Dale spent some time with Emily before meeting up with Donald Ekroth and the Minot chief of police, Mike Ottmaire, at his home on North Hill. It was a few minutes past midnight. Ottmaire led the men into his living room and put on a fresh pot of coffee.
Dale was anxious. He wiped sweat from his brow and spoke without sitting down.
“I got a witness on the Nathan Barron overdose,” he said. “We can make a case for murder, but it could probably be pled down to manslaughter. The problem is the witness is a junkie and she was high when she told me what happened.”
Ottmaire was a large, bulky man with a full head of gray hair. He was wearing a heavy blue robe. He looked to Ekroth. “Will she tell the same story when she’s off the junk?”
“She didn’t,” Dale said. “I’ve talked to her before. She was involved with the Barron kid. She knows the players, though. She named the guy who gave Barron the lethal injection. The kid was already cranked from an injection shortly before the second one. The guy, John Ahearn, was jealous of him. His wife was flirting with Barron.”
Ottmaire rubbed his forehead. “And she wouldn’t admit this when she was straight? Why the hell not?”
“He’s an intimidator,” Ekroth said. He pulled the plastic coffee stirrer from between his teeth. “Ahearn has been through the department a few times. I had to calm him down once myself. He’s a bad dude, Mike.”
“I also think Ahearn is calling my house making threats,” Dale said. “Just a hunch, but I think it’s him.”
“Threats?” Ottmaire said.
“He said something to Emily, but it was from a blocked call so....”
“What about the woman, your witness? She getting clean now?”
“She’s at Trinity, but who knows how long they’ll hold her,” Dale said.
Ottmaire looked at Ekroth. “What do you think?”
Ekroth said, “She didn’t budge the last time.”
“She’s terrified of the guy,” Dale said, finally taking a seat. “He gives her black eyes when he’s in a good mood. Which is why I’d like to go after him first. If we can get him in here, maybe provoke him into using his hands, we can bust him and hold him for a few days, maybe then she’ll feel safe enough to talk when she’s clean.”
“I can get to him,” Ekroth said.
Ottmaire frowned. “You talking about entrapment, Don?”
Ekroth winked. “Just the kind where I get him to take a swing at me. Don’t ask me why, but he doesn’t like me very much.”
Ottmaire leaned forward on his elbows. “You going to approach this guy on your own?”
“I’m not that old, Mike.”
“You’re not that young, either.”
“I can go with him,” Dale said.
“No,” Ekroth said. “He already knows how to push your buttons.”
“And what if he decks you?” Ottmaire asked. “If he gets the jump on you, then what?”
Ekroth pointed at Dale. “That’s where this young feller comes in,” he said. “We stay in close contact, a few minutes apart.”
“Very close contact,” Ottmaire said.
Ekroth and Dale nodded.
“And keep everybody up to speed on it,” Ottmaire told Ekroth. “At the station, I mean. Make sure we know where you are and what’s going on. The guy is a junkie, you don’t know what he might do.”
Ottmaire turned to Dale. “What else do you have?”
Dale sat forward on his chair. “If you go back two months, we can see a definite pattern of heroin showing in or immediately around town,” he said. “A bust in Harvey. Two in Velva, same person. Two in Minot. One in Bulleah. One at the college, the student suspended. One at the Air Force base, although it was like pulling teeth to get them to turn anything over. Then Nathan Barron turns up dead from an overdose.
“I arrest a Tyrone Williams on possession, an Air Force Private, and suddenly Henry Becker shows up to represent him. A couple days later somebody takes Williams out, three in the head, and sticks him in a drainage pipe outside of town, closer to Velva.
“Now a woman is found frozen near Sakakawea and is determined to have been a regular user. A guy everyone suspects is involved in dealing drugs, this Ahearn creep, is picked up with seven hundred dollars in small bills. Ahearn’s wife was flying on heroin and again Becker showed up to back us down. Ahearn lives in Velva.
“The Air Force said Williams was AWOL at the time he was killed. I lean on a few people surrounding Ahearn and Emily gets a couple of nasty phone calls at the house. And I have to tell you that I believe something federal is going on here in Minot. I know I spotted an agent at the Welk tonight. I’m positive I did.”
Ottmaire looked to Ekroth. “What do you think?”
“There is a pattern,” Ekroth said. “There’s also that thing up in Mohall last week, the woman found murdered in the trailer.”
“From what I understand, it’s nothing to do with drugs,” Ottmaire said. “Jim Salinger up there said it’s not right. Whatever happened, whoever killed her, it wasn’t something random. That’s the theory because of computer records they found belonging to an account she had with some dating service thing. Jim thinks there’s more to it.”
“The husband?” Ottmaire said.
“According to Jim, yeah, looks like. She didn’t take much care to conceal her extramarital activity and the husband claims he didn’t have any suspicions. They have the name of the guy the wife was in contact with, but they assume it’s fictitious. They can’t find him.”
“Can’t trace the computer records back to someone?”
“A name is all they have. Supposed to be a black feller but that could be a spoiler, something thrown in to have people look in the wrong direction.”
“The husband has an alibi, I assume.”
“And it’s rock solid. Salinger isn’t convinced what they have is real. He’s trying to get some federal support, for the technology, I guess.”
“Maybe I should take a ride up there,” Dale said.
Ekroth said, “There’s also a feller in town from New York, a retired detective. He stopped at the station today looking for Dale. He says the feds are hiding someone in the witness protection program right here in Minot. Guy with one eye, the other one shot out back in New York.”
“He black, the guy he said was shot in the eye?” Dale asked.
Ekroth nodded. “According to the New York guy, this Pavlik feller, he is.”
“Damn,” Dale said. “I might’ve seen this guy tonight. He stayed behind at the Welk after the other guys left.”
“At the Welk? That’s where Pavlik is staying.”
“Something isn’t right,” Ottmaire said.
“I can’t believe I was in that lounge with him,” Dale said.
“Maybe we should head over there now, to the hotel,” Ekroth said.
“If the feds are up there protecting somebody, you won’t get through,” Ottmaire said. “I’m not sure I want you to. I don’t need the aggravation they can cause.”
“Except if this feller from New York has any validity, something is going on here we should know about,” Ekroth said.
“If he has any validity,” Ottmaire said. “You check him out?”
“Just a little, to make sure he was a former detective like he said. He gave me a file to copy and I did. That was genuine enough. I didn’t double-check everything in it, but what else would he be doing here, except for what he said?”
Ottmaire huffed. “He’s staying at the same hotel this guy Dale saw?”
“That is weird, I suppose,” Ekroth said.
“Well, it’s too late anyway to head up the hotel now,” Ottmaire said. “Let’s give it until tomorrow, do some double-checking if we have to. I don’t want to find out after it’s too late this retired detective is working a freelance hit for some drug cartel back East.”
Dale said, “Why don’t we take a run over there in the morning and see if we can’t learn something? You said this Pavlik was concerned about tipping off the feds, right? We don’t want to let too much time slip by.”
Ekroth turned to Ottmaire, “Pavlik did say if the feds thought we were close to the guy he’s after, they’d move him out of town.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing,” Ottmaire said.
Dale said, “I can’t believe I was right there tonight. At the bar, six feet from the guy.”
Ekroth said, “Well, I still think it’s kind of unusual how this started, all this death of late, maybe with that murder up in Mohall. Maybe you should head up there, Dale.”
“Or it could have nothing to do with that,” Ottmaire said. “And Dale would be that much further away from Velva and you, if you intend to try and provoke that other miscreant.”
“Ahearn,” Ekroth said. “I’ll wait for Dale to get back.”
“You better,” Ottmaire said.
The three men nodded at one another.
Ottmaire motioned at Dale. “What about those phone calls? Is Emily alright?”
“Shaken up,” Dale said. “Like I said, I have a feeling I know who that is. Em is being extra careful. She knows how to handle this kind of thing. I have a car going by every so often checking up.”
“I can look into the federal thing but you’ll have to be prepared to back off if you’re right,” Ottmaire said. “They’ll give me all the nonsense about being exposed in the middle of an investigation and all the crud that goes with it, but my hands will be tied, Dale. If it is federal, I mean.”
“Then don’t ask them,” Dale said. “Let me and Don work the case a few more days and see if we can make something happen.”