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

had to happen between the event at Starbucks and when she diedthree days later.  So that’s a short window of time.”

“Right, that means the pills had to be at hand.  Grahamcouldn’t have ordered them from La Paz and gotten them in time to kill Frye.”

“Doesn’t that suggest that Frye made contact with anotherdealer and bought bad pills?”

“I don’t think so.  She had a two-week supply of pills,that’s eight hundred dollars. Would she have made that big a buy from anotherdealer?  Typically it’s just a few days’ or a week’s supply.  Graham made thembuy two weeks to weed out lowlifes.”

“That means if he had those pills available, he has to havemore.  He wouldn’t just have enough to take care of one problem,” Agent Peterssaid.  “So, that begs the question, where is he hiding them?”

“I’ve looked everywhere,” Matthew said.

“Well, let’s think of places to hide pills,” Emily said. “You checked all the plumbing right?”

“Yes.”

“So did I,” Matthew said.

“What about inside the fixtures?”

“Check.”

“Under the toilet?” Emily asked giving them a knowing look.

“No, I didn’t think about that.  Let me look now.”

Matthew used his portal to check the space under each of thetoilets in the Graham house.  “Nope, nothing there.”

“Under the floorboards?”

“I did look there.”

“So did we.  The house sits on a concrete slab, but wechecked between floors and in the attic.”

“What about the garage?”

“First place we looked.”

“Hmm,” Matthew mused.  “Does he have any unusual tools?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, but something that would let him create ahiding place.  Something that a normal homeowner wouldn’t have.”

“Let me call.”  Agent Peters pulled out her phone and put iton the table.  She pressed a speed dial and waited.”

“Jackson!”

“Jackson, this is Peters.  What kind of tools does Graham have?”

“Tools?”

“Yes, anything unusual?”

“Not really.  He does have a nice set of tools.  Let me walkout and look again.  We’ve got them spread out on the garage floor.”

Matthew opened his portal and followed Agent Jackson into thegarage.  He looked over the tools as Agent Jackson perused them.

“Nothing stands out.  He’s got a nice power toolset.  Theylook almost new.  Standard saw blade in the skill saw.  Drill bits.  Metal set,a wood set.  He does have a really nice set of auger bits, twelve inches.  I’dlike that, they must have been hard to find.  I’ve only got a seven-inch set.”

“What else?”

“Good set of wrenches, both metric and English.  Pipe wrench,channel locks.  Pretty much the works, probably bought them at Sears along withthe toolbox.”

Matthew raised his hand to Agent Peters.’

“Hold on a second,” she said as she muted the phone.

“He doesn’t have any woodworking tools, but he has a full setof auger bits.”

“So, that’s not unusual.”

“But they are, they’re extra-long, he didn’t get them in thekit like the rest of his tools.  He had to special order them.”

“Okay, so?”

“Those pills are less than three-eighths of an inch indiameter.  You could fit a lot of them into a twelve-inch hole.”

“Good point.”  Agent Peters unmuted her phone.  “Jackson,check places where he might have drilled a hole to stuff the pills down. Itwould only need to be three-eighths in diameter.”

“Are you trying to show off again?”

“Maybe.  What does he have there that’s wood and you coulddrill that kind of hole in?  Someplace reasonably accessible.”

“We’ll look around.  Not sure where we should start.”

“Doors,” Emily whispered.

“Check out his doors first.  He got a nice set of wood entrydoors.  And the door to the garage is solid core.”

“Got it.  We’ll look.  Do you want me to call you back?”

“If you find pills, damn right I do.  And if you find them,don’t touch them without gloves.  I’m thinking about pills laced with excessiveFentanyl.”

“You got it.”

Agent Peters disconnected the call.  “That was some good policework.  We’ll see if it pans out.”

“Matt, can’t you look?”

“It’s hard, I need a gap, and if he’s sealed them in, whichhe would, then I wouldn’t have an easy way to find them.”

“Let’s let Jackson do his job.  Do either of you wantdessert?”

“I never say no to chocolate,” Emily said.

“What she said.”

After ordering three slices of German Chocolate cake andcoffee, the three returned to their analysis.

“Okay, so let’s assume he had pills at hand.  How did he getthem to Frye down here in San Diego?”

“He wouldn’t have done it himself,” Emily said.

“I agree.  He’d have had someone deliver them for him. Probably the guy he uses to recruit his distributors,” Agent Peters said.

“Do we know who that is?”

“No, we come up dry.  All we have is that he’s an attractiveHispanic male, height about five-ten and weight one-eighty.”

“That sounds like Hector,” Matthew said.

“Who?!”

“Hector, the guy he handed his truck to when he drove to DanaPoint.  Same guy and same truck both times.”

“Anything else?”

“No.  I just remember him saying ‘Bye Hector, thanks forloaning me the truck.’ when he handed the keys to him.”

“Okay, that helps.”

“How?” Emily asked.  “There must be thousands of guys namedHector.”

“But there are a lot fewer Hispanic males named Hector thanthere are Hispanic males.  Now, we have to do more real police work.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, we can’t all just pop in and look at places and peoplewhen we feel like it.  We have to do research.  Now we have a partial name anda general description, what else do we know about Hector?”

“He’s good with people.”

“He knows Graham.”

“Yes, and who would Graham trust to be his recruiter?  Howdid he find Hector?”

“Oh, I bet Hector is someone he knows from his past,” Emilysaid.

“And who would he know from his past with those skills?”Agent Peters asked.

“He was in the army as an MP for six years.  Then he sold realestate, he actually still does.  He’s also involved in real estatedevelopment.”

“But that’s just in the last two years.  This guy has to befrom before then.  Sales is a good place to start.  So real estate, financialbroker, banker, they’re all good salespeople.  What else?”

“Isn’t that a good start?  You’re going to search his backgroundand see if there’s a Hector in it with some background in sales,” Emily said.

“Ah-hem.  How are you going to explain where the name Hectorcame from?” Matthew asked.

“You keep helping with this investigation, but your helpkeeps