Chapter 18

I placed a call back to the station. They had everything under control. Mostly they were processing evidence from all over the damn county. It was a big job, but they seemed to be on top of it.

"Sheriff, we are going to need to process some of this, and pass it on to the SBI. The bust is going to be out of our jurisdiction. Should I make the call, or do you want to?" Eddie asked.

"Let me look at the evidence before you send it off, then we can decide what goes where together. Now I got a little errand to run. I'll be an hour or so," I said.

The swamp had run Tobais and come up with his cell phone then from that they got a location. The Fucking SBI couldn't do that, I thought. So I drove the red truck to the seedy side of town. Then I walked into the gang hangout. It was a convenience store in front and a meeting room in back. It had once been an auto repair bay.

I went right to the door. The man standing guard looked at me. "Now you can get out of my way or you can get carried to the ER."

"What you gonna do Puta?" he said.

"This Puta is going to shove a shive in your belly asshole," I said with the orange stake pressed ever so gently against his belly. The thing I had going for me was they always assumed I was just a little girl out of her element. "This is no joke," I said.

He opened the door but he called out something in Spanish before he let me pass. I saw the man who had to be Tobias, he had that air of dominance about him. "You that lady sheriff from over in County Seat," he said.

"Actually of all Warren County," I said. I was trying not to show my discomfort at being in the lion den.

"So why you come here?" he asked.

"I came to give you a friendly warning. See Warren County is no longer gang friendly. If you make a move in my county I will stop you. You got the whole rest of the state, but Warren County is off limits. Now you have been warned."

"Why you come here with this shit?" Tobias said. "We got the word no dope in Warren County."

"Now you have the word no gang activity in Warren County. I'm going to have the Deputies work out in Reggie's Gym. Then I expect the highway patrol will come down to work out there as well. Our local thugs will most like still hangout there, so we don't need your shit."

"You are telling me we are not welcome in Warren County. That's a violation of my civil rights," he said.

"My daddy always said, 'Dead men don't need rights.'" I replied. He made a hinky move and the derringer just appeared in my hand. "Last man who tried that went missing."

He backed away. I turned my back on him and walked away. Yes I knew turning my back on an enemy was dangerous, but it was also the ultimate insult to a macho prick like Tobias.

I managed to get into the truck and out of the parking lot before the shakes overcame my bravado. Man that had been stupid, I thought. I would have to wait to see how it played out.

I drove back to the courthouse in County Seat. First I went to my office as I usually did. Also as usual Mrs. West had things which needed my attention. I approved payment for attending to some officer's uniforms. It was payment for sewing patches on, but at the same time he got to make alterations for which the county didn't pay. A deputy got uniforms one time that were the closest to his size, from then on it was on him. He could buy replacement uniforms from a catalog, which were supposed to be discount but I had my doubts. Our uniforms except for mine were standard colors and designs so they were easy to find.

"I'm going down to the lab and evidence room, if you need me," I informed her.

"If anymore bullshit comes in just sign my name you know a lot better than me what needs doing." I suggested.

"Sheriff we have both Democrats and Republican looking to tack your hide to the wall. I would rather not go with you Ma'am. I'll just leave the signing for you." Mrs West said.

"That is a very intelligent thing to do Mrs. West and I approve of intelligent people," I said with a smile.

"Mr too," she said with a smile as big as mine.

After my office the next stop was the conference room. We were using it to process the evidence on the very few major cases we had in a years time. "So Osborn they got you in here to play computer geek?" I asked.

"Wilson is a better computer geek," she said smiling at Wilson. He was older and nerdy but she might not have had all that many options. Osborn was no raving beauty, she did have potential though.

"So what did we learn from his computer?" I asked.

"We learned we should have checked this asshole out at the first of the last school year. He and his little cheerleader friend recruited a half dozen girls. He even had it written down in a manual like he was going to franchise it or something. A how to recruit and train high school whores," Osborn replied.

"I can't believe he left town and didn't take all that shit with him." I said.

"He did," Wilson added. "Sorta. He had it on the rainyday.com site."

"You are going to have to walk me though it I'ma Luddite," I explained.

"Okay he figured we might come calling one day so he had a burn program. He hit one key as he went out of the house and it destroyed his hard drive. There was almost nothing on it anyway. He stored everything on an external hard drive on line. The site is called Rainyday.com. You know save for a rainy day." Wilson said.