Friday Edition, The (5 page)

“What are you doing here?” Jonathan asked looking from his desk to see Sam standing at his office door.

“I knocked, but you didn’t hear me.”

“Sorry,” Jonathan said and spread his hands over the paperwork on his desk as if to say, ‘I’m busy.’

She entered the office without waiting for an invitation and walked to a set of identical chairs facing his desk and sat down. The office was small and bland, but a large window behind the desk allowed a generous portion of natural light to filter into the office. A generic painting of two couples walking arm-in-arm along a waterway filled with sailboats was to the left of the window. But Sam found the picture unappealing. She thought it was odd that the artist had painted the water green.

To the left of the painting was Jonathan’s college diploma. Next were two certificates of merit and a special commendation award for work with the Grandview Drug Task Force Unit. A smaller photograph showed Jonathan and the governor shaking hands as he received the certificates.

A pair of in-and-out baskets stood like bookends on his desk. Even with evidence of the day’s work spread out before him, the desk was neat and orderly. There was a 5-x-7 photograph on the desk that faced Jonathan. Sam knew it was a picture of April.

“Do you always greet people that way when they come to your office?” she asked.

He sat back against his chair and eyed her curiously. “Sam,” he said matter-of-factly, “you’re never in my office.”

“Don’t say never. I’ve been in here many times … just not recently,” Sam said and took a brief moment to study him. He wore a starched white shirt and an olive-colored tie with small stripes of black and white, which neatly agreed with his olive-colored slacks. She noticed that his beard was gone, making him look younger than his forty-one years.

“Are you doing something different with your hair?” he asked, appraising her carefully over the rims of his wire-frame glasses.

She absentmindedly raised a hand to her hair and pushed her bangs from her eyes.

“I had it highlighted,” she said faintly, almost embarrassed by his attention. The black turtleneck she wore deepened the new color, making it look rich and silky. She had highlighted her hair the day after Robin’s funeral, and for no particular reason other than she had grown tired of looking fat and old, and feeling homely when she looked in the mirror. She had been leery about having it done. Now she was glad she had. It refreshed her image and made her appearance softer. She liked what she saw today. She was grateful for the compliment, even if it was from him.

“It looks good, like you used to wear it,” he said.

“Thank you,’ she said softly. “I don’t know what made me decide to do it. Time for a change, I guess.”

Jonathan fidgeted with a paper clip for a moment as an awkward silence hung in the air. “You didn’t come to talk about highlights, I guess. What brings you here?”

Sam had been hesitant to come. She wasn’t certain she could trust Jonathan. She wouldn’t tell him that she had been in Robin’s office last night, but she knew she could ask certain questions without raising his suspicions. She had called Todd and wanted to tell him about her findings and the mention of Grandview National Bank. She wanted to ask about Roy Rogers, but something about their conversation didn’t feel right either.

“The last day Robin and I spent together we went Christmas shopping.”

Jonathan nodded.

“We had a conversation that, well, surprised me.”

“Oh?” Jonathan said and leaned forward in his chair. “What about?”

“About smuggling drugs in and out of Denver.”

“Why were you talking about something like that?” Jonathan asked.

Sam shrugged her shoulders, trying to act indifferent. “We were having coffee when she brought it up.”

“What did she say?”

“Not much, but enough that I wanted to know more. I had planned to talk with her again after that, but, well...” she paused, taking a moment to composed herself. “Robin made a comment about how easy it was for drugs to flow in and out of Denver. You’re in charge of the drug task force unit, Jonathan, is it true Denver is an easy city in which to smuggle dope?”

He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes considering how to answer her question. “Actually Robin was right. Metro Denver’s a Mecca for meth-pushers. We’re here in the middle of the country. Lots of little county airports. Interstates running in every direction. It’s a perfect distribution center.”

“Obviously it’s big business,” Sam said.

Jonathan nodded. “And getting bigger. Methamphetamine use continues to rise in Colorado and the heroin chic is alive and well. Denver used to be about five years behind California and Arizona where meth use is already out of control. Everybody around here expected the worst and it happened—a meth avalanche hit Colorado pretty hard.”

She leaned forward in her chair with interest. “I’ve heard so much about meth, but was is it exactly?”

“Methamphetamine is a stimulant that has a lot of street names: meth, speed, well, it used to be called speed, crank, and ice,” he said and gestured with his hands as he spoke.

“It’s also highly addictive,” Sam added.

“Right,” Jonathan returned. “And it’s poisonous and it destroys the human body rapidly. You can spot a user almost immediately, rotting teeth, open sores on the skin and extreme emaciation. Meth has always been the drug world’s bottom feeder. Want to know what makes it such a dirty, trashy drug? The people who make it like to throw things like diet and cold pills, antifreeze, drain cleaner and corrosive acids into the mix.”

Her eyes widened with interest. “How long has Denver been a major meth manufacturing center?”

He shook his head. “It started a few years ago. The speed scene here was more a clique than a cartel. In fact, there are quickie meth labs all over metro Denver. These labs can crank out methamphetamine in thirty minutes by using a mixture of cold tablets, anhydrous ammonia and lithium metal found in car batteries.

“These meth labs skimmed only the surface of the drug scene. They had developed this drug smuggling cabal into a science, a perverse system that ran smoothly, efficiently and effectively. And you want to know something else?” Jonathan paused, gauging her reaction. “These people make money. Lots of it. Cash flows like the Mississippi.”

A knock at the door interrupted their conversation. Wyatt Gilmore poked his head inside the office, surprised to see Sam. “Sam, uh, nice to see you.”

She nodded. “How’s Brady?”

“Better,” Wyatt said. “I don’t know what came over him the other day. Sorry.”

She nodded to accept his apologies.

“Sam’s here getting background for a possible news article,” Jonathan said.

Sam looked at Jonathan with surprise, as if to say ‘that’s not why I’m here.’ Wyatt’s face softened as he registered interest. “What kind of story?”

Sam opened her mouth but Jonathan answered for her. “Apparently she and Robin had an interesting conversation about drug smuggling just before her death.”

Jonathan’s words forced Wyatt to enter the office. “What sort of operation?”

Wyatt listened intently, his back against the wall and his beefy arms folded over his chest as Jonathan briefed him about their discussion. After he finished, Wyatt looked from Sam to Jonathan. “You know you’re talking to the best man for the information. I’ll let you two continue.”

Wyatt looked at Jonathan. “Come see me when you’re through. We need to go to property and evidence.”

Jonathan nodded.

“Good to see you, Sam,” Wyatt said looking at her.

When Wyatt left the office Sam looked to Jonathan as if to say, ‘Where were we?’

He took her cue. “As I was telling you, the meth scene here is more like a clique than a cartel. We used to know all the meth heads by name. It was the white-trash drug made in America until the Mexicans got their hands on it.”

“What happened?” Sam asked.

“In 1994, the feds restricted the sale of ephedrine, a main ingredient in methamphetamine. Unfortunately, the clampdown didn’t do much to put a stop to domestic meth. You don’t know how easy it is to get ephedrine in Mexico. Latino drug gangs who export cocaine and marijuana to the U.S. saw a great opportunity to diversify.” He stopped to watch her reaction.

“What did the Latin American drug gangs do?” Sam asked, shifting in her chair.

“If they weren’t shipping meth, they were sending ephedrine north to clandestine labs in rural California and Arizona,” he said.

“So what you’re telling me,” Sam said, tapping an index finger against her lips, “Is that it didn’t take long for Mexican meth to reach Colorado, right?”

Jonathan nodded.

“So what does it mean?” she asked.

“It means there’s a shitload of the drug to go around with tentacles that don’t seem to stop. The drugs that come here end up going all over God’s creation.” He paused, “The interstates and small airports aren’t the only way drugs are smuggled. There’s the bus terminal and DIA. Did you know that DIA, according to our latest stats, is one of the top ten busiest airports in the country?”

“No, I didn’t.” She watched as Jonathan put his glasses on and rose from his chair and walked to a filing cabinet.

He continued to speak as he walked. “Here’s an example. About four, maybe five years ago we stopped having to drive to hell and back to find meth. It’s here in our backyards.”

“What makes it so popular?”

Jonathan had reached the filing cabinet and thought before he answered her. “For one thing users like it because, like crack and cocaine, it gives them a lift.”

“I read somewhere that meth gives users more ‘bang for the buck.’”

Jonathan chuckled and said, “You’re right. Used to be that meth users mostly shot the stuff into a vein. It’s a lot different today. The new breed prefers to smoke or snort it. Doing a line of coke or a rock of crack you get a high that lasts maybe thirty minutes. With meth, the high goes on for hours. Plus it’s relatively cheap.”

“Some bang,” she said rolling her eyes.

Jonathan nodded. His thoughts were occupied by his search in the file cabinet. They were silent as he looked for a document. “Here it is,” he said and pulled a file from the drawer and returned to his chair.

She watched as he opened the manila folder and spread the contents on the desk. He unfolded a chart.

“Look here,” he said looking from the chart to Sam. “Here’s why Denver is such a boom for drug dealers.”

She leaned forward in her chair and rested her elbows on the table to examine the chart. Numbers across the top covered a six-year timeline. At the left, under the word, ‘Substance,’ a vertical column listed various drugs of choice. Heroin. Other opiates. Methamphetamine. Cocaine. Marijuana. Barbiturates. Sedatives. Tranquilizers. Hallucinogens. PCP. “Interesting,” she said, still scanning the chart.

After further examination, she saw that heroin, cocaine and marijuana garnered the highest percentage of drug use. Each never fluctuated more than two or three percentage points in a given year. And though methamphetamine didn’t have nearly the same percentage of users as heroin and cocaine, its numbers had increased steadily over the six-year period.

“What’s this report based on?” she asked.

“A number of things,” he said. “Hospital emergency room cases, admission to drug rehab programs, interviews with drug users and drug arrests.”

Jonathan stopped to study the chart with Sam. “You can see here that although heroin has actually declined in use from the past six years, it’s still a major concern for us.”

“Why?” Sam asked.

Jonathan leaned back in his chair, folded his hands and rested them on top of his head. “We’re seeing a lot more black-tar type heroin, smuggled from Mexico, these days. It’s much more powerful than the heroin that was popular in 1960s.”

“Are you seeing more overdoses?” she asked.

He nodded. “The Mexican stuff is more pure than Colombia’s.”

He gave her more time to study the chart, then took it and began to refold it. “Anything else you’d like to know?” he asked returning the chart to the manila folder.

“Nothing, I guess,” she said and rested against her chair and sighed heavily. “Thanks for the info.”

He smiled slightly, and returned the folder to the filing cabinet. He turned to face her. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“To work.”

“There’s something I want to show you before you leave,” Jonathan said.

Sam noticed that his voice changed pitch and was surprised when he touched her shoulder as he passed her on the way to his desk.

“Actually you beat me to the punch,” he said.

She looked at him, her brow furrowed.

“I was coming to see you this afternoon.”

“Me? How come?”

“I have something I want to show you. It’s important for you to see this. Maybe you’ll realize something, accept it and then start to get on with your life.”

“Realize what?” she asked.

Her eyes widened and she felt her heart pick up pace. Sam watched as Jonathan returned to his desk and removed a single sheet of white paper from a center desk drawer. “It’s addressed to you,” he said.