Patience County War (Madeleine Toche Series) (12 page)

J
anice and Patty smoked cigarettes as they walked down the well-worn trail, oblivious both to the beauty of nature and the beer cans and cigarette butts that lay along the path, evidence of parties long past. They were two teenage friends, bonded by their mutual boredom and their willingness to try just about anything to get high.

“Hey, let me see that stuff again,” Janice, the taller red haired teen, said.

“Just hold on. We’re almost at the fire circle. Aren’t you high enough? That last joint was crazy,” Patty said, a little loopy eyed, giving her a friendly pat on the arm.

“I’m tired of weed. I want to try that new shit, supposed to be like cocaine,” Janice said.

“You’ve never had any damn cocaine,” Patty said.

“Yes, I did too, at that frat party we got into when we visited Mary’s brother at State.”

“It was probably a crushed up caffeine pill,” Patty said.

“It worked on me.”

“Everything works on you, especially frat boys.” They both laughed and leaned on each other as they lurched up the path.

The girls walked into a clearing where some logs had been arranged around a fire pit that had seen some use.

“My mom used to come here and party years ago. I heard her talking about it to one of her friends,” Janice said.

“So she knows you come here?” Patty said.

“Don’t be stupid. No way. Parents don’t want to know.”

“Did she ever smoke dope or anything?” Patty asked.

“I doubt it; she was more part of the beer drinking crowd. She’s still pretty straight that way. We don’t talk about things like that. She’s more worried about me getting pregnant and making decent grades than doing drugs. I think she knows we do some drinking, but nothing about weed,” Janice said. “We smoke this stuff, right?”

“I’ve got a pipe I got from Henry,” Patty said.

“Where did he get crystal meth?”

“That’s like the last thing we need to know,” Patty said.

“True.”

Patty pulled a small glass tube and a folded tin foil packet out of her pocket. Both girls looked at it like they were examining an alien life form.

“How much do you put in?” Janice asked.

“He said just to put some in that little bowl and heat it up and inhale the fumes,” Patty said.

“Go for it,” Janice said.

Patty sparked a lighter, vaporized the grains of methamphetamine and inhaled.

“Whoa,” she said as she blew out the smoke. “Holy shit!”

Janice had already taken the pipe and finished off the rest.

“That’s awesome.”

“No shit.”

“Hey, give me one,” Janice said as Patty lit up a cigarette.

“Man, now I know what everyone is talking about, this is outrageous.”

“I don’t see why everyone’s so wild about this stuff. People just do it too much and get screwed over by it.”

“Give me a little more.”

Both girls took turns burning up the small amount that they’d been given as a sample. They smoked cigarettes and talked about their new
discovery. They had instantly decided that the first order of business was to get some for the weekend and take it to a party. A friend of theirs was having a party to celebrate his parents being gone for a few days.

“Man, what time is it?” Patty asked.

“Like five.”

“We got to go. I’ve got to be home before my mom gets there,” Patty said.

“Alright, let’s go.”

“Make sure you keep it cool when you see your mom,” Janice said.

“She doesn’t know shit and we don’t smell or nothing.”

The girls made it back down the trail and to Patty’s car. They got inside and pushed the hamburger wrappers aside and found a fresh pack of cigarettes. Patty cranked up the local rock station, and soon the whole car was vibrating to a blaring, rapid-fire beat. With the wind in their hair and the drugs making everything seem like so much fun, Patty drove faster along the park road, ignoring the speed limit and the upcoming stop sign.

Just as the girls turned off the tar leading from the state park, a ranger truck rounded the corner off the gravel. Patty blew through the stop sign and into the path of the ranger truck. The impact knocked the girl’s car onto its side.

“Where’d they come from?” Mike Schmidt blurted out to his fellow conservation officer Charlie Berry, as their car came to a jolting stop, throwing them both against their seat belts.

The two jumped from their vehicle and ran over to the car resting in the ditch.

“Is everyone alright?” Berry said, as he climbed up so that he could see into the driver’s side window.

“I don’t know, I think I broke my arm,” Janice said from the passenger seat. Both girls were jumbled up together, along with the trash that composed a large percentage of the inside of the vehicle.

“I didn’t see you,” Patty said, as she untangled herself from Janice.

“Let’s get you girls out and then worry about that,” Berry said.

The girls climbed out through the driver’s side window.

“My mom is going to kill me, patty moaned, starting to cry.

“Call it in, Charlie.”

A few minutes later a sheriff’s car pulled up, Deputy Larry Swanson stepped out.

“Howdy Mike, Charlie. Running people off the road?” Deputy Larry, Swanson called out. He surveyed the scene and could tell from the girls’ expressions that they were more scared than hurt.

“Actually, more of an accident. That’s a bad turn there,” Charlie said.

“Anybody hurt?”

“Passenger probably has a broken arm.”

The deputy walked over, spoke to the girls, and looked at Janice’s arm.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see them,” Patty blurted out.

“I wasn’t driving,” Janice quickly said.

“I just said I was driving, Janice,” Patty said.

“Okay, Okay. First, let’s get you both looked at and fix that arm up.” Swanson led the girls to his squad, and put them both in the back seat.

“You guys can get a tow when I call TJ in a minute.”

“Game’s on in an hour, Swanny,” Mike said.

“Yah, Yah, he’ll be right out. Just enjoy nature until he gets here,” Swanson said making a few quick notes. “Failure to yield, kids driving too fast. Good thing nobody was hurt. I’m sure insurance will pay for a new truck.”

“Good thing it was the old truck and not the new one,” Charlie said.

“That at least is something,” Mike said, looking at the smashed front end of his truck. “I didn’t see her, and she didn’t see me, that’s for damn sure,” he added.

“I need to piss,” Charlie said as he walked over to the side of the road.

“Good for you Charlie. I’m sure I would have figured that out,” Mike said.

“I’m like a damn well-oiled machine.” As he unzipped his pants, Charlie glanced down and saw a glass pipe and a scrap of foil.

“Mike, quit throwing your pot pipe on the ground. I’m always picking up after you.”

“Like hell. Those girls throw it down? It looks like it hasn’t been there long.”

The men examined the pipe and some small scraps of residue remaining in the tinfoil.

“That, my friend, ain’t pot,” Mike said.

“What is it?”

“No idea. We’ll drop it off at the bunker and let them figure it out.”

“Fantastic, there’s TJ. Let’s get him to take us first. You know valuable evidence must be delivered to law enforcement.”

“Technically, we’re law enforcement.”

“No, we keep the world safe from wildlife offenders, we’re animal cops. Remember that if you’re ever called to help track an armed felon.”

“Unless he’s dragging a poached deer I’ll leave it to the pros, Mikey.”

“Fantastic.”

The two conservation officers leaned against the counter just inside the sheriff’s station. Deputy Swanson walked over from his desk in the day room where a couple of the other deputies were writing reports. The small glass tube and crumpled tin-foil lay on the counter inside a small zip-lock evidence bag.

“I think Sam’s going to want to see this,” Deputy Swanson said as he picked up the pipe and foil.

“What is it, Swanny?”

“Meth, almost for sure.”

“You think it was those two girls, they’re sixteen, maybe seventeen.”

“Happened before in Patience. Beer and pot must not be doing it anymore,” Swanson said.

“Dumb ass kids.”

“Didn’t you do dumb ass shit when you were a kid?” Swanson asked.

“When he wasn’t pissing.”

“Did I ever tell you your wife worships my ass, Mikey?”

“And yours talks to a mummified lump of shit she keeps in her pocket,” Charlie said as he put Mike in a friendly headlock.

“She‘s your sister, buddy.”

Swanson rolled his eyes and shook his head. He’s known these guys forever. They were inseparable and never changed. They seemed happy with their lives; anymore easy going and they’d be inert.

“I’m glad you guys spend most of your time in the park. Now take off. I’m going to drive over to Sam’s and tell him about this stuff. Who knows what he’ll do. He’s not a big fan of drugs. The last druggy who tried to sell anything but pot here turned up two counties over, covered head to toe in bug bites ranting about wolves and black giants chasing him through the woods.”

“Must have been sampling his own wares,” Mike said a huge smile on his face. There was only one black giant in Patience, his buddy Nathan.

“Without a doubt,” Swanson said.

“Yep, no crime in Patience.”

“Fantastic,” Swanson said, as he walked back towards his car.

Deputy Swanson opened his car door just as Sam came out of his house and onto the porch.

“Sam, I’ve got something here you’ll want to see. We just found it near an accident scene. Two girls plowed into Mike and Charlie out by the state park road. I think one of them must have tossed this to the side.”

“Who had this?” Sam said to his deputy when Swanson handed over the plastic bag containing the pipe and scrap of tin-foil. He was so angry that his hand was shaking as he held it. Swanson had seen Sam come unglued a couple of times. Only one rule when that happened: get out of the way!

“We think Janice Marty and Patty Pitcher.”

“Those two are thick as thieves. They should know better. Why can’t kids just steal their parent’s beer from time to time and leave this stuff alone? I hate this shit!” Sam yelled as he walked around to the back of the squad and opened the trunk tossing the pipe into a plastic evidence box.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt your day off, Sam,” Swanson said as he noticed Nathan, Christine and Yves sitting on Sam’s deck.

“It’s okay,” Sam said, trying to calm down. As Sam walked back towards the deck, Swanson could tell that he was getting agitated. He was just glad that he wasn’t on the other side of that agitation.

Sam took Christine and Yves back to the restaurant, then drove on to the hospital where the ‘meth girls’, as Sam called them, had been taken. As he drove he remembered the disappointment on Christine’s face when he told her that he had to go to work. She understood though, and asked him to stop by the restaurant later. He couldn’t wait to see her again and it had only been a few minutes.

Sam jumped into his squad and called Nathan on his cell phone. “Nathan, you busy? We’ve got meth issues again. I’ll be right over to pick you up.”

Sam and Nathan pulled up to the old hospital where virtually all of Patience had been born. The building was old, but solidly built. Both the local clinic and the emergency room were part of the same building. Critical cases were airlifted to St. Louis from the helicopter pad located on
top of the hospital wing. The locals said a little silent prayer to themselves each time they heard the helicopter. It meant that some friend or neighbor was in a bad way.

Sam and Nathan walked into the emergency room area and up to the front desk, where a gray haired old Doctor stood examining a file while nurses and clerical staff came and went doing the business of the busy facility.