her parents until they died in a factory explosion down state. She had no family, so she spent four years in foster care. She stayed with the same family for all four years. She went to college on scholarships, worked at a large nursery for four years before she married Edelman. Erik was born to an upper middle-class family. His parents are still alive. He works for T-7 Consulting and has for the last four years. Recently promoted and moved to this new housing area. He is in debt to his eyeballs, or he was, until recently."
Brody stopped his boss. "How did you get a look at his financials without a warrant?"
"I didn't." Terrell leaned forward. "You can learn a lot about a person from his or her mail carrier."
Watson leaned forward, "Say what now?"
"I happened to run into the postal worker and struck up a conversation. I told her I was thinking about moving to the area but wasn't sure about the neighborhood. We talked for fifteen minutes. When the Edelmans first moved here, a lot of past due and last notice mail was forwarded from their last address, but they don't receive them anymore. The Daweses are staunch Democrats, and their next door neighbors, the Logans, are huge Republican backers. She didn't know anything about you, thankfully."
"Damn, Captain, I forget you were a good detective before you started flying a desk." Rayburn's comment earned him a middle finger from his boss.
"Speaking of flying, have you flown the FBI's plane yet?" Watson asked before he took a sip of his coffee and literally moaned in appreciation.
He chuckled at the man's orgasmic expression. He got it. Coffee was what jump started his heart every morning. Well, that and fantastic morning sex. He capped the thought right there. He wasn't going to have lewd thoughts about the woman he loved in front of his team. He leaned forward and answered Watson as he reached for an apple fritter. "No, I'm not rated on this particular aircraft, and it was only supposed to be a stage prop."
"It's going to be suspicious if you don't fly it pretty fucking soon." Terrell sighed. "Damn it, I'd hoped we'd have more information before now."
"I can call someone I know. Someone who is rated and can fly it. Legally." His cousin Jason would know if there were any pilots in the local area who could go up with him. He needed someone in the co-pilot seat who was rated, so he could log hours and let his neighbors see him fly the damn thing.
Terrell picked a bear claw. "Call them. We need to find something soon or we're going to have to pull the plug. In the last three weeks, we have forty-seven confirmed overdoses, all pointing to this shit Peña is bringing into the city. Fenton is telling anyone who will listen that JDET is ineffective and inept."
"Yeah, and Detective McBride said there are a rash of deaths at the Cottages from the shit. It started with the one user they assumed died from H. They confirmed Gray Death." Brody added the information from Kyle's latest call.
The table was silent for a moment. "Fenton is pissed because we're starting to get some of the money from the shit we seize, isn't he?" Rayburn asked.
Terrell narrowed his eyes and glared across the table. "Where did you hear that?"
"From Merlene Talbot in Public Relations. She said the board unanimously approved the allocation. They're going to run an article about it in the Hope City Journal. Bet the memo sent Fenton over the wall." Watson answered for his partner who'd stuffed half a cinnamon roll in his pie hole. Odds were good Rayburn could have stuffed the entire thing in his mouth.
"He's not happy." Terrell leaned back in his chair. "This is the skinny. We need to put Edelman with Peña, or we need to move on. I've been given a week. This time next Wednesday, if we don't have anything, we're pulling up stakes and moving on."
Damn it. He knew Peña was bringing Grey Death into the city. This had been their best lead and although he loved playing house, they needed to push on if they couldn't tie either the Daweses or the Edelmans to Peña. For all intents and purposes, the Daweses had been eliminated, although they were still being watched. The pup was kind of fun to watch, but the older couple were as Terrell had said, boring as hell. He glanced at his