“You needed her,” Faz said. “You needed her money to make the buy.” Faz tapped the papers. “We want to know where you got the heroin.”
Welch inhaled and leaned away from the table, blowing out a breath. He started to cry. “She took too much. I told her she took too much. But she was fine when I left. I swear she was fine. She was snoring.”
Snoring was not a good sign, Del knew. Snoring was an indication that her respiratory system was struggling, that fluid was building up in her lungs.
“We want to believe you,” Faz said, calm. “But we can’t prove it unless we know where you got the heroin.”
Welch’s chest shuddered. “She bought it. She bought it from this guy. I don’t know who he is.”
Del looked at Faz, shaking his head. It was time to amp up the pressure. “We’re not going to get any straight answers out of this guy. I’m going to call the prosecutor and get him booked.” Del stood and pulled open the door, shoving the chair into the hall and stepping out. The wall rattled when he closed the door.
Del moved quickly around the corner and slipped into the room with the one-way mirror in time to hear Faz sigh as if he wasn’t sure what to do. Faz spread his hands wide, then clasped them in front of him. “Here’s the problem I’m having, Jack.” He nodded to the papers on the table. “All those e-mails and text messages, they confirm you were with Allie the night she died.”
“I was; I told you I was.”
“They also confirm that you, not her, know the guy who sold the two of you the heroin. I don’t come up with a name of that guy then I got one choice where to go. Her family is going to want accountability, Jack. They’re going to want someone held accountable for their daughter’s death.” Faz pointed across the table. “You’re that guy. My partner’s right, Jack—this is no longer just a possession charge. Controlled substance homicide is a felony. You go to prison when convicted of a felony. That’s after a trial, which will make all the newspapers and social media. Are you willing to throw away years of your life for some dope dealer?”
Welch didn’t immediately respond. Faz sat back, and Del knew Welch was letting those final words rattle around in his head. If Welch had a brain, he’d recognize that Faz was suggesting an out, an alternative to a long jail sentence.
Finally, Welch said, “What will happen to him?”
Bingo, Del thought from the other side of the glass. Now to reel him in.
“This guy a friend of yours?” Faz asked.
Jack said, “Hypothetically . . . I mean, if I knew him. What will happen to him?”
Faz shrugged. “I can’t say for certain, Jack, but I can say that, if he cooperates, the judge would look more favorably on him than he’s going to look on you if you don’t provide a name.”
“Can I call him? Can I talk to him?”
Faz shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way, Jack. You give me his name and I’ll bring him in. You don’t even have to be involved.”
“But he would know, right? He’d know that I’m the one who told you.”
“We don’t have to use your name. We can say we found his name in Allie’s contacts. Had she bought from this person before?”
Welch nodded.
“So his name is probably in her phone contacts. We could say we found his name in her phone.”
A nice move, Del again thought. Let the kid think he could hide his involvement.
Jack gave this some additional thought. When he stared at the tabletop, Faz glanced at the one-way mirror, knowing Del stood watching and listening on the other side.
He reengaged Welch. “What are you afraid of, Jack? Has this guy threatened you in some way?”
Welch shook his head. “No.”
“So, he’s a friend of yours?”
“Yeah.”
“You know what, Jack? I don’t think he’s your friend.” Welch looked up at him. “You have to ask yourself, would this guy go to prison for you if the situation was reversed?”
Jack shook his head and wiped at his nose with the cuff of his shirt.
“So what are you so worried about?”
“He runs the band.”
“Excuse me?”
“He runs CHAOS, our band.”
Del couldn’t believe the kid’s logic, or lack thereof, but then the stupidity of teenagers had always amazed him. Jack Welch was facing years in prison, and what was foremost on his mind was whether he’d be kicked out of some garage band.
“And what, you’re afraid you’ll be out of the band?” Faz asked, again keeping his voice calm and understanding.
Welch nodded.
Faz cleared his throat. “I want you to think about this, Jack. Okay? Follow along with me here. If you protect this guy, and you go away to prison for, say, five years, do you think he’s going to hold your place in the band until you get out?”
Welch looked up when Faz said “five years.” Faz leaned forward and arched his eyebrows to drive home his point.
“No,” Jack said, soft and tentative.
Faz gave a closed-lip smile, shaking his head. “There’s not going to be any band, Jack. Not with you in it.”
CHAPTER 29
Dan called the months that Tracy worked the night shift “vampire time.” If he was busy at his law firm, as he was now, they could go days without seeing each other in daylight. This was one of those months. Tracy’s day off, midweek, she’d slid out of bed after Dan was already long gone. He’d left a note that he’d be in a deposition most of the day. Tracy ran errands, then drove across the 520 bridge to visit Kins in Seattle.
She’d received daily phone updates on his progress from Kins or his wife, Shannah. Kins had been out of bed and walking the day of his surgery, and he left Swedish Hospital and went home the following day. Though he lived in Madison Park, an expensive Seattle neighborhood, Kins called it “Kinsington Estates.” His house was accessed just over a cement bridge so narrow it could only accommodate a single car—not that traffic was a problem. Once across the bridge, there were only two homes before the start of the Seattle Arboretum—Kins’s three-story white colonial and a Spanish-style manor with an orange tile roof and leaded-glass windows. Tracy had always admired the second house, but the owners would never sell. The two couples were the same age, with children close in age, and shared the same interests. According to Kins, life couldn’t possibly get any better.