Bo pressed the nurse call button. “Can Mr. Harrison get something for pain?” He held Lucky’s hand while the nurse inserted a syringe into Lucky’s IV tube. “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
***
Lucky’s hand still throbbed from time to time, but focusing on his case helped. It also helped him tune out the constant litanies of “Need anything?”, “Can I get you anything”, and “You should be resting”, from Bo, Charlotte, Ty, and anyone brave enough to visit.
He’d rest when he was dead.
And not a moment before.
He’d taped poster paper to the living room wall, listing names and locations, then stepped back to examine his handiwork. Sure, DEA likely repeated the same steps, but he’d go fucking crazy if he didn’t stay busy.
The teacher gave drugs to kids to get better grades and offered a little too much help with testing, providing answers in some cases—but only to her own students. In exchange the kids got into better colleges. Which helped the school’s, and her own, reputation.
Or maybe she’d started off intending only to help, while making a profit. Folks with initially good intentions went to jail all the time, if those intentions drove them to illegal acts.
Coach gave soccer players drugs to help them stay on the team so they’d have a better chance at playoffs.
A winning team meant more prestige for coach, not to mention the drug profits, and possible athletic scholarships for the players.
How did that tie into the teacher’s operation?
The nursing home losing patients?
The pharmacist wasn’t talking, and Doctor Take-a-Pill must’ve found out about the raid and ran.
The judge. The coach. The doctor. What tied them together besides greed?
He’d missed something. Turning his attention back to his notes, he started over. Damn blurry eyes! Oh, well. Charlotte was talking on her phone in the kitchen, probably to their mother, and he’d intimidate her to silence if need be. He pulled the glasses out of his computer bag.
There, better when he could see.
Well, hell. His diagrams looked like football plays.
Football plays.
Sports. Hadn’t Johnson seen Judge Spence at a high school ball game?
Lucky parked on the couch, running through the magistrate’s file. No kids, grandkids, nephews or nieces on the team. Maybe he’d gone to the school and maintained his loyalty. Nope. Private school.
He checked the coaches bank records. Small cash deposits, too small to draw much attention, less than $10,000 each time. Lucky’d assumed the money came from the drug trade, but he’d done the math. The school kids weren’t that lucrative.
Kickback money from parents to help kids get scholarships?
Possibly.
Hmm… This entry happened on the fourteenth. Ty had an away game on the twelfth. And here. Another deposit a few weeks earlier. He called up the team schedule, then the schedules for the school’s other sports teams.
Each deposit happened within a few days of games, when they happened.
Oh, shit! The deposits coincided with games Ty’s school won.
This wasn’t about making money off drugs, or helping kids get ahead.
The coach bet on the games. He made enough money to risk prison on high school sports? Really?
Yeah, idiots walked the earth.
Being a winning coach also must help with future job prospects. Hell, the Clemson football coach made 8.25 million for one year. How much could a soccer coach make?
