Open Season by Linda Howard Page B

autopsy report back from Montgomery, but I’d say so. She had on a dress, but no underwear. Anyway, I remembered a case Huntsville had a couple of months ago—”
    “Yeah, I remember. It was pretty much the same.”
    They were both silent. If a guy was willing to slip one woman GHB so he could have sex with her, it was stupid to think he’d balk at doing it again. The problem was, GHB was so damn common and easy to get; it was a cleaning solvent, for God’s sake. And guys took it, too; it was a high, and bodybuilders used it. The odds of finding any one guy weren’t good, because too damn many women woke up without any memory of wherethey’d spent the night, or with whom, but with their bodies showing the evidence of sexual activity. To make it even harder to track the slimeballs down, very few of the women reported it to the police.
    “How do you think I can help?” he finally asked, because Petersen had to have called him for a reason, and not just to tell him about the case. Jack would have found out about it when he read the reports, anyway.
    “I was wondering, have you had any GHB cases in Hillsboro?”
    “Not that I know of, but we’re dry.” GHB went hand-in-glove with the bar scene, because alcohol disguised the saltiness so well. Without any bars in Hillsboro, it wasn’t unusual that he hadn’t had any date-rape cases involving Ruffles or GHB—yet. Sooner or later, some local kid would die from it, or a body-builder would get caught with it, but so far his little town hadn’t been hit. That didn’t mean there weren’t users in Hillsboro; it just meant that they’d been lucky in that none of them had died.
    “I still don’t know where you’re going with this,” he said.
    “Do you hit many of the area bars? Off-duty, of course.”
    “Hell, I’m too busy and too old for that.”
    “You never get too old for it, buddy; just go in one someday and check out the gray hairs. Anyway, I was thinking: you’re fairly new to the area, and if you don’t wander up to Scottsboro or over to Madison County in search of a little entertainment, then you aren’t likely to be known outside of Hillsboro, are you? So you could maybe cruise the clubs and bars, listen to what’s being said, maybe keep any eye out for someone slipping that shit into women’s drinks. Go undercover, I guess.”
    “And strictly off-record and on my own,” Jack said wryly.
    “Hell, buddy, it’s better that way. Nothing official. You’re a single man with an active social life, so what could be more natural? And if, in the course of a night’s entertainment, you notice something or accidentally overhear something, why, I do believe we have probable cause. Whaddaya say?”
    “It’s a long shot.”
    “Granted. But, damn it, I don’t like having girls’ bodies dumped in my county. I can work my usual sources and get some busts around here for possession, but that isn’t going to stop the bastards who cruise the bars. We need an edge, and I think you might be the sharpest knife available to us.”
    “We don’t want to get crossways with the DEA, maybe foul up an operation they have going.”
    “Fuck ’em,” Petersen said cheerfully.
    Jack had to laugh, because it really was a pretty good setup. If he did step on some toes, it would be purely accidental. What the hell, it wouldn’t hurt him to spend some time in some clubs. His experience was in SWAT, not narcotics, but he’d seen enough to know what to look for. “Who else is going to know about this?”
    “About what?” Petersen asked, with an immediate case of amnesia.
    “I don’t guess you can tell me what some good clubs in the area are, can you?”
    “Not speaking from personal experience, you understand, but I hear the Hot Wing in Scottsboro has some action. You might check out the Buffalo Club in Madison County, and the Sawdust Palace in Huntsville. I can come up with some more names if you’re interested.”
    “Get me a list,” Jack said, and hung