Darkness at the Edge of Town (Iris Ballard #2)(59)
All but two of the fingerprint samples I gave Hancock had produced an extensive police record, and all had drug or alcohol convictions. Dutch was the worst of the bunch, with a manslaughter conviction for beating a man to death in a bar fight when he was four times over the legal limit. Reading that, I was glad I’d gotten Mom to back down. But he wasn’t my main focus. That position belonged to Megan and Paul.
Paul was born Paul Roselli in Cleveland, Ohio. He was twenty-two years old and had been arrested four times for prostitution and heroin possession. I was sure there was more of the same in his juvie file, but Hancock couldn’t get access to those records. Paul had told me the truth. Every horror he’d endured was verified in his file. My stomach actually clenched in shame as I read. Beaten in his home and his group home, pimped out, running drugs. Tragic, but not helpful in finding Billy. I had to focus on that or I couldn’t get through this.
Megan’s rap sheet proved far more illuminating. Megan Amber Snyder was twenty-six, with quite the varied criminal career. There was one conviction for prostitution and OxyContin possession, but the identity theft, extortion, forging, and fraud charges were surprising. Per the file, she and her father, Hank Snyder, ran scams all around Philadelphia and Pittsburgh from at least the time she was fifteen to nineteen. Her prior bad acts had been admitted as evidence at her trial. Mostly honeypot cons or blackmailing a guy for sleeping with an underage girl. When her father was caught, he went down for twenty years and she for two. Hancock provided her parents’ rap sheets too, bless him. Between them they had over a dozen arrests for fraud, extortion, theft, forgery, identity theft, and drug running. Her mother, Lorelai, had gone down twice with her husband but OD’d when Megan was ten. Megan was literally born a grifter. Just maybe not a great one. She got out of prison and two months later was arrested again for fraud. She spent another year in prison, then six months later came the prostitution/drug conviction. Another six months in prison. Nothing since. If what she’d told me was true, she would have met Mathias a few months after getting released the last time. Was Mathias one of her father’s old friends? I made a mental note to look up all of Papa Snyder’s known associates in the morning. My eyes were growing heavy after a dozen files, so I closed Megan’s, shut off the light, and lay down.
Megan had to know what Mathias was up to. Yet I still felt she actually believed in his garbage. Or just in him. Maybe she knew she was conning people but thought it was for a good reason. To help people. To help create a family. To retire to Cabo. The fact that she was offered just probation if she turned on her father and refused the deal indicated she was loyal. As my brief stint in undercover work showed me, it was hard not to grow close to people even when you knew there was something rotten in the state of Denmark. It was easy to get lost in the fantasy. The way she defended Helen against Mom, ready to literally draw blood, led me to believe she genuinely cared for her. Of course, this protectiveness and loyalty made me nervous about their next move.
I needed to devise a new plan. Several were formulated, but none were that spectacular. I could stake out The Temple and tail a member to the farm, but I could end up following the wrong person, get caught, and then I’d be fucked. They could have me arrested for stalking or order everyone to avoid The Apex from then on. Plus it would mean I was stuck in a car for potentially days in the middle of summer. Not ideal. The only other option I could think of was to put pressure on the group. A few of the members were on parole, and consorting with other known criminals was a violation. I had their names. Anonymous calls to the parole office did happen. If I had to make those calls, I would do it, but only as a last resort. My pressure could endanger Billy, and it would make me feel guilty as hell for sending people attempting to get their lives together back to prison. Option three, and I actually was proud of myself for thinking of it, was to go to the county tax office and find every property in Niagaraville larger than fifty acres and check it out. “Thank you, brain,” I whispered to myself. A trip to the county assessor’s office. Oh, joy. Of course after the day I’d had, I could definitely stand a little boring.
Yeah. Right. You plan, God laughs.
After a few hours of blissful oblivion, my cellphone rang around six A.M. It was clear across the room, so I just let it ring. I half-dozed for a while before it began ringing again. “Fuck,” I muttered. It took all my reserve energy to force myself out of my semi-comfortable bed and get it off the charger. I didn’t recognize the number, but I was still half asleep. “Hello?”
“Hello, Carol,” a familiar woman said on the other end.
It took me a second to connect the dots. “Megan?”
“How’s that gorgeous ass of yours this fine morning?” she asked seductively.
It was too early for games. “Uh, tired. What do you want?”
“Since you naked in my bed is apparently no longer in the cards, Agent Ballard, I have something else to brighten your day. Of course, since I’m in a generous mood this morning, you can have both.”
I rolled my eyes. “Please just get to why you’ve called.”
“Twenty-six seventy-nine Chariot Road, Niagaraville.”
“Excuse me?”
“The Apex. That’s the address.”
And I was suddenly wide awake. “What?”
“Mathias gave his permission. You’re expected at nine A.M. You’re welcome.”