Chapter 6

It seemed like forever before the shooting stopped and the state police moved in to make the arrests. Standing up after the action was over, Ed said, “I wonder where our two FBI agents are?”

Howard pointed down the road to where the two agents were standing up from behind their car. With a grin, he said, “They were out of their car before we were.”

About to say something to Albert, Ed turned to where he thought the Ranger was standing only to find the spot empty. Across the road, Albert was squatting examining a sorry specimen of grass by the side of the road. Frowning, he looked back at Ed and said, “There’s got to be some more of this around here somewhere. I guess I’ll have to come back later and search for it.”

“You can stay here while we find out what was behind all of this,” replied Ed.

“Oh no you don’t. I’ve got to hear this for myself,” said Albert more forcefully than he had intended. Learning the reason for the death of his friend was far more important at the moment then the plant he had just found.

As a group, they went up to the porch where the troopers were holding the two brothers. When they went to question them, one of the troopers held up and hand as he said, “There’s something you need to see before you talk to them.”

Albert, Ed, and Howard followed the officer to one of the green houses. Entering the green house, the temperature was suddenly ten degrees hotter than outside with a humidity that caused the shirt to stick to the skin. Howard, holding his nose, said, “It smells like shit in here.”

“Right. All of these boxes are filled with mushrooms. This whole green house is a mushroom factory. We’ve got an expert coming to examine them to determine what kind they are.”

Looking at one example, Albert shook his head and said, “That is Psilocybe Cubensis. It’s a hallucinogenic mushroom.”

The trooper asked, “How can you be so sure?”

“When you spot a daisy are you sure that it’s a daisy?”

“Yes.”

“Same here,” replied Albert. Looking through the glass walls of the hothouse, he could see that there were two other hothouses. He asked, “What’s in the other hothouses?”

The trooper answered, “Cactus.”

Saddened by the answer, Albert said, “Let’s go visit the other two hothouses.”

In the next one, there were rows of cactus growing on shelves. The trooper asked, “Do you know what kind they are?”

“Yes, they are Peyote. Another hallucinogenic plant.”

Howard looked around at the plants in the room and asked, “So how much is all of this stuff worth on the street?”

“Not that much, I’m afraid. I doubt they pulled in more than a hundred thousand a year,” answered Albert. The fact of the matter was that these crops weren’t that highly sought after. In the sixties, they might have made some money, but today with drugs like Ecstasy on the market, their street value was pretty low.

The state trooper led them to the third greenhouse, which was filled with Cannabis. Ed looked around the greenhouse puzzled. What they had found wasn’t worth killing anyone over. There had to be more to the story than what was here. He asked, “Is there another building around here?”

“Just the house,” replied the trooper.

Recalling the time when they had visited here previously, the brothers had both come out of the house. Confused, he said, “Let’s check out the house.”

In the house, Ed noticed that one of the walls looked odd. Going over to it, he found that it opened to a basement. Searching near the door, he found a light switch and flipped it. Warm light came shining up from the basement. Signaling for the others to follow him, he went down the stairs. At the bottom step, he stopped and looked around at the basement. It reminded him of the chemistry lab back at the College. Stepping into the basement, he said, “This explains everything.”

Howard looked around the room and said, “This is better equipped than the Intro to Chemistry lab back at the school.”

The state trooper ran back up the stairs and returned with the Captain in tow. The Captain looked around the basement and said, “I guess we know why they were shooting at us.”

Turning to look at Ed, the Captain saw the Druid Robe and nodded. In a quiet voice, he said, “It looks like you guys get credit for another one.”

Shaking his head, Ed replied, “Not so. This was because of Albert Mandel, a Ranger.”

“I don’t know anything about Rangers. Are you a Ranger as in Texas Ranger?”

Albert laughed and replied, “No, I’m afraid not. I’m a Ranger in terms of being a naturalist. I belong to a private group that performs work under funding by the State Game and Wildlife Department and the Department of the Interior. We help establish hunting limits, identify rare species of wildlife, and monitor ecological infractions.”

“Then you are not with any law enforcement agency.”

“Right,” replied Albert.

“If I may ask, why are you here?”

“They killed a Ranger and dumped the body fifty miles from here,” replied Albert.

The Captain nodded as he considered the information. They had not been told that the man killed was a Ranger, only that he was a hiker. It went far to explain why he had heard from just about every Game Warden in the state about this case. The Druid explained why the FBI was here. He said, “I guess your job here is done then.”

Clearing his throat, Ed said, “He tracked them down and has provided all of the evidence that ties those two up there to the murder. He has a right to know why they did it.”

“He’ll find that out when they get to trial,” replied the Captain.

Looking at the badge and name tag pinned to the shirt of the Captain, Ed rubbed his chin with his right hand as he replied, “You might want to rethink that answer, Captain Edwards.”

“Are you threatening me?” asked the Captain getting ready to call some troopers in to throw the guy out. He added, “If you are, I’ll throw your asses out of here in a minute.”

Shaking his head, Ed pulled out his cell-phone and dialed a number on it. A few seconds later, the other end answered, “Governor’s Office.”

“This is Ed Biggers. May I speak to the Governor?” As Ed spoke, the Captain’s eyes narrowed.

“Governor, it’s nice to talk to you again,” Ed paused and then continued, “Yes, we caught the guys. Albert and Leroy are hoping they will get a chance to question them a bit.”

Captain Edwards realized that he had gotten into a pissing contest with the wrong man. Getting noticed by the Governor was the kind of thing that could easily kill a career. Regretting his hasty words, he wondered what he could do. He listened in amazement as Ed said, “There’s no real problem here, I was just hoping that you could reassure Captain Edwards that we could talk to the prisoner and that we would obey all of the appropriate laws.”

Smiling at the Captain, Ed handed the phone to him. It was a very quiet conversation on the part of the Captain. He kept glancing up at Ed and then over at Albert. When the conversation was over, he handed the phone back to Ed and said, “The Governor wants to talk to you again.”

Surprised, Ed spoke into the phone, “You had something to say to me?”

Laughing, Ed said, “No, Sir. I think that he was doing his job as he saw it. I’d commend him if I were you. The last thing you want are outsiders coming in and messing up evidence.”

“Sure,” Ed said, “Nice talking to you.”

Putting up the phone, Ed looked over at the Captain. With a shrug of his shoulders, he said, “Sorry about that. I hate going over someone’s head in that fashion, but it does tend to cut out a bunch of red tape.”

Gruffly, the Captain said, “Tends to cut off balls at the same time.”

Howard broke out in laughter at that and was half tempted to reach between the man’s legs to see if he still had a pair of balls. Albert gently nudged him in the side and said, “Sorry, Captain Edwards. John Wilkins was a personal friend of the Governor as am I. Before we started the Rangers, we used to belong to the same Ecology Activist Group.”

All of a sudden, things made a lot more sense for the trooper. He said, “We’re holding them upstairs on the porch.”

The Captain led the way going up the stairs from the basement, followed closely by Albert. The Ranger knew not to ask any questions until Ed was present. Ed held back a little and told Howard, “When it comes to a confrontation such as between the Captain and myself, you leave the man his dignity. You clear up the issues and you don’t point fingers. He was doing the best job that he could. I wasn’t lying when I told the Governor that he needed reassurance that we could question the suspects.”

Howard realized that his laughter had been misinterpreted as laughing at the man. Nodding, he said, “It’s just that the remark about cutting red tape also cut balls was funny.”

Ed smiled and said, “Yes it was. Now get upstairs before people get worried.”

The two went up the stairs followed by the trooper that had shown them around the place. He was very thoughtful as he walked behind them. It was only at that point that he realized that the Captain had stood a very good chance of getting into serious trouble with the Governor. State Troopers that irritated Governors tended to end up as security guards in malls.

On the porch, Albert stood studying the two brothers allowing his real feelings to be seen. The time when he interviewed them for the magazine article he had to act pleasant. Now he didn’t. When Ed arrived, Albert said, “Can I question them now?”

Albert turned to the brothers and said, “We have you dead to rights on the murder of John Wilkins. You know that don’t you?”

“Maybe or maybe not,” replied Jake.

“Wise up, you’re smarter than that. We have a recording where you conclusively put yourself at the place and time where you dumped his body. We have an eyewitness that can identify your truck and can testify to the actual time when you were there. We have your fingerprints on beer cans found at the scene,” replied Leroy.

The two brothers looked at each other and Jake shrugged while trying to put forth as blank a look as possible under the circumstances. Albert asked, “Why did you do it?”

Irritated at his situation, Jack answered, “We caught him looking in the greenhouse.”

Ed nodded his head letting the others know that Jack was telling the truth. Disturbed by the lack of remorse demonstrated by either man, Ed said, “Albert, you know the truth now. It’s time to drop it and get on with your work.”

A very quiet Albert walked down the drive with Ed, Leroy, and Howard. They met up with Ling who was sitting on the hood of the car watching everything going on around her. When they arrived there, Ling asked, “Can I talk to you alone for a minute Leroy?”

“Sure, Ling,” answered Leroy.

As the others, in a discreet fashion, stepped away from the couple Ed remarked, “I wonder how we are going to get back to town.”

Albert replied, “Well, I have a car and the two FBI agents have a car. Shouldn’t be a problem. When we get back to town, you call a tow truck to pick up the car and I’ll come back out here to look at plants.”

It sounded like a reasonable plan to Ed. He looked back at his wife and husband. It appeared to him that Leroy was looking very depressed and Ling was sad. He didn’t know what they were saying to each other, but figured that they would want to ride back in separate cars. Turning to Albert, he said, “Maybe you can take Howard and Leroy back as soon as Leroy is done talking to Ling.”

Looking around, Ed spotted the two FBI agents talking to the Captain. Not wanting to interfere more than was required, he went over to them none-the-less. Chuck Abrams, one of the FBI agents, came over to him and asked, “Is there anything we can do for you?”

“I’m afraid that we are going to need a ride back to town,” answered Ed as he pointed over to the bullet-riddled car.

Shaking his head Chuck pointed over to his car and said, “They got ours, too.”

“It’s dead?”

“No, just the windshield has been shot up,” replied the agent. He pointed up to the house and said, “We are entering a joint investigation on this case. From what you found, it looks like they were running a major factory of designer drugs. We might be able to bring down a major drug ring.”

“That’s good news.”

“We’ll be ready to leave in about an hour. You might want to ask the Captain if he is going to have any of his men returning to town before then,” replied the agent.

That was a good suggestion and Ed walked over to the Captain who noticed him arrive. Turning to Ed, he asked, “Do you need anything?”

“Just wondering if you were sending any of your officers back to town,” answered Ed.

“Yeah. In about fifteen minutes we’ll transport the prisoners back to town. We’ll have a car in front and behind of them,” replied the Captain.