The morning drew on. Only a couple of hours left in the shift, the radio was quiet. We headed toward Hillsboro. The road was nearly empty, only a few vehicles ventured out at four in the morning. At one intersection we waited for the light, a dump truck pulled beside us in the turn lane. Ted took notice of it, it was only his attention to it that made me even aware of it. “Where’s a dump truck going at four A.M. Sunday morning?” I asked. Ted snickered. “Probably just now leaving the bar.”
We watched the truck as it moved on, no swerving or erratic driving, Ted let it go. We continued on our way to a local spot where deputies often park to complete paperwork or to meet up with each other. Opal’s is a vacant restaurant next to the school bus garage. It hasn’t been open in the five years I’ve lived in the area. Old, run down, in a location on the old highway 21 between Hillsboro and Goldman. It is highly unlikely that it will ever open for business again, as this section of the road, now bypassed by a new, fast, four-lane stretch, is only traveled by locals, and there aren’t many locals.
I knew the spot was a popular one for the deputies as I’ve passed it many, many times and on many of those occasions, one or two deputies are sitting there idling. It’s a good spot, lots of room to park or turn around, ready access to several roads.
We pulled in alongside another cruiser. The young deputy inside it was filling out papers, rubbing his eyes. He and Ted exchanged greetings and caught each other up on goings-on. Shortly another cruiser pulled in beside us. Windows went down more greetings and updates. The third deputy had just returned from a meth-lab hunt. Once again the lab closed up and disappeared before he got there. The odor had lingered but was not apparent from which dwelling it originated. Though he strongly believed he knew which one, he simply did not have enough cause to go forward.
“Did you show him your collection of witness statements?” He asked Ted.
“No, didn’t think to.”
“He’s a writer, he’ll get a kick out of them.”
Ted laughed and rifled through a file folder. He pulled out a small pile of forms, filled in by shaky hands. He handed them to me. “Read these.” He said.
I looked the top one over and immediately realized the novelty. These witness statements were filled out by those who may have information regarding a complaint or crimes. The ones in the pile he handed me were in very bad handwriting, littered with atrocious grammar and spelling. The first one opened up beautifully. “We was sit in a Mexican restraint.”
Another: “He told me to do sex, but I don’t fell like it so he made mad.”
A few were so hard to read it was difficult to imagine that actual functioning adults could communicate so poorly. One was a complaint from a fifteen year old boy, claiming that a teacher had tried to seduce him. It was bad enough, but the boy’s mother had filled out a statement herself that was just as bad. “He’s a good boy an don’t want ta sex anybody yet.”
After a few of these, the meet broke up and we headed North. We turned down a road that led to another mobile home park. This was another one of Ted’s regular spots. Somewhere in the middle of it he rolled down the windows, his and mine. “Smell that?” he asked. I stuck my head out the window and took a sniff. “Ammonia, and maybe something burning?” I replied.
“That’s it, the real thing.”
The place was quiet, and dark. The cold breeze was weak and shifting around in different directions. We cruised very slowly on the gravel path, and turned around at the end. Nothing looked odd or out of place, the scent grew weaker. Back towards the center we got another faint whiff. We sat, waited smelled, listened. Ted concentrated on one trailer in particular. “Hear that?”
“You mean the air conditioner? Yeah.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, just stared at the small rumbling window unit.
“Do you hear any other air conditioners?” He added. I didn’t.
“What do you think the temperature is right now?” He asked.
Then I got it. The last bank thermometer I had seen said forty eight degrees. Who runs an air conditioner in forty eight degree weather?
This was also not sufficient cause to press the matter further.
Ted will continue these drive-throughs, as will the other deputies. The Jefferson County Sherriff’s office takes down over two hundred labs per year. Though the department has a narc unit, meth labs are unlike other illegal drug enterprises. For the most part, heroin, cocaine, and even marijuana are organized criminal ventures. Meth labs are most often independent operations creating product for use by the cook and those close to him. There’s very little intel to be gathered, very few people involved in the operation, and the labs are not actually ‘labs’ they are sheds, bedrooms, basements, kitchens and bathrooms. Cocaine, heroin, etc. are created/processed in bulk, then turned over to a distribution network. Meth is made from hardware store products and made in small quantities, rarely distributed beyond friends and family. Thus narc detectives have very little to investigate, very few people to inform, and busting one lab has virtually no effect whatsoever on other labs. Traditional drug enforcement procedures and techniques simply do not apply. So deputies sniff the air, investigate fires and explosions and write down addresses and names. One day things will come together, the lab gets foolish or clumsy, they don’t hear the radio calls. They make mistakes and then they get busted.
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