Supreme Justice

Chapter Thirty-eight

Denise Blailock pulled a nondescript brown Honda to the curb in front of the Multnomah County Courthouse and looked around nervously as Max Dietz jumped into the passenger seat. After twenty minutes of evasive driving, Blailock stopped the car in a deserted gravel lot under a freeway overpass near the Willamette. As soon as the car was parked, Blailock got out and turned up her collar to cut the wind coming off the river. Dietz was dressed in a suit because he had court in the afternoon, and he started to shiver as soon as he got out.

“What the fuck have you gotten me into?” Blailock asked in a tone of voice he’d never heard her use before. Dietz sensed anger, but he also heard fear.

“I told you everything I knew,” he insisted. “That’s why I asked you to poke around.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t tell me I’d be jabbing a hornet’s nest.”

“What happened?”

“I made a few calls, went on the Internet, nothing that exciting. The next thing I know, I’m called on the carpet by my boss and told in no uncertain terms that the China Sea does not exist, and never has, and any further inquiries I make about this phantom will be from my new posting in Butt Fuck, North Dakota.”

“Geez, I’m sorry. I had no idea your boss would come down on you.”

“Well, he has, and I know how to take a hint.”

“Did he tell you why he threatened you?”

“He was trying to help me. He’s a good egg. He watches my back, and he didn’t want me to get in trouble. After I talked to him, he got curious and made a few calls. He was also upset that DEA was kept out of the loop in a federal investigation involving drugs. The people he talked to at Homeland Security said no one from that agency was anywhere near Shelby, Oregon, on the night in question. Ditto every other agency he contacted. A few days later, he got a call from someone so high up the food chain he had to put on an oxygen mask to talk to him. This person told my boss in no uncertain terms that the China Sea never existed and he was never to inquire about the ship again.”

Dietz was about to apologize again when it dawned on him that Denise didn’t have to drive to a place where they would have complete privacy to tell him what she’d just disclosed.

“You found something, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Yeah, and I’m going to tell you because I think Jack Stamm screwed you. But we’re never going to discuss this subject again, ever.”

“OK, I swear. So tell me what’s going on with this ship.”

“Bad things, amigo. The China Sea has the makings of an urban legend. From what I know, two Shelby cops responded to a 911 and found five dead men and a large shipment of hashish on board. Shortly after they arrived, three carloads of armed men claiming to be from Homeland Security pulled up and told them they would be arrested for interfering in a federal investigation if they didn’t leave and turn over any forensic evidence they’d collected. Then the ship vanished, along with the night watchman who made the 911 call.”

“I was told this already,” Dietz said.

“Did anyone tell you about the other two dead men and the money?”

“What dead men, what money?”

“Sarah Woodruff told the cops that two men kidnapped John Finley from her house and the one she saw was wearing a leather jacket.”

“Yeah.”

“Shortly after Finley disappeared, two dead men were found on a deserted logging road. The police reports say they were shot. One of them was wearing a leather jacket, and they were both known drug dealers linked to Hector Gomez, who works for a Mexican drug cartel.

“Well, there’s a rumor making the rounds about a missing quarter-million dollars that was supposed to have been in the possession of the skipper of the China Sea. That’s what the drug dealers were after, in addition to the hashish, and it was the reason they kidnapped Finley.”

“Where did you get that tidbit? I thought the federal agencies won’t admit the ship exists.”

“They won’t. This rumor has been circulating among drug dealers and drug users. The same people who were questioned about the dead men on the logging road. If the hash on the ship was going to be used by some agency to fund an illegal operation, the agency would never admit to it. Drug dealers wouldn’t have the same motivation to keep quiet. That’s all I know, and this is the last time I’m ever going to talk about this subject.”

Denise dropped Dietz at the courthouse and sped off. The prosecutor went through security and rode the elevator to his office. It would take someone with a lot of power to scare the head of a DEA field office. Max wondered how many people had the clout to cover up a quintuple homicide. The more he learned, the more convinced he was that John Finley had been killed by drug dealers or government assassins. He wondered if he was putting himself in harm’s way by continuing to ask questions about the China Sea. Maybe the smart thing to do would be to back off. He was in Stamm’s doghouse, and his plan to get out of it had involved showing up Monte Pike by proving that Sarah Woodruff had not murdered John Finley. To do that, he’d planned to use the information about the ship, but everyone knew about the ship now. It would be better if Dietz showed up Pike, but the little prick would still be humiliated if Garrett won an acquittal.

By the time the elevator arrived at his floor, Dietz was ready to forget about the China Sea and move on with his life. The doors opened, and just as he started to leave the car, Dietz remembered something Denise Blailock had said. He froze with one foot in the car and the other in the hall. The elevator door bumped him and the insistent buzzing of the safety system drove him out of the car. Dietz’s body was standing in the hall but his mind was elsewhere.