What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(99)

“For the drug charges certainly. Not for murder. Not for manslaughter.”

“Maybe not,” Weber agreed. “If those charges can be proven.” It sounded like a challenge.

“If I can put them on the boat, I can get the manslaughter charge.”

“But not the murder charge,” Weber said.

“I don’t have to know who pulled the trigger,” Tracy said. “All I have to prove is the group engaged in two acts of racketeering activity and I can get them all on the murder charge.”

“RICO,” Weber said. “Interesting— if you can get a prosecutor to buy it. That’s a big if. The Last Line wasn’t formed to commit illegal acts. Look it up. They performed a number of busts and took drugs and drug dealers off the street.” Weber sounded like she’d already consulted an attorney.

“Yet here we stand,” Tracy said.

“Here we stand.”

“The Justice Department is going to be under a lot of pressure to get the people responsible,” Tracy said. “The story is in the court of public opinion. No rules of evidence required there or in the Justice Department’s investigation.”

“So then what can I help you with, Detective? Did you come to ask for your job back?”

Tracy shook her head. “That will come in time.”

“Probably. You might be ostracized though.”

“For being a rat?” Tracy said. “I’ll take that chance. But can you even make that offer?”

“Why couldn’t I?”

“Because you might not be here,” Tracy said.

Weber didn’t immediately comment.

“What I want to know,” Tracy said, “is how those members of the Last Line had such an intimate knowledge of the drug dealers and the bars they did business at to make their busts?”

“Narcotics always has reliable informants.”

“No doubt,” Tracy said. “Someone living in the neighborhood or from the neighborhood who can feed them information. Maybe someone who grew up in that neighborhood and knew the drug dealers. Someone with an ax to grind against the department, with bills to pay.”

Weber’s face remained placid.

“No response, Chief?”

“You got something to say, say it plain and clear.”

“I know you were involved,” Tracy said. “I know you were the source. I know you believed the department owed it to your father.”

“That’s a strong accusation, Detective,” Weber said. “You have any hard evidence to back that up, or just speculation?”

Weber wasn’t going to roll over. Not easily. “People talk, Chief.

They always do. You press the right buttons, and everybody looks out for himself. That’s just human nature.”

“I wouldn’t get your hopes too high.”

“I’m giving you a chance,” Tracy said.

“A chance?”

“To do the right thing.”

“The right thing? Now what is that?”

“Once the Justice Department gets involved, the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are going to slide into place.”

Weber stared at her. “And what picture will those pieces create?”

“People lost their lives. Innocent people got hurt.”

Weber looked at the newspaper. “Like Lisa Childress?”

“You didn’t want me to pursue the Lisa Childress case, Chief.

Why not? Afraid one of those skeletons would fall out of the closet?

Like they fell out when Henderson Jones refused to take a plea deal?”

“A drug dealer,” Weber said with a low chuckle. “Anyone credible who can corroborate anything you’re telling me?”

Weber, like Moss Gunderson, knew Rick Tombs’s death had led Tracy down a dead end. For now.

“You might be surprised.” Tracy walked to the door.

“Do you know how I made it to this office, Detective?”

Tracy turned back.

“I’m a survivor. I scratched and clawed for everything I’ve obtained, my whole life. And I have succeeded.”

Tracy pulled open the door. “Even a cat only has nine lives, Chief. Sounds like you don’t have many left.”





C H A P T E R 4 0

Tracy departed Police Headquarters, called Del and Faz, and Faz suggested they meet at Fazzio’s for an early lunch and to debrief.

“We keep meeting here and I’m going to be as big as the two of you,” Tracy said when they had all arrived in the back room.

She told Del and Faz what had transpired that morning with Chief Weber, and that it was likely the chief had spoken only with Rick Tombs.

“She’s too smart to have spoken with anyone else,” Faz said.

“I got a call from an FBI agent,” Del said. “She wants to meet.

I’d love to get Moss.”

“We have the least on him,” Tracy said. “He can’t be held on any charge involving the two crewmen, because if he struck a deal with Tombs, it was after their deaths. And we can’t reel him in on the death of David Slocum if we can’t prove Tombs killed Slocum. And right now, we can’t.”

“What about going after the files Moss said he kept at home, including the file he kept about the raid on the Egregious?” Del said.