Scar Tissue (Mr. Finn Book 2) Page 4

  “I’m asking for your help, Finn.”

  “Of course, I’ll help you. Right after I split your boyfriend in two for bringing his shit home.” I thought I felt the phone buckle in my fist. “The first thing you need to do is get out of that house. I’m coming over and bringing you and Becca back here. It’s not safe there.”

  “No. This Adler… He’s not coming back tonight. I’m taking Becca to school tomorrow morning and then we’ll stay at my sister’s place. I’ve already cleared it with her. We’ll be fine tonight.”

  “Is Daryl at the hospital or the clinic tomorrow?”

  “The clinic.” She rattled some paper. “He’s supposed to be there by nine.”

  “I’ll call him, and we’ll get started fixing his fuck-up,” I said. “I seem to remember you telling me a few weeks ago that you picked Daryl over me because he was the safer choice. Never got into trouble. Always came home at night. Seems like…”

  “I’m asking for your help, Finn,” she interrupted. “Don’t throw this back in my face.”

  She was right, and I regretted the comment as soon as it left my lips.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Everyone fucks up from time to time. I’ll fix this. I promise.”

  “This is a pretty big fuck-up, Finn. And I’m not used to having to deal with the big ones.”

  “That’s all I deal with,” I said. “I don’t want you or Becca back in that house until this is done. You sure your sister is okay having you two stay there?”

  “I told her Daryl and I had a fight and we needed some time apart. She’s only a few miles from Becca’s school and she’s got plenty of room. She won’t ask too many questions either.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Get out of the house first thing tomorrow. And call me if you need anything.”

  I clicked the phone off and slipped it into my pocket. I’d envisioned punching my fist through Daryl’s smug face more times than I can count, but this was the closest I’d come to following through on it. I threw on a jacket, grabbed Lee Child’s novel from my bed, and headed for the door. I’d be parked on Brooke’s street within thirty minutes.

  What would Jack Reacher do? I thought on my way to my car. After pummeling Daryl into small bits, Reacher would find the dealer and toss him through a window. Probably break all his ribs with his toothbrush first. As much as that sounded like a fine scenario, I’m no Jack Reacher. He’s six-foot-five and 250 pounds. I’m six-foot-one and 190. He’s got short blond hair. I’ve got longer brown hair. He’s barrel chested and broad shouldered. I’m no statue, but I’m solid where I need to be.

  But, Reacher wouldn’t work in this situation. This was going to require more finesse than bashing a few heads. Dealers are connected, and whatever Daryl was into, it didn’t end with whoever he was supplying. There was someone up the chain, and I was going to find out who.

  Over the past several years, I’d made a solid business out of fixing people’s fuck-ups, but I never thought I’d be working for my ex-wife.

  IT’S HARD TO TAIL A car after midnight. There aren’t enough vehicles on the road to blend in, and you stick out like a dick in a salad bar. After two right turns it was obvious the silver Escalade in my rearview mirror was following me, but it wasn’t obvious why. I buried the speedometer, took two quick rights and then a left and lost him in the parking garage on Third Street.

  Ten minutes later, I pulled into Brooke’s neighborhood and camped out in my car a few doors down from her place. I split my time between staring at her driveway, my Lee Child novel, and my rear-view mirror. The novel was the only one that provided any excitement.

  Nine

  I WAS BACK AT MY place by 6:00 am. I’m no criminologist, but I knew enough about the criminal mind to know they don’t get out of bed before 8:00 am, so whoever Adler was, he wasn’t going to be a threat this early. Brooke and Becca would be safely out of the house in the next few hours, and I could relax enough to grab a shower, brew a pot of coffee, and dig up some breakfast.

  There are few things in this world that I loathe. Plumbing and talking to Dr. Daryl Jennings are at the top of that list. As much as I normally hated talking to him, I looked forward to hearing his voice this morning. I polished off my everything bagel and checked Albert’s room. He was already gone, but he was nice enough to leave a note on the kitchen counter.

  “Finn, meeting a friend for breakfast. Please drop off my dry cleaning on your way out this morning. It’s in the bag next to the front door. I’d take it, but I’m heading the other direction. Thanks.”

  Everyone has quirks. The list of my father’s quirks ran into double digits. One of his most irritating traits was his insistence on sending all of his laundry to the dry cleaner. For some reason he had an aversion to washing machines. It usually didn’t bother me since Albert handled the laundry delivery and pick-up himself, but today he decided to bestow that honor to his youngest son.

  I shook my head at the powder-blue duffle bag with the drawstring next to the front door and scrolled through the contact list on my cell phone. My thumb hovered over the entry for “Dr. Dickhead.” I inhaled and dialed. He answered on the fourth ring.

  “Finn, what can I do for you? It’s been a busy morning.” I was surprised he had me in his directory.

  “Good morning to you, too,” I said smiling. “I need to speak to you in person. Meet me at Winans Coffee on the corner of Eighth and Walnut in a half hour.”

  “I’m a bit busy at the moment. Some of us have real jobs and can’t just drop everything for java.”

  “How about I rephrase it then? Meet me for coffee in thirty minutes or I call Christ Hospital and tell them about your new career as a drug dealer.”

  He was silent for a moment.

  “Brooke told you?”

  “She told me,” I said, my grip tightened around my coffee mug. “She also told me that your pusher roughed her up and fucked with my daughter. And that don’t sit right with me. So I’ll say it again. Winans Coffee. Thirty minutes.” I hung up the phone.

  I was on my way out the door when I received a text message from Cricket, one of my Cincinnati contacts.

  “Finn, I’ve got the information you asked for. Will drop it off at the coffee shop. - C”

  I HANDLED MOST OF MY business meetings at Winans Coffee. A few bucks for a cup of coffee and few more for a tip was much cheaper than renting office space. Plus, they had good coffee. The coffee shop was small, but not small enough that other customers would listen in on my conversation. And they had fantastic banana nut muffins on Mondays.

  I stepped into Winans at 9:30 am, grabbed a cup of Highlander Grogg and a muffin, and took a seat at my usual table near the front of the shop. By now, the morning crowd had disappeared into their cubical farms, but it would pick up again for lunch around noon.

  There were two other people in the place. I’d seen them at least once a week for the past year. He always arrived first and she stepped in about fifteen minutes later. If I had to bet on it, I’d wager they were having an affair. Both wore wedding bands, but they talked low and always seemed a little uncomfortable, looking over their shoulder like they weren’t supposed to be there. I’d love to know their story, but until someone paid me to get it, I’d have to wait.

  The couple left as Daryl entered. Dr. Daryl Jennings was about my age. He was shorter than average, with black thinning hair. I knew he dyed it from the gray roots struggling to free themselves from his scalp. It crushed my ego that Brooke picked him over me. I might not compete with him on the financial or professional level, but I was confident I had him beat in the looks department.

  Daryl came through the door with his white lab coat flowing behind him like a superhero’s cape. He waved off the coffee jock’s advances and settled into the seat across from me.

  “I can’t just leave the clinic like that,” he said leaning in close. “I’ve got people waiting to see me. Shit Finn, I have appointments scheduled all day. Do you know how difficult it is to reschedule with pa
tients?”

  “Do you know how difficult it is not to leap across this table and rip the fucking skin off your face?” I took a sip and watched the lines in his face deepen. “Your pusher, what’s his name?”

  He took a breath. “Adler. Adler… Browning I believe.”

  “How did you get wrapped up with him? From the beginning.”

  “He came into my clinic a few months ago. Said he was having shoulder pain that started after playing with his kids. We did an X-ray, and it showed inflammation in the AC joint. I gave him a cortisone shot, referred him to an orthopedic surgeon, and sent him on his way. I left at the end of the day and found him standing next to my car in the lot. He showed me a gun in his waistband, told me to get in the car, and then he got into the passenger seat. He told me he needed fentanyl. Told me I have to get it for him. Said his other supplier is out of the country and he needed several vials.”

  “What’s fentanyl? And pretend like I don’t have a medical degree.”

  “It’s a very potent pain medication, but it’s also an anesthetic. We generally use it after surgery.”

  I watched as a tall, thin man in a faded jean jacket and graying hair came into the coffee shop with an orange folder tucked under his right arm.

  “Fentanyl, is that a pill?” I said.

  “No. We use it the hospital as a solution, but you can get it by prescription in a pain patch.”

  “And he’s selling it on the street? An anesthetic doesn’t seem like your usual street drug.”

  “It’s not,” he said. “I didn’t know it at the time, but apparently some dealers use it to cut heroin.”

  I took another sip of my coffee and watched as the man with the orange folder grabbed his cup from the coffee jock and sat down a few tables away from me.

  “So then what happened?” I said.

  “I told him he’s got the wrong guy, that I couldn’t get it for him, and that I’d call the police if he ever came to the clinic again.” Daryl checked his watch and then looked back up at me. “Then he slammed my face into the steering wheel. I’m surprised he didn’t break my nose. He told me that he worked for some powerful people and would fuck up my life if I didn’t help him.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police?”

  “I tried to forget the whole thing. I honestly thought he would just go away.”

  “Just go away? Come on, Doc, you’re a smart guy. Things like this don’t just go away.”

  “A few years ago, someone else in my practice had something similar happen to him. Someone came in and threatened him for meds. My colleague ignored it, and that guy went away. I figured if Adler thought I’d hold out, then he’d go on to someone else too.”

  “I assume he didn't go away?”

  “The next morning, I came out of my house to go to the clinic and I saw Adler standing on the other side of the street. He came over to the driveway and said he saw my wife and daughter and that if I didn’t want something bad to happen to them, that I’d better deliver the vials. He said he’d hurt them, Finn.” Daryl tapped two fingers on the table and then scratched the side of his face. “I had no reason not to believe him.”

  “So you got him the vials?”

  “Yes, he met me in the parking lot every Wednesday and I gave them to him.”

  Daryl seemed like an honest guy. It’s one of the reasons why Brooke was with him. She needed stability, something I couldn’t provide, but Daryl could. That inclination to do the right thing was probably why Adler picked him. I guessed that Adler used that first shoulder appointment as a way to feel Daryl out. To find leverage and see if he was someone Adler could snare. Daryl said Adler mentioned he’d hurt his shoulder playing with his kids. That comment probably led Adler to ask whether Daryl had kids, which introduced Becca into the equation. And there’s your leverage. People will do anything to protect their kids, even if they aren’t their biological children. I know. I’ve done it. I put two bodies on the bottom of a lake in Maine for the same reason.

  “How in the hell did you get fentanyl out of the hospital?” I said. “Don’t they monitor that?”

  “They do, but it wasn’t that difficult. Fentanyl is ordered pretty frequently. Let’s say it’s a five CC order for a patient. I draw five CCs, squirt four CCs into an empty vial in my pocket, and replace the four I took with saline. The patient still gets his five CC cocktail, but he’s getting one CC of fentanyl and four CCs saline. At the end of my shift, I walk out of the hospital with a vial or two of fentanyl. It all checks out in the system because the barcode scans are accurate. The patient still gets his five CCs. He’s just not getting five CCs of pain meds.”

  The thin man a few tables over spun the orange folder on the tabletop and sipped his coffee. He looked at me with a grin.

  “But if the patient is only getting twenty percent of the dosage, he’d still complain of pain,” I said. “Wouldn’t that raise some eyebrows?”

  “Not really. Some people don’t respond as well to fentanyl as other patients do. Especially those who are heavy drinkers. Every patient has a different tolerance. We’d just switch to another drug if they complain. No one would ever question it.”

  “So, you’ve been delivering the fentanyl to Adler, and then what, you have a change of heart?”

  “Adler initially said he only needed me to get it a few times. Something about his other supplier being out of the country for a few weeks, but then it became obvious there was no other supplier. He was leaning on me for all of it. And he kept wanting more. It wasn’t sustainable. I told him that the hospital was looking into some thefts and they were clamping down on monitoring and that I couldn’t get it for him anymore. I thought he’d just move on to someone else. I thought that’s how this stuff worked.”

  “So you cut him off?”

  “Yes,” said Daryl. “He called a few times, but I never called him back. Like I said, I was hoping that he’d just move onto someone else.”

  “And that’s when he came to the house?” I said.

  Daryl looked at his watch again. “Look Finn, I’m sorry Brooke brought you into this, but I can handle it. I’m just going to tell Adler that I can’t be his source, that the hospital is looking into inventory discrepancies and I can’t get it anymore…”

  “He won’t care,” I interrupted. “He’s not concerned about how you get it. Only that you keep the pipeline open. He’s locked you in, and he’ll apply more pressure until you find another way to get it. Eventually you’ll do something stupid and get caught. That’s when he’ll find another source. That’s how these guys work.”

  Daryl scratched the back of his left hand. “Then I’ll go to the police.”

  “Not smart,” I said. “You’ll lose everything and worse, you’ll put the heat on Adler. He might retaliate by going after Brooke or Becca. You don’t have a lot of plays here.”

  “Then what am I supposed to do?”

  “I can help you,” I said.

  “How can you possibly help me, Finn? You couldn’t even keep your PI license.”

  “I lost my license because I’m good at making people like Adler go away. As much as I’d like to see you go down for this, I won’t put Brooke and Becca in harm’s way like you did.”

  “That’s not fair. I didn’t know all this would happen.”

  “Regardless, I’ll get him off you.”

  “You can help me?”

  “Yep.”

  “And what do you want from me? You want me out of the picture?”

  Nothing would make me happier than kicking Daryl out of Brooke and Becca’s lives, but now wasn’t the time for that.

  “Believe it or not Daryl, I’m not as big a fuck-up as you think I am.” He was quiet. “I’ll make this go away and all it’ll cost you is your word that you won’t do something stupid like this again.”

  He thought for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “What are you going to do?”

  “Don’t worry about how the sausage gets made. I’ll take care of everyth
ing, but I do need you to call Adler.”

  He slid his chair back a few inches. “And say what?”

  “Tell him to meet you here tomorrow at 9:00 am.”

  “I can’t be here tomorrow morning,” he said. “I’ve got patients.”

  “You won’t be here. I will.” I downed the rest of my Highlander Grogg. “Now make the call and get back to your clinic.”

  Daryl called Adler and set up the meeting. I could hear Adler’s voice through the receiver. He sounded excited, happy that Daryl was back on the leash, but he’d lose that high tomorrow by 9:05 am.

  “You sure this is going to work?” said Daryl.

  “Nope. But, I guarantee it’ll be better than your plan.”

  Daryl stood up and for the first time in his life shook my hand. He thanked me and walked out the door.

  After Daryl was out of the coffee shop, the man in the jean jacket approached and dropped the orange folder on the table in front of me.

  “Here you go, Finn,” he said. “We’re even.”

  I opened the folder and checked the contents. “Thanks Cricket.”

  He nodded, tossed his paper cup into the garbage can, and walked out the door.

  I knew Daryl had a hard time processing his current situation. He’d been uneasy in the chair the entire time he recounted the story with Adler. Scratching his face and hands. Checking his watch. He wanted to get out of that coffee shop, away from me, and away from his current reality as quickly as possible. I bet he’s as calm as still water when he’s calculating how to mix a cocktail that won’t kill a patient on the operating table. But, that’s a different kind of pressure.

  The pressure that Adler applied was the type that robs you of sleep, makes your palms sweat like you’re at a middle school dance, or squeezes your insides tight enough to kill your appetite and make you want to vomit at the same time. I didn’t know what kind of guy Adler was. He might be some low-level pussy who gets off by jacking anesthesiologists, or he could be a lot worse. I hoped to find out before I met him face to face in the morning, but there was something else I needed to do first.