are NARC's really into fancy writing?

The authorities wanted it. The bookstore owner concealed it.
Lawyers got involved. Judges were summoned to courtrooms. Briefs were filed. Sidebars were had.
And taxpayers were billed for way too much.
It was all in a vain effort to unearth one of Denver's best-kept secrets, held for more than three years by Joyce Meskis, owner of the Tattered Cover bookstore, and her lawyer. Exactly what book did suspected methamphetamine maker Chris Montoya buy from her bookstore to create all the fuss?
A book on Japanese calligraphy, of course.
Let us be the first to say: When Japanese calligraphy is outlawed, only outlaws will perform Japanese calligraphy.
Drug task force investigators, obviously, were chasing their own tails on this one. Montoya's name apparently appeared on a Tattered Cover envelope found outside a drug lab in an Adams County mobile home. Authorities also had recovered two books nearby on how to manufacture methamphetamine.
They assumed - and we all know what trouble that gets us into - that Montoya had purchased a "how-to" manual for making methamphetamine from the Tattered Cover. The purchasing records could link him to the drug lab, they figured.
When investigators with the North Metro Drug Task Force demanded that the bookstore hand over its purchasing records, Meskis balked. And rightly so. The case was taken all the way to the Supreme Court, which eventually sided with Meskis.