Law America, the Devil's Agent

Dusk turned the treetops of the Chesternut Hills community into a dark gold.

Benny parked the Ford in the shade of an oak tree not far from the gray-roofed house and turned off the engine.

From this angle, through the windshield, you can clearly see the brand-new, gleaming old pickup truck parked in front of Bromley's house and the dim yellow light shining from the living room window.

They had been waiting for almost three hours.

Benny put the third empty coffee cup back into the cup holder, rubbed his eyes, and finally couldn't help but yawn.

"Team leader, is it really possible for us to find something?"

The person in charge clearly wrote this in the file they gave us:

Nick Quix's parents, the parents of that deceased medical student, were complete scoundrels.

That alcoholic mother and drug addict father might be drinking themselves into a stupor or taking drugs until they're completely unconscious in the house.

We're just sitting here waiting...

"Then I have a question for you."

Link's voice came from the passenger seat, calm and without any impatience:

"Where does he get the money to drink? Where does he get the money to do drugs?"

Benny opened his mouth, but couldn't say anything.

Link didn't look up. He was still reading the file the community leader had given him, which was lying on his lap:

About Nick Quix's family background, financial situation, and timeline before and after his death.

He had already flipped through the file three times from beginning to end, and he had even folded the edges of the key sections of the paper with his fingertips to create tiny creases.

"Although we are lawyers, not detectives, we must still be keen on understanding clues and people."

Link turned to the last page of the file, finally looked up, and gazed at the gray-roofed house outside the window:

"You've seen the files too."

Nick Quixote's parents are complete bastards—

He indulged in alcohol and drugs, living a life of idleness and waiting to die.

They huddled in the house left by their ancestors, living off community welfare and shamelessness, even squandering Nick's medical scholarship.

"Tell me, where does a family like this, suddenly buying a new car, buying new furniture, and having new beer crates piled up in the yard, get the money?"

Benny's lips moved slightly.

"We already know there is a corruption chain within the hospital, and Hawthorne was made a scapegoat because he touched this chain."

Link closed the file and placed it on the dashboard:

"So the Quiss family, one of the four victims, suddenly became financially well-off after their son's death—"

It's hard not to think this is related to a hospital-related transaction!

Solving a case and defending a defendant are sometimes the same thing:

  

Make bold assumptions and verify carefully.

Let's assume the Quaissies cooperated with the hospital in accusing Hawthorne because they received a sufficiently tangible benefit—

Therefore, the source of this benefit is the first piece of evidence we need to find.

Benny leaned back in his chair, remained silent for a moment, and then nodded thoughtfully.

"It's really strange, how could scum like the Quills raise a son like Nick Quill who got into medical school?"

"The key to this is very likely Hawthorne himself."

Link's gaze returned to the gray-roofed house:

Lewis said that Nick was Hawthorne's patient and also his little admirer.

Both lived in the same community, and Hawthorne was a devout believer.

Nick was also a frequent visitor to church due to his grandparents' influence, which destined the two to have a relationship that was both teacher and friend.

A young man who struggled out of a hopeless family and was able to get into medical school must have had someone guide him.

Hawthorne rose from rural Kentucky to become the associate chief of cardiothoracic surgery in Philadelphia, and I think he would have appreciated young people like him the most, because they were most like him.

He paused for a beat:

"There's one more thing."

If Hawthorne really killed Nick, then he personally destroyed the young man to whom he had poured the most effort.

This doesn't make sense. It also doesn't match the descriptions of his personality given by all his neighbors, family, and colleagues.

Benny nodded thoughtfully, as if he was gradually finding the answer in his heart.

Benny didn't say anything, but he turned to a new page in his notebook and removed the pen cap.

As darkness fell completely, the window that had been lit with a dim yellow light suddenly went out.

Benny instinctively sat up straight.

Link didn't move, but his gaze was even more focused than before:

Darkness itself is a signal.

An alcoholic and a drug addict will not both turn off their lights and go to sleep at eight or nine o'clock at night.

They turned off the lights because someone was going out.

Sure enough, a moment later, a figure emerged from the side door of the gray-roofed house.

He walked to the old pickup truck in front of the house, opened the driver's side door, the engine roared, the headlights lit up in the darkness, and then it slowly drove out of the driveway.

Linkla opened the car door and moved Nick from the passenger seat to the driver's seat.

He didn't turn on the headlights, but simply tapped the steering wheel twice with his fingers. He only stepped on the gas after the pickup truck had turned the corner, keeping a distance of three intersections behind.

Link and Benny's vehicle followed the Naguib family into the Philadelphia city center, or more precisely, the dilapidated old city.

The number of people from the surrounding gangs gradually increased.

Link then took out two Bluetooth headsets from his suit pocket, handed one to Benny, put the other in his own ear, and dialed a number.

"Loss, did you see the location I sent you?"

"I see you, sir. I am approaching you."

"Great, I need you to meet me up so we can follow a car together."

"Yes, sir, which one?"

Los's voice came through the headphones, with the deep rhythm of the car stereo playing in the background.

"It's that blue pickup truck in front of me right now. I've sent you the license plate number."

The driver is Nick Quix's father, Holland Quix. I need you to come with me and keep up with him.

We've probably stumbled into some gang territory. You're quite knowledgeable about these things.

Stay close to him, hold on tight to him, and tell me what you get.

Tell me where he's going and who he's going to see.

"Received." Los didn't waste any words.

A moment later, a dark gray sedan slowly slid out from the side intersection, merged into the traffic, and followed the pickup truck at a distance.

Benny looked at the car through the side window, a hint of confusion flashing across his face.

"That is..."

"My informant. Also my assistant."

Link said his gaze remained fixed on the two red taillights ahead:

"His name is Los, an outer member of the South African gang."

As a lawyer, you'll eventually realize one thing:

Lawyers are not omnipotent, and we don't always have to deal with things from high society.

For example, we don't understand the social networks and underground rules of alcoholics and drug addicts.

You need someone to look at the problem from another perspective.

He's in charge of observing; we're in charge of interpreting.

This is what a team is all about.

Benny paused for two seconds, then nodded.

He didn't ask any more questions, but simply wrote down Link's teachings in his notebook.

The pickup truck didn't take a detour. Its route was very purposeful—

After passing through the Chesternut Hills community, turn onto the northbound main road and gradually drive into a sparsely lit industrial area.

The streetlights on both sides of the street are becoming fewer and fewer, and mottled graffiti is beginning to appear on the walls.

The elderly people chatting outside the convenience store are no longer there; instead, groups of young people are standing in the shadows.

Los's hushed voice came through the headphones.

"Sir, he is entering the Blood Hands' territory."

The area between 17th and 21st Streets in the North District is entirely within their sphere of influence.

I know this area very well; the South African gang has a history with them.

I can't drive any further; if I get any closer, they'll spot me.

"That's enough. Park the car on the outskirts and keep communication open."

Link turned the Cadillac onto a side road, turned off the engine, and switched off all the lights.

From this vantage point, through the gaps in the abandoned factory buildings along the roadside, one can vaguely see the open space enclosed by barbed wire two blocks away.

The pickup truck was parked at the edge of the open space, its high beams illuminating several men leaning against an old trailer in the center of the space.

That man was none other than Nick Quix's father, Holland Quix.

Holland Quays got out of the driver's seat, went around to the back of the pickup truck, lifted the tarpaulin, and began unloading things.

Benny had already picked up his camera.

He looked through the viewfinder, his finger on the shutter, and took one picture after another.

The pickup truck stopped in the middle of the open space. Holland bent down, took a cardboard box from the back of the truck, and handed it to the stranger who approached.

The cardboard boxes weren't big, but they seemed quite heavy. The second box, the third box.

Then a man tore open the seal on the cardboard box, took out a small sealed bag, and waved it in the headlights.

The sealed bag contained neatly arranged medicine bottles.

Benny put down his camera, turned to look at Link, and his eyes shone with a mixture of excitement and shock.

"Team leader—what's in those boxes...?"

"I know."

Link picked up the file from the dashboard, flipped back to the top page of the photo of the Quess family, and looked at the dilapidated gray-roofed door in the picture:

"Continue, take clear pictures of every box he moves."

His voice was calm to the point of being cold.

Half an hour later, the pickup truck's high beams came back on.

Holland Quays sat back in the driver's seat, holding an envelope in his hand, bulging in the inside pocket of his jacket.

He started the engine, the pickup truck turned around on the spot, kicked up a cloud of dust, and drove back the way it came.

Link started the engine, turned on the low beam headlights, and slowly drove off the side road after the pickup truck's taillights disappeared at the end of the industrial area.

……

……

In a 24-hour restaurant three blocks away, Link, Benny, and Los sat around a corner booth.

The coffee on the table had gone cold, but no one noticed. Benny placed his camera on the table; the LCD screen scrolled through the photos he had just taken—

Every frame clearly records Holland Quays's movements as he moves the cardboard boxes, the details of the labels on the boxes, and the outlines of the medicine bottles in the sealed bags that are taken out of the boxes.

"I thoroughly investigated the financial situation of the Quess family."

Benny pulled out his notebook and pointed to several lines of densely packed notes:

"Their tax records for the past three years have been almost blank, and they have been living on community relief and food stamps."

Last year, Nick's scholarship money was used by the couple to pay off their alcohol debts, which is no secret in the community.

But recently, after Nicol died, their family underwent a dramatic change.

But the envelope in the photo makes all the illogical things make sense.

He started to become the gang's mule.

"Yes, that makes sense if it's the Blood Hand Gang. They've been expanding their pharmaceutical lines for the past few years."

Los put down his coffee cup and shook his head:

"But to be honest, pure medical-grade drugs like fentanyl and controlled prescription drugs cannot be counterfeited by street workshops."

There must be a hospital connection.

No matter how ruthless the Blood Hand Gang is, they can't conjure up operating room medications.

Link didn't respond immediately.

He placed several photos on the table, arranged in a row, and then pointed with his finger to the outline of the labels peeking out from the edge of the cardboard boxes in the photos.

"Steve should be able to read these labels."

He said.

He took out his phone and sent the clearest photos to Steve, the pharmacist at the pharmacy.

That's the doctor he recruited as a pawn in the second-floor corridor of the motel.

A moment later, the phone screen lit up. Countless text messages were like flares thrown into the darkness:

"The orange label on the cardboard box in Figure 2 is the official seal of the Pharmacy Department of Philadelphia General Hospital. Only the pharmacy has the authority to print that color label."

"The dimensions of the sealed bag in Figure 5 are the standard inner packaging dimensions for fentanyl injections."

This specification of fentanyl is a Schedule II controlled substance, and hospitals need special permission from the DEA to purchase it.

"The red-capped medicine bottle in Figure 7 contains midazolam."

Same control level. This shipment matches the inventory shortfall we tallied last month perfectly; I always thought it was just a recording error.

"Figure 8 shows the batch number format of Philadelphia General Hospital on the medicine bottle."

That batch number corresponds to a batch of anesthetic drugs that entered the warehouse earlier this year, and the supervisor has signed off that they have all been used. However, these drugs should not be found anywhere outside the hospital.

Benny looked down at the screen and let out a low gasp.

"The illegal possession of fentanyl alone is enough to warrant a federal sentence for him."

He looked up: "Team leader, when did you start suspecting his father was a henchman at the hospital?"

"It started when Lewis said that his family had suddenly become rich."

The son of a slum family died, but instead of grieving, the parents began a spending spree.

This suggests that their son's death brought them some kind of "benefit." And if the most direct connection to this benefit is:

Philadelphia General Hospital!

It could be hush money, or it could be payment for a job. Looking at these photos now, I'm more inclined to believe the latter.

He pointed to the outline of the pickup truck in the photo with his finger.

"His pickup truck. Did you notice? The body is very new, at least it was just replaced recently."

The timing of a family receiving welfare buying a new car coincided with the timeline of their son starting to frequently visit Philadelphia General Hospital.

He likely didn't receive the money after his son's death, but was already transporting goods for the hospital before his son's death.

He paused, his fingertips gently tracing the rim of the glass:

"Why would a chronically alcoholic, low-class white man, a worthless maggot, gain the trust of the hospital to transport controlled drugs for the hospital on gang territory?"

For someone who has long since lost their humanity and only follows their desires, there is only one possibility.

Benny was stunned.

"You mean... Holland Quays used his son as a pledge of allegiance?"

"Perhaps the hospital contacted him on its own initiative."

Link said in a cold and steady voice:

"His son got too close to Hawthorne."

A pre-medical student regarded Hawthorne as his mentor and went to Hawthorne's office every day.

If Hawthorne discovered that someone was dumping medicine out of the hospital, wouldn't his little admirer also become a potential source of leaks?

The hospital needed a win-win solution—to both eliminate Hawthorne and block all possible sources of information.

Holland Quays had been transporting goods for them for some time, and they had something on him.

Perhaps all they need to do is tell him:

"Have your son show up at the right time and in the right place, then shut him up forever."

Benny remained silent for a long time.

The kind young man's expression shifted from shock to anger, and then from anger to a profound sorrow.

"Nick Quix did nothing wrong. He just idolized someone he shouldn't have."

"No."

Link said to gently place the coffee cup on the table:

"He worshipped the person who deserved the most worship."

That's why he became the witness who absolutely couldn't be spared in this murder.