Chapter Fifteen: Eat What You Can

LeBlanc called me with good news:

“I got Buddy off.”

“You got the dash cam footage? He didn’t swerve like they said?”

“No, it’s better than that. He did swerve. That cousin of yours had so much fucking blunt smoke in his car, he couldn’t see. Nearly drove into an irrigation ditch, as a matter of fact.”

“So they had probable cause?”

“No, they did not. They’d already lit up the strobe when he swerved. Matter of fact, that’s why he swerved. They hit him with the siren, he freaked out, then lost the wheel for a second in his cigar-cloud. He was too high to remember this.”

“Why did they stop him, then?”

“I think we know the real reason. But they originally said it was the swerve. When I saw the dashboard footage, they filed an amended report stating that their actual reason for pulling Huey over was a violation of section 307.075 of Missouri state law, which governs the color of taillights. Basically the law says lights on the back of your car have to be red, there have to be two of them, and the…