“No, but I…”
“It doesn’t matter that you volunteered the information and agreed to the tests. There is protocol that he should’ve followed. I’ll be calling that fat bastard’s office later today.” The level of animosity the captain felt for Sheriff Tucker was shocking. I was certain I resembled a cartoon character with bulging eyes and a gaping mouth after the captain’s tirade. He rarely showed any emotion at all. I was beyond curious about the source of his dislike for the sheriff. He pinned me with narrowed eyes and said, “Never again, Detective Wyatt.”
“Yes, sir.”
My hearty agreement seemed to appease the captain and I could see his countenance returning to normal until once again his stoic façade was in place. “Do you have any idea what Nate Turner was into or why it seemed like he was coming to see you in the middle of the night?”
“I don’t, sir,” I answered honestly. “I just know he didn’t want police involvement in identifying his harasser, well, not in the traditional sense any way. I have no idea why he was in this area at that time of night after a snow storm had moved through.”
“It reeks of desperation. I have to ask you a tough question and I need your complete honesty, Gabe.”
“You got it, sir,” I replied.
“Did Nate Turner have reason to believe that you’d harbor or protect him from the person making threats?” Captain tipped his head slightly to the side like he was mulling over his next words. “Was there anything personal between you?”
“No, sir.” Maybe our definitions of personal were different, but I didn’t think the one time I got bent over Nate’s desk in his office counted as personal. I had given the guy my card after I pulled up my pants. He tossed it in the trash then told me that he didn’t do repeats. I considered the short time I was in his presence to be very impersonal, regardless of the fact that his dick had been in my ass. I was shocked when he called me out of the blue a year later and asked for help.
“I guess we’ll never know what he was doing here then.” The captain pointed his finger at me and said, “If Tucker calls you again…”
“I’ll make you aware of the situation immediately.” I rose from my chair and was prepared to leave when his next question caught me off guard.
“Do you think that you’re in any danger?” I was used to an unreadable expression on his face, so the concern I saw in his furrowed brow and pinched lips gave me pause.
It was something that never occurred to me. I knew nothing about Nate’s personal life or criminal activities so I couldn’t possibly see how I would be in danger. “No, sir.”
“Keep an eye out and report anything odd to me, Gabe.” He nodded his head and returned his attention back to the paperwork on his desk. I had effectively been dismissed.
I found Adrian sitting at my desk with two cups of coffee. “You’re looking rough, partner.”
I gratefully accepted the coffee he made for me and tried not to wince over how sweet it was. Only Josh seemed to be able to make my coffee to my exact specifications. The baristas at The Brew came close, but I’d prefer Josh’s coffee any day of the week. Of course, if I was getting Josh’s coffee then that meant I was probably getting a piece of him too.
“Must be some good coffee,” Adrian said. “You went from half dead to alert in just one sip.”
“It’s great, Adrian. Thank you.” I let him believe his coffee, and not thoughts of Josh, breathed new life into me. “Hey, I need to tell you something that I should’ve told you sooner. I just never thought it would add up to anything.”
Adrian listened raptly until I finished telling him about my early morning phone call and subsequent trip to the sheriff’s office. “That’s un-fucking-believable.”
“It feels like a weird dream.” But I knew the gruesome sight I saw earlier was real. I leaned toward Adrian and lowered my voice. “What does the captain have against Sheriff Tucker?” I told Adrian about how angry he became and even referred to Tucker as the “fat bastard.”
Adrian threw his head back and laughed hard for several long moments. “Cap is married to the sheriff’s only daughter.”
“How’d I not know that?” I asked rhetorically. I wasn’t one for gossip and the captain was a very private man, but I thought I would’ve at least known that much about him. “Damn, that must make for some interesting holidays.”
“You know it.” Adrian’s desk phone rang and he answered it. “Whoa,” he said after listening for a few minutes. “We’re on our way.” Adrian nodded to my cup of coffee and said, “Bring it with you. The high school asked Officer Wen to bring Rocket for a random search and the dog alerted Wen to possible drugs in a locker. The principal opened the locker and found a huge cache of drugs.”
“Pot?” I asked as I put my coat back on.
“He said it looked like a little bit of everything. Wen thinks the street value is around twenty thousand dollars.”
I let out a low whistle. “Where does a high school kid get their hands on drugs like that?”
“I don’t know, but you can bet your ass we’re going to find out. There’s no way we’re going to let our town be destroyed by drugs,” Adrian replied.
Blissville High School was a newly constructed two-story, brick building on the edge of town. Approximately six hundred kids in grades nine through twelve attended the school. The school district had a few controversial policies in place, but the biggest one was their search and seizure policy. The policy simply stated that the school had the right to bring in the K-9 unit to conduct random searches. If the dogs indicated to their handlers that contraband was found, the locker, or even a car in the parking lot, was opened and searched.
During my time in Blissville, the only thing confiscated had been small amounts of pot and sometimes alcohol. Nothing had prepared us for the number of drugs found in the locker that day. I had seen smaller busts in the homes of drug dealers in Miami.
“Holy shit,” I said softly in the school hallway.
