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“Wilcox,” George answered succinctly.
“The feds?”
“It’s Burney,” George said. “I tried to get the DEA involved and O’Toole found out. He cut our budget even further and threatened to do what he finally did. Fire me. I imagine Senator Wilcox smoothed it over with the Feds.”
“But the Wolves were drug dealers,” I said, feeling my own naïveté as I said it. “Thieves.”
“Still are,” George said.
“If the senator and O’Toole both wanted Cleve left alone, then they got a slice of it too.”
“Most likely.”
“What about the current senator? Amy?”
“As best I know, Cleve shut everything down just before he died,” George said. “Alex Wilcox Sr. was still alive. And he’d become very rich. Just like Cleve. But Amy Wilcox didn’t become senator until four years ago. I think the money laundering died with Cleve.”
I thought about it. “So Mickey Pitts knew about the money laundering and Cleve promised him half a million to keep his mouth shut in prison.”
“Possibly.”
“And now Pete OneTree has silenced both Mickey and his son.”
George nodded. “Again. Most likely.”
“You think the Wolves are doing something illegal at River Vista?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” George said. “Could be a shakedown and they want us to keep our distance.”
I shook my head. “Jim Pitts was just a kid.”
“He was twenty,” George said. “I know you had a soft spot for him, Vince, but he was into some shady stuff.”
“He didn’t deserve to die.”
“No, he didn’t. He was in over his head.”
I thought about it. “Cash is pouring a lot of money into River Vista. His own and his investors’. Would the Wolves be one of those investors?”
George nodded. “They have lots of cash they need to do something with.”
“Cash could be doing what Cleve did.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him.”
Another reason not to like the little shit. “O’Toole is going to try this again and again.”
“I know,” George said.
“Better run for mayor,” I said.
George sighed and nodded. “Yeah. If I win, you better think about police chief.”
There wasn’t much more to say, so George went back out to his Suburban.
And I finished painting the bedroom blue.
CHAPTER 15
