Connections in Death (In Death 48)

“When did you start to buy it?”

“At his parole hearing. His family was there, his sister spoke. She would let him move in with her, on the condition he finished his halfway-house term with no issues, he went to regular meetings, got work, and kept clear of anyone in the Bangers. You could see she wasn’t a pushover. It wasn’t blind faith so much as hope. And … grit,” Strong decided. “She wanted her brother back. Lyle spoke of remorse, of getting and staying clean, learning to cook, and finding self-worth and pride in learning a skill.”

Strong let out a breath. “God, he was really proud he could cook. Then he said what turned a key for me. He said with his sister’s help and the help of the prison shrink, he’d come to understand his addiction to illegals was connected to his addiction to the gang. He’d used illegals as an excuse not to face life as it was, and the gang as a way to distance himself from the family he was hurting. So he had to work, every day, not to fall back and use, either. It didn’t sound like bullshit.”

“After he got out?”

“I kept track. I wondered, because it didn’t sound like bullshit, if he could walk the walk. I dropped by the place he worked, and he came out on his break. I could see he was still clean, could see how the waitress—old enough to be his mother—doted on him. That’s when he told me getting busted, getting locked up tight, had been the best thing that ever happened to him.”

Strong stopped, rubbed at the back of her neck. “Goddamn it. He said he had his family, he had a job. Sometimes when he got really tired or low, he thought how easy it would be to get a little boost. How he’d tell himself maybe he would—after he went to a meeting. If it was a bad maybe, he’d tag his sponsor.”

Strong looked down at her mug. “Any chance of another hit? Getting the real’s a big moment.”

“Sure.” Eve signaled to Peabody.

“I asked him if any of the Bangers gave him grief. He sort of brushed it off as no big. Yeah, a couple times some had come around wanting to hang or get high or pull him back. If it shook him, he tagged his sponsor, or went to see his younger brother, maybe his grandmother.”

Strong took the refilled mug, gestured to Duff’s photo. “That one there? He told me—not that first time, but later—she’d come around looking to pick things up with him—sex and drugs. He cared about her, that was the problem. He gave her information about rehab—and Clean House, where his sponsor works. Tried to get her to go to a meeting with him, that sort of thing. And I’m pretty sure he gave her a little money now and then when she came crying.”

“When did you turn him?” Eve asked. Strong sighed.

“I’m still not sure if I turned him or he turned himself. Some of both, I guess, some of both. But for the last ten months he’s been one of my confidential informants. And I’m sick, just sick, Dallas, thinking that might be why he’s up there on your board.”

8

Eve eased a hip onto her desk. “At this point I can’t tell you why he’s up there. I know how. I know Duff’s one of the whos, but I don’t have clear motive.”

“Could be I ju

st gave it to you. I don’t know.”

“Why did you take him on as a CI?”

“He contacted me, asked me to meet him. That’s close to a year ago. He didn’t want to meet where he worked, but at this place near his grandmother’s. Near one of his meeting sites, too. Fake-coffee place a lot of those in recovery go to after meetings. Well out of Banger territory, a good clip from where he works.”

Eve nodded. “So you realized he didn’t want to be seen with you by someone he knew?”

“Yeah, had to figure it. He looked stressed, said he’d been to a meeting, and he was going to another after he talked to me. Or maybe he’d just go hang with his sponsor. But he’d wrestled with telling me what he was going to tell me, and he couldn’t go back to work if he just swallowed it down.”

“Why don’t you sit down?” Eve said. “Take the desk chair. The other’s a killer.”

“Thanks.” As she sat, Strong took another moment, gathering her thoughts. “The waitress I told you about had a kid still at home, her youngest. Sixteen. So, Lyle tells me the kid sees a couple of Bangers trying to sell this boy’s cousin—and that one’s fourteen—some junk. Sort of pushing him around, saying how he might as well because if he doesn’t, they’ll just take whatever he has on him, and his shoes, and he’ll get nothing. So the older boy heads over to get his cousin, tells him to take off and go home. And ends up getting the crap beat out of him. Ended up in the hospital. Messed him up good.”

“Lyle knew the kid.”

“Yeah, and he knew the two Bangers. The kid was afraid to give the cops a description, but he told Lyle.”

“And Lyle told you.”

“Yeah.” She paused again, drank more coffee. “I want to say it wasn’t easy for him to rat them out, but he’d—he’d really turned that corner, Dallas. They’d beat that kid down for protecting his cousin, and Lyle wouldn’t just stand by, you know?”

“The kid mattered to him. The kid’s mother.”

“Yeah. And doing the right thing mattered, too. He said if we busted them for this, it would come back on the kid, maybe the cousin, maybe the mom, too. But couldn’t I do something?”

“You did something.”

“This was back when Oberman still had Illegals in her pocket, so I had to do something on the down low. I had a lot more free time back then, as our squad was basically Oberman’s cover, so I used it to watch the two Lyle identified. It didn’t even take long for me to catch them making a deal. Another minor, apparently their specialty. I didn’t bust them for the assault, but for possession, and intent to sell to a minor and within fifty feet of a school. That wrapped them.”