moved in, pushed him against the door jamb, and put a warning hand over his mouth. “Beg your pardon, sir. I tripped,” he whispered.
The voice went on. “Check out that source in Langford, Jason someone. And count on making the rounds at the drug stores, one pack per. That Methwatch program is bullshit.”
Holly pulled out her handcuffs. “Hello, probable cause. Either that or a really bad cookie recipe.”
Neil’s brow began to sweat, and his eyes shifted in their sockets as they glanced down the hall. Then he freed his head and yelled, “Take off! Cops!” Chipper gripped his spindly arms, and Neil sank down on the stairs.
Holly secured him to a sturdy bannister while Chipper added leg cuffs. Then she ran toward a back room, where thumps were sounding, slipping on the scarred boards of the hardwood floor. A strong ammonia smell nearly stopped her breath as she entered. She had time only to register the lab equipment and to step carefully. Empty packaging dotted the floor, along with beer cans and chip bags. She was in a minefield of danger. With lethal chemicals, even a spark from a light switch could ignite the gas. Many meth labs were self-destructing, blowing up their cookers or maiming them for life. Following the sounds, she slipped through another door, her gun drawn, body to the side like an old-fashioned gunfighter presenting the narrowest target. “Stop now. Police. You’re surrounded.” A wish and a prayer.
Down a dark hall, a window opened with a shriek, and a grunt outside told her that someone had escaped. She followed, dropping to the ground and scanning the area. No one in sight, but the shed was open. A roar erupted and a small motorcycle emerged at full throttle. It raced past her a hundred feet away, slewing in the gravel. She had time only to record the B.C. license plate. MNR 657. It was gone in seconds, throwing dust clouds in its wake.
She cursed herself for not searching the buildings ahead of time, merely assuming that since no cars or trucks were around, that there were no means of escape. But they had the lab, and they had Neil.
“Aren’t you gonna read me my rights?” he asked with a sneer as he leaned against the wall. She could smell the stale sweat that soaked his shirt. His nose kept dripping, running down his chin. “I want a cigarette,” he demanded with a wheeze.
“You watch too much television. I’m not Dog, the Bounty Hunter. He makes way more money,” she said, then turned to Chipper. “Call it in, get a team from Sooke, and run his name through CPIC for wants. Run the plate, too. It could be stolen.”
They secured Neil, with a complimentary wad of tissues, while Holly pulled on surgical gloves and went back to check the house. If a gas flame was burning, they could lose the place. Though the hydro was working, the house was barely habitable, and the water came from a shallow well dug before her father had been born. Wallpaper peeled in strips, revealing lath and plaster, and the pissy smell of black mould permeated the rooms and made her sneeze. The ceilings were hammered tin, a decorative touch from an age of craftsmanship and pride.
Once this had been a cozy farmhouse with a pump at the kitchen sink and an outhouse instead of indoor plumbing. Bedrooms upstairs, a nominal term, contained only soiled mattresses and blankets. The kitchen had a Coleman stove and an ancient refrigerator with a round apparatus on top, circa 1935. The thought of opening it made her gag.
On the wall, a framed needlepoint sampler, the glass cracked and yellowed, read: “To know how sweet your home may be, just go away but keep the key.” Hard-working farm families had lived and died here, their only medicine a dose of honey and vinegar, their weapons a scythe, pitchfork and axe, their loyal partners a team of burly plow horses. In fifty years, perhaps forty, luxury homes would dot the hillside in this Victoria West. She went back into the lab, a former parlour off the foyer, built to face the afternoon sun. Plywood and sawhorse tables held boiling substances in assorted carafes with tubing in all directions. On the floor were empty boxes of cold medication, salt, lithium batteries and Coleman fuel. Unbleached coffee filters sat piled next to a round metal cooking screen and wire cutters. Pitchers, wooden spoons and a carton of Ziploc bags completed the preparations. She saw no finished product. Perhaps they worked batch by batch. It wasn’t a large operation, so chances were that gangs weren’t involved. That might give her a bargaining coin. Whatever Neil might say in this unguarded moment could affect later strategies. As for an immediate confession, he was no boy like Billy or Mike, but he had been caught in the act.
Holly finished taking notes and joined Chipper in the car. Neil coughed in the back. Black mould could make someone quite sick.
“I called it in,” Chipper said. “A specialty team from West Shore will be out here in an hour. After they make their report, this whole place is going to have to be assessed for the toxicity of the chemicals, the guy said.”
“Glad our part’s over,” she said, then turned to Neil. “We have a date at the detachment. I have more questions for you.”
Neil blew out a contemptuous breath. “Go fuck yourself.” “We expect you to cooperate. Meth isn’t friendly like pot, which has some acceptance in the community. Public feelings are running high against this cheap poison. You’re looking at some serious time here.”
Chipper stayed at the site to secure the property and wait for the investigating team while Holly drove Neil back to Fossil Bay. Once in her office, she had determined the tack to take in the preliminary interview. If he started thinking too much, they might not get any more information. As they came in the door, Ann gave them an unusual look and passed Holly a file.
Holly gave the papers a quick scan. “Good work, Ann.”
She sat Neil down in her office, leaving the handcuffs on as a reminder. “I see by your sheet that you come from Edmonton, but you did a year in William Head for dealing cocaine in Vancouver. First offense. You got off lucky in one of our Club Feds.” William Head was located in pastoral Metchosin on the glorious strait. It had a stellar view of Hurricane Ridge. Times she’d driven by, the inmates were in the yard chopping wood as if they were on a rustic vacation.
Neil fiddled with the cuffs, contorting his face. “Can’t you lighten up with these? They’re making my wrists sore. And how about some coffee? I’m not a friggin’ terrorist.”
Unlike the empathy she had for Billy and Mike, here Holly saw a source of evil. Crime had its hierarchies, and Neil was a cowardly bottom feeder. What approach should she take?
Lowering her voice, she chose her words carefully. “Consider yourself lucky that we took the leg cuffs off. I want the name of the other man at the house. I have his bike’s license, so it’s a matter of time. Make it easy on yourself and cooperate.”
“Brad Pitt. Elmer Fudd. Take your pick.” Then he added as his thin mouth curled into an ugly question mark, “I’m not afraid of you, babe. Whadda you gonna do, beat me up?” He shuffled in the seat and produced a pungent fart, watching her reaction.
A bottle of ruthless pine air freshener came to hand, and she sprayed it with abandon, nearly hitting his face. Sparring was fun with an ace up her sleeve. She tapped her pen on the desk, noticing that despite his shabby clothes, he wore a spanking new pair of two-hundred-dollar runners. “Maybe coffee would help, because you’re not thinking too clearly here, Neil. We’re not the problem. You need to be afraid of people who don’t have our ethics and represent only themselves, not the public welfare.”
He coughed pointedly. “Public welfare my ass. Horsemen don’t need the Mafia to do the dirty work. The force is bent enough.”
Holly ignored the flash of flame across her chest. Recent personnel scandals had proved a national embarrassment for Canada’s Mounties,
