Coldwater Revenge, James Ross [books for 9th graders txt] 📗

“Alright brother. But keep it under 90 miles an hour, okay. My stomach’s churning already.”

As soon they turned onto the Northway, Joe started. “You’re pissing me off with this Super Uncle shit. Secret languages, monster fish… Next thing I know, you’ll be getting him laid.”

Tom glanced at a speedometer fanning clockwise as if it were measuring the driver’s blood pressure instead of the car’s speed. “Afraid he’ll beat your record?”

“Don’t be funny. I’m serious.”

“Then be serious. You don’t have time to be a dad. No Coldwater Sheriff in living memory has. MadDog wasn’t around when we were kids. You and I had each other. But all Luke’s got is two older sisters. It’s not the same, and it’s not enough.”

“You’re setting the bar too high, Tommy.”

“By taking the kid fishing and playing an old family word game? Come on. He’s dying for some guy time, that’s all. Put a couple of fishing poles in the trunk of the patrol car and take him on your rounds, if that’s all you’ve got time for. It doesn’t matter what you do. The kid just needs to hang with men every once in a while, preferably his dad.”

“What do you know about children?”

“I was one.”

Joe glared at the windshield. The patrol car gradually decelerated.

“Sometimes you’re too fucking smart for your own good, Tommy.” Joe bit his lip and glanced sideways. “So how do you speak this Pig Latin gibberish? I forget.”

Tom put Joe through his remedial language paces until he could carry on a simple conversation without misplacing half the nonsense syllables. Then he dozed the rest of the way down the Northway and Thruway until they reached Manhattan.

“There’s something else I need to talk to you about.” Joe slowed the car for the ‘Cash Only’ toll both on the George Washington bridge. “I ran into Susan Pearce a few months ago out on Watermelon Hill, near one of Cashins’ dope patches.” Tom sat up and rubbed his eyes. “She was sitting on a picnic blanket. With her shirt off.”

Tom groaned. “I’m not sure I want to hear this.”

Joe kept his eye on traffic. “I go up the Hill every spring just to see where the new dope patches are. But I leave the plants alone until just before harvest. That keeps the Cashins busy and out of trouble weeding and guarding their turf all summer. Then I go back a few weeks before the plants are ready and I pull most of them up.”

“No booby traps?”

“Simple stuff. I think they all read the same Mother Jones handbook. Besides, I don’t even think they know it’s me. They probably suspect the competition.”

The cash lane line was a hundred cars deep. Couldn’t the town spring for an EZ Pass?

“So there she is, lying half-naked in all that greenery, little khaki shorts, blond ponytail, hiking boots and a smile. Reminded me of Jane Goodall in one of those old National Geographic magazines. Only topless.” Joe grinned. “I know she heard me coming. She must have seen me too. But she didn’t even look up. Cool as a cucumber.”

“I definitely don’t want to hear this.”

“How do you know what it’s about?”

“Non-overlapping immune system markers.”

“What?”

“Opposites attract.”

Joe lifted a hand from the wheel. “No. Listen. Your ex is up there planting something. I’m certain she took her shirt off just to distract me. Quick thinking, too. It nearly worked.”

Joe had Tom’s attention now.

“But it was still early enough for the grass to be wet, and I could see tracks that led from the blanket to a couple of spots across the clearing. So being a good little ‘do be,’ instead of going first to where she was all sprawled out on that blanket grinning at me, I started over to where the tracks came from. And as soon as I did, she sat up. ‘Hello, Sheriff,’ she says to me. ‘Come over here and sit.’”

Tom felt his stomach clench.

“I waved. But kept following the tracks in the wet grass. So then she stood up. God, what a body! Forget what I said about Jane Goodall.” Joe grinned. “Anyway, what do you think I found there?”

“A personal dope patch. So what?”

“That’s what I expected. But no. There’s a bunch of rocks scattered around there. And the clearing sort of slopes south a bit. So it’s an okay spot for growing something. But not great, unless you’re trying to hide it too. The rocks make good cover, and you’d have to look hard to see the one or two seedlings she put in front of them and behind some sort of little shrub she put in, too.”

“Not dope?”

“Not dope.”

Tom’s curiosity began to replace the initial urge to turn on the radio and find some loud music.

“So after I checked out the plants, I go over to where she’s sitting. Only now she’s got her shirt back on.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I did ask her if we could start over again. This time I’d stop at her blanket first. ‘You made your choice, Sheriff,’ she says.” Joe laughed and shook his head. “That’s some woman you let get away, brother.”

Tom could feel his patience waning. “All right. Now that she’s got her clothes back on, what happened next?”

“Naturally I asked her what she’s doing. And does she know that she’s just a hundred yards downhill from a couple of semi-commercial dope patches? She’s got this sketch book out and she’s making penciled drawings of her plants and not even looking at me. ‘Yes,’ she says. She’d noticed them. But her plants would be ready at different times from the cannabis sativa, so she doesn’t think she’ll run into any trouble. Cool as you please.”

“Did you offer to help her harvest, just in case?”

“I did. But she said, ‘No thank you, officer. There are just a few of them and they’re very delicate.’”

“What did she say they were?”

“Brain food, I think. Now that we’ve talked to that guy from NeuroGene, I understand what she said better than I did then. She went