Ice Shear (24 page)

Static crackled until finally Jelickson spoke. “He's solid. We're locked down, and we got the Merrimen in for protection since the Mongols are across the river, and the Angels are up north.”

“Tiny's a good man, and he knows how to play ball,” the voice said. “Does Marty?”

“Marty's back in the bosom of his family,” Jelickson said quickly.

Huh? Was the break between the father and son a fake-out?

“That's good. When you lose kin, draw the family you got tighter.” The man hung up.

The sound of a phone being dialed filled the room. “Marty, I'll keep this . . . short. Quit the act. Get your ass home.”

Hale flicked off the machine. “Thank you kindly, by the way. We've had a wiretap on that phone for two months, and this is the first time someone has used it.”

Dave nodded graciously, all noblesse oblige. “Lyons made him whimper.”

“I know.” Hale laughed. “But your consideration and, I'll say, kindness completely threw him off. He panicked, and made a phone call. You're a good cop.”

I was unconvinced by Hale's ass kissing. “How much surveillance do you have?”

“We couldn't bug the place, but we got ourselves a wiretap.”

“How'd you get a judge to approve that?” Dave asked.

“And how'd we not hear about it until now?” I added.

“A federal judge gave it to us, under seal. This investigation has already spread to six states, and this murder—”

“These two murders,” I pointed out.

“These two murders might be the ticket to shut down the Abominations for good.”

Hale explained how they had been running surveillance on a ring down south. Mexico was the source, but Missouri was the distribution center.

“And we were monitoring the buys down there, when Craig rolled into town. We stopped him at the airport with a cargo load of pseudoephedrine, and told him we were going to arrest him and seize all his father's assets, and well, let's just say the boy would have sold his grandma out to get off. He started spouting out names like Jelickson, and we knew this was going to be big if we could line it all up just right.

“Craig was sweating bullets, completely freaked out. His father is a hard man, plus Craig was real upset about letting down Danielle. He blurted everything out, sure if we heard about Danielle's desperate plight, we would help him rescue her.”

“Rescue her?” I asked. “By distributing meth?”

“By Craig's logic—and I will admit I had a hard time following it myself—Danielle needed the money to free her from her controlling husband and his violent family. Craig seemed to forget that Danielle already had a rich father who would pay a hefty sum to send his son-in-law away, preferably to hell.”

“So Craig wasn't lying when he denied sleeping with Danielle?” I asked, thinking of the photos on Ray's extra phone.

“Craig claims that she took her marriage vows so seriously that she wouldn't even consider cheating on her husband, despite Marty being a rat bastard. Based on our background check”—Hale flipped through a few of the papers on the desk—“Danielle was overstating her reverence for marriage, at least other people's. In addition to that TA Phil told you about—who had been happy to be seduced by Danielle up until she laid waste to his career and his marriage—there was also a married anthropology professor who paid for her trip to Fiji on a research project that took place entirely inside the walls of a hotel.” Hale flipped a few more pages. “There was also a movie producer. He did small-scale projects, TV movies and the like, and again, very married. Danielle used his credit card to buy her wedding dress, which she then returned for cash. He wrote off the dress as script research, which the IRS found very interesting.”

We told him about the photos we'd found on Ray's phone, fleshing out Annie's report, which Hale had read.

“The thing is”—and Hale opened the first folder—“Craig had to work hard to deny that Danielle was an operator.”

In the first photo he showed us, Ray held an open box in front of Danielle while she fastened a diamond hoop in her ears. The earrings were Ray's Valentine's Day gift, it seemed. The next picture had Danielle and Ray on their back porch kissing passionately, his hands on either side of her face. The photographer had caught them when they had blocked out the rest of the world, even Jackie and Craig, who could be seen, backlit, in the kitchen. Two motives for murder, right there.

“Of course, Craig claimed that it was all an act, that she was leading Ray on so he wouldn't tip off his brother. Craig seemed to think of himself as her white knight, when honestly, he was her whipping boy. That didn't prevent him from telling us everything he knew about the drug operation in an effort to ‘save' her.”

“No lawyer?” I said.

“Craig was not yet in custody, so no reason to read him his rights. His strategy consisted of blurting out everything he knew, which would then convince us to let him and Danielle go free. He also seemed to think that he would get buckets of money for his trouble.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “And he got that impression from . . .”

“He came up with it all on his own, and, well, perhaps I didn't enlighten him about his misunderstanding. He seemed very concerned that Danielle would find out he'd screwed up—more so than even his dad—and was in a hurry to get back. Craig gave up the entire meth ring, from Ray, Danielle, and Marty, all the way up to the Jelicksons, in less than sixty minutes.” Hale tipped his chair back on two legs—he seemed to be savoring the memory. “Well, what he knew. It seems as if the Jelicksons didn't tell Craig a whole lot.” Hale dropped back onto four legs, jerking forward. “We sent him on his way, but before we did we took a load of pictures, so he knew we had him dead to rights. He flew back to Hopewell Falls thinking that he and Danielle would walk into the sunset together, free of charges and with enough money to buy a fleet of charter planes, and that Marty would go to prison and never bother Danielle again.”

Hale explained that the Albany field office had watched as Craig landed. The agents documented that a woman and a young man, who were later identified as Danielle and Ray, loaded the pseudoephedrine into the Brouillettes' Jeep.

“And do you have pictures of that?” I asked.

“We do. But look, I need you to promise to keep this info quiet.”

“Have you thought that maybe you are doing a little too good of a job of keeping this quiet? Maybe being a little more forthcoming with information might help us out here.”

“Which is why I'm showing you these.” He opened the folder and slid three eight-by-ten surveillance shots across the table: Danielle on the phone, deep in conversation; Craig and Ray loading sacks into the back of the Jeep while Danielle kept watch; and a third of the truck driving out of the parking lot.

“That's it?” I asked. “And why didn't you bust them right then?”

“Well, you see, this was an on-the-fly operation, put together in a few hours without full manpower. . . .”

“Danielle and Ray lost the tail,” I said.

Hale nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. And while we tried to get Craig to ask some leading questions—with a wire, of course—Danielle gave up nothing, just telling him to stand by for the next pickup.”

“Which was when?” I asked. Hale seemed to have no concern for the fact that the drugs were out there, poisoning people, while he and his boys got their act together.

“Which will be
tomorrow
. And the next supply is coming through Canada. With the south eating up all the pseudo before it has the chance to cross the Mason-Dixon, Danielle decided she needed something bigger. The thing is, I'm not sure she clued in her in-laws. You heard that phone call. Danielle was making her own deals, independent of the Abominations.” From the folder he pulled out more pictures, surveillance shots, grainy, done in the dark, at strange angles: Ray carrying huge glass containers into a warehouse, glaring at Craig, who was gripping the head of one of the massive beakers, the rest of the container lying broken at his feet.

“That's an old glove factory downtown, by the way. Until June spotted the stuff stashed at the barn, we had no idea where it came from. Our one mistake”—Hale saw me glare—“our one
big
mistake was not having someone on Danielle that night.”

“Anyone poking around the meth lab?” Dave asked.

“No, and we haven't heard anything from our informants in other parts of the distribution chain as to when the next supply is coming.”

“Distribution?” I asked. “Bikers?”

“Bikers to truckers and back to the bikers again. They've got a pretty tight lock on it, and yeah, it's the Abominations. If Danielle and Ray had lived, I'm not sure how things would have played out. I suspect, based on some other intelligence we have, that the two of them and Marty were splintering off, trying to set up their own score.”

I wanted to keep Hale talking. “So who was running the show?”

“Well, Danielle wore the britches in that family, but she had no experience making meth. Ray had the family connections, but was hardly a criminal mastermind. But Marty, he gets my vote, mostly because this is how it went down last time. Hands off, let the others take the fall, a move he learned at Daddy's feet, when Daddy was willing to let him take the hit on that lab.” Hale checked his notes. “Which is why I wanted to keep him out there on the streets, although with Daddy in town, the operation may have a new boss. And lo and behold, Craig got a text from a burner phone telling him to pick up the drugs as planned tomorrow night.”

“The wire transfer the guy mentioned,” Dave said. “Danielle already paid for everything?”

“She did. The Abominations have a long relationship with the gangs in Mexico, but Danielle was making her own deal on her own terms with groups with ties to Asia—to build credit, in a way. She had to prove she could be trusted.”

“Like you're doing now?” I said. Everything he was saying fit with what I knew, and Hale seemed like he was playing ball, very probably with spitballs.

Before he could answer, Jerry walked in, acting, as he always did, like he owned the place.

“Let's start,” Jerry said, tapping the edge of the table like a gavel.

“The chief?” Dave asked as Donnelly entered, carrying a cup of coffee.

The chief sighed the sigh of the deeply put upon. “Did you solve the murders? The governor is ready to make this a state operation.”

“And I tend to agree,” Jerry said. “Both of your careers are ruined. Not that you”—and he smirked at me—“had much of one to destroy.”

Dave cleared his throat. “Well, it appears we have an international drug operation moving into Hopewell Falls.”

Jerry rolled his eyes. “Tell us something we don't know.”

Hale picked up on Dave's lead. “I don't believe that you understand the scale of this. We're talking about an operation to rival the Juarez cartel. Or the Hells Angels in the eighties.” Hale leaned back in his seat. “Did I ever tell you about Marty's daddy?”

“Jim Fizzeller,” I added, helpfully. “Used to run the Abominations.”

“Until he had his ‘accident.' ” Dave could use air quotes with the best of them, and made the three of us seem like we were in the know.

“Yeah, tragic how that happened as Zeke and Jim were coming back from that meeting where they set up the roach coach distribution,” Hale said.

“Roach coaches?” asked the chief, appalled.

“They were carts,” I explained. “Vans actually, where they sold good cheap food. Sometimes Mexican. Great tacos.” The chief wasn't convinced. He was raised on boiled beef and cabbage, so even really good Mexican food held no appeal. I pulled out the rough outlines of the operation from my long-ago memory. “Instead of ordering a number fourteen—carne asada tacos—you could order a number seventy-seven and get some crank. The Abominations supplied all the drugs until five or six years ago.”

“So they lost out to the competition?” Jerry asked, as if he expected outlaw bikers to be up on the laws of economics.

“In a way,” Hale said. “The Hells Angels firebombed them when they got a little too friendly with folks in Oakland. This”—Hale emphasized each word with a sharp tap on the table—“was supposed to be their big comeback. Unless Danielle, Ray, and Marty cut them out.” Hale explained his suspicion that the three were making their own deals.

“And it goes down tomorrow. We get the Abominations, there will be more RICO indictments than we've seen since the Teamsters.”

Chief Donnelly shifted in his chair. “Agent Bascom, I was on patrol when heroin showed up in the seventies.” He seemed lost in thought. “That tore up lives, and good folks . . . they lost their souls. And we still can't get that out of here.” He stood up, collecting his pad and coffee cup. “I'll give you twenty-four hours.”

“But the governor will need to be briefed,” Jerry added.

“Sir”—and unlike the times when Hale had called Jerry “sir” before, this time he sounded respectful—“this information needs to stay in this room.”

Dave leaned forward, and got right in Jerry's face. “I trust Hale. He had our back at the Jelicksons' today”—which I knew was patently untrue. But Dave knew what I did. We needed Hale. Not just the resources of the FBI, but him, and his headstrong, headlong ways.

“We need to take down this drug ring. Don't you think that's best, Jerry?” Dave asked.

Dave's magic worked.

“I will give my okay, but only”—Jerry glanced at the chief—“for another forty-eight hours.”

The chief nodded. “For you, I'll stall them for an extra day. C'mon, Jerry, let's go have another conference call.”

Jerry stood up, and Hale extended his hand. Jerry seemed confused, but after a moment shook it. He shook Dave's readily. He ignored mine. I didn't care. Jerry could ignore me all he wanted as long as we had the time we needed to solve this case.