Chapter 7

I talked to a bunch of people who came into Hardee's, while I drank from the endless coffee cup. As far as I was concerned I had closed the Wilbur Owens case. He had committed suicide and I didn't give a damn what the medical examiner's opinion was. After all was a fucking butcher. I laughed at that last.

It was almost lunch time but I wasn't hungry. I think the thought of Liam as an old man scared the hell out of me. When he was an old man, me being an old woman wasn't far behind. I just couldn't imagine me old. Maybe Wilbur Owens had it right.

I couldn't think like that it was contrary to the law. Of course I had gotten elected on the easy on the letter of the law platform. My phone rang and to my surprise it was finally Detective Letter. "Tell me you got something good,"

"Oh yes we have a meth lab. It isn't what I was after, but it is a crack in that end of the drug trade," He said.

"So when can we move on it?" I asked.

"Just as soon as you are ready," He suggested.

"Get everybody with a badge who is on duty. We are going to raid a Meth lab," I said.

The Meth lab we raided was a hot plate and some drug store over the counter med and some other crap. They couldn't have been making much. But they would have been a thorn in the big time dealer's side. So now I had to wonder about Letter.

When the guys were through and we had called in the EPA for an environmental impact assessment, I drove my old truck back to the courthouse. I went to my office and called Mrs West into the quiet of my office.

"Mrs West I need you to prepare a forensic accounting file for Detective Letter. Keep it just between us." She just nodded. She didn't seem surprised.

I walked down to the detective's office. They had the only interview room. I went to look behind the mirror. The interview looked pretty normal to me. He was asking the right question. He wanted to the kid to incriminate himself and to role up his dealers. Also anyone who helped him buy the over the counter drugs. He made him the right offers and he made the right threats. When the interview ended I pulled Letter aside.

"Where did the tip come from?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" Letter asked.

"Where did the tip come from that led you to that house?" I asked. "You know as well as I do, he is hardly a cooker at all. Somebody gave him up to keep you from looking at somebody else. So who gave you the tip?"

"I can't surrender a source," he said. "There is no protocol for that kind of thing,"

"I won't make it an order that you surrender the name, but you better find out why a low level unconnected cooker is who you came up with. I'm going to start looking for a reason, if you don't." He didn't have to know that I was already checking him out.

I spent the rest of the day on the third homicide. It was a random shooting in a way. A clerk in a convenience store near the plaza took a bullet trying to save his money. The clerk was the son of a Pakistani national.

Someone died in the commission of an armed robbery, it was way to common an occurrence. I just wanted to look into one thing, then throw it back in the files and forget it. Since every immigrant population is preyed on by some underground organization, I wanted to be sure there wasn't some local Pakistani thug selling protection.

First of all I didn't know if there was such a thing. I called around and found out there was no national crime family, but local groups of thugs did sell protection. The only ones they could protect them from was themselves. So I needed to see if he was paying protection and his son was killed by the thugs.

There was a young Pakistani girl doing her homework behind the counter, and a young man man running the register. "Do you know who I am?" I asked the man.

"I have seen your picture on the Television," he said. "You are the new Sheriff."

"That is right, and I am a woman, but I am also very good at what I do. What I want to do now is find out what happened to Assier," I said.

"He was killed in a robbery," the young man said.

"Did you know him?" I asked.

"He was my brother," the man said.

"The information in the report is vague. Were you or your family holding back something?" I asked.

"No," he said. "We told the deputy everything."

"Do you know what forensic accounting is?" I asked.

"Not really," he replied.

"I have a lady named Mrs West. I say to her Mrs. West find out where every penny of the money from the convenience store goes. What she comes back to me with is that there is a large amount of cash unaccounted for from their business. Then I come out and ask is there anything you need to tell me, before we have to call in the FBI. Consider that as what I am doing here." I said.

"You must speak to my father," he said.

"Then you need to get him now," I said. "I'm not going away until this is resolved."

What started out as a random crime and a routine follow up was proving to be something more. At least it appeared to be. "What is your name," I asked.

"Ali," he said.

"Well Ali you are going to have to close," I said.

"I can't close my father will be very angry," he said.