The Fallen (Amos Decker #4)(14)

“What’s the drug of choice around here?”

“Used to be OxyContin and then fentanyl. Now it’s heroin even though fentanyl is far more potent.”

“Must be impacting your crime rate.”

“People burglarize their neighbor’s house so they can sell the stuff for cash to service their addiction. Or a son embezzles his mom’s bank account to do the same. Or a granny steals from her granddaughter’s piggy bank. It’s seriously demented stuff and happens every day.”

“And heroin is popular because you get a gram of it for about fifty bucks and it’ll last you a lot longer than fentanyl, or OxyContin, which runs about, what, eighty bucks a pill on the street?”

“Hell, you don’t have to buy it on the street anymore. They’ll deliver it right to your house, like pizza. Or they get it from pharmacies or the local Boy Scout troop leader. Or it comes down one of the drug pipelines around here. They crush and snort it, inject it. They even chew on fentanyl patches instead of putting them on their skin to get the pop.”

“Maybe that mark on the dead guy was a fentanyl patch.”

She nodded. “Could be. Our OD rate is up nearly seventy percent from last year. And the last ten cases we’ve investigated have been people over sixty-five. Some people call it ‘Rust Belt Retirement.’”

“I left being a cop in Ohio before the opioid crisis really got going. But even back then we started calling it the zombie apocalypse.”

“It’s why we all carry Narcan with us.”

“To resuscitate an OD?”

Lassiter nodded. “And the city enacted Good Samaritan laws, so you won’t get in trouble if you report an overdose, even if you might be doing drugs as well. The woman we passed? Her husband keeps a Narcan kit at home. Rehab place in town started to give them out. Some say it’s enabling. I say until we get this figured out, it’s better to keep people alive. We got an army of addicts and a twenty-bed rehab center. Tell me how that makes sense. I think the town’s just sick of it. They don’t want to spend tax dollars they don’t have on people they don’t think give a damn. They hear methadone treatment center and think it’s what meth addicts take to get their high and not the drug used to treat that addiction. They don’t want ‘these’ people around them, not coming to grips with the fact that ‘these’ people are often members of their families. So some say let ’em die and good riddance.”

“But not you?”

“It’s hit pretty close to home with me, Decker. So, no, I don’t say good riddance to a human being.”

“Your family?” he asked.

“Not going there,” she replied curtly.

As they reached the door of the repair facility, Decker said, “I take it since Mrs. Martin taught you in Sunday school that you grew up here?”

“I did. Though I went to college in Philly. Criminal justice degree at Temple. Then I came back here, joined the force, was a street cop for four years, passed my exams, became a sergeant, and then moved up to detective.”

“Pretty fast-track for you.”

“I worked my ass off for it.”

“I’m sure you did, more than the guys had to.”

“That’s pretty astute of you, Decker.”

“Did you shut the repair facility down after the crime, or did it close on its own?”

“The guy who ran it hit the state lottery for about six hundred thousand and got the hell out of here.”

“You got a key?”

She pulled one from her pocket and unlocked the front door.

There was a small reception area, and beyond that, through a wall of glass interrupted by a door, Decker could see three service bays.

“Okay, take me through step by step.”

“We got a call about a possible break-in. Uniforms responded. They found the bodies.”

“Who called it in?”

“Anonymous. We tried to trace it but couldn’t.”

“That’s unusual, because most people don’t carry untraceable phones. Where did you find the bodies?”

She led him into the service bay area.

“Vic number one was found in the grease pit of this service bay.” She pointed down in the hole.

“Cause of death?”

“A gunshot wound to the head sealed the deal.”

“ID?”

“Michael Swanson. Black guy, early thirties. Low-level street dealer. Started his career right out of high school. He’d been arrested before on petty stuff. Did some short stints twice in the local lockup. But nothing too serious. Last address we had for him was an apartment on the outskirts of town. Very low-rent district.”

“The second body?”

She led him over to a machine that was used to lift engine blocks out of vehicles.

“He was found wrapped in chains and hanging from this.”

“Cause of death?”

“Same as Swanson. But he had a mark branded into his forehead.”

“What sort of mark?”

“You ready for this?”

“I guess.”

“It was a flame, but it was turned upside down.”

“A torch, you mean? That’s the symbol of the Greek god of death, Thanatos.”