Chapter 22
“Talk to me, Rankin,” Warren said through clenched teeth.
“Okay, cliff version.Eddie Brickman is the son of Pamela Dawson’s foster sister.”
“Fred Dawson’s wife?Dawson of the State Police?Ultimately, my boss?”
“Yes, the girls were in foster care together.Pamela made something of herself, she studied, got a full ride scholarship, and got out.Sara Brickman, not so much.She struggled, didn’t graduate high school in time, and it took a couple of years to get to college.Working dead-end jobs, and taking several years to get a two-year program at the community college.”
“Okay, what else?”Warren encouraged when Paul stopped talking.
“Sara got sick, and in her will, she left her son to Pamela and Fred.Though they didn’t adopt him legally, like on paper, they did bring him into their home and raised him as their own.As far as I know, Eddie was their only child.”
Warren nodded as he took it all in, and written on the board was the timeline Paul had just laid out.“What happened next?”
“I’m still digging, but I believe when Eddie was around the age of seventeen or eighteen, he witnessed Fred in a compromising situation.He held it over Fred for years to come.”
“How do you know, and what situation?”
“Fred cheated on Pamela, and Eddie caught him in the act.Shortly after that, if you look at Eddie’s record, things started either being tossed out of court, or buried.In the research I did, I found three felony warrants buried so deep that if you weren’t looking for anything, you’d never find it.”
“For?”
“Possession, intent to sell, and failure to appear.I uncovered them when I did my research and told Cass about them.With the amount of drugs in that bag, which had Eddie’s DNA all over it, and only his.Cass was able to go back to the lab with the drugs and money, though I have all the serial numbers here, and had it professionally tested.Because of the contents, you know, the heroine laced with fentanyl, cocaine, Oxy, in powder form, and the crystal meth, and the amount of it, also with it being bagged the way it had been, he drew up more felony charges.”
Paul went to a folder and handed it to Warren.“This is the actual packages of drugs that I laid out after emptying the bag.”
Warren looked at the photos, and his eyebrows rose at the sheer volume of the bags.“Are you shitting me?”
“Nope, and I haven’t talked to Cass since Eddie’s been arrested.I’m hoping, fingers crossed, that with him being arrested in Minnesota, then Dawson won’t have his fingers in any pies where he’s involved.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that several of my reports saw that Dawson had stepped in when Eddie had been arrested in the past.He either had his wrist slapped, or he never made it to court.I’m still unsure if it’s all Dawson getting him off, or if there’s a judge on the take also.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”Warren asked several minutes after looking at everything.
“I have questions, and I don’t know where to go with them, and have no idea what direction to go in in order to find the answers.”
“What type of questions?”
“If Dawson got Eddie off over the years, say Eddie was blackmailing him for seeing him cheat on his wife, because I know Fred and Pamela are still married, but what else has Dawson done?If he is getting Eddie out of jail for free, or because of the blackmail, what else is he doing?Is he helping Eddie get the drugs, and distributing them?Petra brought up a good point, but I don’t know how to research that, without blowing my cover as a federal agent.”
“What’s that?”Warren was genuinely confused as to what problem Rankin might be facing.He thought what he read so far was pretty cut and dried.They just needed to follow the trail.
“Are there any drugs from a past bust missing?Or what do the police do with the drugs confiscated during a raid after the trial is complete?I know on the federal level, we took them and money to be incinerated and burned it all.”
Warren looked at him in shock, then leaned his hips against the bench beside him.“Shit, this might answer a lot of questions I’ve had with the problems the task force was experiencing now and in the past.”
“Which are?”
“Why are the people we’re about to raid not there?Why is some of our research coming up missing?Written reports, lab results.Why are witnesses also coming up missing, or suddenly can’t remember what they told us last week.I had always suspected someone from the department was sabotaging us.I never suspected it might be someone of Dawson’s caliber, but it makes sense now.”
“You’re not mad at what I’ve uncovered?”
“Absolutely not, thank you.If I can refill my coffee, and grab another cinnamon roll, I’d like to read the reports you have.”
