Ridley Pearson - In Harm's Way

“You might not,” Wynn said, eyeing the dog. He gathered his wits. “You have a search warrant, Sheriff?”

“Based on the possession of marijuana, I can get one if I need one. It’s your call. We went over that.” He directed this to Boatwright, assuming the man would find the idea of jail and a crime scene team in his home repugnant.

No one spoke.

Walt broke the silence. “I should be able to have them back to you in a day. No more.”

“You want to take my shoes?” Wynn said, clarifying. “Are you out of your mind? I’m supposed to go home, what, barefoot? What the hell, Sheriff?”

“Two days at most,” Walt said.

He met eyes with Wynn, impressed with the man’s ability to so quickly dismiss the panic. He saw now only contempt and irritability, the hallmarks of a professional negotiator.

“I don’t think so. Thanks anyway.”

Walt winced. “Have it your way.” He reached for his radio’s mike clip.

“Vince,” Boatwright said, “I’m not leaving that hand on the table. And I’m not putting up with some goddamned night in jail. Give the man your shoes.”

“Can’t do that, Marty,” Wynn said.

“I’ll loan you some slippers to get you home.”

Wynn’s pained expression told Walt plenty. Walt had jammed him up and both men knew it. Walt was going to have the man’s shoes.

“I will keep everyone here,” Walt explained, “and separated, until the warrant is issued and the crime scene unit is in place. The CS unit drives up from Meridian, just FYI. And they won’t begin that drive until sometime after nine a.m.”

Boatwright said sternly, “Give the man the shoes, Vince. Don’t be an asshole. That’s Mandy Halifax out there. He’s a guest in my home.”

The two men locked into a staring contest, Wynn clearly considering his diminishing options. He could anger Boatwright and make Walt jump through the warrant hoop, and still end up surrendering the shoes, or he could give them up now.

“That dog had no business being in your house,” Wynn explained to the drunken Boatwright.

Walt felt a shiver. How, exactly, had Beatrice escaped the Jeep? It crossed his mind that it might not have been accidental, in which case Bea sniffing out blood evidence could be questioned in a court of law. He kept his mouth shut.

“You’re not thinking clearly,” Boatwright told Wynn. “You’re not listening to me. These men are my guests. This is my home. Give the man the goddamned shoes.”

The frustration and anger on Wynn’s face gave way to resignation and he kicked off the loafers. But he was not a happy man.

Back in the Jeep, now driving through town, Walt finally dared to voice what had been bothering him. Beatrice stood partially between them, front paws on the cup holders.

“Tommy, you understand how I approach this work?”

“Sheriff?”

“We don’t invent evidence. We don’t spin the truth. Not in my office.”

“Not sure what you mean.”

“I never want one of my deputies lying for me, giving false testimony.”

“Sheriff?”

“So I’m not going to ask you, because I don’t want the answer.” Walt reached over and rubbed Beatrice’s head.

Brandon looked from the dog to the sheriff. “Okay. Got it.”

“You should have checked with me before trying something like that, Tommy.”

“Got it.”

“It was brilliant, mind you,” Walt said. “But the courts would take a dim view of it.”

“Moon’s coming up,” Brandon said. “Gonna be full in a couple days.”

“Nothing prettier,” Walt said.

“She’s a good dog.”

“She is.”

Beatrice’s tail started thumping. She knew they were talking about her.

“But she doesn’t open car doors,” Walt said.

Nothing but the whine of the tire rubber.

“You want me to talk to Gail about how to handle things, I will.”

“I shouldn’t have dumped that on you.”

“True story.”

“I’ll handle it,” Walt said.

“Appreciate that, Sheriff.”

Walt craned his neck to get a look through the windshield at the moon growing over the edge of the mountaintops. “Nothing prettier.”

“Drop me off near Grumpie’s,” Brandon said.

“Because?” Walt asked.

“I got a call while you were inside. From Bonehead.”

The public knew “Bonehead” Miller as a colorful bartender at Ketchum’s local hamburger haunt. The sheriff’s office knew him as a two-time offender now working off the public service hours of his sentence acting as a criminal informant, a CI.

“Concerning?”

“Drop me off and I’ll let you know.”

If one of his daughters had spoken to him with that tone Walt would have chided her, and he considered doing so now because once that contempt for authority crept into a department, it was hard to weed out. But his relationship with Brandon demanded special handling, something everyone in the office had come to understand. How far he allowed Brandon to stray, and how hard Brandon pushed, would ultimately determine the deputy’s longevity with the office, and quite possibly Walt’s career, for he was beginning to sense that if a real challenge were to come at the ballot box it would come from within his own ranks. Who better than a young, experienced Marlboro Man like Tommy Brandon? He mused at the irony that someday Gail might end up the sheriff’s wife for a second time, and wondered if she would be the one to push her lover to stage the challenge.

Brandon had street cred like few of Walt’s other deputies. People warmed to him easily and he to them. He regularly turned arrests and even convictions into criminal informants for the office. Most of the rumors and hard information came through either Brandon or Eve Sanchez. As he watched Brandon swagger across Warm Springs Road and cut around to the back of the clapboard shack that was Grumpie’s, he wondered if by being this information conduit, Brandon didn’t possess too much power, wondering what, if anything, he might do about it.

Brandon sent a text message and waited by the putrid dumpster behind the burger joint, the garbage smoldering in the summer heat.

Bonehead Miller was aptly named for his protruding forehead and deep-set eyes. His dirty blond, shoulder-length hair was tucked up under a Cardinals baseball cap. He wore a soiled apron over a sleeveless undershirt, showing off some faded tattoos. He had one silver tooth-all the rest chipped-and a goatee and soul patch that looked like a wire brush for an outdoor grill.

There were no introductions. He handed Brandon a cheeseburger with catsup, pickles, pepperoncini, and Swiss wrapped in butcher paper, and Brandon ate as Bonehead talked.

“So I’m on the clock, right?”

“Mmm,” Brandon answered, using his finger to catch a drip.

“You’ll like this. I expect you to knock a couple hours off for this one.”

Bonehead always expected more than he would receive.

“Of course,” Brandon said through the food, lying. You’ll get what I think it’s worth, asshole, he was thinking. Twice in for drugs was all-in for drugs as far as he was concerned. He had no room in his world for the Bonehead Millers.

“There’s this guy been in here a couple times and I asked around with my buddies and he’s pretty much making the rounds far as I can tell. Rat fuck of a guy. Makes me look like fucking Donald Trump. Smells bad. A woodsman. I heard you were looking for a woodsman, a meth cooker. I hear right?”

“Keep… talking,” Brandon said with his mouth full, savoring the best burger in town. It was half gone.

“Looks like Tom Hanks in that one where he’s washed onto that island.”

“Cast Away,” Brandon said.

“That’s the one. Comes in here smelling like piss and woodsmoke, orders a burger and beer, and lays down a hun. Wouldn’t have thought nothing of it but Raven over at the Chute happens to mention some moron laying down a Franklin for a beer and we get to talking and it’s gotta be the same asshole.”