Chat - Archer Mayor [98]
Chapter 23
Deputy Sheriff Ted Mumford drove his cruiser gingerly down the narrow lane. It was banked with walls of fresh snow, no doubt disguising parallel ditches that would strand him for sure, and it hadn’t been plowed in hours or sanded at all. On top of that, it was late, he was tired, this was the middle of nowhere, and he was responding to his least favorite type of call—a noise complaint.
With the worst snowstorm of the season at last behind him, ten hours of accidents, traffic control, domestic disputes, a lost child, no time off, and God knows how many cups of coffee, Mumford was in no mood to deal with some barking dog or loud stereo. He’d done an uncountable number of these in his years as a deputy, and only a few times had the complainant actually deigned to call the source of the problem and simply ask them to stop it. “I won’t call that son of a bitch” was the usual reply. “That’s what you cops are for.”
Ahead, Mumford made out the glimmering of two houses among the thick tangle of trees—one doubtless belonging to the complainant, the other to the subject. Now that he was near, he could imagine the scenario all too easily: the sole two neighbors inside a square mile of wilderness, hating each other and using every excuse to exchange mutual misery.
He rolled down his window as he drew abreast of the first driveway, or at least the car-size furrow of snow leading to the house, and listened. He would have to give the complainant that much, if nothing else—there was a dog barking down the road, loudly and nonstop, with the same dull rhythm as someone repeatedly thumping the side of your head with a finger.
On the other hand, if Ted were a dog chained outside in this weather, he might have done some barking of his own. Maybe he’d be able to slap an animal cruelty charge on top of the disturbance citation.
Often he would stop at the complainant’s on such a call, both to placate and to work up a little departmental PR, but he was too tired and pissed off to bother this time. Instead, he kept crawling down the road, his snow-encrusted headlights doing their feeble best to lead him along, until he reached the second house’s blanketed dooryard. Or what he could find of it—there were already three white-shrouded vehicles filling the space. Informing dispatch of his arrival before getting out of the car, Mumford figured he’d have to back all the way to the first driveway in order to turn around later. Great.
The dog, of course, had climbed to a new plateau, having discovered something real to complain about. Also, to be safe, Ted had shined his powerful flashlight right at it to make sure it couldn’t suddenly break free and come at him from across the yard. That had done nothing to calm things down.
Holstering the light and relying on the glow from the house’s windows to show him the way, Mumford shuffled through the thick and slippery snow, careful of any obstacles possibly lurking beneath it.
He reached the bottom of the front porch steps, and was two treads up when the door above and ahead of him abruptly flew open, revealing a man in a checked shirt, holding a beer in one hand and a joint between his lips. A handgun was shoved into his belt. Although only ten feet separated them, the man missed seeing Mumford entirely, swung on his heel, faced the length of the porch, and bellowed, “Rollo, you stupid mutt. Shut the fuck up.”
Mumford stared through the gaping open door into the ramshackle log house—and directly at two more men who were sitting at a table, placing carefully measured amounts of white powder into small transparent glassine envelopes that they were holding up to the light.
One of them was Dan Griffis.
That’s when the man on the porch saw Ted Mumford.
“Who the fuck’re you?” he blurted, reaching for his gun and drawing the attention of the other two.
Mumford instantly inventoried the trouble he was in. His own gun was hard to reach, half hidden by his winter jacket, he was wearing nonregulation woolen gloves for their warmth, and he’d just found out how poor his footing was.