Page 40 of The Wrong Side of the Law

Chapter Twelve

Emily

Some days just fly by. I get into the work, wrapped up in it, so absorbed by it that I don’t notice anything else going on around me. A full eight-hour day feels like eight minutes, and when I feel like I might be ready for lunch, it’s already starting to get dark outside. Other days, though, just drag. Each minute lasts a century, and I can’t concentrate on anything. My mind goes around in circles, like a dog chasing its tail. Nothing makes sense. The things that seemed to make sense turn out to be disastrously wrong.

Today is definitely the second kind of day.

I’ve put in what feels like a solid billion and a half hours going through the files from California. David Banks’ team did an incredible job collecting all the data and organizing it for me—it’s almost as if they did it in a way just perfectly tailored to how my brain works—but they can’t read and understand it for me.

I’ve now got a list of all the people arrested and convicted on major drug offenses while on tour with Robert Ferry, and that one is ridiculously long. I have an even bigger list, covering all the people labeled by police and investigators as persons of interest. There’s a bunch of other lists, too, including everything from the names of the lab techs testing the drugs to all the roadies that Ferry has ever taken on tour with him.

I have so many different lists now that I even made a list just of all my lists.

I’m starting to think I may have a problem.

In going through the mountains of reports and documents, there is a definite pattern. In at least twenty of the cases—and all the ones within the past ten years—the drugs were being smuggled inside of a piece of equipment, or inside of a case traditionally associated with a piece of equipment. The hollow tubes of backup singer’s microphone stand, stuffed with cocaine. A Pelican case for a discarded sound board, repurposed by a tech into a suitcase, with heroin concealed beneath the foam lining. More cocaine, inside the electronics compartment of an amplifier. That particular list just went on and on and on.

And just the other day, almost a thousand Ecstasy pills, packed in the foam lining of a guitar case. My brother’s guitar case.

Waitaminute. Foam lining. There was something about that.

I quickly flip back to the sound tech’s Pelican case, drumming fingers impatiently on the desk as I skim through the pages. Ah, there we go.

Case is a black plastic box with wheels. Brand: Pelican. Model: 1660. Exterior dimensions 32” x 23” x 20”. Interior foam lining has cutouts for holding audio equipment. Suspect states that he would have removed the foam lining (it takes up too much of the usable space in the box) but it was glued firmly in place. After K9 unit indicated on the box, officers (badges #5012 & #619 emptied the contents and removed lining with box cutter. A large, flat, plastic-wrapped package of white powder was discovered concealed between two layers of foam. Lab tests conducted at American Chemistry Support Services determined the powder to be heroin. (Purity: 47%, well above national average of 30-35%) Suspect states that the equipment had failed approx. three weeks prior, and he had asked for permission to have the empty case. Suspect states that approximately two days after asking, he was given permission to take the box by Rob’t Ferry personally.

Given… by Robert Ferry.

A chill runs through me, raising prickles on my arms and legs. Franc—Frank, dammit!—had been so proud of the guitar that Robert Ferry had bought for him.

I think I might be on to something here. The other drug busts. Holy crap. One after another, they all fall into place.

The microphone stand? That was Ferry’s old stand. He got a new one at the beginning of the 1993Born Freetour, gave her the old one, then—boom—during setup for the very last show of the tour, the LAPD finds the drugs, and Jannie Hornbecker gets to spend the next few years of her life in Chowchilla Women’s Correctional Facility.

The amplifier full of cocaine? That bust happened just a few miles down I-95. Miami, 2004. Ferry borrows an amplifier from a rhythm guitarist. There’s an electrical problem with it—a blown tube, whatever that means—and Robert Ferry, the legend himself, pulls out a screwdriver and takes the back off the amp to fix it.Hefinds the cocaine, and he calls the cops. The guitarist claims he’s being framed, screams as loudly as he can about his innocence. He tells everyone that the cocaine wasn’t his, that the amplifier itself wasn’t his, and had been given to him earlier in the tour by Ferry, but nobody pays much attention to him. Sure, there hadn’t been any fingerprints found on the plastic wrap, but Robert Ferry had been the one to call the cops! Why would he do that unless he was an innocent bystander; a responsible citizen?

I have no good answers either.

I stare at the sheet of paper in front of me, eyes unfocused and unseeing, head spinning.

“Huh,” I say, after God only knows how long, and then jump at a touch on my shoulder.

“Sorry! I said, did you find something?” Gabriel is standing next to my chair, and yanks his hand away from me like it had been burnt.

“Oh. Oh!” I shake my head to clear it. “I’m sorry, I’ve just been…” My voice trails off. I really have no idea what even to say right now.

“You need to take a break or something?” he asks. “Go stretch? Get a cup of coffee or a bottle of water? You’ve been sitting in that chair for an awful long time.”

“No, no. I’m fine,” I say. “But, I did find something, yes. I’m not sure what, but it’ssomething, that much I’m certain of.” I explain what I’ve found so far about the gifts.

“So… what are you saying? That Ferry himself is loading the stuff up with the drugs, then giving it to these people, and… what?” Gabriel frowns. “That doesn’t exactly make a lot of sense either. You’ve seen already that he ratted out one of his own people over this.”

“I know. I know. But… just about every single one of these items, the things that the drugs were found in, came from him in the first place.”

“He’s generous.” Gabriel leans back in his chair, folding his hands over his chest. “The guy gives millions of dollars away every year in charity. The guy gives away almost all of his old equipment.Andhe gives it to the people working for him on the tour,” he says.

“Yeah. But isn’t that the perfect cover? He can make his employees into mules without them even knowing.”

Gabriel shrugs.

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