She seemed to be weighing her options. “Why don’t you let me buy you lunch?”
I thought about that for a minute. “Sure, why not? I figure we’ll be running into each other down the road. Might as well get to know the enemy.”
She arched her eyebrow. “Enemy?”
“Defense Attorney,” I smiled.
She laughed. “Fair enough. There’s a great little sandwich shop just down the street here. Let’s try that. They have an amazing tomato bisque soup.”
We stood up. “Sure. Sounds great.”
Linda walked beside me, and we made our way to a small café only a few yards off the square. She led the way in and picked a table. After she sat down, and after an uncomfortable moment, I asked her to let me sit facing the door. She shifted around so that her back was to the door.
“You cops. I should have known.”
I shrugged. “A habit.”
After a couple of minutes examining the menu, the server came and took our order. Linda had chicken salad with a cup of the tomato soup. I had a Reuben with the tomato soup.
Once the waitress, who looked to still be in high school, left us, Linda leaned forward on the table and looked me in the eye. “Are you married, GBI man?”
I must have blushed.
“Am I too forward?” Linda asked.
“No and no. Not married, and nothing wrong with being direct.”
“We may be on different teams, enemies as you said, but that doesn’t keep us from being able to socialize.” She shrugged. “I like men, and I like your looks. Anything wrong with that?” She was looking straight into my eyes.
I was very aware that she was experienced at questioning people. I locked my eyes on hers and focused on not shifting my gaze. Eyes darting while answering difficult questions was a sign of deception, well known to cops and Lawyers. With my undercover experience, I was acutely aware I was being tested. “Do you mind if I call you Linda?”
“Seems appropriate, since I am pretty openly coming on to you,” Linda laughed.
“Linda, I think you’re a very attractive woman.” The memory of her antics last night kept popping into my head.
“But?” She said.
“But you’re a local Attorney I might be facing in court. And I can’t help but be concerned that your dad is one of the most powerful men in this area.” My eyes never left hers.
She nodded. “I get that. And dealing with people afraid to piss off my daddy has been a problem my whole life. Daddy can be pretty intimidating. But he thinks you’re not afraid of him. I like that in a man. You might be a little too squeaky clean for my tastes, but I could probably dirty you up.”
She sat back in her chair. “Let’s face it, you’re a good-looking fellow. A fresh face. And like I said, we all need companionship.” She arched her eyebrow. “What is it you need, GBI man?”
“Same things as most. Food, a place to lay my head, and the occasional companionship.” I was trying to sound blithe.
“I could give you all three, occasionally,” she said.
I laughed now. “You are direct, and persistent. I’ll have to hand you that.”
“Then let’s go on up the mountain to my house. We can relax and have a couple of drinks. We could sit and enjoy the view and talk more about our pasts. Friendly enemies?”
Again, I needed to focus on the eyes. And think fast. I couldn’t go to her house, no matter what. Anything I might learn wouldn’t be worth the risk to my integrity. Whether I did anything or not, she could claim that I did. And visions of last night kept flashing through my mind.
“I have an interview already planned for this afternoon. Maybe I could get a raincheck?”
Her eyes flickered. I wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or relieved. I couldn’t help wondering if her dad had sent her to feel me out.
After a moment, she continued. “You didn’t say what you’re doing this job for. Do you want to be the GBI Director one day? I have worked my ass off to follow in Daddy’s footsteps. I guess we all want to achieve a certain status in life.”
I shook my head. “I do this job—”
She cut me off, already smiling at her interjection, “Don’t say you want to help people!”
I laughed. “No, but that’s always something you do in this job. You help people who can’t help themselves.”
“Locking up drug dealers doesn’t help anyone.”
I disagreed. “Sure it does. People who prey on other people. Addicts don’t have the power to speak for themselves. I speak for the dead folks, for the robbed and raped folks. I took an oath to do this job and to be the voice of the victims.”
She shook her head. “Victims are losers. The weak. It’s the law of the jungle.”
“So, you think the drug users out there are losers, too?” I watched her closely for a reaction that didn’t come.
She nodded. “If they can’t keep their habits in control. Sure they are. But you know as well as I do, there are lots of successful people who use drugs and keep themselves under control. Performers, athletes, all kinds of professionals.”
I tilted my head down like I was talking to a child. “Linda, every addict thinks they have themselves in control. Right up until they don’t. You’ve been around long enough to know that life isn’t that black and white.”
“I know this,” she said. “I’ve fought and scratched my way along to make it in a man’s world. And I plan to fight my way as long as I’m able. Losers quit fighting. I never will.”
“I know that women have had to fight to get to the top tier in business, and in top government jobs. But being victimized, even when you’re victimized by a system that doesn’t favor you, doesn’t make you a loser.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Spoken like a man.”
I sat back in my chair. “You seem more cold-blooded than I gave you credit for.”
“Maybe you could warm up my blood.”
“We seem to be back where we started,” I said with a smile.
The food came, and I nibbled on the sandwich, but the soup was quite good. Linda didn’t seem hungry either.
She sipped her drink and picked at a salad. “Where did you grow up?” she asked.
“I grew up in Roswell. Went to high school there.”
“So, a metro-Atlanta kid? You never lived in the country?” she persisted.
“No, I worked some pretty rural areas in South Georgia, but in my formative years I was in the north metro.”
She laughed when I mentioned my formative years. “You’re pretty sharp for a cop. But you GBI guys are all college graduates.”
I nodded without commenting.
“I grew up in these mountains,” she said. “This way of life is in my blood. Hell, it’s in my DNA. As long as I can remember, our family had money. But we were still out here in the sticks.”
I looked out the window. “Well, it may be a lot of things, but this place is beautiful.”
“On the surface. But you dig down and the ground around here can get ugly. I guess you know our Sheriff has served time. That old bag has taken money under the table all his life. Probably still got paid while he was in jail.”
I was afraid she was baiting me to see what I said. “I knew he had been to prison.”
“Daddy represented him at trial and kept him from being in longer. And then, my whole family helped get out the vote once he was out. I helped hang signs and knock on doors. And the Sheriff got re-elected.” She was shaking her head.
“When did your dad become a Judge?” I asked.
“Right after the Sheriff’s trial. Appointed by whoever was Governor at the time.”
“That was about the time you came back from Law School?”
She nodded. “Right. I saw what was going on with the Sheriff, but I was caught up in being part of the process. The trial and the election. I got caught up in the idea that we were getting our way.”
I laid my half-eaten sandwich down. I put the napkin on top and pushed back a littl
e from the table. “And I guess your family still gets their way in this town.”
She shrugged. “Some. The parkway has changed all that.”
I’m sure I looked puzzled.
She continued. “People from the outside moving in here. Outsiders buying up land and changing our little mountain community.”
“All bad?” I asked.
“Certainly not all good,” she shot back. Then she smiled and put her napkin on her salad bowl.
“Call me.” She wrote her home phone on her business card and handed it to me.
We both stood up. Before I could come around the table, she stepped in front of me, grabbed my head in both hands, and kissed me hard on the lips. She held it, and then let me go. She winked at me. “Something to remember me by,” she said. Then she turned and walked out of the café.
I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have a problem remembering her. I realized she had left me the bill. I paid up and went back out on the square.
Something had occurred to me as I talked to Linda. I looked around and found a payphone. I dialed the toll-free number for the GBI Radio Room and had them patch me through to Will Carver.
Carver seemed surprised I was calling him on a Saturday. I told Will I had a hunch about the reason Harris was murdered and needed to see his CI file. I asked Will to meet me at the office, then I jumped in my truck and headed to Gainesville.
I rolled into the parking lot at the Regional Office and saw Will’s Crown Vic sitting out front. The office door was unlocked, and I pushed inside.
Will was in his office. “So, what is so urgent that I had to come over here on a Saturday afternoon?”
“Wasn’t Harris a documented informant for this office for several months before he disappeared?” I asked.
Carver nodded. “Sure was. Why?”
“All I ever knew was that he was able to make some meth buys in Gilmer and Fannin counties. I never sat in on a debrief. I wanted to see what he said back when he was first signed up.”
Before an informant is signed up by the GBI, that person must go through a process. First, we make sure they don’t have active warrants. Then we have them sign a comprehensive contract, laying out to them what they can and cannot do. Then we have them go through a lengthy debrief. They have to lay out who they do drug business with, who they can introduce an Undercover Agent to, and what local drug intelligence they may have. Usually they exaggerate what they can do, and the local intelligence turns out to be more like gossip.
Will had figured out where this was going. He opened the evidence vault and dug out Harris’s file. He brought the file back to his office and tossed it on his conference table. Then he looked over my shoulder as I went through the file.
First was Harris’ personal information and his contact phone numbers. Then came a ten-page-long summary of his first debriefing. I had never seen an initial debrief this long. I scanned down the first couple of pages, reading about how the meth trade in the mountains was organized. Harris knew several people who could cook meth in their homes or barns. There was a local group of women who went out each day and bought pseudoephedrine from pharmacies all over Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. He named all the people he knew were involved. Eventually, I got to the dealer he was going to introduce me to, my old pal Mr. Fisher. My buy was to be the one to establish Harris as a reliable informant.
I read on what Harris knew about local goings-on other than drugs. Harris said he was scared to talk about any of the local politicians, since they had too much power for him to take a chance on. He did say the Sheriff, and most of his Deputies, would squeeze people they caught holding drugs. They would have other people (Harris wouldn’t admit he had ever done it) burglarize the homes of people who spoke out against the Sheriff. He said none of the people he knew would ever testify against the Sheriff, because his Chief Deputy was known to “get rid of people.” But Harris couldn’t produce any examples, and so there wasn’t anything to follow up on.
Then I found what I was looking for. Not a lot, but damn sure what I expected. Harris had said he supplied several people in town. He said when he had legal problems, he would pay his Lawyer off in product. He said that was a common practice with local Lawyers. People in the meth business rarely had extra cash. The Agents must have pressed for more on the Lawyer. Harris would only say that she was from a prominent family.
I looked back at Will. “His Lawyer was a ‘she.’ From a prominent family. I think I have a pretty good idea who that ‘she’ was.”
I told Carver everything I had learned so far. I went over my lunch with Linda Pelfrey and my surveillance on her house the night before.
When I finished, he put his feet up on his desk. “The Clerk of Court could tell you who the Attorney on record was for Harris. If those records haven’t been lost.”
I nodded. “I thought about that. But it’s probably best to leave that alone for now. If I start poking around in the Clerk’s office, that will cause them to circle the wagons.”
Carver steepled his fingers in front of his face. “You’ve done a good job on this. I think we can get some idea about what happened. But this story will never get into a court.”
“I know,” I said. “There are a lot of things I’ve discovered that give me an idea of how things went down. But the list of things I can prove is pretty short. We have no idea who killed him, even though we may have a few suspects. We can’t prove where he was killed, or even if it happened in Georgia or Tennessee. Shotguns don’t have ballistics we can trace. Can’t even say when it happened.”
“So, now that you’ve established what we don’t know, tell me what we do know.”
I laid out the fraud scheme as far as I had been able to establish it. I told him some things I had conjectured and what I planned to do.
After a minute, Carver said, “If any of this is true, this crowd is not above killing. You be very careful when you are up there. And check in as often as you need to. When you need help or backup, just give me a little notice. We’ll show the citizens of Gilmer County that the State of Georgia isn’t about to let this kind of stuff go on under our nose.”
Will and I shook hands as he locked up the office. I got into my truck and headed back to my motel room. I was able to make it back to the motel at about six p.m.
I spent most of Sunday going over my notes and putting together a synopsis of what I had discovered and what I had surmised. On Monday morning, I planned to get with the DA and see if we could get a warrant to look for blood on the side of Linda Pelfrey’s office.
As my work was winding down, I packed my computer away and thought about getting drive-through for dinner. I headed outside to my truck and was pleasantly surprised that Rose was waiting in her car. She was striking, as usual. When I walked up, she got out with a brown paper bag in her hand.
“Rose,” I said, “what are you up to?”
Rose laughed. “I came to see you. I have babysitters for the evening, and I needed some fun.”
“What’s in the bag? Board games or playing cards?”
“Neither. I brought food. This time we don’t have to go out.”
I laughed. “Nothing but first class!”
“Ham sandwiches and some chips.”
“Awesome.”
When we got to my room, we laid the food out on the little work table. We ate and talked about our weekends. Rose declined any alcohol, but I mixed a vodka on the rocks for me. I had to make my regular call to Atlanta.
Once that was out of the way, Rose sat on the bed and patted the spot beside her. I had that feeling in my gut that I was making a mistake. But I wasn’t looking forward to another evening alone in my room.
I sat beside Rose, and she put her arm around my neck and pulled me close. For the second time that weekend, I was getting kissed long and hard by a woman who might, or might not, be important to this investigation.
After a long hot kiss, she tugged me down on the bed. We stretched out and she wrapped her arms around
me.
In a matter of moments, she was holding my neck and pulling me on top of her. I was still trying to maintain some distance, but I was like a moth flying too close to the flame. She pulled my hand up and had me cup her breast. Then she moaned into my mouth. Quickly, we were both past the point of no return. We undressed each other, but there was no mad rush. We made love, first slowly and then with more intensity.
Before long, we were both exhausted. We lay on the top of the covers. I rolled over on my side. I started to say something, but she stopped me. “No commitments and no regrets. I came here for some comfort. I don’t want you thinking there was anything else going on.”
I was hoping she was honest. I had made a big mistake if she was working for the other side. I noticed she was looking at her watch. “My kids need to be picked up soon,” she said.
I nodded. “I understand. You need to get them back so they’ll be ready for school tomorrow?”
Her head snapped around and she gave me a hard look. “How old do you think I am?”
I was stupid to ask the question, but I wasn’t an idiot. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I guess they have to be in daycare. “
“Yep, and my in-laws don’t like to take them to our daycare.”
I only asked to be making conversation. She was getting her underwear on, and the show was amazing. “Why don’t they like to take them to daycare?”
“It’s hard on them to get all three of them ready in the mornings. The kids need to be bathed and fed.”
“I guess that takes a long time with three kids.”
She shrugged. “Wouldn’t take so damn long, but their well gets low this time of year. They have a hard time getting through the process with the water they have in the mornings. That should change soon. We’re getting some rain later in the week.”
“Why are they on a well?” I asked.
Again, I felt stupid for going down this road. Rose was getting into her dress. “This ain’t Atlanta. My in-laws live out in the county.”
“They don’t like the county water system?”
Rose stopped and stood with both hands on her hips. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“They can’t get county water out where they live?”
Mountain Justice Page 15
