Vic stuffed her hands in the pockets of her jacket and leaned against one of the support beams as Duane joined me, still holding the glass of putrid water.
“I don’t see any snakes, Duane.”
“They’re in the tunnel.”
I gestured with my chin toward the blue plastic. “That way?”
“Yunh-huh, but it’s caved in real bad. That’s why we’ve got the tarp over it.”
I walked to the front of the opening and held my hand to the side where warm, moist air was escaping. I looked down and saw that two large eyelet bolts were screwed into the four-by-four and then up at two large hooks where the wood could be lifted and held in place. I stooped and, even with the pain in my rear, began lifting up the wood and consequently the tarp.
Duane was at my side immediately and placed a hand on my arm. “Look, you can’t go in there, you gotta have a warrant to be . . .”
“Duane, I’ve explained the situation and if you attempt to interfere with me any more, I’m going to ask my deputy over there to restrain you—and trust me, it’s something she really likes doing.”
I threw a glance back at Vic, who lowered a boot to the floor and began moving toward us in a smooth but determined gait.
Duane threw himself aside and sat on the bags of fertilizer; he was still holding the glass. “Fine, fuck it. Just go ahead and get it over with.”
I raised the board and hooked it up as Vic joined me at the jagged opening in the basement wall where many a bandit and whoremonger had escaped the local constabulary. There were a few small indicator lamps strung out like landing lights, but that was all. The warmth and humidity hit like a wave, and we both stood there. I couldn’t see anything but thought that there must be a switch somewhere, so I raised a hand past Vic’s face and felt along the wall. It was there, and I flicked the heavy-duty toggle and watched as fluorescent lights throbbed on full with a monotone thrum.
Vic, as usual, spoke first. “Well, fuck me.”
We both leaned forward in absolute disbelief. Humidifiers and heaters ran the distance half the length of a football field with hydroponic lights cascading life-giving warmth and vitamin D onto four- foot-tall plants that grew as far as we could see. I turned my head and spoke out of the side of my mouth. “Is that what I think it is?”
She nodded and looked back to where Duane sat at the opening of what looked to be the largest subterranean marijuana crop in history.
7
When I got back to the office, Vic was stretched out on the reception bench asleep, wrapped in a couple of blankets with a pillow stuffed against the armrest. Dog lay beside the bench and wagged a greeting in four/four time as I sat with care next to Vic’s stocking feet—the only part of her that showed from under the gray wool.
I reached down and petted Dog, who fell over on his side next to Vic’s tactical boots and closed his eyes. It seemed like a really good idea, so I pulled my hat down over my face and leaned back against the wall.
Vic moved her feet up onto my lap, and her voice was thick with sleep. “Well, now we know why Duane told Geo that there were snakes in the tunnel.”
“Yep.” I rubbed the thick knitted socks and listened to her purr. “I locked up the cash crop, and Gina has taken command of the household. She says she didn’t know anything about Duane’s cottage industry.”
“Is she the one who works over at the Kum and Go, drives around with people tied to her bumper, and always smells like the chronic?”
“That’d be the one.”
“And you believe her?”
“Let’s just say I thought we had enough people in jail for one night, and I’ve got plenty more problems to go around. Where’s Henry?”
She pulled the blanket down, and her nose and the tarnished gold eyes appeared. “Asleep in your office.”
I exhaled and wasn’t sure if I had the energy to fill my lungs back up again. “How is the mad golfer?”
“Resting comfortably in holding cell A.”
“And the pot grower of America?”
“Holding cell B.” She adjusted, and I could see she was reaching underneath herself. “You want some more fucked-up shit?”
“Not really.”
She recovered some loose sheets of paper that she handed to me. “Too bad, ’cause it’s the only news that’s fit to print.”
I examined the pages. “What’s this?”
“The answer from NCIC on Sancho’s request for a report on the partial thumb, which came back as a negative—not enough print to work with.”
“It’s Felix Polk’s. We know that because he’s been everywhere in the county asking for it back.” I rubbed my face with one hand. “That’s another little chore I’ve got to go do.”
She wrapped the blanket tighter around the trunk of her body, emphasizing some of her more curvaceous physical attributes. “Uh-huh . . .”
I looked at her. “Now, why do I not like the sound of that?”
“Because I was bored and punched in Felix Polk and discovered he has a bench warrant with the Travis County Sheriff’s Department in Texas concerning a failure to appear on a breaking and entering charge stemming from an incident in 1963.”
“Is that all?”
She snorted. “Isn’t that enough?”
“I don’t think a more-than-forty-year-old bench warrant is going to be enough to occupy the Euskadi Avenger, especially now that we’ve got a real death on our hands.”
She laughed outright. “Yeah, well, imagine how Felix Polk is going to feel about having his past and minor transgressions revisited. And as to Geo Stewart’s death, there’s not much of a mystery to that one.”
“Maybe. Did you happen to notice that one of his shoe-laces was undone?”
The look she was giving me could’ve been defined as incredulous. “So?”
“Geo was pretty careful about that type of thing.”
She sat up. “Wait a minute, are we discussing the sartorial splendor of the man whose hair grew through his long underwear?”
“Yep, but he’s also the guy who wore both suspenders and a belt and fully laced his logging boots.”
She covered her head back up with the blanket. “Right.”
I sighed and thought about the long drive I was going to have to take up the mountain. “Is that address for Felix Polk current? I was thinking of paying him a little visit before Sancho gets to work. You want to tag along?”
She didn’t move, her head still covered. “No.”
I looked at Dog, who dropped his head back between his outstretched paws. So much for man’s best friends. I sighed and glanced down the hallway toward the two cells in back. “I don’t mean to disturb your rest, but you say Ozzie Junior is in cell A?”
“Sleeping like a lamb and snoring like a lion.”
“Well, it’s good that he’s getting some rest.”
She snuggled back down in her blankets, and I was starting to wish it were a wider bench. “Yeah, imagine how he’s going to feel when he wakes up and finds out he’s headed for the big house.”
“Are you Felix Polk?” The bandage on the man’s thumb, the registration of the Jeep Wagoneer in the drive, and the name on one of the mailboxes at the end of Caribou Creek Road were pretty good clues, but this was official business.
The wind raced over the canyon where we stood, and with the altitude I bet we were standing in negative ten degrees. Felix Polk was a tall man, almost as tall as I am and close to the same age, with a large belly but in good shape if you didn’t count the missing appendage. He had on a pair of chain-saw chaps and a hard hat with the built-in noise compressors flipped up so that he could hear me. Behind the cabin, some kind of machinery was running.
“You haven’t got my thumb with you, do you?”
I smiled at him. “Mr. Polk, that’s actually what I’d like to talk to you about.”
He nodded. “C’mon out back, and I’ll shut the log splitter down.”