Bitter Crossing (A Peyton Cote Novel) (9 page)

“Shut your mouth,” Peyton said, Maglite in her left hand, Smith & Wesson .40 now out, barrel pointing down.

“A gun?” Army Coat said. He shook his head and smiled. “Can’t shoot an unarmed man.” He took another step. “So what now? Going to kick my ass, too?”

It took her all of three seconds.

The flashlight’s beam bounced once, illuminating her vertical right boot. Then Army Coat was on the ground, clutching his knee, screaming.

Peyton put the light on the others. “Now, everybody put their Goddamn hands where I can see them.”

By 2:30 a.m., the four men were in separate rooms awaiting interrogation. Bruce Steele, the station’s K-9 handler, had been called in to run his German Shepard, Poncho, over the Neon. The dog’s findings gave additional credence to Kenny Radke’s story.

Peyton sat with Steele, Smith, and the station’s only other female agent, Pam Morrison, in Hewitt’s office. Hewitt, too, had gotten out of bed when told of the bust.

“You’re sure it’s BC Bud?” Peyton asked Steele.

He shot her an indignant look. “How long you think I been doing this?” He was well over six feet and had played college football in Alabama. He was in uniform, but his hair was disheveled since he’d been awakened to bring in the dog.

“How much did you find? Twenty-five, fifty pounds, air-packed?” Peyton said.

“Five pounds, give or take. Street value about twenty grand.”

“That’s it?”

Peyton looked at Hewitt, who leaned back in his swivel chair. Clean shaven, not a hair out of place. Had the guy showered before coming in? Over his right shoulder, his PC’s screensaver featured the US Department of Homeland Security emblem, complete with the eagle. The office smelled of stale coffee and, in the wake of the evening’s excitement, perspiration.

“This place ain’t exactly Tijuana,” Steele said. “Five pounds of BC Bud’s a lot of dope up here.”

Hewitt remained silent. She wondered if he was thinking the same thing she was: Had Kenny Radke been put in the hospital over five measly pounds of dope?

She’d heard of dealers killing for less, but this didn’t feel right. Radke’s description of the unknown poker player made her think this was a large-scale operation, that the leader was in town to oversee the final delivery. On the southern border, “large-scale” meant a street value of six or seven figures. Maybe she had to adjust her expectations. Given the area’s median income, $20,000 was a lot of money.

“What I don’t get,” Smith said, “is why these guys came back to Peyton. I’d have kept running. My ass wouldn’t have stopped until I was back in Canada.”

Bruce Steele leaned over and scratched Poncho’s ear. “Is Maine DEA coming for these guys, or is this thing going higher?” he asked, Southern drawl ever-present.

“State DEA,” Pam Morrison said, “but no one’s coming tonight.” In her previous life, she’d been a pre-K teacher. The station’s resident computer specialist, she’d recently attended a seminar in Princeton, New Jersey, on cyber terrorism.

“The four stooges can sweat things for a while,” Hewitt said and leaned forward, thick forearms stretching the fabric of his uniform shirt as they rested on his desk blotter. “See if one of them remembers anything. Right now, nobody knows who set up the shipment, where it was from, or probably the name of the president.”

“They’re all Canadian.” Steele grinned. “Ask if they know who the prime minister is.”

Hewitt turned to Peyton. “Think this is the drop Radke men-
tioned?”

“Where’d they get it?” she said. “Did they pick it up ‘near the river’?”

“We don’t know yet.” Hewitt clasped his hands behind his head and stared at his black office window. “Just five pounds?”

“I was thinking it would be more,” she admitted.

“Yeah,” Hewitt said, “but if these clowns are mules in the same deal Radke mentioned, they might know who kicked the shit out of him this afternoon.”

“There is that.” She retied her ponytail and pulled it through the back of her cap. Twenty grand might be a lot to Kenny Radke or the four men in custody. It wasn’t enough to attract the feds or even ICE—Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which was the criminal investigations division of Homeland Security. Maine DEA would get in the mix. After that, Garrett Station, being three hours north of Bangor and five from Portland, would be on its own.

Peyton looked at Morrison. “Get any hits on NCIC?”

The National Crime Information Center was a computerized index of fugitives, stolen property, and missing persons that was routinely used to trace a suspect’s criminal record. Each of the four men had been fingerprinted.

“None have records,” Morrison said, “which means the DEA will have trouble linking them to any ongoing investigations.”

“Maybe we can turn one,” Hewitt said. “Anyone say anything, in the field or on the drive here? Anyone a talker?”

Peyton leaned back in her chair, sore from the tackle. “Not a peep. The five of us stood there for about five minutes, until Scott arrived. He could tell I was hurting and offered to drive them back.”

Hewitt looked at Scott Smith.

Smith shook his head. “No one said a word.”

Peyton sipped her stationhouse coffee. It was loaded with hazelnut creamer, which made it nearly tolerable. “The short guy in the leather jacket might turn. Like Bruce said, the others stopped running once I got him, so he must be the weak link.”

Hewitt nodded. “Paramedics told me they had to sedate the guy you kicked to get him to the hospital. Guy’s having his knee scoped tomorrow.”

“He threatened me. Then he stepped closer, so …” She shrugged. “I defended myself.”

“I guess to Christ you did,” Hewitt said. “I went to the hospital and took the guy’s statement. I saw his knee.”

“Probably has a strained ACL. Could be torn, but usually when they tear, you hear a pop. I didn’t hear anything.” She sipped coffee.

“
Hear
it?” Pam Morrison said, rubbing her own knee.

“Be nice if we could tap one of the four for the delivery details,” Hewitt said, “maybe set up a sting. Bruce is right. Five pounds isn’t peanuts. It was going somewhere.”

“Are you aware of your rights, Mr. Shaley?” Peyton asked, when she sat down across from Leather Jacket.

The Darrel Shaley in front of her was not the same guy who’d taken a swing hours ago. He hadn’t been confident to start, and two hours in a cell with nothing but his thoughts had turned any tough outer bark he’d had to liquid.

Cuffed, he rested his forearms on the tabletop and stared at the triangular space between them. The voice-activated recorder between them lay idle. Shaley’s face was no longer bloody, although his right cheek was purple and long scratches graced his chin. Crusted blood had dried at the edges of his nostrils. A cobra, head reared, was tattooed on his right forearm. When he lifted his paper coffee cup, his hand trembled.

“I’m Agent Peyton Cote of the US Border Patrol’s Houlton Sector. This is October twenty-fifth at two fifty-five a.m. I’m with Darrel Shaley of Youngsville, New Brunswick.”

The recorder’s red light died with the silence.

“Are you aware of your rights, Mr. Shaley?”

Shaley looked up, exhaled, and nodded, a man resigned to his fate.

“Please answer the question. I’m taping our conversation, so there will be no confusion about who said what later on.”

“Yeah,” he said to the recorder, “I was read my rights.”

“The Dodge Neon is registered to you, Mr. Shaley. You were driving. Why did you accelerate when I turned on my flashers?”

“I didn’t.”

Grit, like engine oil, lay beneath his fingernails; the armpits of his T-shirt were soiled with yellow rings. A laborer.

“Darrel, you continued on, driving seventy-five in a fifty-five zone for a half-mile before pulling over. Then you ran.”

Silence.

She saw his shoulders shake. He looked up, opened his mouth, but then closed it.

“We have you on Attempted Assault and Possession with Intent to sell.”

His head shook—instinctive denial—but his eyes grew wide as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. She’d seen the look before: an amateur in over his head.

He looked away.

She said, “
How did I get here?
That’s what you’re asking yourself.
How the hell did it end like this?
You can’t believe it, Darrel, because you’re no drug dealer. I know that.”

He stared at her. She knew he was wondering if she was on the level, if he could trust her. When he said nothing, she sensed the moment and continued.

“This was supposed to be a no-brainer, right? A way to earn a little money. Maybe you just needed extra cash.”

He nodded.

Progress.

“Now you’re sitting here wondering what the hell happened.”

Nod.

“The stuffing was removed from the Neon’s back seat, Darrel. Only a dog could find it there. Hell, you made it through the port of entry. This whole thing’s just bad luck, right?”

His nod grew vigorous. Suddenly his eyes fell to the triangle between his forearms again. He was on the ropes. She went for the confession.

“You’ve got two kids, Darrel. You’re not going to see them for a while unless you cooperate. I’d be thinking about that, if I were you.”

Her pause was calculated. Silence for ten full seconds.

Shaley stared at the tabletop.

On the best days, interrogation gave her a rush. She got to stare down hardened criminals and take them out of the mix. Other days, interrogation left her feeling like she’d squashed someone’s American dream, ending their hopes for a better life. That happened often in El Paso: a family would run for the border and be easily apprehended because the children—for whom the adults were trying to provide—slowed them. She didn’t make the law, just enforced it. Watching Shaley transform from a thug who’d tried to hit her to a father frightened by the thought of not seeing his kids fell somewhere in between.

“You need to ask yourself if the others would be this loyal to you. I’ve done this for a long time, Darrel. Take care of your kids. The others aren’t worth it. Talk to me.”

Head down, Shaley shifted side to side in his chair. He looked up again, his face more composed. Was he about to go on the offensive? If he asked for a lawyer, the game was over.

It was now or never.

“We have five pounds of BC Bud, Darrel. That’s twenty thousand dollars on the street. That’s also a class-B federal offense. You’re staring prison in the face right now, but I’m giving you a chance to help yourself. Think about your kids, Darrel.”

His eyes narrowed—either considering what she said or growing annoyed. When he looked down again, his shoulders trembled.

She knew she had him.

But what he said next rocked her.

TWELVE

“
M
Y WIFE HAS CANCER,”
Darrel Shaley said. “She needs an oper-
ation.”

Peyton had anticipated many answers.
They forced me to do it. I was blackmailed. I made a bad choice.

Situational ethics were part of the job. Here they were again. Shaley was no drug dealer, but she would interrogate him as if he were to get information that would hold up in court.

“What do you do for work?” she asked.

“Mechanic.” He had dark half-moons under his eyes now. “We have to wait four months for chemo in Canada. Paula can’t wait that long. I needed cash to pay for it myself.”

This wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She wanted to know if Shaley knew Kenny Radke, Tyler Timms, Morris Picard, or the professor Picard had named, Jerry Reilly. She wanted to know if Shaley had played cards last Tuesday night. Instead, she got a guy with two kids and a sick wife. But she’d heard hundreds of lies in her time, and she knew this was the truth.

Shaley’s jacket was unzipped. He wore a red Canadian Tire T-shirt beneath it. “I needed money to get her over here, to pay for treatments. I was working extra hours on a harvest crew, but it didn’t pay enough. Then a guy offered me three grand.”

She’d heard it before: This flaw in Canada’s health-care system—the wait for major surgeries and treatments—sent Canadians who could afford it to the US. Shaley’s situation sounded more urgent than most, but she knew she couldn’t get caught up in the
why
; she needed to know
how.
Sick wife or not,
how
served only as motive here, nothing more. She needed a confession that would hold up in court.

“Tell me what you did.”

“The oncologist said she could wait, but she’s lost thirty pounds. That’s why I did it.”

“Tell me what you did,” she said again. Had he gotten the dope “near the river,” as Radke had mentioned?

“I feel like I’m watching her starve to death.”

“Mr. Shaley, we need to get some details straight.”

“My kid asked if Mommy was going to live with God.
Will she leave us, Daddy?
Got any idea what that feels like? You got kids?”

She almost nodded. This was the dilemma: She’d become an agent to help people but often felt the people who most needed help never got it. Shaley was the weakest link because he was the most desperate.

And she had to use his fear and desperation against him.

“Where did you get the marijuana, Mr. Shaley? Tell me everything, and I’ll tell the prosecutor you cooperated fully.”

“What about the others?”

She shrugged.

He looked at the voice-activated recorder, its red light fading to black in the silence.

“Assault of a Federal Agent and Possession with Intent is what you are currently facing.”

“I didn’t mean it when I swung at you.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I know, I know. A guy came to where I work. Said he heard I could use a little money. Said he was doing me a favor, giving me a
gift
. That was the word he used,
gift.
Said all I had to do was drive.”

“Who was the guy?”

“I don’t like to rat people out.”

She shrugged and stood. “Then we’re through here.”

“No, I’ll do it. I have to. I can’t go away. I don’t know if my wife’s going to make it.”

She felt her jaws clench at the statement but sat back down casually.