Free Black Lace by Beverly Jenkins Page A

getting into the game. You’ll be hearing from me.”
    And he left.
    Lacy realized she was shaking.
    A wide-eyed Ida rushed in. “What happened?”
    “I don’t know, but I think I just made an enemy.”

Five
    Drake’s meeting with the governor took up most of the afternoon, but before he could leave the capital he had to meet with a few of the Detroit legislators. By the time he and Malcolm finally headed back to Detroit for the last meeting of the day, he was running late.
    When he entered the large conference room of Chandler Works, the lights were already dimmed and the members of NIA were seated around the table waiting for the slide show to begin. NIA was Drake’s brain child. When he first became mayor, the city had been so overrun with drug-related violence that every time he picked up a newspaper or turned on the nightly news, there were stories of death. Because the country had spent billions fighting drugs in the major cities with only minimal results, Drake decided to try a different and yes, controversial approach. That approach was NIA, which in Swahili, means purpose, and Drake’s purpose at the time had been to rid his beloved city of the drugs and its ancillary pestilence by any means necessary. It was an ongoing battle. They’d had success on some fronts and were still knocking on closed doors on others, but Drake refused to give up.
    Relieved that the briefing hadn’t started, he quickly found a chair in the back and tossed his overcoat onto the empty chair in front on him. The first slide came up. The color shot was of a middle-age Black man Drake didn’t recognize.
    “This is Lloyd Wheeler. For the past ten years he was the accountant at Parker Environmental, City Councilman Reynard Parker’s company. For the past six months Wheeler has been feeding info on Parker to our friends over in the Federal Building.”
    The voice of the narrator belonged to Drake’s half brother, Mykal Chandler, the no nonsense CEO of the architectural firm Chandler Works and the titular head of NIA. Myk stood then, and Drake could see his tall frame in the light of the projector.
    “According to Wheeler,” he continued, “Parker has been using his trash haulers to distribute drugs. That was verified this afternoon. One of his trucks was stopped by the border patrol at the Ambassador Bridge which connects Detroit to Windsor, Ontario. The agents found thirty-five trash bags of pot, or roughly about a thousand pounds.”
    Somebody whistled.
    “The driver’s in custody, but he’s asked for alawyer, so we have to wait and see if he implicates his boss.”
    A woman seated in front of Drake interrupted. “How much more information does this Wheeler have? Various agencies have been trying to nail Parker for years.”
    “No idea, because Mr. Wheeler went missing a few days ago.”
    Drake asked, “Do we think he’s missing or dead?”
    “Unfortunately it may be the latter,” his brother responded. “His wife has filed a missing persons report. For the moment, the feds are treating the disappearance as a missing persons case. She’s agreed to let them look at his home computer, and they’ll probably want to do the same for the one in his office.”
    “What’s Parker saying?”
    “He’s been talking back and forth with Wheeler’s wife, offering to help her look for him, telling her not to worry because he’s sure her husband will show up.”
    “Are we looking at him as a suspect?”
    “Yep, but proving he’s responsible is going to be the hard part. Especially with no corpse.”
    Drake asked, “You’ll keep us posted?”
    Myk nodded.
    Drake wondered if Parker knew about the Wheeler partnership with the feds and had him killed because of it. He wouldn’t be surprised. He also wouldn’t be surprised if indicting Parker took a long time. The man was smart; too smart, it seemed. He was shaping up to be NIA’s most challenging foe since the deadly Clark Nelson, who had been a major player in theMidwest