Detective Chris Hurst picked out our target. It was a case that was unlikely to involve any physical risk. "He hasn't been to drug dealer school yet," Chris explained. Our first meeting with the bad guy took place the parking lot of a grocery store in Newport Hills, an upscale suburban community on the southeast side of Lake Washington from Seattle. We wore costumes. Mine was an oversized T-shirt with a super-graphic image of Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny on it, and red tights. I pinned my hair on the top of my head in a sprouting horse tail, and painted my face with exaggerated make-up. Chris put on an old army camouflage jacket and little John Lennon glasses, but they were sun glasses, and this was night.
At the scene, we first cruised around the parking lot--Chris wanted to look for the target's car, to get a license number if he could, but he didn't spot anything conspicuous. He knew that I was totally ignorant of the drug scene, so he warned me, "Don't say anything. If he tries to talk to you, I'll say you had brain damage." He thought for a minute, then said, "Your name will be Katie."
The target walked up to us on the parking lot. Chris gave him money, and he gave us pills, and Chris confirmed their arrangements: I would meet him every Friday at the Chevron Station near my office to buy pills. The guy agreed and we each walked briskly away, in opposite directions. We still didn't catch a look at his car.
The following Friday, I needed to meet the South King County drug task force at its headquarters, in the basement of an office building near my office. When I got to the building, I didn't see the stairwell to the basement, so asked a non-uniformed man who had "cop" written all over him for the entrance. He sneered at me like he was going to puke, because of what I had written all over me, and pointed to the doorway.
Downstairs, the team met me and gave me my "buy" money. I didn't have any pockets, so reached in the top of my shirt and stuck in in my bra, which they thought was hilarious. We were all briefed on the process, then I went upstairs to drive the City's undercover car to the scene. Chris had a last moment panic--"You know how to drive stick, don't you?" Of course I do, I'm from Oregon.
But as soon as he left, I found another problem with the car. It was a Chevy Camero, so big that even with the seat rolled forward, I could not reach the pedals. Fortunately, he had left a jacket in the back seat, which I rolled up behind me as my booster chair, and drove the car no more than a few hundred feet to the gas station that was our rendezvous point. I got out and pulled out my money as the target walked up. I gave him money (all photocopied ahead of time) and he gave me pills. He walked away fast and I got back in the car fast. As I drove around the corner, he was on his belly on the ground, being handcuffed behind his back while officers I knew aimed real pistols at him. Chris signaled me to beat it, so that the car would not be compromised. Within hours, the guy had told everything he knew to the Task Force, and they were following the chain of distribution of his drugs, conferring with their colleagues all the way south to Los Angeles.
"Katie" dressed up just once more for an operation, but as we waited for the signal to go ahead, Chris said "No, something isn't right," and cancelled the operation. The whole process involved much more patience than I had appreciated. "Even with wiretaps," Chris said. "You can listen for hours and hear nothing but 'Friday the 13th' playing on the VCR for about the billionth time."
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