STATE OF BETRAYAL: A Virgil Jones Mystery (Detective Virgil Jones Mystery Series Book 2) (21 page)

“We do,” Rand said. “Or did, I
guess I should say. But it was because of his talent. The guy was the best I’d
ever seen at what we do, but he was still sort of a shifty fucker.”

“Shifty how? In what way?”

“I’m not sure I could define it,”
Epps said. “I don’t think any of us could.”

Virgil put some gravel in his voice.
“Try.”

“Jesus, dude…chill,” Rand said.
“We’re trying to help.”

“Then help,” Virgil said, but he
dialed it back some.

Snowhill looked at Virgil. “It’s
like you said when we were outside. You asked if we had anything going on the
side. That was Nick. He always had something going. He was always talking about
making a big score, but he never spoke about anything in particular.”

“That’s true,” Epps said. “He was
the kind of guy who dreamed big. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with
that, but he was also the kind of guy that might go a little outside the lines
to make it happen.”

“Maybe more than a little,”
Snowhill said.

“So. A risk taker,” Virgil said.

“More like a risk maker. And now
he’s dead.”

“Tell me about his sister, Nichole.
Any of you guys ever meet her?”

__________

Hector walked into
Pate’s
office and started to say something, but Pate waved him around
behind his desk, a finger touched to his lips to shush him. He pointed at the
monitor. “Live feed from the lottery building.”

Hector squinted at the computer
monitor. “Where’s Wu?”

“That’s how we’re getting the
feed.”

Hector pulled a chair around behind
the desk and sat down. He’d just caught the end of what one of the programmers
was saying…“Nichole, she was here quite a bit before Nick was killed. It was
against the rules, but with the fucked up hours we keep around here no one ever
said anything. I liked her. We all did. Easy to talk to, didn’t treat us like
nerds, listened to what we had to say like she was really interested. Plus,
she’s good looking…in a hard sort of way. Not surprising, though, given the way
they were raised.”

There was a long silence at the
table. Pate thought he might have lost the sound. It went on long enough that
he picked up the phone and called Wu. “Wu, I’m not getting any sound.”

“That because no one talking.”

“Right,” Pate said into the phone
before hanging up. He looked at Hector. “That Wu is sort of a smart ass. He
gets on my very last fucking nerve sometimes, I’ll tell you that.”

“I think some of it is just his
broken English,” Hector said. Then he pointed to the screen. “Here we go…”

__________

“I’m familiar with
what
happened to them as children,” Virgil said.

“How’s that?” Epps said.

“Nichole has asked me to help find
out what happened to her brother.”

“So she told you that the cops
gunned down her old man while her and Nick sat there and watched?”

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“She didn’t have to,” Virgil said. “I’m
the one who shot him.”

__________

Hector looked at Pate.
“Did you know any of this?”

Pate shook his head. “Not all of it.
Something is going on here. Get me everything you can on Nichole Pope. I want
it by tonight before we go to Pearson’s.”

“You got it boss.”

__________

Virgil still couldn’t
connect
what he’d learned about Pri-Max—Pate’s other company that
held the state contract to build the private prison in Hendricks County—with
the death of Nick Pope. “Tell me about the unclaimed funds,” Virgil said. That
got them going.

__________

Wu killed the feed.
He picked up the phone and dialed. When it was answered he said, “He knows.
It’s time to move. Take your emergency exit bag and leave everything else
behind. Go now.” He hung up without waiting for a reply. Ten seconds later his
phone rang. Pate.

“Wu, I’ve lost the feed.”

“Hold on. Wu try to reroute through
a proxy server.”

“I don’t know what that means, Wu,
and I don’t care. Get me that feed back.”

Wu clicked at his keyboard…a series
of meaningless jabs that he hoped sounded like a frantic effort to get the feed
back up. “Hold on. Wu trying.”

__________

Rand let out a low
whistle.
“That’s why we’re all here. Nobody knows yet. Monroe doesn’t
even know.”

Virgil gave Rand a look. “Knows?
Knows what?” They were all smiling now.

“We were all called in this morning
to authenticate. It’s one hell of a process, I can tell you that.”

Authenticate? Virgil was so focused
on gathering as much information about Nicholas Pope that it took his brain a
few seconds to change gears. When he figured it out, he had to smile. “You mean
someone came forward? Someone has the wining ticket?”

“We’re not supposed to talk about
it,” Myers said.

“Fuck that,” Epps said to Myers.
Then to Virgil, “Someone, somewhere, right now, is holding a lottery ticket
worth over three-hundred-million dollars.”

Virgil thought about that for a
moment and had to admit it was with a twinge of jealousy. He’d always had more
than enough money…unless he wanted three hundred million dollars. “Boy, that’s
a lot of money.”

“Someone,” Snowhill said, “is about
to be famous.”

“How come your boss…Ms. Monroe
doesn’t know yet?”

“We haven’t called her.”

“Why not?”

“The authentication process is
lengthy,” Rand said. “Grueling, really. You’d be surprised how often the
authentication fails. There are numerous steps—all of which have to be
completed in the proper sequence then crosschecked by all of us. If we called
the boss every time a winning ticket was in process, she’d wring our necks. So
we don’t call until everything is verified.”

“But you’ve done that.”

“No, we’re doing it now,” Epps
said. “Well, the computer is. We’re running the last of eight different
electronic verification processes. Each one is more complex than the previous,
but I can tell you this, there’s no question. Someone has that ticket.”

“Who is it?” Virgil said.

“Don’t know yet,” Myers said. “It was
scanned at a mini-mart self-check station earlier today. That got the ball
rolling for us. If everything checks out and believe me, it’s going to, the
only thing left to do is wait for the ticket holder to show up with the actual
ticket. As long as it’s printed on official lottery paper, hasn’t been tampered
with or mutilated, it’s a done deal.”

“I thought I heard or read
somewhere that the deadline was today though. When I got here, the place was
locked up tight. If you guys hadn’t been out taking a smoke break, I wouldn’t
have even known anyone was here. What do you do if someone shows up on a
Saturday or Sunday?”

“There’s a loophole,” Snowhill
said. “If the deadline lands on a Saturday, like this one did, then the ticket
only has to be verified electronically, which it has. The winner then has until
close of business on the following Monday to show up at any lottery office in
the state to present their ticket and claim the prize.”

“Huh.” The whole thing was kind of
exciting.

__________

Wu wasn’t a little
gay,
but he was a little panicked. Pate wasn’t supposed to find out
about the verification until it was too late. Now that the cop knew…

24

__________

V
irgil
took Murton’s call as he was leaving the lottery office. “Our girl Nichole is
incommunicado. That’s Fed-speak for she wasn’t at her apartment, I can’t find
her anywhere else and she isn’t answering her phone.”

“Did you ask Delroy if she’d been
into the bar?”

“Yeah. He said she stopped by
earlier but didn’t stay, so I don’t know where she is.”

“Huh. Well, she just lost her
brother. She’s in mourning. What would you be doing?”

“You’re the closest thing I’ve ever
had to a brother, Jones-man. I can tell you exactly what I’d be doing.”

“What’s that?”

“I’d grieve for the appropriate
amount of time, then, you know, put the moves on Small.” There was about a half
second gap before Virgil heard him say, “Hey, Jesus, that hurts.”

“You’re at home, huh?”

“Yeah…I’m working on Becky’s sense
of humor. Would you stop that, please?”

“Tell her we need that code figured
out.”

“She’s working on it now. I’m
helping.”

Virgil heard Becky yell to him in the
background. “No he isn’t.”

“Listen, I’m going to go try to
track down Pate. Ask Becky for his home and office addresses, will you?”

A few seconds later Murton said, “Hold
on, I’m going to text them to you now.” Then, “They’re on their way.”

“I’m convinced he’s connected to
Pope, I just can’t figure out how.”

“Didn’t Miles say he couldn’t get
past his lawyers?”

“Yeah, he did. But Miles is a cop.
I’m not. I’ll tell you something else…I’m starting to enjoy the freedom of that.”

“Atta boy. You want some back up?”

“Nah. I’m sure I’ll be fine. How
would you feel about sitting on Nichole’s place for a while?”

“I can do that. Do you think she’s
in danger?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Let me know how it goes with Pate.
And Jonesy?”

“Yeah?”

“Watch your back, brother.”

“Always.”

__________

Wu called Pate.
“He is gone. Nothing else of consequence was said.”

“You’re sure?”

“What Wu say?

“Don’t get snippy with me, Wu. I’ve
got too much at stake here.”

“What can I say? He is gone. You
heard most of what was said. It sound like he on a fishing excursion.”

“Expedition, Wu. It’s called a
fishing expedition.” There was a moment of silence, then, “Can you leave?”

“Yes, We are all but finished
here.”

“Finished with what?” Pate said.

Careful
, Wu thought. “With
work. Always things to do.”

“Yes, I’m sure. I want you to meet
me at my house. Bring your gear. Things are starting to happen.”

“Yes, Wu on way.”

__________

Sandy walked out
of
the hotel lobby, then realized she didn’t know which direction would be best,
so she went back inside and up to the front desk. The hotel staffers were busy
assisting other guests, so she had to wait a few minutes before she could ask
for directions.

“The closest one is about five
blocks north. It’s a CVS if that’s okay.”

“That’s fine,” Sandy said.
“Thanks.”

“You know,” the young man said, “we
have a gift shop on the mezzanine if you don’t want to walk that far, or I
could call for a taxi.”

“I think I’ll just walk. Maybe the
exercise will do me some good. And I know about the gift shop, but I’d like to
speak with a pharmacist. I’ve got to figure a way to settle my stomach. I might
need something a little stronger than Pepto and that’s all you guys have.”

The young man gave her a once over.
“Is there anything else I might be able to do for you? Anything…at all?”

Sandy bit down on her lower lip.
He’s
hitting on me
. She thanked him and walked out the door. He must have been
what, at least ten years younger than she was?

Feeling better already.

__________

Murton parked
a
half-block away from the front of Nichole Pope’s apartment house, got out of
the car and walked up to her door. He knocked, tried the knob—locked up
tight—then knocked again. He put his ear to the door but didn’t hear
anything. The place felt empty.

He walked back to his car and settled
in for the duration. Took his cell phone out and reported his position to the
city police. Nothing ruined a good surveillance quicker than the locals rolling
up on you because the neighborhood watch was on the ball…

__________

After a few minutes
of waiting in line at the pharmacy Sandy explained her symptoms to the
pharmacist, an aging gentleman with thinning grey hair and the start of Andy
Rooney brows perched over soft, blue eyes. His nametag read, ‘Your CVS Pharmacist:
Phil.’

“For how long now?” he asked after
Sandy explained how she felt.

“Quite a few days. Almost a week,
now that I think about it. It comes and goes, but I’m having trouble keeping
anything down. I’ve got a flight tomorrow morning back to Indy on a private
plane and I don’t want an…mmm…incident.” She practically winced at herself when
she said the words ‘private plane.’ Made her feel like a pretentious bitch. “I
was on vacation a few years ago and ate some questionable seafood that gave me
a mild case of food poisoning. This feels exactly the same.”

“Do you remember what you ate
before the onset of your symptoms?”

“I don’t. I’ve been thinking about
that and nothing really comes to mind. In fact, I’d have to say that it didn’t
really hit me all at once. More like it sort of snuck up on me. I think I’d
already been feeling pretty lousy for a day or two before I really even
noticed.”

“Fever, chills, that sort of
thing?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Are you getting plenty of fluids?”

“Absolutely. I drink water all day
long.”

“How about a flu shot? Have you had
one?”

“No. I don’t trust them.”

“Good for you. I don’t either. If
people knew what they put in those things no one would get one. The hell of it
is, most of it isn’t even necessary. Aluminum. Did you know they put aluminum
in there?” He shuddered.

“No, I didn’t, but I’ve heard some
horror stories. I stay away.”

“I wish more people would.” The
pharmacist chewed on the inside of his lip for a moment. “You’ll excuse the
question, but in terms of your bowels…anything out of the ordinary going on
there?” He actually reddened a bit when he asked the question.

“Nope. It’s all good. I don’t know
how else to describe it, other than it feels like I’ve got a ball of acid
floating around in there, like my digestive tract is on overdrive or
something.”

“Stress?”

“No more than usual.”

He tipped his to the side and
lowered his chin just a bit. Sandy caught the expression right away. “Okay,
maybe a little more than usual, but I’m a cop. I work for the police academy,
so I’m no stranger to stress.”

The pharmacist looked at Sandy for
a moment.
Studied her.
“Just a moment, please.” He left the counter and
a few seconds later popped out through a side door and said, “Follow me.”

He led Sandy through the store,
speaking over his shoulder as he did. “There is a little something going
around, but quite frankly, what you’re describing doesn’t sound quite right for
that.”

“What does it sound like?”

They’d stopped at the midpoint of
one of the aisles and the pharmacist scanned the shelves for what he wanted. He
plucked one of the packages and held it out to her. “Have you ever tried this?”

Sandy looked at the package and a
nervous little laugh escaped. “No. I never have.”

“Works great. Try it first thing in
the morning if you can wait that long. And make an appointment with your doctor
when you get home.”

“I will,” Sandy said.

__________

Since Virgil was
already
downtown, he decided he’d try Pate at his office first, but when
he arrived at the API offices they were locked up tight and there were no cars
in either the front or side parking lots. He entered Pate’s home address into
the map function on his phone and saw that it was a thirty-minute trip north.
He dropped the car in gear and pulled out into traffic.

Saturday…early evening. Feeling the
fatigue. Looking forward to seeing Sandy tomorrow.

He drove on and let his mind float
out a few proposal scenarios. Realized how happy he was.