P Deutermann - Spider mountain

“Yes?” I said from behind the screen door.

“Lieutenant Richter?” she said in a husky, low-pitched voice. I couldn’t see her features. “I’m Carrie Harper Santangelo, SBI. Sheriff Baggett made a call? If you can turn on a light I can show you my ID.”

I laughed and opened the screen door for her. “I would but I don’t know where the switch is. Come on in. Don’t mind them-they’ve been fed.”

“That’s good,” she said, eyeing the two big shepherds as she came in. “I’m told that it’s the ones who don’t go nuts when the doorbell rings that bear watching.”

“All dogs bite,” I recited. “I’m having a scotch on the back porch-care to join me?”

“Sure,” she said. She was five-seven or -eight, jet black hair, with a classical, aquiline nose. She was of either Italian or American Indian descent. She was wearing jeans, a white blouse, and a loose-fitting, lightweight blue blazer. Once in the kitchen she presented her creds, which I dutifully examined. I got her a drink, and we went out onto the back porch. I brought the bottle. I saw her eyeing all the wedding suite accoutrements.

“Which office?” I asked.

“Raleigh. I’m an inspector in the professional standards division at headquarters. I drove out today. If this is the bridal suite, I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“All I could get on short notice. Plus, if I drink too much, a bed’s never farther than about five feet away.”

“You don’t look like a man with a drinking problem,” she said. Her complexion was very smooth in the light spilling out of the kitchen. She had dark, almost black eyes, and she looked right at me when she spoke. Professional standards work, known as internal affairs in some jurisdictions, encouraged the direct approach.

“No, I guess not,” I said. She kept her blazer buttoned even though she was sitting down. I could make out the lump of a shoulder rig just under her left shoulder.

“So,” she said. “M. C. Mingo. I understand you’ve met?”

“Today,” I said. I then explained what I was doing up here in Carrigan County, my prior relationship with the Park Service and Mary Ellen Goode, and why I’d touched base with Bobby Lee. She listened without interrupting. I had the impression that some part of that dark-eyed brain was recording my every word. Or the other lump in her pocket was a voice-activated recorder.

“Tell me something, if you don’t mind,” she said, when I’d finished. “What was the deal with your not testifying in that mountain lion case?”

I sighed. Inquiring minds always wanted to know, especially if they were cops. “How much time you got?” I asked warily.

“How much scotch you got?” she replied.

“That much time,” I said. “Okay, let’s do the abridged version.”

When I’d finished, she nodded and sipped some scotch. “And now you’re private and working for the district court. What’s that like?”

“It’s not like being boss of the MCAT in Manceford County.”

“What’s the Park Service think about your being here?”

“Less and less,” I said. “Apparently their headquarters wanted this mess with the probationer all to go away. Bad for park business. After today, it’s probably going to reflash. So: M. C. Mingo?”

“Right,” she said. “M. C. Mingo. Sheriff of Robbins County for the past twenty-odd years. No opposition at election time. Ever. Related to the evil hag who runs most if not all of the drug trade in Robbins County.”

“That would be Vivian Creigh.”

“The one and only Grinny. Our intel is that she runs it like a Mafia don-stays up on Spider Mountain and controls every pound of meth, grass, hallucinogenic mushrooms, and even the damn ginseng. She has soldiers, and they work for a capo, her son, Nathan. Her father ran it before her and reportedly invited his three grown sons to settle who’d be in charge when he checked out. One brother died exploring an old gold mine, which caved in following a mysterious explosion. A second brother accused Grinny of having a hand in the matter, and then he died after being set upon by a pack of wild dogs.”

I nodded. “I’ve seen those bad boys.”

“Probably not,” she said. “This all happened when Grinny was eighteen. She’s fifty now, or thereabouts.”

“Then their descendants, maybe.” I told her about watching the dog pack take down the fat man. She whistled quietly.

“What happened to the third brother?” I asked.

“He became the sheriff of Robbins County.”

“Ah-ha!”

“Yes, indeed.”

“So-then there’s Nathan. Grinny was married?”

“Probably not. There’s Nathan and a daughter, Rowena, who are reportedly by different fathers, who have themselves long since gone into the cold, cold ground. A Creigh family tradition, apparently.”

“Spider Mountain. As in black widow.”

“That’s what some of the locals call it. Interestingly, nobody in law enforcement has ever seen her. We know where her place is, but that’s about it.”

“Why is that?” I asked. “I mean, you and the DEA guys seem to know a lot about the Creigh clan. Why hasn’t some state or federal task force gone in there and hauled the whole bunch in for questioning?”

She tinkled the ice in her empty glass, and I poured her a refill. “You know how it is,” she said. “The SBI comes in only when we’re invited in. M. C. Mingo declines to invite. The DEA prefers to work alone. The Bureau comes in only if it’s big enough and there’s positive PR potential. Right now they don’t consider western North Carolina as having positive PR potential, especially after the Eric Rudolph fiasco. Homeland Security is obsessing with grubbing out crazed Muslims. The state attorney general has his hands full with urban crime. The sheriff is related to the kingpin. That’s why not.”

“Amazing.”

She shrugged. “Personally, I don’t think anyone cared all that much until the meth epidemic began. Hillbillies running ‘shine, maybe some grass, whacking each other out with nineteenth-century rifles over some hundred-year-distant insult-big deal, as long as they kept it in the hollers.”

“But meth is changing all that?”

“Yes. There’s a river of the stuff coming out of these hills, all under the control of Grinny Creigh. We think. We just can’t prove it.”

“Big money?”

“At the retail end, yes. But we don’t believe it’s all about the money for her. I mean, hell, you’ve been to Rocky Falls. What would big bucks get you there-a double helping of grits? She lives on the side of a mountain in a log cabin with a privy, for crying out loud. No, it’s about control. The Creigh clan has run the dark side of things in Robbins County for decades. Grinny Creigh is a spider: Step out onto her web and here she comes, fangs and all.”

“So it’s the sheer quantity, not just the basic crime?”

“Yes. That’s supposedly why Greenberg and his crew are working up here.”

“Why do you say supposedly?”

“Because they don’t seem to do much. On the other hand, that’s a secretive bunch, so nobody really knows.”

“I met him the other day.”

“We heard,” she said. I thought I saw the ghost of a smile cross her severe face.

I grinned back. “They got uppity around my shepherds. What can I say?”

“Baby’s a city boy,” she said. “A little jumpy and aggressive. But as far as we know, he’s a good cop.”

“He’s a frustrated cop right now,” I said. “Says he can’t figure a way into Robbins County, either. He was interested in the fact that I might be able to go up there and shake some bushes.”

“Well, there you are,” she said. “Work a deal. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have some feds behind you.”