he counters. “Most organized meth labs aren’t exactly out in the open for everyone to see. This wouldn’t have been because of one man making meth out of his bathtub. The point is, I began to track where it was coming from, as that was my job. But I came up with nothing, just a bunch of dead ends. There were never reports of anyone buying the massive quantities of chemicals I would expect for the size of the operation I felt was happening. No large shipments of fertilizer aside from the usual to farms in the surrounding counties, all of which have to carry permits to lawfully order. Even my usual contacts couldn’t tell me if there was a new major player out there.
“You have to understand that all I had to support me was a bunch of random statistics that might have just been a fluke. Meth manufacturing can be a relatively cheap process when done right, and the use of meth was on the rise, so it was easier to turn a profit. For every number I had showing the spike, you could have found the same thing happening all over the country. I didn’t have any evidence. Nothing concrete, anyway.”
“Then how’d you find anything?” I ask.
He sighs. “I had a buddy in the DEA who owed me a favor. His reach goes further than mine, and I had him put out a couple of feelers to see if he could get a nibble where I couldn’t. He ran into someone who gave him someone else’s name. Turned out to be a hard-core drug user, but one who still seemed to be in his right mind, for the most part. We call ’em twitchers, because of the little seizures they seem to have, the shakes. He pointed us south. Turns out I’d been looking too far north. Portland, Tigard, hell, all of Multnomah County. I even spread my dragnet as far as the coast, places like Tillamook and Seafare. But he told us south. And that’s when I got a phone call. One of those quirky twists of fate. Luck, pure and simple. Early 2007, it was. Somehow landed on my desk. Maybe someone heard of my project, maybe they just tried to pass the buck off, I don’t know. But I picked up the phone and on the other end was a man who refused to give me his name. Deep voice, though. Sounded like he’d be a big guy.” He watches me directly as he says this last, anticipating my reaction.
I feel the blood drain from my face as I draw in a sharp intake of breath. “Dad.”
Corwin nods. “I think so. I really do. Like I said, no name, wouldn’t give me his phone number, wouldn’t tell me where he was from or how he knew what he knew. Told me he was worried about what would happen to his family if he was found out. He had a son, he told me. Sounded real proud when he said it too.” I close my eyes. “Said he didn’t want to take the risk, but wanted to let me know he had reasons to suspect the good sheriff of Douglas County might not be as clean as he’d led others to believe. Seems said sheriff was actually quite the opposite of clean. And maybe others were involved as well. He didn’t have a whole lot to go on, but he wanted me to send the cavalry out here with guns blazing.”
A tear slips down my cheek. That sounds just like Big Eddie. “But you didn’t, did you,” I say bitterly. “You didn’t do a damn thing.” Cal puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me into him. I don’t care if someone has a fucking problem with it in the diner. I take comfort from his heat and the low growl coming from his throat, directed at the man across from us.
“You have to understand, Benji,” Corwin said, looking miserable, “there wasn’t a whole lot I could do, at least not right then. Regardless of the small town it was in, sheriff is still an elected position, and then the mayor’s name was dropped as potentially being involved? It would have been a bureaucratic nightmare to accuse them without any evidence. My superiors would have laughed me out of their offices, and no judge would have granted me a warrant. It was all speculative. All I had were flow charts and the voice on