“Not really, although we were hoping that Haas would be able to assist. He’d been part of one of the drug crews using those very same pipelines.”
“But I don’t quite get how, if Beatty and Smith killed Haas, he was able to make a dying declaration.”
Kemper said, “He was found in an alleyway in Scranton. He’d been injected with an overdose of morphine. He cried out and some people nearby came to his assistance. The syringe was found in his arm. He told the people who discovered him that it had been Beatty and Smith. Then he died. The onlookers reported his last words to police.”
“No prints on the syringe?”
“None. They would have worn gloves. They weren’t rookies.”
Decker looked out the window at Frank Mitchell’s grave. He watched as they lowered the coffin into the ground. He glanced over at Zoe and her mother climbing into the car provided by the funeral home. Zoe was looking back at the coffin going into the ground.
Decker could see her shiver at the sight.
“Did Haas have any family?” asked Decker, his gaze holding on the little girl until the car door closed behind her.
“Family? I suppose so. We really didn’t check into that.”
Decker turned back to her. “Well, I would if I were you. Did you do a post on him?”
“Of course. The morphine stopped his heart. That was the COD.”
“Did the post show anything else?”
“Like what?”
“Like Haas was maybe already dying?”
“What? The ME didn’t mention anything like that.”
“Because you just wanted to know how he died, probably. Did you actually read the whole report?”
Kemper pursed her lips. “No, I didn’t. But I can remedy that right away.” She took a moment to thumb in a text. “I’ll let you know what they say.”
“Okay.”
“Why did you even think that a possibility?” asked Kemper.
“Because I don’t think your guys went rogue.” He glanced at her. “And I’m surprised you were so quickly convinced they had.”
“We’ve had other agents go bad, Decker. Nature of the beast. We chase after guys who literally have billions of dollars to throw at people to make them turn.”
“I get that. But that’s true of any law enforcement. Was there something else about the pair?”
“We didn’t always see eye to eye. They were unorthodox to a fault. I like to do things by the book. Smith and Beatty didn’t.”
“I’m glad you’re not my boss, then.”
She smiled. “Maybe I’m glad too.” Her smile vanished. “Why would Haas have lied about who killed him?”
“I can think of two reasons. And I hope we’ll have answers very soon.”
They watched as two more hearses drove past them, headed to other gravesites, the rest of their processions filing in behind them.
“Lot of funerals in this town,” noted Decker.
“Dollars to donuts you’re looking at ODs there,” said Kemper, pointing to some young people getting out of cars and heading to one of the gravesites. “Over eighty thousand people in America this year alone,” she added. “More than died in Vietnam and the wars in the Middle East combined. And far more than die in traffic accidents or by guns, and it’s only getting worse. Next year we’ll probably be looking at over a hundred thousand dead. The opioid crisis is actually responsible for the life expectancy in this country starting to go down. Can you wrap your head around that? Nearly a half million dead since 2000. Drug overdoses are the leading cause of death for Americans under age fifty. We had a recent study done at DEA. Life insurance companies value a human life at about five million bucks. Using that number and other factors, our people projected the economic loss to the country each year due to the opioid crisis at about a hundred billion dollars. A third of the population is on medication for pain. And they’re not getting addicted on street corners. They’re getting addicted at their doctors’ offices.”
“From prescription painkillers.”
“Right. Back in the eighties we had the crack crisis. The government’s position was just say no and if you didn’t you went to prison. So we locked up millions, mostly men from the inner cities. Then came the nineties and Big Pharma decided that Americans weren’t taking enough painkillers. They sort of made pain the fifth vital sign. Spent billions on ads, payoffs to doctors, used legit-looking organizations and think tanks to make it all seem aboveboard. ‘No possibility of addiction, no long-term negatives’ was the mantra everyone was spouting. Turns out all of that was based on either faulty research or no research at all. It’s ironic but a lot of opioids were initially given out to combat lower back pain.”
“Why was that ironic?” asked Decker.
“Because opioids actually are pretty ineffectual with chronic lower back pain. Last year doctors wrote nearly a quarter billion prescriptions for painkillers. It’s a miracle we’re not all hooked. And the numbers we see now, bad as they are, are just the tip of the iceberg. It’s beyond a national crisis and no one is doing a damn thing about it. Because of our position on crack cocaine in the eighties, we built a lot of prisons but not many treatment centers or addiction protocols. So now this crisis is filling hospitals, prisons, and”—she waved her hand in front of her—“cemeteries all across the country. And to top it off, last year about twenty-five thousand babies were born with what’s called neonatal abstinence syndrome because their moms were opioid users while pregnant. What kind of life will they have, do you think?”
Decker stared at the coffin being carried to a gravesite by what looked to be a group of pallbearers who were still in high school. Then he looked at the line of cars parked along the road and was surprised to see some brand-new luxury vehicles along with ancient heaps.
Suddenly they heard a horn begin to blare.
Kemper said, “Where’s that coming from?”
“There,” said Decker, pointing to a pickup truck parked in the middle of the line of cars.
They jumped out of the SUV and ran across the road. By the time they got to the pickup truck, several people had crowded around it.
In the driver’s seat was a young man slumped against the steering wheel. His shoulder was pressed against the horn.
Decker reached through the open window and pushed him back against the seat and the sound stopped.
His breath was coming in gasps.
Decker opened the young man’s eyelids. The pupils were pinpricks.
“He’s overdosed,” said Kemper, who had also seen this.
“Yeah, he has,” said a thin man in a threadbare coat. “Third time this week.”
Decker spotted the half-empty syringe on the truck seat. Inside it was a clear sand-colored liquid.
“It looks to be pure heroin,” Decker said.
Kemper nodded, punched in 911 on her phone, and requested an ambulance.
Decker said, “Does anybody have any Narcan?”
“I got some,” said a woman standing next to the man.
“Give it to me,” said Decker as the young man in the truck gasped again.
“He coulda at least waited till after the funeral to pull this crap,” said the thin man.
“Give it to me,” Decker exclaimed as the young man started to gurgle. “He’s going to stop breathing any second.”
The woman rummaged in her bag.
The man said again, “Coulda waited. Dumbass.”
“Give me the Narcan!” shouted Decker, as the young man slumped against the door, his lips turning blue.
The woman handed Decker a bottle from her purse.
Decker stuck the end in the young man’s nose and squeezed.
He waited for a few seconds, but nothing happened.
Kemper looked at the syringe and said, “There must be some fentanyl mixed in with what he took. It’s more tightly bound to the brain receptor than morphine.”
“That’s heroin, not morphine, lady,” said the thin man. “Don’t you know nothin’?”
Kemper whirled on him and flashed her badge. “I know a lot more than you do. When the body breaks down heroin the instant by-product is morphine!” She turned back to Decker. “Hit him again with the Narcan. We have to move the drug off the brain receptor.”
Decker squirted in another dose.