Chapter 22
“Talk to me, Rankin,” Warren said through clenched teeth.
“Okay, cliff version. Eddie Brickman is the son of Pamela Dawson’s foster sister.”
“Fred Dawson’s wife? Dawson of the State Police? Ultimately, my boss?”
“Yes, the girls were in foster care together. Pamela made something of herself, she studied, got a full ride scholarship, and got out. Sara Brickman, not so much. She struggled, didn’t graduate high school in time, and it took a couple of years to get to college.
Working dead-end jobs, and taking several years to get a two-year program at the community college. ”
“Okay, what else?” Warren encouraged when Paul stopped talking.
“Sara got sick, and in her will, she left her son to Pamela and Fred. Though they didn’t adopt him legally, like on paper, they did bring him into their home and raised him as their own. As far as I know, Eddie was their only child.”
Warren nodded as he took it all in, and written on the board was the timeline Paul had just laid out. “What happened next?”
“I’m still digging, but I believe when Eddie was around the age of seventeen or eighteen, he witnessed Fred in a compromising situation. He held it over Fred for years to come.”
“How do you know, and what situation?”
“Fred cheated on Pamela, and Eddie caught him in the act. Shortly after that, if you look at Eddie’s record, things started either being tossed out of court, or buried.
In the research I did, I found three felony warrants buried so deep that if you weren’t looking for anything, you’d never find it. ”
“For?”
“Possession, intent to sell, and failure to appear. I uncovered them when I did my research and told Cass about them. With the amount of drugs in that bag, which had Eddie’s DNA all over it, and only his.
Cass was able to go back to the lab with the drugs and money, though I have all the serial numbers here, and had it professionally tested.
Because of the contents, you know, the heroine laced with fentanyl, cocaine, Oxy, in powder form, and the crystal meth, and the amount of it, also with it being bagged the way it had been, he drew up more felony charges. ”
Paul went to a folder and handed it to Warren. “This is the actual packages of drugs that I laid out after emptying the bag.”
Warren looked at the photos, and his eyebrows rose at the sheer volume of the bags. “Are you shitting me?”
“Nope, and I haven’t talked to Cass since Eddie’s been arrested. I’m hoping, fingers crossed, that with him being arrested in Minnesota, then Dawson won’t have his fingers in any pies where he’s involved.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that several of my reports saw that Dawson had stepped in when Eddie had been arrested in the past. He either had his wrist slapped, or he never made it to court. I’m still unsure if it’s all Dawson getting him off, or if there’s a judge on the take also.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” Warren asked several minutes after looking at everything.
“I have questions, and I don’t know where to go with them, and have no idea what direction to go in in order to find the answers.”
“What type of questions?”
“If Dawson got Eddie off over the years, say Eddie was blackmailing him for seeing him cheat on his wife, because I know Fred and Pamela are still married, but what else has Dawson done? If he is getting Eddie out of jail for free, or because of the blackmail, what else is he doing? Is he helping Eddie get the drugs, and distributing them? Petra brought up a good point, but I don’t know how to research that, without blowing my cover as a federal agent. ”
“What’s that?” Warren was genuinely confused as to what problem Rankin might be facing. He thought what he read so far was pretty cut and dried. They just needed to follow the trail.
“Are there any drugs from a past bust missing? Or what do the police do with the drugs confiscated during a raid after the trial is complete? I know on the federal level, we took them and money to be incinerated and burned it all.”
Warren looked at him in shock, then leaned his hips against the bench beside him. “Shit, this might answer a lot of questions I’ve had with the problems the task force was experiencing now and in the past.”
“Which are?”
“Why are the people we’re about to raid not there?
Why is some of our research coming up missing?
Written reports, lab results. Why are witnesses also coming up missing, or suddenly can’t remember what they told us last week.
I had always suspected someone from the department was sabotaging us.
I never suspected it might be someone of Dawson’s caliber, but it makes sense now. ”
“You’re not mad at what I’ve uncovered?”
“Absolutely not, thank you. If I can refill my coffee, and grab another cinnamon roll, I’d like to read the reports you have.”
Paul laughed as he invited him to follow him, and when Warren was ready, Paul took him back into the private room. “I don’t like to have any information out of this room.”
“I totally understand. When I read this, what will you be doing?”
“Some more research, there are a few more avenues I can look at.”
They both got to work on their own project and as Paul dug deeper into his own research, he started taking notes. It was almost an hour later that he looked up from his computer and gave a small start when he saw Petra standing there.
“Damn, woman,” he laughed as he tossed his pen on his notes. “You scared me. How long have you been standing there?”
She shrugged, and entered further into the room. “A couple of minutes, I didn’t want to intrude. Hey, Warren.”
“Hey, Petra. How are you this morning?”
“Good, you?”
“Pissed,” he said as he lifted a stack of papers and waved them.
“Yeah, sorry about that.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m probably about to piss both of you off even more.”
“Why?” Paul asked as he settled back in his chair. He nodded when she walked even further into the room and sat on the edge of his desk to look at both men. Paul made a mental note to get more chairs in here, especially if he was going to have several more men working in here in the near future.
“First, you know when you ride, your head clears of all the white noise, and you can get to the issue at hand. That is, if you have an issue to work out.”
“Yes.” Both men answered.
“Well, after what we witnessed yesterday at the Bastards event, I got to thinking. It started on the ride home, then I couldn’t let it go.” She turned to Paul with a grin. “Homemade lasagna for dinner, the house is spotless, and I even shampooed the carpets.”
“Fuck,” Paul said with a shake of his head and turned toward Warren. “When Petra has something to work out, she either cooks or cleans. This must be huge if you did both.”
“It is, or it could be, or it could be nothing at all.”
“Talk to me.”
She dug into her jeans pocket and brought out a piece of paper and held it up. “You brought this to the house to show me.”
“What is it?”
“A line or two from Eddie’s notebook. Before I can tell you what I’ve been thinking and doing, I need to see the original writing.”
Without saying a word, Paul rose to his feet and walked over to the bench, indicating she should follow him. Warren joined them. Petra immediately grabbed two gloves from the box provided, opened the evidence bag, and removed the notebook. She looked at Paul before she opened it.
“Where in this book did you get this passage from?” She showed him the paper again.
Paul donned his own pair of gloves and flipped through the pages, laid it down, and pointed. “Here.”
“Thanks,” she said as she leaned over and began reading. It took about three minutes of silence on her part before she heaved a gigantic sigh. She looked at the two men with concern in her eyes. “Promise me you won’t think I’ve gone off my rocker.”
“I promise,” Paul said and looked at Warren with a raised brow.
“I promise.”
Petra nodded and took the book, and piece of paper to the other side of the room where a blank white board was mounted on the wall.
She picked up the marker, and started writing from what she saw in the book.
Then she went back for the laptop she’d brought with her and laid that close at hand.
She turned to the men and nodded. “Now, hear me out. I’m not crazy, I promise. ”
“We believe you, Pet,” Paul said quietly and settled against the closest desk to watch her.
“After what we witnessed at yesterday’s event.
The drugs being passed around, and snorted, along with the disrespect toward the women present, I got to thinking.
Paul, when you brought this to me, I was totally clueless.
But on the ride home yesterday, my head cleared, and I think I know what these mean.
Now that I’ve seen the original writings, I’m even more sure.
Even without the writing from the notebook, I was able to do some research of my own, and it’s not pretty. ”
“Talk to us,” Paul said.
“First, this passage didn’t make any sense to me. WF26BLBLICIRM15K. That’s what you wrote on the paper.” She handed it to him and he took it with a nod, recognizing his own handwriting. He passed it to Warren.
“What the hell is this shit?” Warren asked in shock.
“No clue, there are passages like this all over Eddie’s notebook,” Paul said with a shrug.
“I think I might have a clue,” Petra said and turned to what she had written. “This is directly from the book. Notice the difference?” She pointed to several different things. WF26,BLBL,IC,I-R,M,15K. “There are comma’s meaning different statements. I did some digging.”
“With what? That’s nothing but gibberish,” Warren said.
“Think like a criminal, not a cop.” Petra looked at Paul. “Think like Zeke.”
“Who’s Zeke?” Warren asked.
“The president of Devil’s Scorpion.”
“The biker gang you guys were undercover with?”
“Yes,” they both answered. Paul studied the writing for a long moment, then shrugged. “I’m sorry, I’m not seeing anything significant here, Pet.”