Dead Ends by Don Easton Page B

he got it from, you have to be kidding. Around here kids can buy that shit easier than they can cigarettes. If you want to know who the dealers are, go down to the schools and see who are driving the muscle cars. Sure as hell isn’t the teachers.”
    â€œThat’s a sad state of affairs.”
    â€œTell me about it. I’ve got kids of my own. As far as this guy goes, CPIC says he is gang-connected.”
    â€œBottom end,” replied Jack.
    â€œYou have time to work on the bottom end?” said the Mountie. “Must be nice, we don’t have the time or manpower to go after the bigger fish, let alone the small fry.”
    â€œI understand,” replied Jack. He briefly thought about Varrick and his previous opinion that he was too small to work on. A four-year-old girl may die because I didn’t make the time .
    When Jack hung up, he sighed as he thought about Ai-li. Bet she doesn’t think the guy who injected her was too small to work on …
    Jack picked up the next report from a pile on his desk. It was about some youths were joyriding in a stolen car. They lost control and drove onto a sidewalk where a man was walking with his wife. He pushed his wife out of the way in time, but the car mutilated his legs against the side of a building. He would never walk again. The youths escaped, but a small quantity of meth was found in the car. The investigation was still continuing.
    As Jack picked up the next report he glanced at Laura and their eyes met. “I don’t know how much more of this I can stand,” she said, gesturing to the reports. “Feel like a coffee?”
    â€œYou go ahead,” replied Jack. “To me, it’s like taking off a Band-Aid. Do you do it slowly or rip it off all at once? I prefer to get it over with.”
    â€œHadn’t thought of it that way,” replied Laura. She grimaced and continued reading.
    Jack’s next report was about an incident in the early hours of Sunday morning. The police in Richmond were called by a husband to a domestic dispute. Their sixteen-year-old daughter, due home at midnight, arrived forty minutes late. His wife and daughter argued and the mother punched the girl in the mouth, breaking her tooth. The husband attempted to intervene, but his wife, who had prior convictions for prostitution and was addicted to meth, threatened him with a butcher knife. The man locked himself in the bathroom and used his cellphone to call the police. The mother was arrested and a small quantity of meth was found in her purse, along with a phone number for a known Brotherhood dealer.
    Jack threw the report down in disgust and said, “A few years ago there were only a few labs. Today it’s everywhere. The Ministry of Health should list meth as an epidemic,” said Jack, facetiously.
    â€œMore like the World Health Organization should declare it a pandemic,” replied Laura. “You coming up with anything?”
    â€œNothing except a sour stomach. Doesn’t anybody care about what is going on?” he lamented.
    â€œSomeone does,” mused Laura. “I’ve got a Crime Stoppers report that indicates someone with a reliable history has been giving tips about drugs and dealers at Queen Elizabeth Secondary School in Surrey. Uniform has made several small-time busts.”
    â€œGlad someone is doing their bit,” replied Jack, dismissing the information as his thoughts focused on the next report. A Dave Valentine of the Victoria Police Department had responded to the CPIC entry concerning one of the lab rats that Jack had arrested a year and a half ago. This particular lab rat was in jail, but Jack had listed him as a person of interest in the event he was granted day parole. Victoria PD reported they had heard he was receiving drugs while in jail through a Victoria dealer by the name of Cory McCall.
    Jack called Valentine and learned that Cory McCall had a lengthy record, including seven previous