Page 78 of Operation: Sharp Angel

“Last question, last chance,” Flores said. “We know Nick DeSoto accidentally poisoned himself and his family. Was it a fatal exposure?”

Becca watched the man’s face as Flores asked that last question. Either he didn’t know, or he was giving nothing away.

With no answer from the man, Robinson pulled his taser from his pocket and fired it at him, point blank. The man convulsed, screamed, sounding more like an animal than a human. His body lunged forward, the handcuffs all that kept him from crumpling all the way to the ground.

Becca was shocked to see it. Her sharp intake of air and her body going rigid told everyone in the room how she felt about it. Tessman wanted to go to her and wrap his arms around her, whisper that the man would be okay, but his feet were rooted in place. Her eyes did dart to him as one of her hands raised to cover her mouth.

Tessman nodded, an attempt to silently convey his thoughts to her.

Leaving the man slumped forward, dangling from the bench, Flores and Robinson left the room and went to the room the other man from the parking lot was detained in. Meanwhile, Winston marked different places in the audio at Shepherd’s prompting to do so, as heard through comms.

Leaving the hood over the man’s head, several sections of audio from both Standish and the other man from the parking lot that took snippets to make it sound more damning that it was were played. The sound of that man screaming when he’d been tased was played last.

“Only one out of the three of you gets the full deal,” Flores said. “Do you have anything to add to what they’ve said that would make you the contender?”

“Go fuck yourself!” the man yelled.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” Flores replied. “You do realize you’re a dead man if they think you told us anything. We’ll drop you off someplace very public, like back in the parking lot at Well-Life right in front of one of the security cameras as everyone is getting off work, shake your hand and thank you profusely for the info on who really killed the DeSoto family and why.”

“You don’t know jack-shit,” the man yelled.

“Move on from him. It’ll take a lot to get anything out of him,” Shepherd said. “Go back to Standish with the offer and get more on tape from him to go at these two with. We need it all from both sides. Standish is scared, but not of these two.”

“Standish is getting an offer of immunity? No!” Becca argued.

“He’ll think he is,” Jackson said. He winked and then he and Tessman left the room again, and they re-entered the room James Standish was held in. Jackson immediately uncuffed Standish. He pulled him over to the table and sat him in one of the chairs. Jackson took the seat across from him, while Tessman stood behind Standish. “I need two actionable items of intel for the offer to be solidified.”

Tessman held up Standish’s phone within Standish’s peripheral vision. “The passcode into your phone would be the first.”

“I want the offer in writing,” Standish pressed.

“Good will gets it for you. We have one offer of immunity, you or one of those two assholes from the parking lot. But given that we have proof that at least one of them was at Nick and Nicole DeSoto’s house the night another one of them tried to kill Rebecca Elliot, we’re not inclined to want that immunity and protection to go to either of them if we can help it,” Tessman said.

“You know we’re going to get into the phone soon on our own. Buy yourself good will and provide your passcode,” Jackson pressed.

Standish provided it.

Tessman plugged it in and then took a seat at the table with them. “Last call was to a contact named Chester. Who might that really be?”

Standish glared at him, knowing he had no other way out but to try to get immunity.

Tessman scrolled through the call log and the text log. “You and Chester are tight. Fifteen calls back and forth in the last two weeks plus multiple text messages. Oh, Jimmy, this one is pretty damning,” Tessman said, shaking his head. “It’s from the night Becca Elliot was attacked in the closet at her sister’s house.Chester told you she was there and not only did they not get what they were sent in for, but someone else crashed the party, and they lost two. Oops, that was us. And I’ll assume losing two meant two men. And your reply Jimmy, was not very nice. You said you didn’t give a rat’s ass how many he lost to get someone back in there ASAP, and stop that lawyer bitch from finding it.”

“So, Chester isn’t really a partner, per se. That sounds more like you are the one giving the orders.” Jackson concluded. “Hum, and here we thought you were doing what you were under duress, caught up in something over your head that took on a life of its own by accident. That text paints a different picture for us.”

“Maybe we need to contact Chester with the offer of immunity to testify against you, Jimmy boy,” Tessman said. “We have his number,” he said, holding up the phone. “And soon we’ll know who he is.”

“You don’t want to do that. Chester is psycho, a real sociopath,” Standish said.

“And you weren’t too careful, Jimmy, leaving this on your phone,” Tessman said.

“Proof, you left it all there as proof to protect you from Chester, didn’t you?” Jackson asked.

“As I said, he’s no one anyone wants to mess with. I regret the day I accepted his call,” Standish said.

Then it all spilled out of his mouth.

The call from Chester came roughly six weeks before the plane crash that took out the only one of the three partners opposed to Well-Life Pharmaceuticals entering into the deal to research and develop the next generation of antipsychotic drugs, a new type of mood stabilizer to treat schizophrenia and bipolar. Standish kept it from the other partners, though, that the drug had national security implications and that Chester was with a clandestine government agency.

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