The Fallen (Amos Decker #4)(84)

Kemper looked around. “In my truck.”

They walked across the road and climbed into her SUV.

Once they were inside, Kemper said, “This part of Pennsylvania, Interstate 80 and some of the state routes are known drug distribution routes. We have a number of heroin and fentanyl drug rings that use it. A lot of it comes from New York and is brought to Middle America through those avenues. There’s another pipeline that carries the drugs down from Detroit and over from Columbus.”

“So, Beatty and Smith were working on that?”

“Yes. They were trying to identify both suppliers and shippers.”

“Had they made any progress?”

“Not really, although we were hoping that Haas would be able to assist. He’d been part of one of the drug crews using those very same pipelines.”

“But I don’t quite get how, if Beatty and Smith killed Haas, he was able to make a dying declaration.”

Kemper said, “He was found in an alleyway in Scranton. He’d been injected with an overdose of morphine. He cried out and some people nearby came to his assistance. The syringe was found in his arm. He told the people who discovered him that it had been Beatty and Smith. Then he died. The onlookers reported his last words to police.”

“No prints on the syringe?”

“None. They would have worn gloves. They weren’t rookies.”

Decker looked out the window at Frank Mitchell’s grave. He watched as they lowered the coffin into the ground. He glanced over at Zoe and her mother climbing into the car provided by the funeral home. Zoe was looking back at the coffin going into the ground.

Decker could see her shiver at the sight.

“Did Haas have any family?” asked Decker, his gaze holding on the little girl until the car door closed behind her.

“Family? I suppose so. We really didn’t check into that.”

Decker turned back to her. “Well, I would if I were you. Did you do a post on him?”

“Of course. The morphine stopped his heart. That was the COD.”

“Did the post show anything else?”

“Like what?”

“Like Haas was maybe already dying?”

“What? The ME didn’t mention anything like that.”

“Because you just wanted to know how he died, probably. Did you actually read the whole report?”

Kemper pursed her lips. “No, I didn’t. But I can remedy that right away.” She took a moment to thumb in a text. “I’ll let you know what they say.”

“Okay.”

“Why did you even think that a possibility?” asked Kemper.

“Because I don’t think your guys went rogue.” He glanced at her. “And I’m surprised you were so quickly convinced they had.”

“We’ve had other agents go bad, Decker. Nature of the beast. We chase after guys who literally have billions of dollars to throw at people to make them turn.”

“I get that. But that’s true of any law enforcement. Was there something else about the pair?”

“We didn’t always see eye to eye. They were unorthodox to a fault. I like to do things by the book. Smith and Beatty didn’t.”

“I’m glad you’re not my boss, then.”

She smiled. “Maybe I’m glad too.” Her smile vanished. “Why would Haas have lied about who killed him?”

“I can think of two reasons. And I hope we’ll have answers very soon.”

They watched as two more hearses drove past them, headed to other gravesites, the rest of their processions filing in behind them.

“Lot of funerals in this town,” noted Decker.

“Dollars to donuts you’re looking at ODs there,” said Kemper, pointing to some young people getting out of cars and heading to one of the gravesites. “Over eighty thousand people in America this year alone,” she added. “More than died in Vietnam and the wars in the Middle East combined. And far more than die in traffic accidents or by guns, and it’s only getting worse. Next year we’ll probably be looking at over a hundred thousand dead. The opioid crisis is actually responsible for the life expectancy in this country starting to go down. Can you wrap your head around that? Nearly a half million dead since 2000. Drug overdoses are the leading cause of death for Americans under age fifty. We had a recent study done at DEA. Life insurance companies value a human life at about five million bucks. Using that number and other factors, our people projected the economic loss to the country each year due to the opioid crisis at about a hundred billion dollars. A third of the population is on medication for pain. And they’re not getting addicted on street corners. They’re getting addicted at their doctors’ offices.”

“From prescription painkillers.”

“Right. Back in the eighties we had the crack crisis. The government’s position was just say no and if you didn’t you went to prison. So we locked up millions, mostly men from the inner cities. Then came the nineties and Big Pharma decided that Americans weren’t taking enough painkillers. They sort of made pain the fifth vital sign. Spent billions on ads, payoffs to doctors, used legit-looking organizations and think tanks to make it all seem aboveboard. ‘No possibility of addiction, no long-term negatives’ was the mantra everyone was spouting. Turns out all of that was based on either faulty research or no research at all. It’s ironic but a lot of opioids were initially given out to combat lower back pain.”