Page 38 of The Wrong Side of the Law

Oh, fantastic. David Banks is on my Christmas list this year for sure.

There’s weeks—maybe even months—of reading sitting here, but after a couple hours I’m starting to get at least a partial picture of these cases. There’s at least thirty or thirty-five cases on that CD-ROM, in addition to the massive stack of hardcopy data. I’ve gone through the executive summaries on twelve of them so far, and there’s a pattern.

Those twelve cases, spread out between 1984 and 2016, aren’t even circumstantial evidence—they’re notanykind of evidence—in the case of Emily Wilson’s brother, but taken together they do tell an interesting story. Each case had someone new, a minor figure, joining the tour and suddenly propelled into Ferry’s inner circle. Someone who had a bad case of hero-worship for the guy. Then, suddenly, they’re busted. Heroin or cocaine, for the most part. Occasionally something more exotic, like LSD. Looks like three cases involving Ecstasy, too, though I haven’t read the summaries on those yet. Never marijuana, though. I wonder why? Too difficult to hide enough to be worthwhile?

Either Robert Ferry has the absolute worst luck in picking his employees, or else he’s a brilliantly manipulative man.

I don’t believe in luck.

A fascinating story, indeed. I understand why Banks was so frustrated when he couldn’t make his case.

A knock on my door has me hide the open windows on my computer screen, and slap the boxes of files shut.

“Come on in,” I say.

It’s Emily, not Karin. Good.

Or, maybe not. I don’t have any outstanding assignments for her, so the only reason that she’d show up now is to poke and prod for news.

“Do you have a moment?” she asks, still standing in the doorway.

“I really don’t,” I answer. “And I especially don’t if you’re wanting to talk about your brother’s case.”

The crestfallen look on her face confirms that this is what she wanted to talk about, and her obvious sadness does something to me.

“Come on, Emily,” I say, almost tenderly. “You know better than that.”

“Yeah. I do,” she says. “So instead, I’ll ask something else. Did you talk to David Banks?”

I don’t say anything, and just look at her. There’s definitely passion plain for anyone to see on her face, fire in her eyes. She’s going to keep at this, and there’s no way to stop her.

“I understand that this is a delicate situation,” she says. “Please, don’t shut me out of this. At least let me help with the things that aren’t directly related to my brother.”

The girl is definitely hungry, that much I’ll give her. And… what if I could feed that hunger? Feed her enough from these boxes that she’ll stay busy and out of my hair? Technically, she wouldn’t be working on her brother’s case, and who else would have a better motivation to run a fine-toothed comb through this whole pile in search of something that could draw a direct line to Ferry?

Nobody, that’s who.

“Please, Gabriel. I know how the system works. I know how sometimes things get… twisted around. How the process gets manipulated. I just want to make sure that my brother has a fair shot at this, and if there’s anything that I can do to-”

“Enough,” I say, cutting her off sharply with a fierce scowl. “Emily. For the last time, there is absolutelynoway that I’m letting you touch your brother’s case. I’m glad you stopped by, though. I have a research and analysis project that I want you to get started on.”

Emily’s face flushes bright red at my harsh dismissal, and her eyes go even hotter when I can’t hide a grin.

“Relax. Calm down,” I tell her. “I think you’ll find this ‘research and analysis project’ to be rather interesting.”

“I don’t want to play games with my brother’s life,” she says, still angry, but curious as well. “And I don’t wantyouplaying games with his life, either.”

“No games,” I say. “None.”

Turning back to my computer for a moment, I print out a copy of the executive summary from one of the old cases on David’s CD-ROM and hand it to Emily.

“State v. Jared Kovacs? Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1994?” Emily looks at me quizzically.

“Keep reading.”

“Defendant arrested July 3rd, 1993 in possession of 150 grams of heroin, packaged in individual bags containing approximately ten grams each. Charged with and convicted of a second degree felony pursuant to New Mexico Statutes 30-31-20, sentenced to nine years imprisonment pursuant to New Mexico Statutes 31-18-15. Okay, so, I still don’t get it.”

“Don’t be so impatient,” I chide her. “Interesting things come to those who wait. Next paragraph.”

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