“How was Carter involved in that?”
“There’s nothing that was overtly obvious but we had informants that fingered him early on. We know he was a local boss or an area boss in the smuggling ring. When we started looking at him, a lot of things came to light.”
“Wow. I had no idea.”
“I know. I didn’t confide this information after you spoke with my area supervisor, Gene, because I…we… couldn’t be sure if you or anyone else in the department was complicit in the operation of the ring.”
“I understand.” I got up and walked to the window. I stared out at the vehicles in the drive but I didn’t really see them.
I’d worked for Caden Carter for a dozen or so years. We’d never been friends but I certainly didn’t hate the man. I’d chosen to ignore the rumors about him over the last couple of years. Now it was all coming back to bite me in the butt.
“Are you okay?”
I turned and looked at Dana. “Yes… no… I don’t know. I guess what I need to know is what happens now?”
“I don’t believe there’s anything that involves your department, Mel. What I do completely believe is that our two investigations are related somehow.”
I walked over and took a seat near her on the couch so we could speak more quietly. “Little ears.”
She nodded. “We have intel that says a major goods shipment is moving in about two weeks of very high quality, high end designer knock-offs which will have at least one major European designer screaming bloody murder if the stuff hits the street. We know it’s made in China. We’re pretty sure it gets passed through Canada and we have reason to believe it’s either crossing the border into Wisconsin somewhere in trucks or it’s coming across the Great Lakes and entering somewhere. We’ve been working both approaches. We have to pick it up when it enters to have any hope of following it, stopping it and making any arrests.
“What does this particular shipment have to do with Carter or Muskingum County, or my counterfeiters”…
“We got our intel from an informant in the local area. He did dirty work for Carter, from time to time. Says Carter had something to do with the organization of this one. He told our informant that he was taking in a load of goods that was going to make him rich.”
“So it’s coming through here?”
“We don’t know. With Carter gone, our source has lost his information source. He’s digging around but he hasn’t turned up anything.”
“How do you think this all ties together?”
“Well, let’s see; the counterfeit money and the knock off goods could all be coming courtesy of the same organization, the Gangster Demons. They’re passing bad bills around here and they own a trucking company that does long haul shipping using gang members as at least some of their drivers. A driver that’s in jail and a gangbanger that’s been passing bad bills and shooting up your county are related. An inmate, at the same jail as the driver, got killed after volunteering to pass information on about the workings of a smuggling ring for revenge to another one of our informants, a rival gangbanger, who was down with him at the time who would, in turn, pass it on to one of his lieutenants.”
Dana paused and thought for a minute. “All of that is a pretty clear indication that this is somehow all tied together. Makes me wish your Secret Service friend didn’t have those other two in custody. We might have to work a deal to loosen up on the driver until we can solve the smuggling case.”
She took a deep breath. “Mel, I hate to say this but something else comes to mind.”
“What?” I waited a beat or two but Dana seemed hesitant to say what she was thinking. “Dana, please, just tell me.”
“The night Sheriff Carter was killed” … She paused, looked at me and then looked away again. Finally, she said what she was thinking. “My gut feeling is the whole drug raid might have been setup to take him out of the picture. Someone yanked on his chain a little bit to get him to go out there in harm’s way. I mean, really, what’s the Sheriff doing going out on an actual drug raid?”
I mentally kicked myself for not putting that together. “And now, because I’ve been doing my job, chasing down counterfeit bills they’re after me...”
Dana just looked at me. I just seethed. I wanted to take these bastards down but I couldn’t take down a whole gang. Realizing that brought another thought to mind. “Dana, why is Muskingum County involved in the first place? How does a Sheriff here get mixed up with a Chicago street gang? You’re still holding something back! What is it?”
Chapter 15 – Relic
Dana sighed and shook her head. “Can we take a walk? I need some air.” She looked at me with deep, pleading, brown eyes.
I stared back at her for a minute, taking her in completely. I was a mix of emotions. One minute, I wanted her, really felt connected to her and the next… well, I just wanted to knock some sense into her. I broke my reverie and stood up. I offered my hand to her and pulled her up when she took it. We were standing inches apart. Despite myself, I could feel the heat of attraction between us.
The sound of kids arguing snapped me back to reality. I dropped Dana’s hand. “Let’s see what they’ve gotten themselves into and then I’ll take you for a ride.” I picked up our sandwich plates and turned for the door.
“A ride? Like, on a horse?”
I laughed. When I looked back at her though, she had a look of pure terror on her face. “No! Not a horse. You’ll see, city girl!”
Her slap to the back of my shoulder as I headed for the stairs released light years of tension in my still tightly coiled body and my conflicted brain.
Kris’s kids were upstairs arguing over something. They should have been doing homework. “What’s going on?” I yelled, from the foot of the stairs.
“Nothing!” came the tandem reply.
“That’s what I thought!”
Dana shot me a quizzical look. “Shouldn’t you go up there and check on them?”
“It’s better not to.” I headed back into the kitchen. Dana hesitated and then followed. “Just let me rinse these and then I’ll show you some of the farm and get you that air that you’re asking for.” I grinned my most devious grin. I looked at her shoes. She had on a calf high boots. At least she dresses sensibly!
I led her out to the barn where I pulled out my dad’s Polaris quad and fired it up. “Hop on!”
She backed up a couple of feet from me and yelled – louder than she needed to, “Is that thing even safe?”
I grinned. “Just get on! I promise I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”
“First dirt bikes, now this!”
“The dirt bike is Beth’s. This is my dad’s.” I didn’t see any point in telling her right now that I was a real quad enthusiast with racing quads in a shed behind the barn. My niece got her love of racing from me.
She tried to climb on without grabbing hold of me to do it and almost toppled off as she attempted to get a leg over the big machine. I reached behind me and hooked her around the waist and then pushed her across the seat.
“Put your arms around my waist. I won’t go real fast but it could get bumpy in spots.”
Dana gingerly placed her hands at my sides. I pulled her arms firmly around me. I didn’t want her learning the hard way and hating quads and me forever. I pulled out slowly and gave it just enough gas that I had to shift into second gear. I figured that wouldn’t scare her and the bike would be quiet enough that we could talk a bit. As we rolled across the yard toward the upper pasture gate, mom’s fancy chickens skittered this way and that. We rolled by the hen house where we kept laying hens and I pointed it out.
“Are those colorful ones running around the roosters, then?”
I did my best not to laugh out loud. “No. Those are called fancies. T
hey’re sort of pet chickens. Mom likes them.” I could feel Dana shaking her head behind me.
I stopped the bike and hopped off to open the pasture gate. Someday maybe Dana would know how to move the bike through but today wasn’t that day. I got back on, drove it through and then got off and reclosed the gate. When I remounted, she rewrapped her arms around my waist without any prodding from me. We headed across the low part of the upper pasture to the fence at the property boundary. The hill going further up into the pasture wasn’t as steep on that side. I shifted and turned the bike up it.
When I’m alone, on one of my own bikes, I like to stand on the pegs and race up the hill to the top. I don’t do that with a passenger and, besides, I was looking for the longhorns. They weren’t in the lower pasture that I could see, so they had to be in the upper pasture somewhere.
We crested the hill, going north. I could see far out in front of me. There were no cows around. I angled the bike northwest and shifted through the gears going that direction.
The family land consisted of about 5 acres immediately around the house and barn. There was about a 40 acre lower east pasture that was situated out in front of and along one side of the house and yard. It was the reason the house wasn’t visible from the road. The rest of our land consisted of just over 200 acres of upper pasture with a small part of that wrapping down around the west side of the house and yard. The upper pasture was a steep climb to either side of the family homestead. It leveled out for long expanses broken up with a few lesser rolling hills. It was fun to ride on and it gave our small herd of longhorn cattle plenty of grazing room.
After a few minutes cruising along, getting a feel for the bike, Dana relaxed her hold a bit. She leaned in and started to say something when we came over a small rise and spotted a large group of the longhorns about 100 yards ahead. I slowed down and turned the bike up a little knoll then shut it down facing them.
I turned to Dana. Her eyes were wide brown circles as she gaped out at about 40 head of cattle of a type most people in Ohio have never seen other than on television or in movies.
“Those are longhorns…” She stated the obvious.
“Yep.”
“Why do you have those? I thought those were a Texas thing?”
“Texas made them famous. You can raise them anywhere. My niece and my nephew have always raised dairy feeders and steers for FFA and for 4H to show at the county fair. Cole’s a big fan of Texas Longhorns football. He thought raising a few longhorns would be fun and talked dad into it.”
“That’s more than a few!”
“Yeah, the project grew a little.”
“A little! Can you at least eat them?”
“Of course you can eat them, but not these ones.”
“Oh. So these are like pets then?”
“No, they’re not pets. They’re cows!”
“Clearly. I can see that!”
“Clearly, you can’t. A cow is a breeding female.”
“Your mom keeps chicken as pets, besides, cows are cows.”
“No, they really aren’t, city girl.” I was exasperated with the whole failed conversation.
“Quit calling me that!”
Okay, this isn’t the way I planned this. I shifted on the seat a little and I turned toward her. “I’m sorry. I grew up here. It’s a way of life for me. Sometimes I forget myself and I say things without thinking.”
A few moments passed and then I saw the sliver of a smile. “I’m sorry too for being so sensitive. Everything’s just getting to me with this case. I need to get this thing figured out.”
“Dana. I don’t want to pry but, well, there just seems to be something else…”
“You’re not prying. There is. I just don’t know how it fits.”
“Maybe it will mean something to me.”
Dana looked at the sky and blew out a breath then she looked back at me, our faces only inches apart. “Early on, in our investigation, our informant told us that Sheriff Carter was the local boss for the smuggling ring but that he wasn’t the “big” boss. Carter answered to someone that he only referred to as Relic. We – the team - figured Relic was a code name but now I realize it’s probably a gang name. We thought the ring was likely gang affiliated but, because we don’t have anyone inside either the ring or the gang, obviously, and because Carter was killed, we’ve never been able to get close enough to figure out what gang or who Relic is or where he is.”
“So what are you thinking now?”
“It has to be someone in the gang hierarchy who has control of the smuggling op and, possibly, the counterfeiting op.”
“Looks like you’re going to have to go back to Chicago.”
“Yes, I do, but that’s not the reason why. We’ll liaise with the gang task force there and see what they know about the gang hierarchy. I need to go back to Chicago again because I need to talk to that lawyer and rule him out. I also need to talk to that prisoner, though I don’t think I’ll get as far with him as Secret Service probably thinks I will.”
She sighed. “Freakin’ Relic could be anywhere. The Demons have reach far into Ohio, among many other places. Given what’s gone on in Morelville, he might very well be in this area. He may have been tied to Carter somehow. We’re going to have to have the GTF and local officers hit the streets in Chicago and here in Ohio and roust GD members with warrants to see if anyone can finger Relic and is willing to for some sort of a deal.”
“Maybe the truck driver at Stateville will give him up.”
“I’m not getting my hopes up at all on any of this. This guy’s reach goes far into Stateville. One inmate is already dead. Guys already inside that do know anything are probably going to keep their mouths shut and guys outside might prefer going inside over talking to get a deal and winding up iced too.”
“When you put it that way, I suppose you’re right.”
“So, let me ask, does the code name or gang name Relic mean anything at all to you?”
“Naw, not off the top of my head, unfortunately. Do you want me to poke around – discreetly, of course – and see if I can come up with anything?”
“Really, what I want is for you to take a vacation for about two more weeks and stay as far away from this case and out of personal danger as possible. I know you won’t do that though and that you’re in it to win it.”
“Ah, the lady begins to catch on!”
“Right. Just be careful. Please?”
“Madame, I didn’t know you cared.”
“You know I do Mel but that’s a conversation for another time.”
“Okay.” I leaned forward and pecked a kiss onto the tip of her nose. Before she could say a word of protest, I turned around and fired the quad back up.
Chapter 16 – Mel: Death Defying
Tuesday started for me with the realization that Sally was still in a holding cell. I was pretty sure now that she didn’t take a shot at my sister but she was still going to get her day in court. I resisted the temptation to go down and try and talk to her. I just didn’t want to hear her crap or mess up any chance of getting convictions for her for stalking and trespassing. Not today. I needed to do what I could to help Dana find Relic. Sally was on her own.
I had a few local informants of my own. I decided to go out and round a couple of them up and see what I could find out. First though, I called my mom.
“Hey mom, it’s Mel.”
“Of course it is, sweetie.”
“Are you at the hospital?”
“Yes dear.”
“How’s Kris?”
“The doctor was just in. They’re saying they’re going to release her in the next hour.”
“Are you taking her to the farm?”
“Yes. We came over in t
he Ranger. Your dad’s about to go back and get the car.”
“Mom, I can come over there in my truck and get her and drive her out there so he doesn’t have to do that.”
“Honey, you have to work. I couldn’t put you to that kind of trouble.”
“Ma, she’s my sister and I feel responsible for her. It’s no trouble.”
“Why do you feel responsible for her?”
Oops! “It’s a figure of speech ma. I’ll be right over there.” I hung up before she could protest again. I knew though that I’d stuck my foot in my mouth and that I’d hear again about feeling responsible for what happened to Kris. My mom wasn’t the strong silent type like my dad. In fact, Faye Crane was the polar opposite of Junior Crane. I often wondered how they’d stayed together all these years!
###
We got Kris situated as comfortably as she could be on the sofa in the front room at the farm. She was scheduled to start physical therapy the following week. For now, she was still on some pretty heavy pain killers that left her groggy. While she was still awake and somewhat lucid, I tried to talk with her about what happened.
“Kris, what do you remember about what happened Saturday night?”
“Not much. I remember you leaving. I was in the kitchen scrounging up snacks for the kids. I had just told Beth to get out of her riding pants when Cole yelled something from the living room. I couldn’t hear him. I stepped in there to ask him to repeat himself. He started to tell me about something that was coming on television when everything seemed like it exploded. The window burst and I felt a searing pain in my shoulder. I don’t remember very much of anything after that.”
“Did you see anyone outside the window or did you see a car leaving?”
“No. I honestly don’t remember anything sis. I’m sorry.”
“You’re not the one who should be sorry. That’s me! I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Why are you sorry? You didn’t shoot me!”