Chink&. Bang&. Thump&. Clunk&.

　　"Someone`s in the kitchen with Dina,

　　Someone`s in the kitchen, I know.

　　Someone`s in the kitchen with Dina,

　　Cause I can`t hear the ol` banjo."

　　Crack&. Bang, thwump.

　　It`s the change in the rhythm that gets my attention, and the softer sound was odd. Setting my hammer down, I peer into the hole I`m creating in the wall, picking through the rubble curiously. Something small and metallic falls from somewhere higher up in the wall, plinking its way through the demolished wall boards until it hits the floor and rolls across it. When it hits the toe of my shoe, I bend down and find a needle- not the kind used for sewing. My investigation becomes more cautious. That thwump sound? A brown package wrapped in cellophane. I`ve seen enough true crime shows to know not to touch it, so I pull my phone out instead.

　　"911, what`s your emergency?"

　　"Hello, I`m currently renovating an old house, and I think I just found drugs stashed in one of the walls."

　　"What is the address of your location?"

　　"I`m at the old Soward`s mansion. The address is-"

　　"Ah, yes. I`ve got that address right here. I`ll send some officers right away with a K-9 unit. Please don`t touch anything and move to a safe location."

　　"A safe location?! What makes a location safe? This is my house! The drugs are packaged and not going to go anywhere, and I don`t believe their mere presence puts me in danger."

　　"Uh&. No, I suppose not. Are you in the house alone?"

　　"I live alone, yes."

　　"Ok. Well, just be prepared to let the officers in when they get to the door.

　　"Thank you, buh-bye now."

　　"Wait! I`m not supposed to disconnect until there are officers on site."

　　"Well, I`m not in any particular danger, and I`ve got work to do. This is not that type of emergency. I`d just like to get these drugs out of my house."

　　"I`m still not supposed to hang up-"

　　"Well then I`ll do it for you."

　　"Wait!"

　　Tap.

　　The phone reads "Call Ended", and I pick up my hammer to resume smashing things in a different part of the wall.

　　Crack&. Chink&. Crack&. Smash&.

　　And then the thought occurs to me, if I`m banging away, how am I supposed to hear the police officers when they start banging on the front door? Eh. I`ve probably got a few minutes. Enough to take down this one section of wall anyway.

　　Bang&. Bang&. Bang&. Crack&.

　　"I`m going down to the bottom, oh, let the hammer ring.

　　I`m going down to the bottom, oh, let the hammer ring.

　　Oh, just to ring my hammer, oh, let the hammer ring.

　　Oh, just to ring my hammer, oh, let the hammer ring.

　　I got a nine pound hammer, oh, let the hammer ring.

　　I got a nine pound hammer, oh, let the hammer ring.

　　I`m gonna ring it in the bottom, let the hammer ring.

　　I`m gonna ring it in the bottom, let the hammer ring&."

　　Uncle Jack told me he learned that song from "one of the n***** boys at the mine". Excuse my language, or rather, Uncle Jack`s language; I know he didn`t mean it in a derogatory way. The fact is, that was his generation. He witnessed the civil rights movement unfold through his teens and twenties after spending most of his childhood going to all white schools while secretly playing sports with the black boys on the weekends. He didn`t finish high school- got caught up in the mine. But by his twenties, he was one of the white men in the community who loudly advocated for desegregation, and it was his crew that accepted the first couple of African American men to get hired at the mine. Then it was Uncle Jack who went to bat for them to make sure that they got paid the same as everyone else. At his funeral, there were quite a few black families sitting in the church pews. For all of his colorful language and idiosyncrasies, Uncle Jack, at heart, was just a giant teddy bear.The author`s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

　　And yet, for some reason, he never got married, though he did have plenty of lady friends. Uncle Jack was an incorrigible flirt. I remember, as a little girl, he used to tease me saying, "why would I even need to get married when I`ve got a pretty little thing like you, Lottie? You`re all the girl I`ll ever need." It always made me feel special when he said that, and he got a kick out of the way such comments made me giggle and blush. Eventually I grew out of those giggles, and Uncle Jack found new ways to get a reaction out of me&.

　　Knock, knock, knock, knock.

　　Oh, shoot! I forgot! I set the hammer down and rush to the door, arriving a bit out of breath. Unlocking the knob, the door swings open, and two familiar faces plus a couple of others and a dog greet me. "Officer Milton. Officer Boyd." I nod a brief acknowledgement to each in turn. "You were quick!"

　　"Hello again, Lottie," Milton says with a friendly grin. "Dispatch told us that you reported finding some unexpected surprises during renovation."

　　"I did. Please come in. I`m assuming this is a drug dog?"

　　"Oh! I forgot to introduce you. Lottie, this is our detection dog, Bruce the German Shepherd, and his handlers, Officers Bonnie Wilcox and Michael Carpenter."

　　"Nice to meet you. Please come in. The unexpected surprise` is back this way, but if you`d like to have& Brutus, was it?"

　　"Bruce."

　　"Ah. Right. If Bruce would like to have a sniff around, I`d appreciate not finding more surprises in the future."

　　"Do we have your permission to search the whole house?" the female officer, Bonnie(?) asks while bending down to pat Bruce and, I presume, signal to him that it`s time to go to work.

　　"Please do. The fewer times I have to call you over, the better for all of us."

　　She nods, her tongue clicking at the dog who falls into step next to her, sniffing away as they pass anything and everything.

　　"Lottie, would you like to show Officer Boyd and myself to where you made your discovery? Milton suggests, his natural, pleasant smile bringing a certain casual ease to what might otherwise be a stressful situation.

　　"This way. And watch your step. You have entered a construction zone& or rather, a de-construction zone."

　　"Wow," Milton whistles, "You`ve gotten a lot done already!"

　　"Been trying&. Here. This wall. If you look inside, it`s all right there. Oh! And watch your step. There`s a syringe needle around here somewhere."

　　The officers both put on latex gloves and Officer Boyd procures a large evidence bag from one of his many pockets while Officer Milton digs through the splintered wood. "Well, would you look at that," he muses and removes the brown package from the wall. "It was just sitting here?"

　　"Actually, I think it might have fallen from higher up in the wall."

　　"Is that your sledge hammer?" Milton asks and drops the package in Boyd`s evidence bag.

　　"It is, though, perhaps the other side of the wall already has a convenient opening?"

　　"That`s a good thought," Milton nods and walks out of the room. "There`s wood paneling on this side!" comes the somewhat distorted shout from around the corner. "Boyd, knock on the wall above that opening for me." Officer Boyd does as instructed, tapping away and jumping back when a couple more needles fall to the floor at his feet. "Ah! I found it!" An awed whistle is followed by, "Boyd! Come take a look at this!"

　　Officer Boyd merely grunts a vague acknowledgement and collects the wayward needles on the floor to add to the evidence bag. Only then does he join his partner. "Hm."

　　"I know, right!?"

　　"I`m going to go get an evidence box out of the trunk. Maybe two."

　　"Thanks, Boyd," Milton chirps, musing out loud, "I wonder what the street value of this stuff is."

　　When Officer Boyd returns a few minutes later, Officer Milton begins to eagerly unload brown, plastic-wrapped bricks from inside the wall, the light clinking sound through the wall suggesting that even more needles are dropping into the other room. Brown packages, a torn box of needles (thus the spilling), another couple of boxes of syringes&. Was this a stash to sell or a personal stash? I didn`t think drug dealers kept needles and syringes to distribute with the drugs, but I don`t know much about drug trafficking except what I see in the TV shows.

　　"Milton, Boyd, come take a look at this," the male dog handler beckons his associates with an eagerness that suggests they found the jackpot. He leads us to a room I haven`t gotten to yet where Bonnie is doing her best to pull something out of a couch cushion without completely ruining it. Bruce is being a good boy lying patiently on the floor next to Bonnie, only his eyes darting around while he waits for his next task.

　　"What have you got, Wilcox?"

　　"Forged identifications!"

　　"No way&. Show me!" Milton looks like a kid in a candy store as Officer Wilcox tosses him an already full evidence bag full of fake passports and birth certificates. "They must have cocain residue on them for Bruce to have found them!"

　　"Our thoughts exactly!" the other K-9 unit officer says.

　　"Just a couple more in here," Bonnie says and simultaneously removes two more passports, flipping one open to the identification page. "Juan Rodriguez. Can the name possibly be any more generic!?" She laughs to herself and turns the passport around for our entertainment. And something about the face in the picture gives me pause.

　　"I&. I`ve seen him before. Somewhere&."

　　"Around here?" Milton becomes concerned immediately.

　　"No. I don`t think so," I shake my head. "Somewhere else. May I?" I extend my hand out to take the booklet from Officer Wilcox, and Officer Boyd drops a pair of gloves in my hand.

　　"Protocol," he says with a crooked, fleeting grin.

　　Gloves now on, Officer Wilcox now hands me the passport. "Yes, I`ve definitely seen him somewhere."

　　"Do you know where?" Wilcox`s partner presses.

　　"No. I`ll have to think about it," I admit. "This says he`s Mexican&."

　　"Well, yes, but it`s a forgery. Who`s to say that Juan Rodriguez is actually from Mexico, or that his name is actually Juan Rodriguez? But, if I had to guess, I`d definitely say he`s latino."

　　Latino. "That`s it! The Food Box!"

　　"The grocery store?" Milton frowns.

　　"Yes! Well, no. The street corner outside the Food Box. He`s the hobo I`ve seen there for the last couple of weeks!" I guess now I know how or why he found his way to Raesport.