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He rapped on the door and opened it. Vernon’s half-glazed expression morphed into relief so fast, Eric almost laughed. Stifling his smile, he took a quick visual inventory of Samuel Phillips.

The man was young—twenty-two, maybe twenty-four, max. Dark hair. Average height and build, maybe a bit on the thin side. Dressed in baggy cargo pants and a wrinkled T-shirt, he looked and smelled like he hadn’t showered in days. The condition of his teeth gave a pretty good indication of his drug of choice.

A full three seconds later, Phillips noticed him and broke off his song in the middle of the chorus. “Hey. Who’re you?” There was no defensiveness or demand in his tone, only curiosity.

“I’m Detective Thornton. You can call me Eric if you’d like.” He could already tell this guy would respond better to friendliness than intimidation.

Vernon slipped out quietly, and Eric lowered himself into the vacated chair. He pulled out his notepad, then started the recorder and stated the necessary information. Phillips watched as if totally intrigued.

“So, Samuel—do you go by Samuel, or can I call you Sam?”

“Everybody calls me Sam.” He scratched his arm, and his left leg jiggled like he had a spring attached to his heel. “Well, except for my mom. She always calls me Samuel. But everybody else says Sam.”

“Great. Sam, then.” Eric glanced at his paper as if referencing a notation, though nothing was written yet. “How long you been dealing?”

The man swiped at his nose. “I dunno what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, really? I heard you had a lot of product in your car.”

“Whoever said that made a mistake. I didn’t have anything illegal in my car. I was just on my way to ... to...” His eyes roamed as he thought. “To hit a drive-through. Yeah. I was just going for something to eat. No crime in that.”

“But what about all those bags you had?” Eric leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “They made up quite the stash. Looked like a couple grand worth.”

“I still don’t ... know.” Sam’s eyes continued to skitter around the room, and he scratched at his arm again. “I mean, I need to clean it out. Yeah. There’s probably lots of burger wrappers and fast-food bags.”

Eric shook his head but kept his tone conversational. “I’m not talking about those. I’m talking about the little plastic bags with powder in them. Remember those? The officer you came in with collected about a dozen of them from your passenger seat.”

“Oh. Those bags. That wasn’t anything. Just sugar.”

Eric cocked his head. “Sugar?”

“Yeah. I got a sweet tooth.”

“Why all the separate bags?”

“I, uh...” He scratched harder. A dot of blood appeared on his forearm. “It’s not as messy as carrying around the big bag. You know, the five pound one.”

“Makes sense, I suppose. So why’d you tell the officer it was baby powder?”

The man blinked. “Oh, uh, some of them are baby powder.”

“Sounds like it’d be a nasty mistake if you happened to grab the wrong one.”

“Yeah.” He attempted a disgusted look, but the effect was morecomical than believable. “I did that once. Tasted awful. Had to wash my mouth out and everything.”

This had gone far enough. The guy was too high to realize how ridiculous he sounded. Eric was going to have to add a little pressure if he wanted to get anything useful from him.

“I’m going to level with you, Sam. We know the bags aren’t sugar—or baby powder.” He leaned back and clicked his pen. “Fact is, you had a serious amount of drugs in your possession.”

Sam’s leg started bouncing faster and harder. “No, I don’t sell drugs. Don’t do ’em either. Just say no, right? That’s what my mom always said.”

“But see, here’s the problem. We found them in your car. You could serve some serious time. Worse—” he paused for effect—“people around here have been dying from fentanyl-laced meth. If your bags come back from the lab showing fentanyl content, you might go down for homicide.”

His leg stopped bouncing for the first time since the interrogation started. “No! These are clean. Marco’s the one who did the lacing, and the big guy said anyone else caught doing that would pay like he did. I don’t wanna die.”

Gotcha.

Eric kept his face placid, but his mind raced with the new information. The lacing hadn’t been sanctioned. Somebody had stepped out of line to pad his own pockets, and the “big guy” hadn’t been happy about the deaths—probably because it called too much attention to their operation. Who was this Marco? Was that the name of their John Doe? He stuck that question in his pocket for later. He had a more pressing one first.