Staying Under The Radar

41| Authority

41| Authority
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Detective Levi was middle aged who carried authority very well, as well as he carried a cigarette. His dark lips tainted from the tar, made him look frightening with his beady eyes and long dark face.

"I'm not surprised you have taken an interest in the case, everyone seems to want a piece of the Creeds enterprise." He spoke, stirring his milk in his coffee.

We had to meet Detective Levi in a pub, just of the main raid. He thought it was best to meet somewhere where we could have privacy.

"I've been investing Creeds for the past eight years, nothing has ever stuck to call for an investigation or even ask for a warrant." He took a sip, pulled a face, then emptied two more milk tubs into his drink.

"Your bacon rolls." The waitress placed two bacon rolls on the table, Gabe handed me mine and I muttered a 'thanks.'

Things weren't awkward between us, but we hardly had the time to talk about this morning. There wasn't much to talk about, but between rushing to go meet the Detective because we overslept, we hadn't had the time. Somehow Gabe managed to turn a forty minute drive into a twenty-five minute drive, zipping in and out of the busy morning traffic. The only thing we managed to say to each was to ask if we were okay, and what I wanted to eat.

"It must feel pretty good knowing that his son is in your custody." Gabe asked, squeezing the ketchup onto his slightly burnt bacon.

"Yeah. It feels good knowing that a man with his name gets away with everything because his father controls everyone." The sarcasm justified by his annoyance. "Creeds has eyes and ears in the local authority, in the Police force, you can't trust anyone. Hence, we had to meet here."

I scoffed. "So you're saying we can trust you? How do you know you can trust us?" I looked up, catching his smiling eyes.

"I want nothing more than to once and for all nail this guy. As for trusting you, your friend here," He indicated to Gabe who was currently taking a bite out of his roll, "tells me you two are reporters, working on the case. You've got good sources so why not trust you, if it means I can get some insights too?"

"That's it? Just because we are reporters you trust us? What if we're Creeds people?" I asked. There was a light nudge on my foot. At least this time I knew it wasn't a cat, but the leg of my partner.

"What my partner means is: with Creeds having his crew everywhere, how do you know who to trust?" Gabe sat his roll down and took and larger gulp of orange juice.

"Well, I'm not dead yet, so I must be doing something right. Plus, you two don't look like people Creeds would employ." His beady eyes looking us up and down like a joystick on a controller.

"Why?"

"Creeds doesn't have people walking around asking about him; draws too much attention. Instead, he has people that makes sure no one gets too close." He sipped his coffee again.

"Is that why it has taken you so long to even get a warrant?" I asked, attempting to remove the fat from the needle strip of bacon.

He scoffed. "I still haven't got a warrant."

"Then how'd you make the arrest on Aaron Creeds, Creeds son?" Gabe interjected. "Surely you must have been able to search his place, or at least him."

"I haven't got a warrant to search the Creeds residency. Someone, who's identity is confidential, gave us some eye witness detail."

"Which was?"

"That Emily, the dead girl, frequently took drugs, also confirmed by Alex...That Aaron was her dealer...It was enough to then start looking in Aaron, with a potential case. We waited for weeks to catch him in the act, selling or being in possession. We arrested him on possession - which was lucky for us. We actually had evidence. Obviously he got a fancy lawyer, anything we tried, they had a lawful reason to counteract our evidence." He sipped his coffee again. "If it wasn't medical use, it was another thing."