Stone Investigations (Stone Series Book 4) by Bob Blanton (open ebook txt) 📗

Brianna was facing off against Mariam Lockhart.  It was thefirst time the two had ever played each other.  The match was intense asneither woman lost her serve.  Brianna won the first set in a tiebreaker 7-5. Matthew just cursorily checked in on Dante. He was sure he was going to followthe same pattern as yesterday so he decided to just count the money packagesagain at the end of the day instead of trying to watch the handoffs.

Brianna lost the second set in a tiebreaker 5-7 and was nowpreparing to serve for the first time in the final set.

“I can’t believe she can’t break her serve,” Emily said.

“Both of them are serving like demons.  I don’t see howthey’re keeping it up.  But Brea is scoring the most points on her opponent’sserve, so you would think she’d eventually break her.”

“True, but she’s having to work awfully hard to do it.”

The two watched as the final set played out similar to thefirst two.  Brianna won most of her games at love, while her opponent alwaysseemed to lose one or two points on her serve.  Finally, it came down to the lasttiebreaker.

“I don’t like this.  Brea’s looking tired.”

“They both are.”

“I know, but she lost the last tiebreaker.”

“It’s hard to believe since she’s won so many points againstserves.  But then Mariam seems to be able to really buckle down during thetiebreakers.”

The two watched as the two women held serve to 7-7, thenBrianna faltered and was broken on her serve.  Mariam held serve to win thetournament.

“Damn, that was harsh!”

“Matthew!” Mrs. Stevenson scolded.

“Sorry.”  Emily and Matthew had been so focused on the matchthat they hadn’t heard Mrs. Stevenson arrive with the two girls.

“I assume by that outburst that Brea lost.”

“Yes, all three sets were decided by a tiebreaker,” Emilysaid.  “Brea just couldn’t hold out.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.  But second place is still a big deal.”

“I know, but you know Brea, she’s going to be devastated.”

“I should be going,” Matthew said.

“Do you want a ride home?”

“No, I’ve got my bike.  It’s not too far.”

“Okay, let me show you out.”

Once they were outside, Emily grabbed Matthew’s arm.  “Didyou check on Dante?”

“Yes, he had eight packages just like yesterday.  I’ll tryand see if I can figure out what he does with the money tonight.”

“Okay, see you at school tomorrow.”

They were both so distraught over Brianna’s loss, that theyforgot to review what Matthew had learned about Dante.

◆ ◆ ◆

On Monday, Emily cornered Matthew before French class. “Well, what did you find out?”

“Not much.  I did see him bundling the money up.  He wasusing calipers to count it.”

Emily scrunched her brow in confusion, “What?”

“He was using a caliper to count the money.  Money is a fixedthickness, so if you accurately measure how thick a stack is, then you know howmuch money is in it.  It looks like they mostly get hundreds since he wasmaking stacks of hundreds.  Anyway, he was putting the money in stacks offifteen thousand dollars, which is a bit weird.”

“And that’s all you saw?”

“Hey, I have a life.  Besides, I was at my limit on holding myportal open, so I went to bed.”

Chapter 6Breaking News

Matthew was watching the 10 o’clock news on Monday night,trying to see if there would be anything he could use for their investigationwhen a news bulletin came up.

“Breaking news!  San Diego Police sued for harassment!  OnFriday, the police accosted two citizens in Starbucks.  The police claimed thatthey were breaking up a suspected drug deal, but when they searched thesuspects they found nothing to indicate anything untoward had taken place.  Thedetective in charge used unnecessary force when he searched the male suspect,who has now filed a harassment suit against the police department.”

They played the video from the Starbucks surveillance camera.

“As you can see, the suspect did not resist the policeofficer.  The police tell us that the officer told him to assume the position,but who among us would know what that meant?  It is clear that the officerslammed Mr. Sutton’s head into the counter for no reason.”

The reporter went on about how police harassment against Blackmales was a problem and pointed out that the City of San Diego spent millions ofdollars each year settling suits against the police for illegal use of forceand other abuse-of-power charges.

Matthew did a quick check on Detective Vaughn.  The detectivewas watching the same news program and clearly, he was not happy.  Matthewdecided he definitely had to check in on the briefing the next morning.

◆ ◆ ◆

When Matthew tuned into the briefing the next day, DetectiveVaughn was already yelling.

“Jones, you screwed up, you’re lucky you’re not suspended!”

“Hey, the kid was being a smartass!”

“It doesn’t matter.  Now we’ve got the press all over us, aswell as alerting the drug ring that we’re tracking users.”

“Like they didn’t already know that.  I don’t know how theyset us up, but that kid was dealing, I just know it.”

“Well, what you know and what you can prove are two differentthings.  Now that kid is like kryptonite, we can’t touch him.”

“We can still follow him and see where he leads us.”

“Yes, now that we have a real name, we can put a tail onhim,” one of the other detectives offered.

“Great, I appreciate the offer.  You tail him.  See what hedoes.  Now, what else do we have?”

“I finished sorting through all the users we have files on. I’ve flagged those with profiles matching our target, well-to-do, middleclass.  It’s a pretty short list.”

Matthew closed his portal.  It didn’t look like they werelikely to be making any progress if they still thought Frankie would provideany leads.

◆ ◆ ◆

Brianna and her parents had stayed over on Monday to watchthe professional finals at the U.S. Open.  So they flew in early Tuesdaymorning so Brianna could make it to school before first period.  Matthewhurried off to school even though this was Tuesday and he had first period free;he wanted to be there when Brianna arrived.

When the Winthrops drove up, Jason piled out of the car andwaved at Matthew as he ran off to his first class.  Brianna got out and smiledat Matthew.

“Hey, Matt, long