pollinate. Marijuana plants are of both the female and male varieties. The pollen pops out of the male plants, is carried on the wind, and fertilizes the female plants. The most valuable plant is an unfertilized female. If she is fertilized, boom, you have seeds. Seeds reduce the THC content. So you have a much less valuable plant.’’ He looked around. ‘‘Okay so far?’’
We all nodded.
‘‘Good. Because of the investment in time and effort, and the considerable reduction in value if anything goes wrong, growers are sensitive about these plants, and will actually live in the patch for a week or so, around fertilization time. When that is depends on when they were planted, when they were moved outside, and the weather conditions since the move. Guesswork, in other words.’’
He looked at the group again, and must have been satisfied that we were with him.
‘‘Right. Now, because it’s worth two to three thousand dollars a plant, it is frequently used to trade for methamphetamine. Almost like a currency. Meth is pretty much controlled by outlaw motorcycle gangs, and they can get violent if they have to. You all know that.’’
Yup.
‘‘If they’ve advanced some meth on speculation, and that speculation involved sinsemilla plants that were either devalued by accident or otherwise nonavailable at the proper time, somebody could get killed.’’
I didn’t have any problem with that, and I don’t think anybody else did either.
‘‘We think that this Johnny Marks had promised sinsemilla to one of the controlling cycle gangs in either Milwaukee, Madison, or Minneapolis. We think Johnny Marks has enough enemies that they were trying to screw with his plants, to get a cycle group to kill him. Thereby doing their dirty work for them.’’
Oops. They’d lost me on that one. I mean, it was neat, I’ll say that. Cool, almost. But they’d left some stuff out, creating a large gap.
‘‘We know, then,’’ I asked, ‘‘that Marks was for sure dealing with one of the cycle gangs?’’
‘‘It’s safe to assume,’’ he said.
‘‘Which one?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘I’m not at liberty to tell you that at this point,’’ said Nichols. He sounded like he really wanted to.
‘‘Well, then, do we know who was mad at him?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘Not yet,’’ Nichols acknowledged. ‘‘But we feel we’re close.’’
‘‘Mmmmm.’’ That came from Lamar.
‘‘It’d be slick if that’s what happened,’’ I said. ‘‘How much can you give us when you know? I mean, if we know, and can’t take the right connections into court…’’
‘‘We’ll be able to give the killers,’’ he said.
‘‘Well,’’ asked George, ‘‘are you assuming that the killers were members of the cycle gang, or that they were the ones who were trying to screw with the plants, or…?’’
Good question.
‘‘We aren’t certain yet,’’ said Nichols. ‘‘I hate to assume, but I don’t think that it was members of the cycle gang who did it.’’
‘‘Why’s that?’’ asked Lamar.
‘‘Not really their style,’’ said Nichols. ‘‘They don’t generally hang out in the woods.’’
Now, both Lamar and I, for sure, knew that wasn’t true at all. So, I believe, did Hester, Al, and George. We’d had members of a cycle gang cooking meth in a cabin in the woods several years before, and the cabin they used was owned and lived in by several members of a local cycle group that was affiliated with them. From Texas, for God’s sake.
‘‘Oh,’’ said Lamar. ‘‘That right?’’
I thought a little less charitably than that. DEA was obviously making an effort on our behalf, and maybe it was just that Nichols was so anxious to help that he’d just jumped the gun a little bit. Whatever, it wasn’t looking really good at that point. A reach was one thing… speculation was another. I knew, in my mind, they were probably right about Marks and his connections. He’d have no market at all for that much top-quality grass locally, and crystal meth did sell well here. Good business, trading. Especially when good-quality meth was a high-risk manufacturing enterprise. To have somebody pissed off enough at him to kill him certainly wasn’t a reach. But for them to be well enough connected to get this done… yeah. That was the problem. And for them to be certain that Marks would be the eventual target of the gang…
‘‘You might have a couple of weak points in the theory here,’’ I said.
Nichols actually laughed. ‘‘Tell me about it,’’ he said. ‘‘But I think there’s a really good chance that we’re right.’’ He grinned. ‘‘And, no, I can’t tell you everything, and you know that.’’
Hester grinned back. ‘‘True. But I’ll go on record as thinking you’re wrong on this one. Just because it’s too hard to arrange that way…’’
Hester’s background in narcotics was, by the way, impeccable. She’d worked undercover for about five years, and very successfully. They transferred her into General Crim. Only when it became apparent that she’d busted too many people in too many places to go unrecognized anymore.
‘‘That’s fine, Hester,’’ said Nichols affably. ‘‘But my information’s just a bit more current than yours.’’ He grinned again.
Personally, I was with Hester. Current information aside. I was also developing the uneasy feeling that Nichols was relying on the FBI for his theory. It sure explained the gaps.
After the meeting, Lamar hauled Hester and me into his office and locked the door.
‘‘That’s all bullshit,’’ said my boss.
‘‘Probably,’’ I said.
‘‘Not probably, it’s bullshit plain and simple. Nobody blows smoke up my ass in my own office. I don’t want you two to back off at all, and I don’t want you to go along with what they say if you don’t agree.’’
That was fine with me.
‘‘I know the bikers don’t shy away from the woods,’’ he said, ‘‘but it doesn’t make a bit of difference. They’re already holding something back, somewhere, and I don’t like it.’’
Neither did Hester. Neither did I.
‘‘You,’’ Lamar said, looking right at me, ‘‘have my permission to look into anything you want. Don’t worry about steppin’ on no toes. It’s my county, and we by God do it my way. Only toes that can get stepped on are mine. Nobody else’s count.’’
‘‘Okay,’’ I said with a chuckle. ‘‘Just be sure to tell the Feds that.’’
‘‘No problem. And one more thing, Carl. You too, Hester.’’ He positively grinned for the first time. ‘‘I just want you to know that between the two of you, you’re about as smart as any Fed.’’
That was about it. That day. That week. And for what seemed a long time after that. We had nothing. Oh, we had a lot of physical evidence. A phone call to Dr. Peters’s office gave us some preliminary autopsy data and some ballistic information. We finally established that there were likely only two shooters, and that they were the only ones who apparently hit anything that day. Lots of shell casings, MRE debris, some partial prints, a quarter of a bootprint we had finally found that may or may not have been involved. Two dead bodies. The usual thorough autopsy reports were promised. Two failed suspects. And a lot of people, including us, who couldn’t figure out why we couldn’t get any further on a scene as messy as that one was. DCI had started pulling off the extra help after the third week, as there was absolutely nothing for them to do. They were remarkable in having stayed after the first week, to tell the truth. That left Hester, primarily, as the case officer. DNE remained active, we thought, but since they wouldn’t tell us what they were up to, we couldn’t be sure. Probably just as well, as I’m sure they’d have to kill us if they told us. Johansen had taken a leave of absence, but I was betting that he wouldn’t be back. That meant we were two officers short. Everybody had to work an extra day each week to fill in. We were all getting tired, tempers were getting a little short, and all the normal crap continued unabated.
Eleven
Let me tell you, you get a case like this one, where it’s going nowhere, for no good reason, and you get a little paranoid. Hester and I spent hours on the telephone, or at our office, going over everything. Every last detail.
