,” he responded quietly. “All I can say is they wanted you kept clear of it.”
“Kept clear of what? This is my town. If something’s going on here, I have a right to know.”
“Don’t get all huffy.”
“Trust me, this is not huffy. But if you want huffy I’ll be more than happy to-”
“Keep your voice down, Desi. And please listen to me, will you? We are talking about a highly classified investigation involving multiple federal and state agencies. They’ve had trouble with leaks in the past, so a high-level policy decision was made to keep local uniformed personnel out of the loop. They want you going about your normal business.”
“That’s them. What about you and me?”
“What about us?”
“If you’d given me any kind of a heads-up I’d have watched my step. Instead, you let me blunder my way right into the middle of whatever. And so tomorrow I’m getting called on the carpet. Do you realize how humiliating this is?”
“I had no idea you were working anywhere near Sour Cherry. You didn’t tell me.”
“I shouldn’t have to. You’re my man. I expect you to be watching my back.”
“I’m watching out for us. Desi, this is the biggest case of my career. It just may put me over in this district.” His eyes found and held hers. “What’s good for me is good for you. You know that.”
“I know that you’re good at keeping secrets. I know I don’t like secrets. And I don’t like being with anyone who does.”
“I am not about secrets.”
“Brandon, your whole damned life is divided into secret compartments.” Like the one that had contained his law school classmate, Anita, and the affair that they never broke off the whole time he and Des were married. “For me, it’s real simple. Either we’re honest with each or we’re not. Either we’re together as a couple or we’re not.”
“Now you’re not being fair,” he objected.
“I think I’m being more than fair. Are you going to tell me what the feds are doing in my town?”
“You know I can’t.”
“Okay, fine. Then I’ll listen to what they have to say tomorrow. And until then you’re sleeping in the guest room.”
“I’m what?”
“My house, my rules. If you don’t like it you can take up residence at the Frederick House. The innkeepers are standing right over there by that pillar.” She drank down the last of her wine before she added, “And hey, not to worry. When I said it I had a real sweet smile on my face.”
CHAPTER 6
To: Mitch Berger
From: Bella Tillis
Subject: Eureka
Dear Mr. Hotshot New York Movie Critic-I’m pleased to report that I’ve finally managed to corral your roaming friend Quirt. He’s here in the house with me, though I’m not sure how much longer I can keep him here. The little fiend keeps pacing around like a caged lion. Yowling at me in angry protest. Sharpening his claws on the beetle-infested chestnut posts that barely hold this place up. He’s one giant pain in the tuchus, frankly.
At your suggestion, I phoned our resident trooper about my phantom nighttime visitor out here. I hadn’t seen Des for a while. Not that you asked me but she looks awful. Scrawny as a half-starved Chihuahua. She says she’s fine. She’s not fine. And it pains me to report that she has abandoned her art. Do you remember how she always used to have that charcoal residue under the nail of her index finger? She doesn’t have it anymore. Not so much as a trace. This is not a happy woman, Mitch. I thought you should know since you were once so fond of her.
Anyhow, it turns out I have been sheltering a homeless man in the barn-Molly Procter’s father, who seems to have suffered a breakdown since he and Carolyn split up. Molly has been hiding Richard out here and stealing food for him. The Jewett sisters have carted him off and now Des will no doubt try to patch the family back together again. It never ceases to amaze me how a woman whose own life is broken keeps trying to repair everyone else’s.
Actually, Des is out here on Big Sister at this very moment. Or they are. Bitsy Peck got talked into hosting a bash for the Town Committee to get acquainted with our next congressman-assuming, I should say, that Brandon can carry this district without my vote. I was invited to the event but am staging a one-woman boycott. And voting Green Party all of the way should he receive the party’s… Oops, hang on, somebody’s at my door…
Hi, I’m back. That was just Bitsy dropping off some of the leftover food. And to tell me something very interesting. She suspects Des will soon be leaving Dorset. This certainly wouldn’t surprise me. Now that you’re gone Des no longer has any reason to stick around here. Bitsy also told me she thought Brandon didn’t go over particularly well with Dorset’s old guard. People thought he was a bit too slick and/or insincere. This was definitely Bitsy’s own reaction. And perhaps her loyalty to you shining through.
Oy, Quirt has just started yowling at me again. Such a set of lungs he’s got on him! Mitch, I’m not sure how long this little arrangement will last, since I do enjoy a night’s sleep now and then. Do you think you can come fetch him some time soon? If not, I’ll shove him into a c
arrier and bring him to the city on the train. Mind you, I’ll have to provide earplugs for my fellow passengers. But I’m game. Please advise.
Love, Aunt Bella. p.s. I don’t mean to be such a yenta regarding you and Des, but it so happens that I am a pure-blooded Jewish mother. And let us never forget that the word smother is just mother with an extra S in front of it.
To: Bella Tilllis
From: Mitch Berger
Subject: Re: Eureka
Dear Aunt Bella-I’m happy that you’ve managed to corral Quirt. But I could have sworn I already told you that Quirt will never be happy living with me here in the city. I can’t take him, Bella. Quirt’s a roamer.
And so am I, it turns out.
I wasn’t going to say anything until the deal is officially inked but the empire’s cable news network is giving me my own weekly half-hour show, complete with Miss Hawaii as my comely sidekick. I made it, ma! Top of the world! On the downside, it means I’ll be out in Los Angeles for a while, setting up a staff and so on. Actually, the newspaper would love it if I relocated out there permanently. But that’s not going to happen. I intend to stay in New York. Once the show’s up and running, I’ll be able to spend more time here. But, short term, I’m simply not going to be around. That means I’ll have to beg my assistant to cat-sit Clemmie. Throwing Quirt into the mix is out of the question.
I’m very sorry to hear about what’s happened to Richard Procter. Molly is so devoted to him. I did try e-mailing Molly again but I never heard back from her.
It’s funny about being away from Dorset. When I was living there full-time the lives of the people there seemed incredibly important to me. That’s what it means to be a Dorseteer. But now that I’ve left I don’t feel connected to them at all. I really enjoyed my time there, Bella. I’ll never forget the exquisite pleasure of sitting in a lawn chair with a cold Bass Ale watching the migratory shore birds fly by. But now that I’m back here living my normal life it’s almost as if none of that was truly real-especially Des and me. We never really made a whole lot of sense, if you stop and think about it. A black state trooper and a Jewish movie critic? How farfetched is that? If you put it in a movie nobody would buy it. And how in the hell would you cast it? Well, okay, you’d go with Halle Berry for Des. That’s a no brainer. But who on earth would play me? And don’t say Ben Stiller or we will never speak again.
Bella, I guess what I’m trying to say is that my Dorset interlude is over. I’ve moved on. You’re welcome to visit me in NYC any time. I’d love to see you-provided we talk about something, anything other than the resident trooper of Dorset, Connecticut, USA, a place that is now so far removed from my thoughts that I honestly can’t imagine what it would take to drag me back there again.
Much love,
Mitch
CHAPTER 7
Her troop commander was a sagging accordion of a man named Rundle. Rundle was less than a year away from retirement. All he cared about was making sure Troop F ran friction-free. No emotional or jurisdictional conflicts of any kind. So it was not exactly a happy man who sat there behind his steel desk from them. Grumpy was more like it.
His office was small and plainly furnished. Some photos on his desk of his beloved grandkids and even more beloved fishing boat. The standard issue photo of the governor on the wall. Not much else. The Troop F Barracks practically kissed the southbound right-hand lane of I-95 in Westbrook. You never stopped hearing the interstate traffic whizzing by. If you stood over by Rundle’s window you could even watch it.
There were three others there besides Des. The supervising agent, who was a bland, buttoned-down DEA man named Cavanaugh. Capt. Joey Amalfitano, the point man for Connecticut’s Narcotics Task Force, who Des had worked a drive-by shooting with back when she was still on the Major Crime Squad. Everyone called him the Aardvark due to his huge, down-turned snout of a nose. And Agent Grisky of the FBI, who was dead wrong about the purpose of this meeting. It was not a tongue-lashing. Everyone was real polite and professional. Everyone, that is, except for Grisky himself. He was still acting all chippy when he wasn’t busy styling in his tight T-shirt and chewing gum with his mouth open.
It was Cavanaugh of the DEA who did most of the talking. “Master Sergeant Mitry, I’m afraid you’ve stumbled your way right smack dab into the middle of Operation Burrito King.”
Des sat there with her hands folded in her lap, wondering how it was the feds always came up with such cute names.
“This operation originated with some wire surveillance we had going on in Tucson,” he informed her in a clipped, quiet voice. “An informant of ours happened to be meeting a dealer at a fast food restaurant of that name.”
Okay, that answered that question.
“We’ve gotten our hooks into a major drug ring with ties to the Vargas family, Mexico’s largest cocaine trafficker in this country. Lately, they’ve started moving into crystal methamphetamine in a huge way. The why is pretty simple. We cracked down on the sale of over-the-counter cold medicines and other household ingredients that were being used to produce the ice domestically. Felt darned proud of ourselves, too. Trouble is, the Mexican traffickers immediately saw an opening and jumped right in.”
“Nobody ever said they weren’t smart businessmen,” Des said.
Cavanaugh nodded his head. “They mass produce it south of the border, then ship it into the U.S. I am talking about hundreds and hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine crystals that are crossing into this country every day. As to what happens to it once it gets north of the border, well, our investigation has led us to Atlanta.”
Right away, Des felt an uptick of her pulse.
“Atlanta’s their distribution center, okay?” Grisky put in now, chomping away at his gum. “All of the ice shipments headed for the midwest and northeast pass through there, okay?”
Des said, “Okay.” He wasn’t going to be happy until she did.
“Over the past six months,” Cavanaugh continued, “we’ve assembled a joint task force made up of the DEA, the FBI, the Connecticut Organized Crime Task Force and, most recently, Captain Amalfitano and his Narcotics Task Force. U.S. Attorney Stokes has also been involved in an advisory capacity for quite some time.”
“And why did you end up in Dorset?” Des wanted to know.
“Because they did,” the Aardvark told her, slurping from a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “Like you said, they aren’t dumb. If they stash a huge quantity of product somewhere like the South Bronx then it’s always at risk. You’re talking about a high-crime area crawling with dealers, users and various and sundry lowlifes. Maybe a rival dealer rips them off. Maybe a strung-out snitch whispers in some beat cop’s ear. Bottom line, their product is never secure and they know it. So they’ve started using stash houses in nice, quiet little towns like yours where there isn’t a whole lot of crime or drug traffic or scrutiny. It’s under the radar there. Who would think to look for three hundred pounds of crystal meth in Dorset, am I right?”
“You’re not wrong,” Rundle wheezed, putting the lie to Des’s theory that he’d fallen asleep behind his desk with his eyes open.
“Just last year,” Cavanaugh revealed, “one of the other Mexican cartels was using a lovely little village in the Pennsylvania Amish country.”
“Yeah, right up until we nailed their sorry asses.” Grisky let out a cocky bray of a laugh.
“And Dorset is ideally situated,” the Aardvark went on. “It’s halfway between New York City and Boston. It’s close to I-95. Perfect locale for a wholesale supply house.”
“Clay Mundy is their point man here,” Cavanaugh said. “He and his sidekick Hector set up the stash house on Sour Cherry Lane, and they’re operating it quietly and efficiently right there under everybody’s noses. That so-called seamless gutter business of theirs is strictly a shell. The only thing Nutmegger uses its vans for is transporting product in and out.”
“I knew they smelled wrong,” Des said. “Neither man has a sheet, though.”
“Because they’re cautious and they’re smart,” he said. “Mundy also appears to be a world-class player when it comes to the ladies. He moved right in on the Procter woman after her husband left. We gather she was already drinking heavily. He turned her on to crystal meth and ever since then she’s been floating in the clouds while he and Hector go about their business. We’ve been running a tap on their calls, intercepting their mail. The full monty. But these boys are incredibly careful. They conduct no business over the phone. Not a single incriminating call. Not a coded message. Nothing. Either their delivery schedule is prearranged or it’s communicated to them strictly face-to-face.”
“Meanwhile,” said Grisky, “we’re staked out in the woods twenty-four seven. Three of us on eight-hour shifts. Near as we can tell, they’ve got the ice stashed somewhere inside of the house. Neither man ever goes near the barn or wanders into the woods. Once a week, one of them will take off in their van to make drops. He’ll be gone for a day, sometimes two. The other one stays behind to guard the stash. They get resupplied every couple of weeks by another Nutmegger van-usually late at night. They keep an ultra-low profile. No parties. No hangers on. No fooling around. These are total pros. The neighbors don’t suspect a thing.”
“Have any of them made you guys?” Des asked him.
“Only Molly, the little girl. I told her I was with the DEP. She bought it.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Des said. “Molly is way savvy. She will also, I hope, be far, far away from this mess very soon.”
Cavanaugh stared at her for a moment before he said, “Master Sergeant, I think you’d better explain that remark.”
“When I stopped by Carolyn Procter’s yesterday I found Carolyn to be in a highly drugged-out state. Molly is currently living in the presence of illegal behavior. She is also unsupervised.”
“We share your concerns,” Cavanaugh said. “And we intend to remove the girl to a safe location when the time is right.”
“That’s fine for you,” said Des. “But I’m blessed with no such wiggle room. As my commander can tell you, I’m required to report my observations to the Department of Children and Families.”
The sour cherry surprise bam-6 Page 8
