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Damn it!

A male voice speaks up behind me. “Sir? Is that you, Major Cook?”

I pretend not to hear the inquiring voice and do my best to quickly limp down a side alley.

“Sir,” another voice barks out. “You need to come with us.”

I grit my teeth, increase my walking speed.

It’s all I can do.

Chapter 66

ACROSS FROM SPECIAL AGENT Connie York, Peggy Reese says, “There. You made me talk. Proud of yourself? Just remember. You can do your job and then leave, and we few innocents will be around to face whatever wrath will rise up.”

“I’m glad you said what you said,” York says. “But I’m surprised that—”

“Surprised? I thought an Army investigator like you wouldn’t be shocked by nearly anything.”

“You’d be wrong,” she says. “It’s just that in these times, I can’t see how—”

“You can’t see how a woman like her could get away with it?” Peggy asks, scratching the chin of one of her cats, her voice harsh. “There’s 159 counties in the great state of Georgia. What, you think all of them are run on the straight and narrow? You don’t think there are opportunities for graft and corruption?”

“But your newspaper, I mean—”

Peggy says, “My newspaper is owned by Tyron Bogart, an old fogy who believes in one thing and one thing only: the bottom line. A good chunk of the paper’s advertising comes from the county: printing legal notices, court settlements, stuff like that. His printing plant also prints up county documents. How long would the paper last if the county pulled its business? And if the county pressed on other advertisers to do the same if he ran stories that he should?”

“The internet—”

“Sure,” she says. “When I’ve had bouts of bravery here and there, I’ve tried contacting other news organizations, from the Journal-Constitution to USA Today to every TV station that broadcasts in Sullivan County. No dice. Haven’t you read the news, Agent York? Newspapers and real reporting are dying. Nobody cares anymore about local news. It’s all scandal, all the time, whether from DC or Hollywood. Meanwhile, Sheriff Williams builds her little empire and staffs it, and only a few care, and those few keep their heads down. Otherwise they get pulled over for going a mile over the speed limit or their construction permits get turned down or their electricity gets shut off for no good reason at all.”

York feels like she’s been dropped into one of those old black-and-white movies with the cliché of the corrupt Southern sheriff running a criminal enterprise, and she quickly remembers that every cliché has a basis of truth.

“How can she do it alone?”

Peggy sighs. “She doesn’t do it alone. Haven’t you noticed her big manly deputy sheriffs? She recruited them carefully and—”

It snaps to for York, how she thought she knew the deputies from somewhere before.

“The military,” Connie says. “They’re all from the military.”

“Half right,” Peggy says. “Her deputies are all ex-military, but not the ones who’ve served and been honorably discharged. No, she picks up those who’ve been quietly separated by something called a failure to adapt discharge.”

York says, “Enlistees who can’t make it through the first six months, even if they’ve gone through their training and been deployed overseas. They can’t, or won’t, adapt to military life. They have discipline problems, mental problems—situations like that. They’re discharged…not a dishonorable discharge, but something close to it.”

“You’ve got it right, Agent York,” she says. “Sheriff Williams picks up those fellows who have Rambo fantasies. When she gets them, they’re upset, disappointed, ashamed. And the good sheriff offers them a gun, a uniform, and a good job, respect and all that. She pays them well above the going rate, from her cut of the various criminal enterprises that go on in the county. These losers get a second chance. And they will do anything for her. Anything.”

Anything, York thinks. Anything.

“But how can she do that? How does she know how and where to get these soldiers?”

Peggy says, “Politics. How else? It’s in her blood, it’s in her family. The Williams family has been prominent in this county for more than a hundred years, from Atlanta to—”

“Washington,” she says. “I was in her office a few days ago. I saw lots of photos up on the wall, her meeting with lots of politicians. But there was one black-and-white photo, some man in a suit, standing on the Capitol steps.”

Peggy nods. “Her great-uncle, Whitney Wilson Williams, United States senator. Served two glorious terms back in the 1950s. His great-niece Emma always wanted to go to Washington, but her one try for Congress six years ago finished with her in third place. Sheriff Williams doesn’t like losing, but she knows the facts. She can’t go to DC on her own.”

York says, “I saw her the other night at a campaign rally for…what’s his name again?”

“Conover,” she says. “Mason Conover. A dim bulb among our congressional delegation, which means he’ll go far when he’s elected senator next week. And rumor has it that Sheriff Williams is on tap to be his chief of staff once he moves to better quarters.”

“But her background here, I mean—”

Peggy says, “Damn it, Roscoe, how can you get heavier by just sitting here?” She picks up the cat and gently puts him on the floor. “Oh, who’s going to investigate her? Me? The Washington Post ? Nope. She has a clear path to Washington, where she’s always wanted to be. Which will be nice for me and this county, not having her looking over us day after day, like some bloodthirsty medieval queen.”

York just stares at this older woman’s calm and nearly relaxed face.

Peggy says, “Why, she told me last year she planned to get to DC no matter how many bodies she had to step on along the way.”

Chapter 67

THE HONORABLE EMMA WILLIAMS, sheriff of Sullivan County in the state of Georgia, strides through the crowded interior of Babe’s Breakfast in Tanner, a town in the western area of her county, smiling and nodding to its customers, either sitting at the counter or in booths, until she gets to the last booth in the row and sits down.

Across from her this early Wednesday morning is a surprised Cornelius Slate, district attorney, a full breakfast plate of scrambled eggs, toast, grits, and sausage links in front of him.

“Hey, Corny,” she says, knowing just how much he hates the nickname. “Fancy me finding you here.”

“Uh…”

A heavyset waitress in a stained pink uniform comes over, and before she can say anything, Williams holds up a hand. “Ah, just coffee. Black. And put it on Corny’s tab. I’m sure he won’t mind.”

The waitress shuffles away, and Williams takes off her campaign-style hat, puts it on the padded seat next to her, and says, “You know, Corny, I don’t know how anyone can start a day with something so filling and heavy. I put away a breakfast like that, I’d be snoozing for half a day.”

Slate doesn’t say anything, but his face is ashen, and Williams says, “But, if something is in front of me, I can’t stand the temptation. ’Scuse me.” Williams picks up a sausage link, takes a healthy bite. “Yum. Boy, this is something, isn’t it? Sure doesn’t taste like one of those tofu or turkey sausages. It’s the real deal.”

Slate says, “Er…”

She finishes the sausage link, picks up another one from Slate’s breakfast plate, and takes another pleasing bite. “Corny, just what in the hell are you up to?”

“My job, Sheriff. You know how it is.”

She shakes her head. “No, I don’t know how it is. What I do know is that you went behind my back last night and made some sort of criminal plea deal with that Sergeant Jefferson. Corny, why in hell did you do that without clearing it with me?”