"Start talking," Ruzek said.
"I'm the bottom of the chain. I get the stuff from my cousin, he gets the stuff from another guy, who—"
"So you're just a distributer?" Ruzek said.
"Yeah. I don't know where it comes from. And I don't know who else is dealing either. I don't ask and I don't care to know. I just know I have to get rid of it by a certain day or else I'm in deep shit. My cousin tells me that if I don't get it to enough kids in time they might come after me or my family." Demetrius said.
"Who's your cousin?" Lindsay asked.
Demetrius hesitated for a moment before starting to speak. "LaMarcus Roland. He's the one that got me caught up in this."
Lindsay and Ruzek looked at each other pondering their next move. "Look, you can't go after LaMarcus. If he finds out I was taken in or worse if whoever is in charge finds out, I'm dead. Or my family is dead. I got two little sisters. I promised my mom I would get her out of this neighborhood. I can't lose it all now."
"You should've thought of that before you started working in a drug ring." Erin said.
"Please," Demetrius said.
"We won't go after him," Ruzek said.
Lindsay flashed him a look. She wanted this guy in custody as soon as possible so she could get answers. She wanted Jay home. Things still weren't exactly the way she wanted between them and she knew the sooner he got home, the sooner the issues could get resolved.
"Outside," Lindsay said to Ruzek, leaving Demetrius in the interrogation room. Voight and Olinsky stood in the hallway, as Lindsay and Ruzek joined them.
"We're going after him," Lindsay said, folding her arms across her chest.
"We can't do that," Ruzek said.
"And why the hell not?" Lindsay said, whisper screaming.
"Because odds are Roland doesn't know who the head of this distribution ring is. We need him out on the street. If we arrest him, or even have him sniff the paint in the lobby downstairs, we lose any possibility of ending this." Voight said.
"We'll have the kid work with us. Let him stick with his cousin. Maybe he'll find the next guy up on the chain." Olinsky said.
"You let him know that, O," Hank said.
"We need to get him back out on the streets before they found out he got pinched." Ruzek said.
Olinsky and Ruzek went back into the interrogation room to explain the plan to Demetrius. Lindsay and Voight remained in the hallway outside of the interrogation room for a few seconds, before Lindsay took a deep breath and walked down toward the locker room.
"Erin," Hank said, turning in her direction.
"Yeah?" Lindsay said, annoyed that he was still talking.
"We'll get him home as soon as we can. You know it's not gonna happen overnight." Voight said. It was like her thoughts in the last hour were floating over her head in a bubble.
"Yeah sure," Erin said, before she continued her walk toward the locker room.
Jay Halstead sat in his pretend office on the first floor of the school. It was nearing the end of the school day, and he was bored out of his mind to say the least. He didn't find any suspicious activity at all during his time monitoring the students. Just a bunch of obnoxious high school students acting out to show off. He was wondering if Voight had sent him to the wrong school. He was shooting paper balls into a wastebasket when the final bell rang. Nearly 15 minutes later most of the school was cleared out, with the exception of students involved in extracurricular activities and students in detention.
He went around the halls of the school one more time before leaving, knowing that Antonio would be here the rest of the night to survey the halls after hours. He grabbed the keys to the car the district provided him and his phone on the way out. Two messages from Voight lit up the screen when he turned it on. "Call me when you can."
Jay turned the screen off on the phone and walked to his car. The lot was on the other side of the building, near the surrounding neighborhood. Jay parked there intentionally, hoping he could get a chance to look around the surrounding area for any shady behavior.
When he reached his car he looked up at the row of houses across the street. They were older homes, that have probably been there since the school was built. They weren't well kept, most of them had a boarded up window or piles of garbage in front of their homes. Jay noticed a group of teenagers sitting outside one of the homes, eating junk food and laughing loudly. When he was about to get in the car, a dark black SUV pulled up at the corner of the street. Jay pretended to not notice, and got in his car. He watched as one of the boys wearing a grey hoodie stood up and walked toward the van. A few minutes later he returned, with a fairly large bag of something tucked under his sweatshirt. Jay drove off in the direction of the apartment, calling Voight as soon as he arrived.
"Halstead," Voight said.
"Yeah, I just got home. You have anything from that kid you guys brought in?" Jay asked.
"Yeah, Demetrius gave us some info. He lead us to a guy named LaMarcus Roland. It's his cousin that he gets the dope from. He doesn't know much else other than that if he doesn't sell the shit quick enough he's dead." Voight explained.
"Did you release him?" Jay asked.
"Yeah, a few hours ago. You find anything?" Voight asked.
"I actually did. On my way out I saw a bunch of kids near the back lot of the school. An all black SUV pulled up, one of the kids went to the van, and a few minutes later got out with a pretty large bag under his shirt. I would say it's safe to assume it's drugs. Is there any way you can find out if Demetrius knows about this SUV?"
"We're sending Atwater out to meet him on neutral ground early tomorrow. I'll have him ask." Voight said.
"Alright sounds great. Say hello to everyone for me. And take care of Erin." Halstead said.
"Will do, kid. Erin's having a tough time so I sent her home early. I'll probably stop by this evening. You come home as soon as you can." Voight said.
"Yes sir." Jay said, hanging up the phone. Jay ordered in Chinese food, and watched the Blackhawks game in silence, until he fell asleep on the couch.
Erin sat in her apartment, mindlessly watching some reality tv show from the couch. She couldn't keep her mind off of work or off of Jay being away on an undercover assignment. But she knew she needed to, because this wasn't healthy at all. She stood up and retrieved her bottle of tequila from her liquor cabinet, and a glass. She placed them on the counter and stared at them, contemplating whether she should get drunk when she had work the next day. Before she could open the bottle, she heard a knock at the door.
"It's open," Erin said.
Hank Voight opened the door and entered her apartment. "How many times did I tell you to not leave your door unlocked?"
"Too many," Erin said, resting her head on the countertop, still staring at the tequila.
"This…" Voight said, grabbing the bottle and the glass, "isn't going to help you." He put the bottle back in the liquor cabinet and the glass away.
Erin remained in the same position and rolled her eyes. Voight stood next to her, with his arms folded across his chest. "Did I ever tell you the story about the first time I went undercover after Camille had Justin?"
"No," Erin said, her voice barely a whisper.
"Justin was maybe 8 weeks old. And the kid was giving us a hard time, he would never stop crying. I was assigned to go after some jackass smuggling weapons into Chicago. When I told Camille, she was terrified, and sure I was gonna get a bullet in my head. She wanted to do everything possible to keep me with her and Justin. But I went anyway. Broke her heart. I wasn't sure what I was going to come home to, if I made it back."
"Was that supposed to make me feel better, Hank, because…" Erin trailed off.
"The point is, I made it back home. And we worked things out, and figured out how to make our relationship work. When Jay gets back, you two will figure out what works and what doesn't." Voight said.
"Since when do you give relationship advice?" Erin said with a chuckle.
"About 5 minutes ago," Voight said, chuckling.