Part Five: The Odor of Meth.

We soon got a call from another deputy saying he would meet up with us down the road from the reported address. We stopped alongside the road at the agreed upon position and waited. Ted was concerned that the age of the call, fifteen minutes or so, would reduce the chances of finding anything significant. “I don’t know why they call these things over the open air, chances are good that some of the meth lab crowd have scanners, they’ll have cleared out before we get there.

I didn’t doubt this, I own a scanner, four, in fact. They’re pretty cheap on Ebay and Craigslist, etc. I never spent more than forty bucks on one and most of them don’t require a lot of know-how to use, just set it to scan popular police frequencies, and voila, you’ll usually get every police department in range.

I knew a little less about meth labs, you can’t really live around here and not know a thing or too. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department investigates more meth labs than any other law enforcement organization in the U.S., over two hundred per year, for several years running. This is not, I learned in the Academy, because the county has that many more labs than other places in the U.S. It’s because Jefferson County has dedicated itself to setting the labs as a high priority. Nearby counties and municipalities we were told, don’t assign as much importance/urgency to them, so they don’t put forward the resources that JeffCo does., thus the numbers are skewed. Jefferson County has a multi-jurisdictional task force commissioned to the effort, able to throw seven to nine detectives at the problem. St. Louis County only two or three. So the numbers can be very misleading. Even with that numbers game in place, nationwide, only Tennessee has more meth labs (on paper) than the Show-me state. There’s no denying that it’s a big problem.

The reason JeffCo takes it so seriously is the collateral damage meth labs produce. People who dropped out of school, and by definition probably did poorly in chemistry, are whipping up a highly volatile brew from hardware and department store chemicals. Muriatic acid, anhydrous ammonia, Lithium batteries, engine starter, brake cleaner, all commercially available products, are used in the process. These and the other ingredients at some point in the process create anhydrous ammonia, a highly volatile concoction that, if overcooked or allowed to come in contact with other ingredients in the wrong time or quantity, is highly explosive. Other parts of the process create toxic gasses. Explosions and related deaths occur frequently, all too often including the children of the cooks. Twenty to thirty percent of the burn unit beds in the region are occupied by victims of meth lab production.

However the chemicals and processes, even when controlled properly, still put up an acrid stink. By the end of this shift, I too was able to stick my head out the window and recognize the tell-tale, in Ted’s words: ‘cat-piss odor’.

The other deputy, who Ted told me was formerly on the narc unit, soon joined us, but not after a long enough wait that Ted got a call from nature and stepped down into the woods for relief. “Isn’t there a law against that?” I asked him when he got back to the car.

“Arrest me.” He answered, with a snark in his voice.

 We then did one of those things, you’ve seen it, two cop cars idling side by side in opposing directions at the side of the road. The two exchanged information and strategies, as well as a couple of team-building personal insults. The former narc knew this particular trailer park very well, so we were to be joined shortly by a third cruiser, for increased safety.

“Oh yeah, there’s a lab in there, probably more than one, I’ve just never been able to single it out.” The narc explained. (Note: I use the term ‘narc’ since that’s how the commander of the department’s drug unit refers to the unit.)

We rolled quietly into the park. Ted looked a bit anxious.

“You may want to stay in the car when we get there. We never know exactly how these things are going to play out, sometimes things can go completely off the rails.”

I didn’t need to be told more than once.

“Not a problem, I’ll cower and tremble here in the car until you clear the place, I’m in no hurry to get shot at.”

I rolled down the window as the third cruiser nosed in beside us.

Two of the three detectives headed for the suspected trailer. Guns were drawn, held up safely, but ready. Ted stayed behind a bit, ready to rush whichever deputy came active. They approached the mobile home from different directions. Whatever the reported loud music was, it was gone now. The place was quiet except for a couple of distant air conditioner fans and light TV noise. Behind me a storm door squeaked and slammed. Ted warned the man and his dog to go back into their home. The man and his large, harnessed pit bull obliged without delay or complaint.

I heard a door being knocked, loudly. Then again. Ted headed down the hill to the home that the narc had picked. Nothing, no answer. They went around it, looking into windows, underneath, and surveyed piles of cans, firewood, grills and everywhere they could without actually breaking in. Nothing.

They performed the same routine on two other trailers. Nothing. At the third one a woman answered the door. I couldn’t hear the exchange, but the deputy seemed satisfied. I knew he was probably looking around her, sniffing and listening the whole time.

They came back to the cruisers, guns holstered, heads down.

“You guys just aren’t trying hard enough.” I scolded. “My hard-earned tax dollars pay your salaries, the least you could do on my one and only ride-along is to shoot someone.”
 (To be continued)                   Go to Part Six