The cop and the dealer, now partners

Lisa Sanders was sitting with Scott Erickson in front of a Helena High classroom a few years back, about to speak to a group of students. “I looked at him,” Sanders recalls, “and I said: ‘You know what? If anybody would have told me that I’d be sitting here with you today, I’d have told them, you’re the one who’s high.’”

In another life, years ago but not so distant, Sanders was a serial methamphetamine user and dealer. Erickson was her probation officer. How that uneasy intersection turned into a partnership is a story of trust and faith. And of love, too, although neither of them says so directly.

Erickson and Sanders plan to share that story this Saturday at the Jefferson County Museum in Clancy. Erickson also will read from his recent self-published novel, “The Debt,” which features a character based in part on Sanders.