Page 238 of The Billion Heirs Boxed Set
“You don’t need to volunteer information,” Akers says. “Just tell them what we talked about.”
He nods. “Right. Joey Hopkins wasn’t working on a federal investigation. At least not to my knowledge. But he was collecting information.”
“On Racehorse Hauling?” Jarvis asks.
Another nod. “Yeah. He worked there. His old man recommended him to me.”
“You know Curt Hopkins?” I ask, trying to put all the players together.
Chubb nods. “He and I worked together on a few construction projects back in the day. Anyway, one day on a job I wasn’t wearing my hard hat, and Curt pushed me out of the way when a steel beam fell. He took a huge whack on the head. Even with the hard hat, he was never the same after that. His skills suffered, and he started drinking. But the fucker—”
“Mr. Chubb,” Akers admonishes.
I hold back laughter. She’s telling him not to use the F-word after she talked about something sprouting out of her ass. Still like her, though.
“Whatever. Sorry.” He rolls his eyes. “Anyway, he saved my life that day. The beam would have taken me out for sure. I think he did it so he wouldn’t be shut down though. I mean, a workman’s comp claim like mine, where I wasn’t wearing a hard hat when I was supposed to… you know what I mean. But still.” He pauses a moment, coughs into his hand. “So when I heard of this opportunity with Racehorse Hauling, I brought him in. I knew his business was suffering, and it was suffering because of me. If he’d let me croak that day he’d still have his faculties and he wouldn’t have started drinking.”
I’m not so sure about that, but it definitely could have been the start.
“Is any of this in our records?” I ask Jarvis.
He looks my way. “Not that I’ve seen, but we weren’t looking at Curt Hopkins as a suspect.”
He’s already in jail for attempted murder of ’his own daughter, who’s also a police detective.
“True, and Sadie’s been estranged from her father, so she wouldn’t know. Go on, Mr. Chubb. What was the opportunity you found with Racehorse Hauling?”
“I swear to God I thought it was on the up and up at first. My criminal days were behind me.”
“Your criminal days?” I ask. “All we have in your record is that you were a suspect in an armed robbery, but you were cleared.”
“Go ahead,” Akers says to Chubb.
“I was good,” he says with a smirk. “I never got caught.”
“Doing what?” Jarvis demands.
“Does it matter?” Akers asks. “Whatever he did isn’t the least bit relevant to your investigation.”
Jarvis sighs. “Not at this point, I guess. Go on.”
“I got a shit ton of money for hauling freight into Canada,” he says. “And when I say a shit ton, I mean a shit ton. I didn’t know what the hell I was hauling and I didn’t care. I took their money, and I sent half of it to Curt.”
“Why?” Jarvis asks.
I want to know as well.
“Because the fucker—” He looks at Akers. “Sorry. The man saved my life. He was a mess. So I did what I could to help him. When he sent his son to me for a job, I hired him too. Things went fine for a couple years. I kept Joey on routes night and day so no one knew where he was.”
“So he didn’t disappear?” I ask.
“Depends on the definition of disappear, I guess.” Chubb snorts. “He did take a little time off to donate a portion of his liver to some friend of his.”
“So that’s what happened,” I say. “Which friend?”
“I don’t know, but they were a match, apparently. Anyway, Joey was a good guy, but not the brightest. He did what he was told. But when he came back to work after the liver donation, he was…different. Said he’d had an epiphany in the hospital or something and he wasn’t comfortable with what was going on. He started asking questions I couldn’t answer.”
“Couldn’t answer?” Jarvis asks.
