Chapter 227

I was pretty sure our days of shopping together had ended and I was just as glad. Jeremy had begun to get tiresome. I got my shit from the trailer and sent him off home dragging the trailer behind. The biggest thing I had was the antique pistol. Everything else was small, but the items did fill up four of the large plastic storage baskets, which I took from the locker.

I wasn't sure whether Jeremy would take care of selling my stuff on line or not. I was absolutely sure I would go crazy trying to handle that end of the business. However I was prepared to do it until I could find someone else if necessary.

I bought a lot of the auction things with gray money, so I could clean it up. I didn't need to explain that to Jeremy, that's the reason he was important to me. However he might need replacing, if he got a bad case of the guilts and confessed to The Brit.

I had put and ad on Craig's List to sell the cruiser on Monday and it was sold the same day. Maybe I should sell used cars, I thought as the sun went down on Monday. I sat in the box drinking the moonshine, which I had made with red peppers in the mash. That shit really burned going down. Next thing I knew I was fall into bed.

Before my next conscious though it was Tuesday. I sat in my box house after the morning ride, and the animal fat breakfast, to I asked myself what I was doing. After the latest buying trip I hadn't called Jeremy or The Brit. I cleaned the jewelry from the road trip, and was considering what I should do with it. It was a miserable feeling not to be in control of things. I really was a little depressed to be honest. I discovered that even though I could scheme a little, and maybe even make a profit in the trading business, my heart just wasn't in it. There was no excitement in buying stuff and reselling it. That was really more Jeremy's thing, than mine. I was ready to sell the trading company to Jeremy and stay home weekends and take up knitting.

That was before the deputies with the search warrant showed up at my door. I saw them at the gate an hour before noon. I was on the phone to Rita immediately. They waited while I walked down to the gate. There were a half dozen of them standing there waiting for me to open the gate. There were three cars parked on the shoulder of the road. Two sheriff's cars and one unmarked car.

When I arrived at the gate, the unmarked car door opened and Agent Morris stepped out. "Well I guess when the state cop makes it to the to the gate. the gang will truly all be here except for my lawyer. So you want to wait for her. She is on the way. Her ETA is about ten minutes. If I stand here with you, so that I can't be destroying evidence of my boring existence."

"Miss Porter we are required to serve you with the warrant not your lawyer," Agent Morris replied.

"Do you guys really want to listen to her and not wait the ten minutes in an election year. You know I am going to make an issue of this, if you do. If I were you, I would want to be sure it was all by the book," I said.

"This operation is by the Warren County Sheriff's Department. I am the commanding officer and we will wait the ten minutes, but not a second longer," the sergeant said.

"Good choice," I said.

"I sure would like a cup of coffee. I don't suppose you would allow my lawyer time to go through the drive through at Hardee's on the way?" I asked. "I'll have her bring you some.

"Afraid not Sylvia," the sergeant said.

"Just for the hell of it what does that warrant say you are looking for?" I asked.

"A moonshine still," the Sergeant said.

I broke out laughing. "Unless you can brew shine in a coffee pot, you are really wasting your time," I replied.

Rita arrived in eight minutes and Morris read her the warrant. "That's fine now listen up people, Rita said. "Unless you know more about making liquor than I do. You know you can not to look in furniture storage areas, which are obviously too small to house a liquor still. You can not search her vehicles nor open any drawers in any storage areas. Before you cut any locks, you must give her a chance to open them and I will make sure your warrant cover any other areas you wish to search. I think you can probably send half the deputies back to work other places, we are not going to resist."

"They are here because it is well know that your client travels armed," Morris said.

Rita turned to me. "Are you armed?" she asked.

"Actually I am. Would you like to hold my firearms, since the warrant does not cover them. I am on my own property, so there is no question at all about how legal they are." I said even though I had carry permits, since I was a still private protection officer with the Swamp Dog.

"If you would be so kind. Just have your lawyer hold them," Morris said.

"Not a problem," I agreed. "Let's not make this a test of the elephant in the matchbox rule of law."

"Don't worry, we will stick to the letter of the search warrant," Morris said.

"Only because Rita is here," I mumbled.

"Come on in," I said as I walked back up the drive with two of the deputies and Morris fuming. She just hated that she couldn't search inside my storage boxes. About all she could do was open the door of the storage building and look inside. A still is such a large thing it can't be in a small storage box. I did have a vodka bottle half full of shine, but it was not the green dragon, so I think they would have trouble making a case against me with it. Even if they could, it wasn't covered by the search warrant, so they couldn't seize it. It was not obviously shine. It was obviously vodka.