Page 78 of Deadly Conflicts

21

Twenty-One

“What’s in there?” Jake asked, his world-famous patience wearing thin.

“Nothing good,” MacIntosh replied, shaking his head. “Click on that, Mandy.”

Mandy did as instructed, her face screwed up in concentration as she read through the file.

“Mandy, I love you dearly and I’m really glad we made up, but you’re killing me here,” Jake said. “What is in that file?”

“It’s kind of a mess,” Mandy replied. “It looks as if Vince was caught up with some bad guys out in California. He was running drugs out of his dealerships.”

“Yes, look here,” MacIntosh said, pointing. “This says that Mr. Dawkins purposely hired two legitimate salesmen for each dealership, but the mechanical staff was made up of people who ran drugs rather than changing engine oil. The dealerships were covers.”

“I don’t understand,” Jake said. “Why isn’t he in prison?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Mandy replied. “Were still weeding through the details. This says that Vince did legitimate work through his shop, but the drugs were his bread and butter. The cops ran an undercover sting on him and got a man in place in his operation.

“After the undercover operative got all of the information they arrested Vince and hauled him in,” she continued. “It looks like it was an absolutely huge arrest and almost a hundred people were taken into custody during various raids.”

“Wouldn’t we have heard about this on the news if it was that big?” Jake was intrigued by the information but doubt clawed at the back of his brain. He was having trouble understanding what Mandy was telling him.

“Not necessarily,” MacIntosh replied. “The reason these files are sealed is because Mr. Dawkins made a deal.”

“What deal?”

“He rolled over on bigger bosses in the area,” Mandy answered. “He put three of them away in exchange for probation. He also cut all of his employees off from any deal and they were locked up for long stretches.”

“It sounds like this guy has a lot of enemies.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Mandy said, reaching for the phone on her desk.

“What are you doing?” Jake asked.

“I need to talk to James. He has to know about this. I think I know what happened with the car.”

“Of course you do,” Jake muttered. “You’ve always been smarter than the rest of us.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

JAMES almost ignored his ringing phone because he was so busy watching Maverick toil on his computer. On a whim he looked at the screen and realized Mandy was calling from the courthouse.

“What’s up, baby? We’re kind of busy here. Just come straight home from work and we’ll order pizza.”

“And hello to you, too, husband.”

James sighed. “Hello, my beautiful wife. How are you this fine summer day?”

“I think I solved your case,” Mandy replied, smugness seeping into her tone. “You’re going to owe me a two-hour massage in the hot tub … just as soon as we can get naked in our back yard without risking your parents seeing us, that is.”

James could hear two men laughing in the background. He recognized Jake’s voice right away. “Who is with you?”

“Jake came to apologize,” Mandy answered. “Judge MacIntosh is here, as well. He’s the one who helped me solve your case. You owe him a massage, too.”

“If I thought I could get away with it without being creepy or sexually ambiguous I might just do that,” James said. “What do you have?”

“Vince Dawkins had three sealed criminal files from the state of California,” Mandy said, returning to the business at hand. Flirting could wait for later. “He was tied up in a huge drug operation. When he was arrested he turned state’s evidence and was responsible for several big names going down.”