2 Sisters Detective Agency(23)

“Listen!”

From inside the container came a long, regular grinding noise.

The sound of snoring.





Chapter 26



I unlocked the container and threw open the door. A thin man on a narrow bunk snapped awake, sat upright. The movement rattled a long chain that ran from his ankle to a D ring bolted to the floor of the container. He mussed his shaggy brown hair and shook himself into consciousness.

“What? What? What is it? What time is it?” he stammered.

“Oh, my God,” I said. I walked into the container, completely forgetting Baby or the possible presence of hidden dangers as the situation unfolded in front of me. Along the side of the container opposite the man and his bunk, a long row of tables had been assembled behind transparent sheeting attached to the ceiling and floor. The tables were littered with huge steel canisters, glass flasks, beakers, tubes, and a series of machines I didn’t recognize, which squatted under the tables among a mess of cords and wires.

Everything not in that section of the container was devoted to the man on the bunk: his pile of soiled clothes, his miniature refrigerator, a thrumming portable air conditioner with a tube running out of a small hole in the wall, a small lamp by the bed casting everything in shadow. I looked up and saw a camera haphazardly bolted to the ceiling just inside the door, its red light blaring in the dimness.

“What is this, Rhonda?” Baby asked. “Is this like…a sex dungeon?”

“It’s a meth lab,” I said. “Although a sex dungeon might have actually been preferable.” I went to the man on the bunk. “Sir? I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Are you okay?”

“What’s happening?” His bloodshot eyes followed me as I came to unlock his chain. “Are we moving?”

“You’re moving the hell out of here,” I said. I prayed silently that the key that unlocked the padlock on the door fit the one on his ankle chain. It did.

“Who are you ladies?” the man said. I was surprised when he didn’t bolt from the container as soon as the chain hit the floor.

“I’m…” I paused, thought about giving a fake name, but realized there would be no point after I revealed the whole situation to the police. “I’m Rhonda Bird. My father—”

“Is Earl.” The man nodded. “You look just like him.”

He stood and started gathering his dirty clothes into a backpack. I looked at Baby, who shrugged. The man wasn’t acting like someone who’d been held prisoner and forced to cook meth for an unknown period of time in a stinky shipping container in the middle of the desert. He stuffed a stack of paperbacks into the bag, then glanced around, hands on hips, to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything important, like he was leaving a hotel room after a comfortable stay. “Can you tell me the date?” he asked.

“Ah, sure, it’s…” I looked at my watch. “It’s the fifteenth?”

“Oh, yes!” He laughed, pumping a fist. “Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Five days to go.”

“Until what?”

“Until the Miffy’s Tornado Tower of Doom chocolate shake promotion is over,” he said. “They only do it once a year. Could I trouble you to drop me at the Miffy’s in San Bernardino? They’ll still be open. They’re twenty-four hours.”

He strolled out of the container, leaving Baby and me staring after him in bewilderment.





Chapter 27



The man was sitting in the back seat of my car, staring straight ahead, when I emerged from the container. Baby was sitting in the front seat, playing with her phone. I stood on the dirt road and watched them, trying to decide if all this was some kind of dream. I had switched off all the electricity to the meth lab to ensure nothing exploded before the police could process the whole thing as a crime scene. Under the table in the lab section I’d found about six kilos of crystal meth, which I’d wrapped in a sheet and bundled into the back of the car while Baby was clicking away on Instagram. I’d add it to Dad’s bathroom hidey-hole later.

“He’s delirious,” Baby told me as I slid into the driver’s seat. “The guy says he’s been in the container for about three weeks. But he hasn’t stopped talking about that stupid chocolate shake the whole time we’ve been sitting here.”

“What’s your name, sir?” I asked, starting the car. “Can you tell me how you got into that container?”

“I’m Dr. Perry Tuddy,” he said, watching the container disappear out the back window of the car. “Your father put me there.”

“Bullshit!” Baby held up a hand. “Dad isn’t a goddamn meth dealer who locks people up in the desert. This guy is crazy. Let’s just dump him outside a hospital and go home. A new show I want to watch just dropped on Netflix.”

“The Miffy’s in San Bernardino would be much appreciated,” Dr. Tuddy reminded me.

“Look, Dr. Tuddy, if I’m honest, you’re not acting like someone who’s just been freed from a pretty hellish situation,” I ventured. “Should you lie down maybe? Baby, there’s a water bottle on the floor at your feet.”

“I’m fine,” the doctor said. “The situation you just relieved me of hasn’t been that ‘hellish,’ at least not in my experience.”