Once Was Lost (A Marty Singer Mystery Book 6) by Matthew Iden

Author:Matthew Iden [Iden, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-05-30T23:00:00+00:00

“I don’t know, son,” the thick Virginia drawl came crawling across the line. “I seem to recall the last time I did you any favors, my investigation went high and dry and yours nearly got demoted to plastering ‘Just Say No’ posters on the walls of the local high school.”

“Come on, Jay,” I said. “We got all the bad guys. That’s what matters, isn’t it?”

“We shot all the bad guys, you mean. You do realize we almost didn’t have to go to trial because none of ’em were left standing?”

“That’s a bad thing?”

“Singer.”

“Look, you can’t make an omelet, et cetera, et cetera,” I said. “If it makes you feel any better, it’s not how I’d hoped it would go down.”

“Shit, I hope not,” he said. Two solid thumps came across the line and I could imagine Jay Shero, DEA agent and good old boy, crossing his two cowboy boots on the corner of his desk. “Though, come to think of it, if we applied the Singer Method to the rest of our investigations, we’d clean up the meth problem in this country lickety-split. To heck with due process. Just shoot ’em all.”

I squirmed in my seat. Jay was giving me a rough ride for the fun of it, but the joshing touched a nerve. I’d helped him with a meth investigation the year before down in rural Virginia, though “helped” is a charitable term. I’d bumbled into an active DEA investigation with my eyes closed and broken up a violent meth gang by indiscriminately swinging the metaphorical bat of investigation around until I’d hit something. A bunch of people had gotten hurt or killed—all of them bad guys—but putting a bullet in people really wasn’t the way I like to approach law enforcement. Or justice.

Jay sensed my discomfort. “Just funnin’ you, Singer. That’s the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. We both know that. Chief Palmer still gets mad thinking about you, though. I wouldn’t venture near Cain’s Crossing while he’s still in charge, I was you.”

“No worries,” I said. “I’d rather shove a sharp stick in my eye.”

“Palmer would do it for you, you want,” he said. “Anyway, what do you need from me?”

I lightly outlined the Tommy Donlan situation for Jay, leaving out names to protect the innocent and the guilty both. Jay was one of the good guys and a friend, but he was still an active federal agent—if I gave him too many details, he might feel obligated to pass along the info I gave him to the Marshals or the FBI. Which I wasn’t necessarily against, but I’d made a decision to leave that choice to Tommy . . . and he’d decided to go it alone.

On the other hand, if you tell a story without names, places, dates, or outcomes, you don’t have much left over. And Jay knew it.

“If you twisted around any harder, Singer, you’d fit in a snake’s belly,” he said, laughing. “Relax. I’m not going to bring in a task force on you.

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