Read Online More Than Magic by Donna June Cooper - Free Book Online
Authors: Donna June Cooper
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three greenhouses lined up in a row, plus another shed-like structure with huge stacks of wood behind it, it looked like quite an operation.
In addition, there was a huge area full of raised beds, mostly empty with winter approaching. There were other areas with lattice-work screens shading them, which seemed odd since he thought most plants required a lot of sun. And there was an orchard, and apparently berry bushes as well, plus a path that meandered from the cabins all the way around the main house, which had been designed to look like a natural mountain trail.
Nick had explored the garage and the storage buildings further south of the house, half-underground and oriented to soak up as much sun as possible on the above ground side, with a high-pitched roof covered with solar panels. Besides storing farm equipment, the buildings contained a huge boiler and some complicated electrical set up with batteries and control equipment probably relating to the solar panels, and not one, but two generators. A literal garden of solar panels was planted on steel posts on the hillside below the buildings as well. And there was a diesel filling station. Quite an operation. And, as Matt had said, way off the grid. But no sign of a meth lab.
Then there was the chicken house. The unusual variety of well-tended birdfeeders scattered around the property should’ve prepared him, but the chicken house was more like a chicken castle. There were composting bins strategically located below it on the hill. As far as he could tell from watching Grace work, the place was almost self-cleaning. There was still the usual pungent odor, generated by both the birds and the compost. That was probably why her little hidden lab was situated under a hill just beyond it.
Backed into the hillside and covered with flowers and shrubs, the lab was completely underground and well-camouflaged, although if you were willing to negotiate past the chicken yard and all the way around the hill behind it, you could see the entrance via a pretty well-worn path. So it wasn’t completely hidden.
He would have to take a look inside, but his explorations, once he’d spotted it and had checked to find it securely locked, had revealed how large it was. He’d found the vents, and there was nothing but a pretty normal organic lab smell coming up through them—solvents probably. Certainly not the distinctive smell of a meth lab.
Even as well-camouflaged as it was, he wouldn’t have thought she would have set up an operation this close to the house, not with guests and staff and who knows who else wandering around. Perhaps your average herb farm needed a lab for analysis of their products, but he would have thought that an operation of this size would use some kind of outside lab for testing. Then again, your average herb farm didn’t have a scientist running it either.
He could ask for a tour, or find out some way to stumble in there. Or, if he had to, come back tonight and pick the lock. Even if there was an innocent explanation for this lab, she could have her meth lab just as well camouflaged further out in the woods. But the environmental devastation caused by meth production—the poisoned soil, plants, and waterways resulting from dumping the toxic byproducts, five or six pounds per pound of drug produced—stood in stark contrast to the absolute reverence for nature evidenced by this farm, and its owner. If this was a cover it was a hell of an elaborate one.
Watching her head off into the woods with that long stride of hers, he decided that if he tailed her this morning and once again found nothing, he would go back to the cabin and sift through all the evidence until he knew why his so-called infallible instincts had finally failed him.
But as he set off after her, at a safe enough distance and downwind so that even that hound of hers couldn’t sniff him out, something told him that everything he knew about this case—hell, everything he knew about
In addition, there was a huge area full of raised beds, mostly empty with winter approaching. There were other areas with lattice-work screens shading them, which seemed odd since he thought most plants required a lot of sun. And there was an orchard, and apparently berry bushes as well, plus a path that meandered from the cabins all the way around the main house, which had been designed to look like a natural mountain trail.
Nick had explored the garage and the storage buildings further south of the house, half-underground and oriented to soak up as much sun as possible on the above ground side, with a high-pitched roof covered with solar panels. Besides storing farm equipment, the buildings contained a huge boiler and some complicated electrical set up with batteries and control equipment probably relating to the solar panels, and not one, but two generators. A literal garden of solar panels was planted on steel posts on the hillside below the buildings as well. And there was a diesel filling station. Quite an operation. And, as Matt had said, way off the grid. But no sign of a meth lab.
Then there was the chicken house. The unusual variety of well-tended birdfeeders scattered around the property should’ve prepared him, but the chicken house was more like a chicken castle. There were composting bins strategically located below it on the hill. As far as he could tell from watching Grace work, the place was almost self-cleaning. There was still the usual pungent odor, generated by both the birds and the compost. That was probably why her little hidden lab was situated under a hill just beyond it.
Backed into the hillside and covered with flowers and shrubs, the lab was completely underground and well-camouflaged, although if you were willing to negotiate past the chicken yard and all the way around the hill behind it, you could see the entrance via a pretty well-worn path. So it wasn’t completely hidden.
He would have to take a look inside, but his explorations, once he’d spotted it and had checked to find it securely locked, had revealed how large it was. He’d found the vents, and there was nothing but a pretty normal organic lab smell coming up through them—solvents probably. Certainly not the distinctive smell of a meth lab.
Even as well-camouflaged as it was, he wouldn’t have thought she would have set up an operation this close to the house, not with guests and staff and who knows who else wandering around. Perhaps your average herb farm needed a lab for analysis of their products, but he would have thought that an operation of this size would use some kind of outside lab for testing. Then again, your average herb farm didn’t have a scientist running it either.
He could ask for a tour, or find out some way to stumble in there. Or, if he had to, come back tonight and pick the lock. Even if there was an innocent explanation for this lab, she could have her meth lab just as well camouflaged further out in the woods. But the environmental devastation caused by meth production—the poisoned soil, plants, and waterways resulting from dumping the toxic byproducts, five or six pounds per pound of drug produced—stood in stark contrast to the absolute reverence for nature evidenced by this farm, and its owner. If this was a cover it was a hell of an elaborate one.
Watching her head off into the woods with that long stride of hers, he decided that if he tailed her this morning and once again found nothing, he would go back to the cabin and sift through all the evidence until he knew why his so-called infallible instincts had finally failed him.
But as he set off after her, at a safe enough distance and downwind so that even that hound of hers couldn’t sniff him out, something told him that everything he knew about this case—hell, everything he knew about
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