Trial by Ice and Fire

by Clinton McKinzie

  I recognize the name. “How do you know him?”

  “He was my dad's best friend. He took care of me when I was a kid, when I used to spend my summers out here.”

  The party suddenly sounds less painful. At least there will be someone there I can relate to. “Okay, Cali. I'm your date. What does one wear to a Hollywood party?”

  “It's a Western theme. Get some sleep today, because it could be a late night.”

  That isn't likely to happen. I'm due to lecture the SWAT team on raiding meth labs in a half hour, and after that I have to go over the threatening letters and other evidence with my boss. God only knows how long it will take.

  We finish strapping the skis to our packs and continue clumping down the trail on the rockered soles of our boots. She walks ahead of me, seeming happy once again. Her arms swing high and she moves with an athlete's loose-jointed saunter.

  I'm your date—that was a stupid thing to say, Ant.

  But I can't help admiring the way her thighs and calves look so strong beneath the backpack. Catching myself, I think of my girlfriend instead. Rebecca's legs are even more spectacular, although ballerina-thin and not as suited for strenuous mountain life. But then she won't ski and climb with me anyway—I'd tried to infect her with my addiction during our winter vacation to see my family in Argentina and I'd failed miserably. Maybe it was that, what was supposed to be a beginning, that had been the start of the end.

  The trip started out fine. Rebecca practiced her high-school Spanish with my mother and the vaqueros on the estancia while I hiked and climbed the nearby crags with Dad. My brother, Roberto, was away in the Torres del Paine, whose peaks were as dangerous a lure to him as the needle. After three days I loaded packs onto a mule and led Rebecca on horseback to the base of a small unnamed spire across the Chilean border.

  I thought its south ridge would be the perfect way to introduce her to my world. The hardest moves weren't much tougher than climbing a ladder but the exposure—nearly two thousand feet of it near the summit—would give her a good pump. Rebecca was wide-eyed and grinning as I belayed her up pitch after pitch. It was the first time I'd ever seen her truly spontaneous—she was talking and laughing without her usual contemplative pause and dark-eyed stare. Her curly brown hair swirled around her head in an enormous, tangled halo after she lost the rubber band that held it back. When she laughed at something I said she blew strands of it from her mouth. She was learning to trust me and the rope. To like being tied to me and anchored to the mountains I loved.

  It went well until we were within two pitches of the top.

  That was when Roberto showed up, climbing after us.

  The sudden appearance of my fugitive brother—ropeless and with eighteen hundred feet of empty space beneath him—nearly made Rebecca sick. The slightest mistake, or even a rotten hand- or foothold, and Death would grab him by the ankle and yank him off the rock.

  “Do you do that?” she'd demanded, her mouth twisting into an expression I'd never seen on her face before.

  “Not often. Not like him,” I'd answered admiringly, awed as usual by my brother's audacity. Watching him recklessly rushing to greet me.

  “Take me down, Anton.” It was the last time Rebecca tried climbing.

  Rebecca is a city girl. And that fact, as well as the five hundred miles between Denver and Jackson and whatever else it is that's going on in her head, is pulling us apart.

  THREE

  THE TOWN OF JACKSON is nestled at the extreme southern end of the wide valley known as Jackson Hole. To the west the brown grass wall of Gros Ventre Butte—a mere twelve-hundred-foot-high foothill to the peaks behind it—looms up and over the town, and to the east is a ski mountain called Snow King. The valley extends all the way north to Yellowstone, broadening as it goes and bristling on the left with the sharp spires of the Teton summits. Although the official start of summer is still a few weeks away, the highway in the valley and the streets in town are already coursing with motor homes and Harleys.

  Because of all the tourists, I can't find any parking on the street outside the Teton County Sheriff's Office. So I pull into a space in the fenced lot that says “Official Vehicles Only.” And because my old rust-stained Land Cruiser—Rebecca calls it the Iron Pig—probably doesn't appear very official, I put a business card on the dashboard.

  Before getting out I take a minute to compose myself. I spit in my hands then smooth down the spikes of short brown hair my ski hat had raised. There's one persistent tuft that always stands up like a single devil's horn. With a fingertip I touch the line of slick tissue on my left cheek. Thin and white and shaped like a lightning bolt, it cuts from just below my left eye almost to my lips. The several-year-old scar has given my once honest and vaguely Hispanic features, I've been told, a sinister twist. Dark eyes, dark hair, and sun-bronzed skin turning too early to leather seem to emphasize the jagged white line's menace. I smile disarmingly out at the street, practicing, then climb out and slam the door.

  The morning's climb has taken longer than expected. After dropping Cali off with my new partner to watch over her, there was no time to shower, change clothes, or even let the wolf-dog Rebecca had recently given me out from my rented cabin for a bathroom break.

  So I walk into the building looking like a vagrant, or the living-out-of-my-truck climbing bum I used to be. I'm wearing muddy fleece sweats, sandals, and an old black polypropylene shirt full of holes. A female duty officer at the front desk looks me over for a long moment before asking if she can be of any help.

  “I'm here to meet with the SWAT team,” I explain, getting no immediate reply but a suspicious look from the heavyset woman. “I'm with DCI. My name's Antonio Burns.” I reach into my back pocket and show her the badge in my wallet.

  The deputy's eyes widen a little when I say my name. Then they fix on the scar. But she doesn't smile or say a word. Instead she studies the gold shield skeptically, as if it's something I don't deserve to be holding. She hands it back with another lift of her brows and a slight wrinkling of her nose. She points a finger at a hallway. With her other hand she presses a buzzer under the counter that makes the electric lock on the swinging gate click and hum.

  It isn't a surprising welcome. But the irony of it still distresses me. Good cops all too often shun me, believing the worst, while the bad ones treat me like a hero. They sometimes ask in low, admiring voices, How the hell did you get away with that? Judging by her obvious disdain, she's probably one of the good ones.

  I follow the extended finger and the sound of voices down the hall to the conference room. It's a large space containing several scarred wooden tables and a podium at the far end. A couple of greaseboards hang amid all the flyers on the walls. Donuts, bagels, and an urn of coffee have been set out on one of the tables. Six big cops—both in and out of uniform—look up at me when I walk in. All male. All white. The laughter and talk I'd heard coming down the hall is abruptly cut off.

  I try my disarming smile but no one smiles back.

  “QuickDraw!” a familiar voice roars from somewhere among them. “Gentlemen . . . meet the state's greatest liability. . . . This man's cost us more in lawsuits than the coal industry!”

  A squat, bald man built like a fireplug appears from amid the throng of younger and taller deputies. He's wearing a rumpled suit and jerking his way forward on an aluminium walker. A white beard that's littered with donut crumbs extends halfway down his chest, and his freckled, bald pate gleams under the fluorescent lights. His small blue eyes shine wickedly from beneath bristling brows. In another life he might have been a depraved Viking warlord. In this one he is my boss, the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division, Ross McGee.

  In his time he'd been responsible for putting several worthy candidates on death row. But age, various diseases, and an ever-increasing vulgarity have made him no longer presentable in front of a jury. Seven years ago, about the time I became a cop, the higher-ups assigned him to ride herd on me and the tw
enty-six other special agents. It was a saddle they hoped he would soon die in. So far he's proved too ornery.

  Despite his constant abuse, the other agents and I are intensely loyal to him. He insists on following the law, on not simply using it as a tool to pry himself up into higher office. And he backs us up with the ferocity of a wounded grizzly bear even when we, in his words, “screw the pooch.”

  With effort, I maintain my smile despite his very public use of the hated nickname. There's no doubt he's done it to annoy me. It's one of his favorite pastimes.

  “You're early, Ross.” He must have left Cheyenne in the predawn hours in order to have made it across the entire state by 11:00 A.M.

  “It doesn't take long when you've got a heavy foot . . . state plates . . . and a shiny tin badge.”

  Several officers chuckle politely at this. But their eyes don't seem to be laughing—instead they watch me with blatant interest.

  “I thought having a fat ass might slow you down some.” Then, to the men behind him, I introduce myself. “My name's Antonio Burns. Call me Anton. I'm going to be working with you for the next couple of months.”

  McGee continues lurching toward me on his walker. “And God help you all. . . . Special Agent Burns is thoroughly filthy, in body and soul. . . . I should know . . . I trained the bastard myself.” He makes a show of sniffing at my shirt. “What's this? Are you modeling the latest . . . in undercover apparel?”

  Then he growls softly, just to me, “You're late lad. Where the hell have you been?” His breath is appalling, flavored with sour coffee, tobacco, and bourbon.

  “Climbing,” I say shortly. I'm not eager to explain more.

  But he forces the issue in a not-too-gentle whisper. “You were supposed to be watching the girl.”

  “I was,” I admit.

  McGee squints at me and shakes his head. “What? You trying to kill her yourself? . . . Before this guy has the chance?” He turns to the assembled deputies and bellows, “Let's get this goat fuck started!”

  I walk to the front of the room and start talking as I unpack my briefcase. “Over the next few months—after I clear my current caseload—I'm going to be your spotter, identifying meth labs for you and showing you how to go in without getting yourselves shot up or blown up. You'll get to know me, and you'll also have the great misfortune of getting to know Ross McGee.”

  I go on to talk about the state's growing methamphetamine problem and the federal grant that will be paying my salary while I'm here.

  In Wyoming, a state with a population of less than 500,000 people spread over 97,000 square miles, we have five times the national average use of meth. Maybe it's because there's not enough for kids to do if they don't discover rodeo or rock climbing early on. Maybe it's something in the ever-present wind. In any event, one in twenty teenagers admits to having tried it. A lot of them get hooked. It's so prevalent because it's so easy to make. Any high-school dropout with a bathtub, a stove, paint thinner, a carton of Sudafed, and some ammonia product—even stale urine—can stir up a batch. The resulting high makes you feel pumped up and powerful before the quick downside leaves you jittery, pissed off, and rattlesnake-mean. Tweaking, it's called. Meth is highly addictive and gives those who snort, inject, or smoke it the urge to do something really violent. Even Roberto, my smackhead brother, won't touch the stuff anymore. He claims his preferred speedball blend of heroin and cocaine is much more “sofisticado.”

  I take a clear plastic bag with black writing on it from my briefcase. It had been evidence in another case and is now slated to be destroyed. Although I make an effort to handle the half-pound of dirty gray crystals inside casually as I talk, I can't help but feel their evil power. They're heavy in my hands and feel as dangerous as split-nosed bullets. I don't agree with my brother—to me this is indistinguishable from the shit that's ruined his life, put him in a cage, and now made him a wanted man. It's the shit that will kill him if gravity doesn't do the job first.

  I hold up the bag. “This is what we're after.”

  The deputies stare at it. They've all seen it before but probably never this much. I'm glad that at least their attention has been distracted from me. Before I could feel them weighing each word I said. Did he or didn't he do it? Is he a killer or just a very lucky bastard?

  I demonstrate how to work the notebook-sized quick-test kits we'll use to perform on-the-scene tests of minute amounts. Thorough analysis will be done later at a lab, but some needs to be tested immediately to determine if there's probable cause to make an arrest.

  The officers handle the crystals gingerly when I pass them around. Like me, they give the stuff an amount of respect it doesn't deserve. As if it's the root of all evil, or at least a lot of evils. But as I watch them, I wonder if I'm losing my repugnance toward the stuff. Going after it and destroying it had once seemed like a calling, my way of avenging my brother. Now I realize that Roberto and the other junkies will do what they want. This drug or another. And that prison only makes their cravings more urgent, and at the same time makes the addicts meaner and tougher and more resourceful.

  McGee is watching my performance from the back of the room. Every now and then I catch him lifting a silver flask from inside his coat and taking a sip. I wonder if I'm being spied upon, if the high-level bureaucrats have sent McGee up to this part of the state to determine if I'm still capable of functioning after all the trauma I've been through lately. But I'm probably being paranoid—it's more likely they just wanted to get McGee out of their hair for a while. Besides, they trust him even less than they trust me.

  The men joke and laugh as they perform their own tests on the drugs at the tables. They feel it, sniff it, plop tiny drops of chemicals on it, and then I get them to taste it. They grin at one another's bitter-beer faces. Crank tastes about like you'd expect—kitchen Dra-no cut with piss.

  I notice that the officers seem to gravitate around one clean-shaven deputy sheriff with a thick, weight-lifter's build. They appear to look to him for approval in almost everything they do. Every joke, every comment, is addressed more to him than to the group.

  Once the kits have been packed away, I talk about spotting methamphetamine labs.

  “They're pretty easy to find because you can smell the chemical stink of the ammonia sometimes for miles. Another dead giveaway is a trash pile full of empty packages of Sudafed and other cold remedies. Once we get running in a couple of weeks, I'll be patrolling the forests five days a week, looking for trailers or shacks on National Forest land where you won't even need warrants—you'll be able to go in as soon as you can get your respirators on and the fire department on standby. You'll want to watch out when you go in because the cooking process is highly explosive.”

  McGee calls from the back of the room, “Just throw a lit match in the door. . . . You'll know soon enough if it's a lab or not.”

  Several good questions are asked. What are the likely dangers inside a so-called clan lab, or clandestine laboratory? Are they often booby-trapped? What kind of weapons do these amateur chemists tend to carry? As I answer them I start to feel a growing sense of camaraderie with these officers. They're starting to trust me.

  But then, abruptly, it all goes south.

  When I ask for more questions, one thick arm is raised by the weight lifter in the sheriff's uniform—the one who seems like the leader of this group. His crew-cut blond head is the size of a cinder block and his jaw muscles bulge as if full of gum. He has dark brown eyes that are set far apart, like a pit bull's. And they look about as predictable. I also notice that he's the only one wearing a sergeant's three stripes. His plastic nametag says “Wokowski.”

  “So when we go in,” he asks in a quiet, measured voice, “do we wait for them to draw on us before we shoot 'em?”

  The room grows very quiet. Then someone snickers. A challenge is clear in the air from all the way across the long conference room. I feel a scarlet flush creeping into my cheeks. And I can't help but remember that night—the blood r
ushing in my ears, the explosions of gunfire, something wet slapping my face, the Glock banging away in my hand—

  I stifle the memories and focus. Every police agency has a few alpha types who resent the attention I'd received as much as I do. They're actually jealous, the dumb fucks. They'll go out of their way to make it as hard for me as possible to accomplish anything, and would like nothing better than to see me embarrassed. Wokowski might as well have said what the defense attorney and press strongly implied just two weeks before—QuickDraw my ass. You murdered those boys.

  I keep my voice slow and flat, and even manage to smile. “Well, Sergeant Wokowski, when your presence and identity have been exposed, or are even suspected, then obviously the best thing to do is withdraw and wait for a better opportunity. If you can't do that, then you do whatever you have to. But you'll have to live with the consequences—the official inquiries, the lawsuits, and having to answer stupid questions from idiots who've never been in a similar situation.”

  God, I hope it's you, I'm thinking. I hope you're the one. It will be a pleasure to ratchet the hooks over your beefy wrists.

  One of the other five officers lets out a low groan. “Oooh.” It's the sound you heard in high school when someone made the final, fatal insult about another's mother and a fight was imminent. It has come to this so fast—just minutes ago I'd begun to believe that everything was going so well.

  Wokowski's still watching me without any discernible expression. His wide-set eyes don't even seem to blink. It's hard to see what Cali could ever have seen in him, but then he does have a powerful, almost animalistic aura. He opens his mouth to respond.

  A crack sounds like a gunshot, cutting him off before he has the chance to speak. McGee has shoved his walker into a table leg.