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Chapter 56
DECKER GOT INTOhis truck and was about to drive out of the parking lot when he turned in the opposite direction and headed over to where the new construction was under way. He parked his car, got out, and walked as close to the construction site as he could. Workers were racing everywhere and forklifts and trucks and Bobcats werehurtling around carrying materials. Obviously, the police had allowed the work to recommence. Decker studied the activity for a bit and then took a closer look around the area. He spotted something, bent down, and picked it up. Examining it for a moment, he stuck it in his pocket. He got back into his truck and drove off.
On the way, he called Kemper and asked her to meet him in frontof the Mercury Bar.
He was waiting for her when she pulled up. He climbed into the SUV, pulled out the bottle, and briefly described to her how he’d found it.
“Can you check to see what it is? I think I know, though.”
She looked at the bottle. “It’s almost certainly either heroin or fentanyl. They look the same, which is why dealers lace one with the other. Problemis, it takes thirty milligrams of heroin to kill someone, while it only takes three milligrams of fentanyl to do the same. So, you said you got this from a hiding place in Ted Ross’s office?”
“Yeah. And there’s a ton more in there. I think the shipments are coming in through the fulfillment center.”
“Why ship it there? Why not to his home or a PO box?”
“Far easierto search a home or PO box. The fulfillment center gets millions of packages. Like finding a needle in a haystack, if you’re the cops.”
“But don’t they track all those boxes pretty closely? How is he getting them out of the computer system there?”
“He’s the manager of the place. If anyone could think of a way, he could.”
“How did you even know he had a hiding placein his office?”
“Toby Babbot. He’d drawn plans of the fulfillment center. I found a set of official construction drawings and compared them. Babbot’s version showed only one discrepancy from the construction drawings. A two-foot-deep deviation in Ross’s office.”
“How’d Babbot find out about that?”
“He worked on the construction of the fulfillment center and laterworked in the office there. He might’ve discovered it that way. I used a tape measure. Maybe he did the same.”
“Do you think he knew what Ross was going to do with that space?”
“Well, Babbot ended up dead, so chances are hedidknow, or at least suspected.”
“I’m surprised that Ross would keep this in his office.”
“It’s actually pretty secure. You can’t accidentallyopen the closet. He had to stand on a chair and turn a part of the molding to do it. And the panel was seamless. You could look at that wall all day and not know a door was there. And he had a Steelers jersey hanging there to disguise it further.”
“How did he have something like that installed and no one know about it?”
“He might have done it himself. He told me he worked constructionbefore he moved on to the fulfillment center. Or maybe one or more of the construction guys is in on this and did it for him. As the manager, he had free run of the space and was overseeing all the construction work.”
“But how would a guy like Ted Ross get mixed up in a drug distribution operation?”
“He once described himself to me as the little guy, the underdog. And he saidthat when the little guy gets a chance to punch back, he needs to go for it. I think that was the reason he gave me the contact information for a lawyer for Amber to sue Maxus. He hates the big guys. And Alice Martin told me that his father, Fred, treated him and his mother really badly. Ted told me the same thing at the funeral. Maybe that screwed him up too. I can vouch for the fact that FredRoss is a pretty unpleasant guy. That and a boatload of money would be a hell of a motive. Or maybe they approached him because he was the fulfillment center manager and they wanted to use that as their cover.”
“Decker, this really is awesome work on your part.” Kemper paused. “And now I’ll return the favor. I found out what you wanted to know about Randy Haas.”
“Our dyingdeclaration guy who fingered your two agents?”
“You asked if he had family and whether he might have been sick. Well, you were right on both counts. He had a wife and two young kids. And he had pancreatic cancer. Advanced. He had maybe two months to live.”
“And the family? How are they doing?”
“They apparently had a financial windfall. They’re living in Bel-Air, California,in a home that cost three million.”
“And their explanation for that?”
“Life insurance. A ten-million-dollar policy.”
