“It might,” I said, but I didn’t much believe it. I’ve dealt with more than my share of grieving mothers in my time. I figured Wainwright at the DEA must have done the same.
CHAPTER 16
WHEN I GOT BACK TO THE CAR, I SAT FOR several minutes pondering. On the one hand, I had to agree with Tom Riley’s assessment of Grace Simms Morris as a dingy broad with a case of motherly selective blindness. But still, what she had said about her son had the ring of truth to it. At least she believed it was the truth.
That took me back to Richard Dathan Morris, the victim. Was he a narc working for the DEA as his mother claimed, or was he the lowlife described by Tom Riley? Or did the answer lie somewhere in between? Without knowing more about Morris, without understanding what had made him tick, it was impossible to get a fix on the relationships of all the other characters in the drama.
If Morris had indeed been working for the DEA, and if he had somehow uncovered Jasmine’s involvement in a cocaine ring, that would have been a reason to waste him. That’s the way things work in the drug trade. Narcs and dealers play that way. For keeps.
My mental gymnastics were taking me nowhere. I still didn’t know enough about any of the players to make a sound judgment. Turning the key in the ignition, I decided to head for lower Queen Anne Hill and the local office of the DEA. Why not check with Wainwright myself? Maybe he’d tell me something he couldn’t or wouldn’t tell a murder victim’s mother.
I was there by four-fifteen, standing in an outside office trying to work my way past the agent of the day. When I told Roger Glancy what I wanted, he was more than a little reluctant to take me to the agent in charge.
“Look,” Glancy said, handing me back my ID, “do we have to go over all this again? Somebody else was just in here raising hell about the same thing.”
“Who? A woman?”
Glancy nodded. “She looked nice enough to begin with, but by the time she left, she was pitching a fit all over the office, just about bouncing off the walls and screaming bloody murder. She claims it’s all our fault that her son is dead.”
“Maybe it is,” I said quietly. “Now, are you going to let me see Wainwright or not?”
“He’s busy.”
“Interrupt him.”
Reluctantly, Glancy got up and led the way down a short hallway and past a secretary’s desk. He stopped in front of a door with a polished brass nameplate on it that read B. W. WAINWRIGHT, AGENT IN CHARGE. Glancy knocked.
“Come in,” someone called from inside.
Glancy led the way into B. W. Wainwright’s private office, where an affable-looking man in his mid-forties was seated behind a large desk. Wainwright, sandy haired and wearing tortoiseshell glasses, looked more like an accountant than a drug buster, and the papers on his desk were arranged in precise, well-organized stacks.
“This is Detective Beaumont of Seattle P.D.,” Glancy was saying.
Wainwright pushed the glasses up on top of his head and rubbed his eyes wearily. “I wasn’t aware we had an appointment.”
“We don’t,” I said. “I stopped by because I need your help.”
“With what? You working a narcotics case?” he asked.
“Homicide,” I answered. “Drug-related.”
“Show me one that isn’t.”
“It’s about Richard Dathan Morris.”
“Not him again.”
“What do you mean, again?”
“I just finished having a run-in with his mother. She’s got some wild idea that he was working for us.”
“Was he?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure, Detective Beaumont. I happen to be in charge here. I know who works for us and who doesn’t.”
I noticed the condescension in his manner of speech, the hint of arrogance that said he was wasting his time talking to me, a lowly detective from a municipal police department. It set my teeth on edge, the same as it must have done to Mrs. Grace Simms Morris.
“You mean, as the agent in charge, you not only know all the agents under you but all the local CIs as well?”
Our eyes met and held, each of us assessing the other. “That’s precisely what I mean,” he said, levelly. “We have to keep pretty close tabs on our cooperating individuals. Otherwise they end up dead.”
“Richard Dathan Morris is dead,” I reminded him. “Isn’t there a chance that someone down the chain of command might have taken on another informant without letting you know about it?”
“No. No chance. I run this outfit, Detective Beaumont. Make no mistake about it. Those who don’t play by the rules, by my rules, don’t stay.”