ASHES TO ASHES and dust to dust.
When Decker had buried his wife and child, he had stood at their gravesites as though experiencing a cruel hallucination. He knew what was happening in front of him, but could not believe it actually equated with any sense of reality.
Frank Mitchell’s funeral, he understood from this experience, was probably no different for Mitchell’s wife and young daughter. They would go through the motions today and go to bed tonight. And then wake up tomorrow and momentarily wonder where their husband and father was.
The weather had turned rainy and cold, with the gloom of clouds adding weight to an already oppressive atmosphere.
Frank’s parents, flanked by their grown children, sat looking feeble and dazed.
Directly in front of the coffin, Amber held Zoe in her lap, the girl’s head tight against her mother’s chest. Her sisters were on either side of her. They were all seated on metal folding chairs set up in front of the coffin. Some people from the fulfillment center, including Ted Ross, were in attendance. There were a few other young women. Decker assumed they might be mothers of kids who went to Zoe’s school. Other than them, there was no one. The Mitchells hadn’t been here long enough to make many friends.
Decker had had no suit to wear to the funeral, and getting something quickly for a man of his size was out of the question. Thus his khaki pants, sweater, and overcoat had to suffice.
He stood in the very back, almost clear of the tent that had been put up against the inclement weather. Lumpy green turf carpet was under his feet. Rain blew in on him from the rear of the tent, but it didn’t bother him, and he didn’t try to move in closer. He wasn’t part of the family, and he wanted to give the bereaved their space.
His gaze had met Ross’s and the men had flicked a hello at each other. He thought it was good of Ross to be here. While he stood there, the man sidled over to him.
“I hope no one minds that I’m here,” Ross said quietly.
“You came to pay your respects. Nothing wrong with that.”
Ross dug into his pocket, pulled out a card, and handed it to Decker.
“What’s this?”
“For what it’s worth, he’s one of the best lawyers in Pennsylvania. He’ll take Maxus for every penny he can.” He pointed over to Amber and Zoe. “They deserve it. And then they should just leave this place and find a nicer one to live in.”
Decker said, “Thanks. But why are you being so nice? You work for the company that will have to pay out big-time.”
“You told me you met my father?”
“I did.”
“He’s an asshole.”
“I wouldn’t disagree with that.”
“He was terrible to my mother, and to me too, truth be known. I never forgot that. Always being on the receiving end of that crap. Always being the underdog. It leaves its mark on you.”
“I can understand that.”
Ross said quietly, “So when the little guy can punch back, you gotta take your shot.” He pointed to the card. “Have her call him.”
“I will.”
Ross walked away.
A few minutes later the preacher eulogized a man he didn’t know; some hymns were sung and then a final prayer was given. After that the man of the cloth went over and said some private words to the widow and patted Zoe on the head. The little girl recoiled from the stranger’s touch, while Jamison put a supportive hand on her niece’s shoulder.
And that was that.
A life of roughly three and a half decades ground down to about thirty minutes, that was what constituted Frank Mitchell’s exit from this earth.
That’s about what most of us will get, thought Decker. And then we just live on in memories and fading pictures set on tables and hung on walls.
If that doesn’t depress you, nothing will, he concluded.
The funeral party began to disperse as the burly men who had dug the grave came forward to lower the coffin and finish the job of placing the deceased in the ground and shoveling dirt on top.
And Baronville would be Frank Mitchell’s final home for eternity.
That thought nearly made Decker sick to his stomach.
He walked back to the rental alone while Jamison joined her two other sisters, who had formed a protective ring around Amber and Zoe.
“Hey, Decker?”
He looked over to see Kate Kemper standing next to a black SUV parked at the rear of the line of cars that had been part of the funeral procession.
She walked over to him.
“Didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.
“I didn’t know them, but a young guy dies and leaves behind a young widow and a kid? I just thought I’d come to pay my respects. At least from a distance. I didn’t want to intrude.”
“Nice of you.”
“I lost my father last year. My mom passed away when I was in college. I’m an only child. So I’m next at the turnstile.”
“I think you have a ways to go,” noted Decker.
“Tomorrow is guaranteed to no one, especially in our line of work.”
“No arguments there.”
“Last time I saw you, you were heading out with the bartender from the Mercury Bar.”
“I remember,” he said.
“So, anything to report?”
Decker leaned against his truck. “How about you enlighten me on one point first.”
“What would that be?”
“You never told me what your agents, Beatty and Smith, were doing in the area.”
“Yes I did. They had gone rogue.”
“According to Randy Haas’s dying declaration?”
“Yes. I told you that too.”
“But before they went rogue, where were they assigned?”
Kemper said, “Why?”
“I’m investigating the case. I need information to do that.”
“Okay, there was some work to do in this area. Not in Baronville specifically, but in the general vicinity of northwestern Pennsylvania.”
“What sort of work? Feel free to be as specific as possible.”
Kemper looked around. “In my truck.”
They walked across the road and climbed into her SUV.
Once they were inside, Kemper said, “This part of Pennsylvania, Interstate 80 and some of the state routes are known drug distribution routes. We have a number of heroin and fentanyl drug rings that use it. A lot of it comes from New York and is brought to Middle America through those avenues. There’s another pipeline that carries the drugs down from Detroit and over from Columbus.”
“So, Beatty and Smith were working on that?”
“Yes. They were trying to identify both suppliers and shippers.”
“Had they made any progress?”
“Not really, although we were hoping that Haas would be able to assist. He’d been part of one of the drug crews using those very same pipelines.”
“But I don’t quite get how, if Beatty and Smith killed Haas, he was able to make a dying declaration.”
Kemper said, “He was found in an alleyway in Scranton. He’d been injected with an overdose of morphine. He cried out and some people nearby came to his assistance. The syringe was found in his arm. He told the people who discovered him that it had been Beatty and Smith. Then he died. The onlookers reported his last words to police.”
“No prints on the syringe?”
“None. They would have worn gloves. They weren’t rookies.”
Decker looked out the window at Frank Mitchell’s grave. He watched as they lowered the coffin into the ground. He glanced over at Zoe and her mother climbing into the car provided by the funeral home. Zoe was looking back at the coffin going into the ground.
Decker could see her shiver at the sight.
“Did Haas have any family?” asked Decker, his gaze holding on the little girl until the car door closed behind her.
“Family? I suppose so. We really didn’t check into that.”
Decker turned back to her. “Well, I would if I were you. Did you do a post on him?”
“Of course. The morphine stopped his heart. That was the COD.”
“Did the post show anything else?”
“Like what?”
“Like Haas was maybe already dying?”
“What? The ME didn’t mention anything like that.”
“Because you just wanted to know how he died, probably. Did you actually read the whole report?”
Kemper pursed her lips. “No, I didn’t. But I can remedy that right away.” She took a moment to thumb in a text. “I’ll let you know what they say.”
“Okay.”
“Why did you even think that a possibility?” asked Kemper.
“Because I don’t think your guys went rogue.” He glanced at her. “And I’m surprised you were so quickly convinced they had.”
“We’ve had other agents go bad, Decker. Nature of the beast. We chase after guys who literally have billions of dollars to throw at people to make them turn.”
“I get that. But that’s true of any law enforcement. Was there something else about the pair?”
“We didn’t always see eye to eye. They were unorthodox to a fault. I like to do things by the book. Smith and Beatty didn’t.”
“I’m glad you’re not my boss, then.”
She smiled. “Maybe I’m glad too.” Her smile vanished. “Why would Haas have lied about who killed him?”
“I can think of two reasons. And I hope we’ll have answers very soon.”
They watched as two more hearses drove past them, headed to other gravesites, the rest of their processions filing in behind them.
“Lot of funerals in this town,” noted Decker.
“Dollars to donuts you’re looking at ODs there,” said Kemper, pointing to some young people getting out of cars and heading to one of the gravesites. “Over eighty thousand people in America this year alone,” she added. “More than died in Vietnam and the wars in the Middle East combined. And far more than die in traffic accidents or by guns, and it’s only getting worse. Next year we’ll probably be looking at over a hundred thousand dead. The opioid crisis is actually responsible for the life expectancy in this country starting to go down. Can you wrap your head around that? Nearly a half million dead since 2000. Drug overdoses are the leading cause of death for Americans under age fifty. We had a recent study done at DEA. Life insurance companies value a human life at about five million bucks. Using that number and other factors, our people projected the economic loss to the country each year due to the opioid crisis at about a hundred billion dollars. A third of the population is on medication for pain. And they’re not getting addicted on street corners. They’re getting addicted at their doctors’ offices.”
“From prescription painkillers.”
“Right. Back in the eighties we had the crack crisis. The government’s position was just say no and if you didn’t you went to prison. So we locked up millions, mostly men from the inner cities. Then came the nineties and Big Pharma decided that Americans weren’t taking enough painkillers. They sort of made pain the fifth vital sign. Spent billions on ads, payoffs to doctors, used legit-looking organizations and think tanks to make it all seem aboveboard. ‘No possibility of addiction, no long-term negatives’ was the mantra everyone was spouting. Turns out all of that was based on either faulty research or no research at all. It’s ironic but a lot of opioids were initially given out to combat lower back pain.”
“Why was that ironic?” asked Decker.
“Because opioids actually are pretty ineffectual with chronic lower back pain. Last year doctors wrote nearly a quarter billion prescriptions for painkillers. It’s a miracle we’re not all hooked. And the numbers we see now, bad as they are, are just the tip of the iceberg. It’s beyond a national crisis and no one is doing a damn thing about it. Because of our position on crack cocaine in the eighties, we built a lot of prisons but not many treatment centers or addiction protocols. So now this crisis is filling hospitals, prisons, and”—she waved her hand in front of her—“cemeteries all across the country. And to top it off, last year about twenty-five thousand babies were born with what’s called neonatal abstinence syndrome because their moms were opioid users while pregnant. What kind of life will they have, do you think?”
Decker stared at the coffin being carried to a gravesite by what looked to be a group of pallbearers who were still in high school. Then he looked at the line of cars parked along the road and was surprised to see some brand-new luxury vehicles along with ancient heaps.
Suddenly they heard a horn begin to blare.
Kemper said, “Where’s that coming from?”
“There,” said Decker, pointing to a pickup truck parked in the middle of the line of cars.
They jumped out of the SUV and ran across the road. By the time they got to the pickup truck, several people had crowded around it.
In the driver’s seat was a young man slumped against the steering wheel. His shoulder was pressed against the horn.
Decker reached through the open window and pushed him back against the seat and the sound stopped.
His breath was coming in gasps.
Decker opened the young man’s eyelids. The pupils were pinpricks.
“He’s overdosed,” said Kemper, who had also seen this.
“Yeah, he has,” said a thin man in a threadbare coat. “Third time this week.”
Decker spotted the half-empty syringe on the truck seat. Inside it was a clear sand-colored liquid.
“It looks to be pure heroin,” Decker said.
Kemper nodded, punched in 911 on her phone, and requested an ambulance.
Decker said, “Does anybody have any Narcan?”
“I got some,” said a woman standing next to the man.
“Give it to me,” said Decker as the young man in the truck gasped again.
“He coulda at least waited till after the funeral to pull this crap,” said the thin man.
“Give it to me,” Decker exclaimed as the young man started to gurgle. “He’s going to stop breathing any second.”
The woman rummaged in her bag.
The man said again, “Coulda waited. Dumbass.”
“Give me the Narcan!” shouted Decker, as the young man slumped against the door, his lips turning blue.
The woman handed Decker a bottle from her purse.
Decker stuck the end in the young man’s nose and squeezed.
He waited for a few seconds, but nothing happened.
Kemper looked at the syringe and said, “There must be some fentanyl mixed in with what he took. It’s more tightly bound to the brain receptor than morphine.”
“That’s heroin, not morphine, lady,” said the thin man. “Don’t you know nothin’?”
Kemper whirled on him and flashed her badge. “I know a lot more than you do. When the body breaks down heroin the instant by-product is morphine!” She turned back to Decker. “Hit him again with the Narcan. We have to move the drug off the brain receptor.”
Decker squirted in another dose.
A few moments passed and then the young man exhaled a long breath, sat up straight, blinked, and looked around, his expression foggy.
“Great,” said the man sarcastically. “You brought him back. ’Til the next time.”
Decker looked at him. “Who are you?”
“I’m his uncle. And the bastard didn’t have the decency to wait till his sister was buried before pulling this shit. Talk about showing no damn respect.”
“His sister?” said Kemper. “How’d she die?”
“Damn heroin overdose,” said the uncle. “Didn’t get her the Narcan in time.” He pointed to the young man. “That asshole coulda saved her, but he was in the bathroom doing lines of coke.”
A moment later the young man leaned out the window and threw up.
They all jumped back to avoid the vomit.
The young man looked angrily at Decker until he saw the bottle in his hand.
“You almost bit the bullet for good, buddy,” said Decker.
“Thanks, man,” he said groggily, wiping his mouth.
Decker looked at Kemper and then back at the young man.
He tossed the bottle of Narcan to the woman, walked back to the SUV, and got in.
Kemper turned to the aunt and uncle. “An ambulance will be here shortly. He’ll need to go to the hospital.”
“Right,” said the uncle. “Whatever.”
As Kemper walked off, he slapped his nephew on the back of the head. “Dumbass!”
Kemper hurried after Decker and climbed into the truck.
“You okay?” she said once she’d settled in.
Decker didn’t say anything for a long moment. “I’m just wondering whether we’re ever going to dig ourselves out of this hole.”
“I’ve seen it all at the DEA. Every foul thing a human being can stoop to when they’re hooked on drugs. Even that back there didn’t surprise me. I’ve seen worse. Five-year-olds performing CPR on their parents. A grandmother knocking in her son’s head for the cash to feed her addiction. A mother selling her ten-year-old daughter for sex to get her heroin pops. But we’ll make it through this, Decker.”
He glanced at her. “You really believe that?”
“I have to. Otherwise, I couldn’t do my job.”
A minute of silence passed before Decker broke it.
“You mentioned insurance companies rating the value of a life,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s part of their business.”
“Cindi Riley told me that she’d lost a number of friends to overdoses here.”
“Not surprised. And there are thousands of places just like this one. Where people used to get up every day and go to work with a purpose. And now they don’t have a purpose. Or a job. Or any self-worth. That takes its toll, Decker. In a lot of ways. That’s why they’re calling the opioid epidemic the drugs of despair.”
“Riley also said that some of her friends had life insurance policies. And that some of the renovations in town are due to people having received large payouts from life insurance companies.” He pointed at the new luxury cars parked along the road. “And maybe those proceeds are also helping to pay for those.”
Kemper mulled this over for a few moments before shaking her head. “No insurance company will knowingly write a large life insurance policy on someone in such bad health they’re likely to die, or someone addicted to drugs, Decker, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Maybe they weren’t an addict when the policy was written,” he said.
“What are you driving at?”
“It would be interesting to know how many people in Baronville who’ve died from drug overdoses had large life insurance policies. Can you find that out?”
Kemper stared out at the line of cars parked on the road. “I can try.”
“Good.” Before she could respond, he said, “I’ve got to get back. I promised Jamison I’d help this afternoon. They’re having a reception at the Mitchells’.”
As he climbed out of the truck Kemper said, “I didn’t picture you as much of a domestic.”
“Well, these days, I’m even surprising myself.”