Justice Lost (Darren Street #3)(59)
“We could build that county into a million-dollar-a-year enterprise just with the pills,” she said. “Probably more.”
“You’ll make twice that off the gambling.”
“You know the old saying ‘You must be talking out of your butt because your mouth has to know better?’”
“But the gambling is still good, right? With the other money you’re already pulling in from other counties, how much do you need?”
“I hate the drugs, Darren. Always have. Eugene and Ronnie handle most of that side of the business because it turns my stomach. The kind of people you have to deal with, the class of people, is just disgusting. That’s why we got out of it for a while. But it’s just so lucrative it’s hard to walk away, especially when you’ve been as poor as we were back in the days when my husband was alive and we went to church and followed the laws and acted like sheep in a herd. He had his little side hustles like the bar and a couple of trailers out back, but when he died, we barely had a pot to piss in, and I had to scratch and claw just to keep this place going and keep food in our bellies and clothes on our backs. That’s when I made up my mind I was going to get rich and wasn’t going to be poor ever again. There just can’t ever be too much money.”
“So I can’t talk you out of it,” I said.
She breathed deeply, stopped again, and looked me square in the eye.
“We can make a deal,” she said. “You becoming the district attorney has been good, Darren. Good for you, good for us. But Roby’s gone off the deep end if he killed Morris and the others. I can’t say it for sure, but I’m usually right about these things. With Morris gone, Roby will dig in deeper than a tick in a dog’s neck and dare you or anybody else to try and stop him. You can try using your informants, you can try making arrests, putting pressure on people. Maybe eventually you’ll get enough to arrest and convict him, but it’s going to take a long time, and if you take your shot and you miss, he’ll come after you.”
“So what are you saying, Granny?”
“Kill him, Darren,” she said. “It’ll be just like Clancy. We’ll help you if you need us, and once it’s over, we’ll all be better off. And if you kill him, I promise we won’t sell a single pill in your county.”
PART III
CHAPTER 34
The summons from the governor of the state of Tennessee came early Sunday morning in the form of a telephone call from Senator Roger Tate, negating the need for Tom Masoner, my new best buddy at the DA’s office, to get me some intros at the TBI. Senator Tate said I was to meet the governor, along with several other “heavy hitters,” at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s headquarters in Strawberry Plains Monday at 8:00 a.m. sharp. The senator said neither he nor Claire would be attending.
I walked in the next morning wearing my best suit—the charcoal one Claire had purchased for me before the political rally. When I walked through the door, the governor looked at me in a way that made me feel small and insignificant, and I suppose I was, compared with a couple of the others in the room. The governor—a Republican, Theo Bradbury—sat at the head of the table. He was flanked by the director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security, the chief of police of Knoxville, and the high sheriff of Knox County, Tree Corker. Noticeably absent were representatives from the federal government. There wasn’t a US attorney or an FBI agent in sight.
“Gentlemen,” the governor said after everyone was seated, “I’m here to impress upon you the importance of solving these hideous murders that took place last Saturday. I mean, can you imagine the way the people of this district, and people all over Tennessee, are feeling at this minute? They’re feeling unsafe and wondering whether the people they’ve elected to represent them can protect them. The fact that a person or persons would walk into the home of an elected district attorney general and kill both him and his wife is simply unfathomable to me. The fact that an assistant district attorney general was murdered on the same night—in his car at an abandoned warehouse—is also extremely disturbing. I’ve heard rumors, though no one has been able to confirm them, that the young Saban woman who was killed that night was also involved with General Morris. This case has to be tied off with no loose ends, it has to have palatable explanations for the public, and it has to be done right away. Sheriff Corker, your department has immediate jurisdiction over the case. What can you share with us?”
Corker looked uncomfortable. Beads of sweat were visible on his forehead, and his face was pinker than usual.
“I agree, it’s horrible and it’s important,” Corker said. “We’ve put every resource we have into the case.”
“What do you have? Are there any leads? Anything promising?”
Corker shook his head. “I’m sorry, Governor, but we have very little right now.”
“Have you interviewed any suspects?”
The question came from Hanes Howell III, the director of the TBI, who was sitting to my left. He was in his midfifties, a balding, light-skinned black man who looked more like a superbureaucrat than a superagent. He’d been head of the agency for twelve years and had just been appointed by the governor to another six-year term. I’d heard early in my law career that the director of the TBI answered to no one and had done some research. It was true. He was appointed by the governor, but he had free rein. Nobody looked over his shoulder, which, I believed, was deemed necessary to make him an effective leader.