Free An Absence of Principal by Jimmy Patterson Page A

waiting for me in the parking lot. He told me to get in and drive west into Chile to a place called Valparaiso. It’s a 500-mile drive. The director of DEA’s regional office where I was headquartered told me to make the drive in one day, and to take no longer. Don’t stop for food, slow down or look at anyone.”
    “So, no problems along the way?” Garrison said.
    “No, remarkably,” Alex said.
    “But when I got there and checked into a small hotel near the docks, what happened next I still can’t explain.”
    Garrison stirred his coffee and kept his eyes on Alex.
    “Only four people knew my cell number,” Alex said. “My boss at DEA regional, my husband in Fort Worth, my daughter, and Maria’s mother in Aguileres. My phone rang that first night in Valparaiso. The voice on the other end said, ‘The two kilos of cocaine you are interested in, in Argentina will arrive in Valparaiso at the end of the week.’”
    “And who made that call?”
    “Well, it wasn’t my daughter,” Alex said. “Maria’s mother was oblivious to anything in the drug world. She was totally devoted to the Church in Argentina. That leaves DEA and my husband. Don’t know between the two of them who would have been connected at the time. As I said, no one really had intimate details about where I was going or what I was doing. My first hunch is that DEA planted a car, but I can’t be sure.”
    “You get the caller’s number?”
    “Blocked.”
    Garrison had heard the rumors of an interconnectedness in the drug world. He had always chosen not to believe them. They say cops always have the best drugs. DEA knows where to get the best drugs. And how to get them.
    “How clean was your DEA director?”
    “So far as I could tell, he was clean,” Alex said. “And I know where you’re going with that. As far as I know the people in my office had no ties to the cartels. That’s fiction stuff as far as I’m concerned.”
    “But your office could have been bugged when you were talking early on about wanting to follow this path of the two kilos.”
    “I never mentioned it to anyone, in any conversations,” Alex said.
    It made no sense. Garrison knew the cartels and the drug operatives were the embodiment of evil, but they never had any supernatural ability to determine a person’s motives. The call to Alex had to come from her DEA superior, Garrison thought. Unless someone had broken into Alex’s hotel or her room at Maria’s house to obtain her cell number, her DEA boss was corrupt and a part of the bigger problem of trafficking. Alex’s husband, though, was still an unknown factor in the whole scheme of things.
    “What happened next?”

Ben Doggett now knew what it felt like to be called to the principal’s office. His stomach churned as he drove to Superintendent Martin’s, wondering and worrying the whole way about just what his boss knew. Ben wondered whether the students on their way to his office ever worried this much on the walk down that they think they’re going to lose their lunch because of it. He would be more lenient on his students. If he was ever given a chance again, Ben thought.
    “Morning, Beau,” Ben said.
    “Come in, Ben. Have a seat.” Martin’s tone was all business. It made Doggett’s stomach lurch a little.
    Ben was clearly disheveled. He’d thrown on a shirt that he’d worn the day before. The wrinkles in his sleeves spoke more about how Ben’s life had started to unravel, but not nearly as much as did the red eyes he had and his inability to concentrate for long periods of time. Being hung over will do that to a person.
    “You OK? You look tired,” Martin said.
    “I’m good, good,” Ben assured, sounding somewhat unsure, as if he was trying to talk his boss into something he knew wasn’t true.
    “Ben, I got a call yesterday from an attorney who said he was representing Angela. You need to tell me anything?”
    “We’re just going through a rough patch,” Doggett responded quickly.