“So you said. I’d like to know how you know that.”
Now it was my turn to frown. I hadn’t actually been oath bound to refrain from talking about Icelynne and the circumstances of her death, but that didn’t mean I wanted to recklessly piss off the queen by discussing court business. The drug, while connected, was tertiary to that case. Still . . . “I was hired by the winter court to look into a case that involved the drug,” I said after what was probably too long of a pause.
“And now you’re looking for the manufacturer? No offense, but that not only doesn’t sound like your kind of case, but you’re in way over your head. You’re excellent at raising shades. Stick to that.”
He’d given me that particular advice before. It hurt no less this time. If my actual father had said as much, I wouldn’t have cared. But coming from John, the man who’d encouraged me to go through with getting my PI license in the first place, who’d encouraged me to open Tongues for the Dead, and who’d connected me with my retainer position with the NCPD—yeah, it stung. A lot.
But it wasn’t like I had time to cross my arms over my chest and pout. John didn’t know I was fae, and with the current strife in our relationship, I wasn’t feeling particularly willing to share. That also meant he didn’t know my precarious position of lacking any tie to Faerie or the urgent reason I had to solve this case and find the alchemist.
I didn’t bother forcing a smile, but I did lean back slightly in my chair, trying to look relaxed. And as if I wasn’t going anywhere. “So have the narcotics guys interviewed any of the other kids from the dance? Did they find anyone else who saw the dealer?”
“I told you. That case was handed off to the FIB,” he said, but his eyes darted to his half-full coffee cup as he spoke.
“Yeah, you guys handed off the murder case,” I said, putting my hands on the arms of the chair and leaning in toward him. “But you can’t tell me you guys aren’t looking into the drug connection.”
He huffed, still not meeting my eyes. Which was pretty much a yes.
“So the kids? Surely Bruce wasn’t the only one approached with the drug.” Though I hoped that if anyone else had accepted, that they hadn’t used it and had heeded the warnings about the danger. “Did you get more information on the dealer?”
John finally looked up, his blue eyes were tired, the wrinkles around them deeper than I remembered. I’d never thought about it before, but John was probably getting close to retirement age, and it was starting to show. He ran a hand over his bald spot before letting his fist fall limply to the top of his desk.
“Narcotics investigations aren’t as . . . straightforward as murder investigations. In murder you examine the body, the scene, and gather what information you can. Then you talk to the friends, the family. You find out who wanted to kill the person, who had motive and opportunity. And hopefully, at the end of the day, you get a confession or have enough evidence to nail the suspect in a trial.”
He picked up the file he’d been studying before I entered. He tapped the edge of it against his desk, not opening it. “Narcotics tends toward long-term investigations. You bust someone low on the pole, usually a user. You get them to give you information on their dealer. Maybe you turn them, or maybe you use an undercover to do some buys and then you bust the street dealer, but these are still the little guys. They might be carrying three hundred dollars’ worth of product on them at any time. You try to work them back to their source. This guy’s the real dealer. If you’re lucky, he’s the one cooking the drugs, but usually, he’s still a middle man. Oh, he might be the local ‘drug lord’ but he’s getting the drugs shipped in from somewhere else—especially if it’s being run by a gang. Anyway, getting to him isn’t easy. You need probable cause for a warrant and you want to bust him when he has a large stash you can put him away with. It takes surveillance, maybe even getting a man inside, and once you do have the warrant, a raid. You’re talking weeks, months, sometimes even years of police work to get that far, and even then, you don’t necessarily know where the drugs are coming from.” He frowned at the file.
I chewed at my bottom lip. I didn’t doubt anything he was telling me, but I didn’t have that kind of time to wait on the cops, and I certainly didn’t have the resources or knowledge to do it on my own. “So how far have your guys gotten?”
“Alex, we found out about all this yesterday. We haven’t scratched the surface. We’ve got a rough sketch of the dealer based on the shade’s description, and we’ve tracked down and questioned a couple of kids who were at the dance, but no one is saying anything.”
I sighed and pushed out of the chair. “I suppose if I ask if there is anything I can do to help . . . ?”