The Chase

"Right now, no one is here who owns it," Junior says of any dope they might find.

"What's your favorite subject in school?" Graves asks Junior.

"Nothing," the second-grader says.

His mother signs the form.

One officer finds a loaded .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun under the woman's bed. (The woman says it isn't hers.) Stashed in the next room is a small wooden box with a syringe and a discolored spoon. The basement is piled with stained clothes and trash; Graves spots a loose needle on the floor and calls to his team to watch for syringes. An officer shows Graves a rafter where a pound of pot is stashed in a dusty bag next to a syringe. Graves takes the stash upstairs to the kitchen table.

"I haven't been down there in 10 years," the woman protests.

Junior looks up from the living room couch. "I've seen that pencil [the syringe] before but not that brick of weed," the kid says.

An officer walks up from the basement with a box of rifle bullets in his hand. "Where did those come from?" Junior asks, looking surprised.

Graves slides on rubber gloves, pausing to play with the kid: "I'm Aquaman!" he says to him in a goofy voice, the glove's fingertips flopping at Junior. "Ahhhhhh!"

Junior smiles. After collecting all of the evidence, Graves tells Junior's mother they found 101 syringes in her bedroom. The house is a wreck, he adds. She assures him that it's a mess because she and Junior are getting ready to move out.

Graves gives her a sideways look, then turns back to finish his inventory of bullets, pot, syringes and guns.

Junior walks over and takes the report out of Graves' hand. He glances at it a moment, then hands it back, beaming.

"I can't read cop," he says.

The Chase

More cops are finally patrolling the Northland, but they're hardly a match for meth

By Bryann Noonan