Authors: Mary Mead
Old sealing tape covered both sides, one end dangling loose at the seam. Packing tape with the distinctive red, green and white fibers reinforcing it. The Christmas tape. I had seen it before. On cartons of drugs.
I could hear Mrs. M. telling Patrick about the need for more space. A quick glance told me they were inside the unit, away from the door. I pulled out my cell phone and took a couple of shots of the carton and its tape. With the phone jammed back in my pocket I lifted the box and carried it inside.
Mrs. M. was in high gear now, listing the reasons she needed more space.
I glanced at Patrick. He rolled his eyes before looking to heaven for an answer. I smiled in spite of myself.
He stepped over and took the carton from me. “I’ve got it,” he said. “Let me do this. I’m sure you have better things to do.”
“Thank you,” I said and meant it. Dusting my hands against my fanny I backed toward the door. “If you need any more help, just holler.” As soon as I cleared the door I jogged back to the cart and headed for the office as fast as the little cart would go.
The question now was who do I show?
In the office I sent the images on my phone to my email address giving me copies if I needed them. I would figure out who to send them to after I had time to think about it.
An hour later Mrs. Murphy left and her son made for the office.
Patrick came in and went around the counter straight to the map of the facility on the wall behind me.
“Can I help you?”
That’s asking for it, I thought, too late.
With one eyebrow raised he looked at me. “Well, yeah, you can,” he grinned. “The question is will you?” Those damnable blue eyes sparkled. I expected one of those cartoon stars to twinkle in them any minute.
I felt the warmth in my cheeks and started counting to ten. “Let’s try that again,” I said. “Is there something I can do for you?” Stepped in my own trap.
He laughed and turned to face me. “You are a trip, Red. You’re more fun than puppies.”
I decided to shut up.
Still chuckling Patrick put out a hand and ruffled my hair. “How about I give you one apology now and it lasts for the rest of the year?”
“No need,” I said. “What are you looking for?”
“I hear you caught a rat.”
I wasn’t sure what he was talking about so I kept my mouth shut.
“Paul came looking for keys this morning.”
“I told him you were getting the duplicates.”
“He told me.” He nodded and looked at the map.
“What’s the biggest unit we have?”
I joined him in front of the map. “This one,” I pointed. “It’s really four units in one. The dividing walls were never built.”
“What’s in there now?”
“Your mother.”
“She has this one, too? How many does she have?”
I tapped the units as I listed them. “The big one, plus this, this and this.”
He considered. “She has the company locks? You can open them?”
I nodded.
He scanned the map again, right to left.
I waited.
“How often is she here? Is there a pattern?”
“Depends. Usually it’s Mondays and Fridays but it can be any time. Kind of depends on how many yard sales and rummage sales she hits on the weekend. Neptune week and Mardi Gras she’s in and out every day, getting things for her shops.”
Patrick scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “All right,” he said. “Let me think about it. I’ll see if we can’t compact her down some. She spreads her stuff out, takes more room than she needs.” He tapped the largest unit. “We need to move all of her stuff in here, see if we can empty out these other units. If we can get it all in here we can repack and restack her stuff, see how much space we can gain. Then we start backing her up,” he tapped the map. “Keep condensing her stuff, getting her to move it out or get rid of some of it. After that, we put up another wall, pen her in. What do you think?”
“It’ll work,” I said. “Unless she catches you at it.” I couldn’t help but smile at the thought. “Then you’re gonna be a big fish in a little bitty bucket.” I looked up to see him smiling back at me.
“You have a nice smile. You should smile more often,” he said. He waited a minute. “You’re getting used to me. No blush. That’s a shame.”
Shaking my head I turned my back and sat down at my desk.
“I’m on the record,” Patrick said behind me. “I already apologized for the rest of the year. I’m not due again till January.”
I heard him before he came into view, moving around the counter and heading for the front door. He paused there and looked at me. “We’ll get on that next week. I’ll see you then.” With a wink he shut the door behind him and left.
The door opened immediately. John Kincaid came in, looking back over his shoulder. Behind him a truck fired up and faded away.
“Who was that?”
“Patrick Murphy.”
“Ah, the bachelor,” he grinned. “Heard a lot about him, never met him.” He came to the counter. “Good morning. You have a few minutes?”
“Of course.” Now it was down to a game of who do you trust? I had to make a decision. “How long have you been here?”
“Maybe four minutes. Why?”
“I meant in the area,” I smiled at him.
“Little over two years. Why?”
Decision made. “I have something to show you.” The Murphy family, Paul and Patrick, and friend Declan Burke had been in Monarch for decades. John was relatively new. If someone or two was dealing in drugs it stood to reason it would be someone familiar with the area.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and thumbed through the photos. I held it out.
“What’s this?”
“Pictures I just took. Couple of them.”
Kincaid looked at the phone, turned it, and tapped the screen to enlarge the photo. Looking up at me he said, “This is a box of books.”
“Look at the tape. On the sides.”
He looked at the phone and back at me. “It’s a box of books with tape on the side.”
I shook my head and pointed. “That tape. It’s unusual. See the little red strings in the tape?”
He looked again at the phone. “It’s reinforced. Standard packing tape.”
“Not standard, no. The red thread, and the green and white is rare. It’s not quite so apparent on that picture because the screen is so small. I had never seen it until a few weeks ago.”
He waited.
“On the cartons,” I said.
He waited for me to explain.
With a sigh, I closed the phone. “The cartons with the drugs. This same tape was on them. Taped pretty close to the same way, those side bands on each, three rows of tape both ways.”
“Show me again,” he said.
I thumbed back to the photos and handed the phone back.
Now he took the time to really look at the picture on my phone.
“You sure?”
“Yep. I noticed the tape the first time. Thought about getting some for the holidays, because of the colors. The red, green and white.”
“Be right back,” he said, handing me my phone. He went outside.
He was gone for a while so I went back to work, getting the week’s reports ready. I hoped I hadn’t made a mistake. Maybe the fact that John had a shorter history with the town wasn’t important. I should have gone to Agent Miller, who had no ties at all to Monarch.
The detective came back inside, smiling.
“Correct,” he said. “Good job.”
I smiled back, proud of myself. I avoided wiggling like a puppy.
“Can you email those pictures to Miller?” He slid a card across the counter. “This address. He’s waiting.”
I pulled out my phone again and did as he asked.
“The burning question is where did you find this carton?”
“In Mrs. Murphy’s car. I unloaded it yesterday. It’s in her unit right now.”
The detective mulled it over. “You have a key?”
“I do.”
“Let’s go take a look.” He doubled patted the counter.
I locked up the office, got the cart and drove him back to the unit. Inside I showed him the carton in question, having put it on top of a stack.
“Is there a light in here?”
“Nope. Fire hazard. Some people fill these units right to the ceiling. Next to a light bulb? Could be a problem. No lights.”
“Never thought about it,” he said, pulling out his keys. A mini Maglite flared. He ran it along the strip of packing tape. “What about fingerprints? Worth a shot?”
“I know I handled it, so did Patrick. I assume Mrs. Murphy did, or whoever put it in her car. No idea who, or where she got it. She reuses boxes all the time. I’ve helped her repack from one to another. No telling how many have handled it. You could ask her but I doubt she’d know.”
John straightened and turned off the light, tucking his keys back in his pocket. “It’s a lead but I have no idea where it goes,” he said after a while. He took a couple of pictures of the carton from different angles. “All right, Marlie, close it back up. Can you keep any eye on this unit?”
“I can. One of our cameras is at the end of the aisle. No problem.”
“If they move this carton I want to know.”
“I’ll let you know,” I said, “I don’t watch it constantly but the recorder should pick up anyone moving boxes out. May be hard to tell which carton is which. The cameras aren’t that good.”
“Do what you can,” he said. “In the meantime I’ll talk to Miller and the rest of the team.”
Oh, boy. Not what I wanted to hear. I was already knee deep in the creek so I might as well swim. “Is there any way you can say you saw the carton? Leave me out of it?”
His head whipped up. “Problem?”
I’m in it now. “I think it might be.”
“The owners? Your job? Talk to me, girl.”
I took a deep breath and blew it out. “I didn’t tell Burke. Or show him. I only showed it to you.”
“Why?”
I locked the unit and drove us back to the office, giving myself some time to think. In the office John sat at the counter and folded his arms. “What’s the deal with Burke? Is he bothering you?”
How do I answer that? “No, not exactly.”
John leaned back and looked at me. Didn’t say a word, just looked at me.
“Okay, here’s the thing. I like Burke. We’re friends. Sort of.”
“How about you start at the beginning, Marlie? What’s going on?”
“All right,” I sighed. “I would appreciate it if this was between us?”
He leaned forward again. “You can trust me, Marlena. I’ll keep anything you tell me in confidence. Unless it’s illegal,” he smiled. “I am an officer of the law.”
“I know,” I said. “This may not even be important.”
“Burke?”
“Here we go,” I said, more to myself than John, and told him the whole story, from the beach and my first meeting with Burke. I glossed over the kissing part but included the threat with the comb. I brought him up to date with Paul, the incident at Kelly’s. He had seen that one. It took a while, even in the abridged version. When I finished the story I left John to think about it and went to make a fresh pot of coffee. I hoped I had not made a mistake.
Returning with two full mugs I set one in front of him and sat back down.
“Well?”
It was John’s turn. “I have a few questions,” he admitted.
“Just a few? I did better than I thought,” I said and smiled.
He smiled back. “Okay, then. When you met him, the overlook at the beach. Did he ever identify himself as a cop?”
“No.”
“These guys that were chasing him. Had you ever seen them before? Or since?”
I shook my head.
“Burke did threaten you, though.”
“With a comb,” I said.
“Implied threat is still a felony. Terrorism. Burke knows that.”
“I was never in danger. When the other guys left he showed me the comb and apologized. Explained a little. Under normal circumstances I would never have seen him again. The whole thing was a fluke. He’s an undercover cop, following the drugs. The drugs brought him here. He had no idea I was here, too. Returning my sweatshirt was just Burke, being Burke. Kind of letting me know he was around before he had to identify himself.”
“He could have come to the office and identified himself,” John said. “No need for the dramatics. Unless he had other ideas.” He looked at me.
“About me? I never saw the guy before the beach. If it wasn’t for the drugs I still wouldn’t be seeing him.”
“Come on. You’re a beautiful woman. I’m sure you’ve dealt with advances before. Have you considered maybe Burke is interested in more than the drugs?”