Page 5 of Mountain Man Officer

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JASON

Iliked the cabin. From what I saw, it was perfect. There were three smaller rooms, one that already had a bed in it. There was a kitchen/living room space with a sofa and a love seat and space above the mantle for a TV. The best feature of the cabin was its remote location, with only one access road and nothing but forest as far as you could see.

I had met the guy at noon, and we had driven up to the cabin. I got out of my car and spent a moment just breathing in the fresh air. It was so different from Nashville, with its lights that never went dark and people everywhere you turned. This cabin could have been built at the edge of civilization, and yet it had all the comforts of home.

I was sold immediately, but I didn’t let on. Too many lessons in negotiation had taught me not to show my cards too soon. I thanked the guy and drove back to the police station, already imagining what it would be like to wake up in the forest.

When I got back to the office, Cheryl the dispatch officer was at her desk. I nodded my hello before moving to the back, to the closet-sized war room they had designated for the drug case. It was all there, all the information the police had about the deadly substance and its victims. The toxicology reports weren’t back from the latest casualty, but it was more than likely the same drug that had killed three other people earlier this month.

I looked at the lab reports from the earlier victims. Whatever it was, was some kind of synthetic stimulant, like meth but on steroids. In the nanny cam case that had won me fame, the drug of choice had been cocaine. I remembered the casualty list from that case had been well below four. Whatever this stuff was, it was head and shoulders above the average narcotic.

The police working the case before me had identified two “persons of interest.” Both were young men in their twenties, both unemployed and familiar with law enforcement. I would have to check them both out, but I wanted a little background first.

As if in answer to my unspoken thought, one of the three full-time police officers knocked on the door.

“Come in,” I said.

The man came in, dressed in full uniform. “The chief said he had hired someone to work on the drug case.”

“Jason.” I stood up and offered my hand.

“Carl,” he said, pulling out the only remaining chair.

We both sat, the lab reports and case notes spread out before us. “What can you tell me about the case?” I asked.

“We’ve always had our underground criminals here,” Carl began. “Most people are law-abiding, but there are a few who are looking for an easy way out.”

I nodded.

“This isn’t the big city. We don’t see that much cocaine or ecstasy.”

“What do you see?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Meth is big. People cook it in their homes. Not here, of course, but it comes in from neighboring towns.”

“Of course,” I agreed.

“About a month ago, we got our first death, and the lab reports said it wasn’t your run-of-the-mill synthetic.” Carl touched one of the file folders. “After three more people died, the chief was desperate for some help. Good thing you came along when you did.”

I sighed. “What can you tell me about these two?”

Carl looked down at the case notes. “Oh, Beavis and Butthead? They’re definitely into the meth trade, but I’m not sure they’re behind this.”

“Why not?”

“It seems too sophisticated for them. Some of the victims are… of a higher social standing if you know what I mean.”

I did. Victimology was a legitimate science that had been discussed in the academy. It was the idea that you could learn a lot about a criminal by studying their victims. If they all lived in the same neighborhood, or if they were all women or all cheating husbands, you could draw certain conclusions about the assailant. In this case, having several upstanding community members among the dead meant it was likely that the perpetrator appeared to be of a similar status rather than a strung-out pair of kids. Still, I was going to have to go talk to “Beavis and Butthead” myself.

I left the war room several hours later and went back to my truck. Mentally clocking out for a lunch break, I unwrapped the salad I had picked up at the grocery store. As I chewed, I thought about the cabin. I really liked it, and there was no reason to wait if I was sure about it. What if someone else came along and picked it up while I was being careful not to show my cards?

I picked up the phone, finished my last bite, and dialed the idiot property owner.

“Hello?” he said.

“Hi, this is Jason White,” I began. “We went up to view the cabin a couple hours ago.”

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