Chasing a Blond Moon(32)

“Meth lab,” she said, “Your basic Beavis and Butthead operation. The lithium batteries tell me they’re making Nazi meth.”

“How do you know?”

“In-service last summer while you were on suspension. Didn’t you read the lit? It was put in your mailbox. We pretty much shut down Cat up here; now crank is moving in.” Cat was methcathinone, a homebrewed amphetamine-like drug made from battery acid, Drano, and nonprescription asthma meds. It had emerged in the U.P. in 1990 and five years later had spread to ten states, as far west as Colorado.

Service had been so caught up in life with Maridly Nantz that he had barely glanced at the information that had accumulated during his suspension.

“We need backup,” McCants said.

“Shouldn’t we look inside first?” he asked.

“That would be nice, but Grady, the shit laying around here can add up to only one conclusion.”

“Okay,” he said. “Call help.” He immediately regretted saying anything because it sounded like he was her superior, approving her actions and giving orders, which was not the way it was.

“I’m going to bring them in quiet and dark,” McCants said. “A lot of these meth cooks are also users. What we don’t need is a tweaker. After a while users go paranoid and don’t react well to anything they might misinterpret.”

While McCants withdrew to use radio, Service decided to take a closer look at the trailer.

Slithering on his belly, the first thing he noticed was the stench—like there were a thousand pissing cats living in the trailer. The debris was as Candi had described it, but there was also a pile of deer viscera and a rancid skin crumpled against the side of the trailer skirt.

He got carefully to his feet and checked the windows of the camper. Blackened, as she said, but the paint was on the outside of the glass, not the interior. Why? He used his fingernail to peel a tiny hole in the paint and look inside. The paint had not been on the glass long. A naked man was standing beside a table filled with clear mason jars. A naked teenage girl stood beside him, wearing a small revolver in a holster. A jam box was blasting. The man had long hair down to middle of his back. Blurred tattoos covered his right shoulder and upper arm. Another blurred tat was on his right buttock. It looked like a name, but he couldn’t make it out. When the girl turned to stare at the window, he dropped to the ground and crawled away from the trailer.

McCants was there when he slid back into their hidey hole. “Help’s rolling,” she said. “ETA, twenty minutes. They’re bringing the drug and hazmat teams—and Grady, they want us to wait.”

“Not a problem,” Service said, the words bringing a grin to his face.

“What’s so funny?” McCants asked.

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Should one of us go greet the posse?”

“No. The Troops will give us a bump on the eight hundred.”

“Looked to me like they’re making something in there right now,” Service told her. “You smell cat piss?”

“That’s the ammonia,” she said. “I hope they’re not using while they’re cooking,” she added somberly.

“Is there a plate on the trailer?” he asked.

McCants scowled. “I didn’t notice.”

Service was adding charges in his head. The more they had, the better to stick Verse with and hold him against bail. Failure to report to his PO within forty-eight hours, stolen vehicle, paroled felon in possession of firearms, adult with and giving intoxicants to minor girls, maybe a drug lab, an illegal deer—the charges were stacking up. By the looks of Verse, he’d not surrender easily. Too much to lose.

Time passed slowly. The trailer continued to shake under the barrage of music, the bass thumping like the heart of a giant beast.

“Five minutes,” Service said, checking his watch.

“The sooner the better,” McCants whispered.

There was a sharp crack and the tinkling of glass. Both COs tensed. “Shot,” McCants said. “Move!”

Service was on his feet and advancing before he could think through the situation. McCants had been a good officer since he’d first met her, always charging into trouble, never pausing to cogitate.

“Only one door,” she said as they jogged forward. “Both of us on the front side, one to an end,” she said.

When they reached the trailer she took one end and he took the other. Two more shots cracked and the music stopped. Silence overwhelmed the scene.

The front door flew open, slapping sharply against the side of the trailer.

“You crazy fucking bitch!” a male voice keened angrily. “What is your fucking problem, man!”