“How many paintings have you sold?”
“Seventeen in the past two years.”
“Is that good?” I asked stupidly.
“Yeah, it’s good. Better than most.”
“How long does it take to paint a canvas?”
“It usually takes me three, three and a half weeks to put something together. When I work, I work real fast and furious. I don’t have the luxury to sit down like an artist who works full time. I can’t paint every day. Sometimes I’ll go weeks without touching a brush. It depends on business. When the county is quiet, I paint. When it isn’t …
“You’d think painting would be a nice outlet, even therapy,” he continued. “You’d think I’d be able to come home, take off the gun and badge, and forget about what happened that day. Only it doesn’t work like that for me. I try to create these quiet worlds filled with loons swimming lazily under a full moon. But when the real world is noisy, it shows in my work; my paintings become loud, and the loons are frightened away. Lately it’s been getting worse. The breakdown of families, drugs, alcohol abuse, growing poverty—Kreel County isn’t Mayberry anymore. I haven’t painted in two months.”
“Ever think of doing it full time?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked sharply, but the sheriff knew what I was saying.
Just to be sure, I added, “Any damn fool can wear a badge and carry a gun, but how many can do what you do?”
“You don’t think I should be sheriff?”
“Do you?”
He didn’t answer.
“Why did you become sheriff?”
“Sense of duty, I suppose. I figure I owed it to my father. And my grandfather. It’s what they would have wanted.”
“My father was a businessman before he retired,” I told him. “One of the high muck-a-mucks. And I think he wanted me to follow in his footsteps. But he never said so. Instead, he encouraged me and my brother to do whatever we wanted. He only had two rules: Do the best that you can. And enjoy yourself.”
I gave Orman a few moments to reply. When he didn’t, I asked, “Are you enjoying yourself?”
“I acted like a fucking idiot back there, I know that. You don’t have to rub it in. You don’t need to give me speeches.” After a few more moments of silence, he added, “I was jealous”—as if that excused everything.
“Well, I’ve heard artists are supposed to be emotional.”
“Shut up, Taylor,” he told me.
I didn’t. “What’s next?” I asked.
“I’m not quitting just because some city boy doesn’t like how I run things.”
“I meant what do we do next about Michael.” “Oh.” Orman hesitated a moment, then announced, “King Koehn.”
“Oh, goody. Are you going to throw his chairs around, too?”
“Shut up, Taylor.”
This time I did.
twenty-five
Angel Johannson asked us to wait for a moment. “Fuck that,” Orman said. He pushed past Angel’s desk and strode purposefully to King’s closed office door. He opened it hard; if it had been locked, I have no doubt he would have kicked it open. I was beginning to suspect that the sheriff was wound way too tight for this line of work.
“I’ve been expecting you,” Koehn said evenly from behind his desk.
I was standing behind Orman. Angel was crowding in behind me. If her boss was calm, she decidedly was not.
“Should I call the police?” Angel asked. Orman looked at her and smiled, but there was no humor in his expression. Angel hesitated, then slowly went back to her desk.
With very little effort, the sheriff’s smile became a sneer. He planted himself in a chair in front of Koehn’s desk. “You were expecting me?” he asked, making the question sound like an accusation.
Koehn gestured with his thumb at the telephone. “Charlie Otterness called to tell me you were running amok; he’s probably calling everyone else in the county, too. I’m afraid you’re skating on very thin ice, my friend.”
“You’re not my friend,” Orman retorted.
“Yes, I am,” Koehn insisted. “I’m the one who got you your job, remember?”
Orman pulled the badge off his uniform shirt and tossed it violently on Koehn’s desk. “Fuck the job.”
Koehn stared at the badge for a moment and then glanced up at me. I thought the sheriff’s gesture was a little too theatrical, as well, but I remained silent.
“What is this shit?” King asked.
The sheriff flushed a deep crimson and sprang from his chair. He leaned on King’s desk. King pushed backward; the wheels on his chair carried him out of Orman’s reach.
“You’re this close,” Orman warned, holding his thumb and index finger a quarter inch apart.
I took a few cautious steps forward, wondering what was next, when Orman abruptly snapped upright. He turned his angry gaze on me, and for a moment I envisioned the picture of the white-tailed buck hanging in his office, scarcely believing this lunatic had painted it. Orman looked like he was working hard to rein in his anger. After a moment he barked at me, “I’d just as soon beat the shit outta him right now. But maybe you can talk to him.…” Orman glanced over his shoulder at King. “I’ll be waiting outside.” With that he stormed out of the office—but not before retrieving his badge and slipping it into his pocket.
“I think we might have made a mistake hiring Bobby,” Koehn told me once the sheriff was gone. I didn’t say if I agreed or not.
Koehn’s office was paneled with redwood and featured dozens of photographs, most of them pictures of King shaking hands with people I’ve never seen before. The desk was larger than it needed to be, and the rest of the furniture seemed expensive, although I noticed a small sticker on the base of a crystal lamp: FABRIQUE A TAIWAN.
“I know you,” he told me, recognizing me for the first time. “Last night at The Forks.”
I nodded.
“You did me a good turn,” King added. “I appreciate it.”
I nodded again.
“Who are you, anyway?”
I told him my name. I told him why I was with Sheriff Orman.
“That’s not right, is it?” he asked. “A PI working for the sheriff’s department.”
“It is a bit unconventional,” I admitted.
Koehn grimaced as he rocked from side to side in his swivel chair. “Things have been turning to shit over there for a while now. People complaining about this or that … He’s not his old man, not by a long shot. But Bobby’s my problem. What can I do for you?”
“Tell me about last night.”
“What’s to tell? It wasn’t the first public disturbance caused by my wife, that’s for sure.”
“She accused you of sleeping with Michael Bettich,” I reminded him.
“She’d accuse me of having an affair with Hillary Clinton if she thought people would believe her.”
“Is it true?”
“Sure, me and Hill are like that,” he said, crossing his fingers.
“Sidesplitting,” I told him.
Koehn frowned. “Everyone is so serious all of a sudden.”
“Homicide just doesn’t crack people up the way it used to.”
Koehn’s frown turned into a grin. At last, someone he could talk to.
“Did you sleep with Michael?” I asked.
“No. But it wasn’t for lack of trying.”
“She led you along, then blew you off—is that how it worked?”
“No.” Koehn smiled. “Michael was up front about it from day one: No screwing around. She said she’d learned her lesson about sleeping with people she worked with.”
“But you hit on her anyway,” I suggested.
He held up his palms. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
I settled into the chair in front of King without asking permission. “The thing is, what you did or didn’t do doesn’t matter as much as what your wife thinks you did or didn’t do,” I told him.