My hands clamped down around the wooden arm rests. “I beg your pardon?”
Curzon looked frighteningly sincere. “I’m sure it must be hard for both of you.”
“How do you know anything about ‘both’ of us?”
“According to the file, we never found the man who ran your sister down.”
Double-shit. “No. You didn’t.”
He spread his arms wide along the edge of his desk and pushed himself back, assuming the immoveable object position. His weapon bulged in a highly visible lump beneath the shadow of his armpit.
The black handle caught me up short. I don’t know why. I’ve been around guns.
They have a lot in common, guns and cameras. Most people have enough sense to be scared at first. Very few realize how bad it can get until the damage is done.
“Why do you ask?” I snapped.
“It seems relevant.”
In a very calm voice I asked, “Do you think there is a conflict of interest? That I might be pursuing this story as a way of getting back at your fine-” useless, Mayberry, “-department?”
“I think you have legitimate frustrations.”
“I have legitimate questions, Sheriff Curzon. Such as, is it department policy to rat out somebody to their employer for minor violations of the civil code?”
“No.”
“Then why’d your cousin send Tom Jost’s boss a note, tattling that he’d been caught-what?-with dirty pictures and a high-school sweetie past curfew?”
“A letter was sent. It shouldn’t have happened. Nicky thought he was doing the right thing.”
“Do you think he was doing the right thing?”
Curzon made a face. “What does that matter? Nicky took his reprimand and moved on. It’s over and done.”
“Then why are you still trying to protect him?”
“I’m not protecting anybody here. I’m telling you, Nicky’s a good kid.” Curzon’s voice was getting loud. “And a good cop.”
“What about Tom Jost? What kind of kid was he?”
“I can’t help the fact that Tom Jost didn’t have people watching out for him.” The volume dropped abruptly. He leaned forward, crumpling paperwork in his effort to close the space between us. “Nicky is a member of the team, like everybody else. I treat him the same as anyone. I don’t turn my back on somebody for making a reasonable mistake.”
Translation: whatever anyone else thought, Curzon didn’t believe his cousin had done wrong. And he’d kick the ass of anyone who said different.
“Is that what happened to Jost? He made a mistake and people turned their backs on him?”
“Jost’s life sucked,” Curzon summarized curtly, then started rubbing his forehead the way I’d seen earlier. “I can’t do anything about that. Nicky crossed a line and took his lumps for it. As his superior I see no justice in ruining his career over this.”
“I’m not trying to ruin your cousin’s career.” I was starting to feel indignant. “I’m not looking for a scapegoat, Sheriff.”
He stood up and the sheer size of him looming over me was enough to shut my mouth for the moment. He walked slowly around the desk, propped one hip on the corner and stared down into my face. “What exactly are you looking for then?”
I stood up, my chair raking the floor with a screech. “I want to understand what the hell happened. Something happened here. Something more than cheap thrills.”
“Such as?”
“Such as, what it’s like to always be different, no matter what you do. Such as, risking everything and then-giving up.” I was riffing, with no firm sense my story would end up being about any of those things. Maybe it would be about all of them.
Curzon locked on to me with a brain freeze of a look. Then, he nodded sharply.
I decided that was a go-ahead. “How you are characterizing Jost’s death? Suicide?”
For a moment, I wasn’t sure he’d answer. He blinked twice and the tired lines beneath his eyes revealed the flicker of tension he tried to hide. “What else would it be?”
“Accident.”
“No. The report won’t call it that.”
Which wasn’t what I’d said, of course. “Why not?”
“No reason to. Jost wasn’t on duty. He wasn’t vested in his pension yet. There’s no insurance. Why do that? Guy has a family. Such as it is.”
“But if that’s the truth?” I didn’t believe Jost had killed himself accidentally in the throes of a sex act. But a sheriff must have a reason not to believe. “Wouldn’t you have to report it?”
Curzon snarfed loudly. His expression was quite the cocktail of dry humor and skepticism. “What’s this? A reporter who’s concerned about truth?”
“Yeah,” I laughed along, irritation locking my back teeth. “About as rare as a cop who’s interested in justice.”
Both of us spontaneously leaned backward. Sarcasm like that’ll scar at a close range. Curzon relaxed his arms and fiddled with the papers on his desk. He started to say something and stopped, then like a bolt from the blue, he asked, “Would you like to come to my father’s for dinner tomorrow?”
“Excuse me?”
“My family’s getting together for a cook-out. It’s casual. Nicky will be there. You two can…talk.”
“Yeah, sure,” I answered, trying not to sound suspicious. “That would be great. Can I bring a camera?”
“No. But you can bring your niece. There’ll be other kids there.”
“Well.” I stood up. I couldn’t think what to do next. I knew it wasn’t, but I felt like he’d just asked me for a date.
“Funny.” He tilted his head and that reluctant smile crooked his mouth again. He was back to studying me like a specimen, hardly blinking. Days gone by, mobs would drown people with eyes his shade of spooky green.
“What?” I did a quick visual check down the front.
“The way you do that.”
“Do what?”
“Come on like a light bulb when there’s an audience, but here, the two of us behind closed doors, it’s all frosty-” he sliced a finger through the air, “-back-off.”
It wasn’t his comment, so much as the implication that threw me. I slid sideways toward the door, opened it and threw back over my shoulder the first playground defense that came to mind. “Yeah, well, I think you’re cute when you’re pissed-off, too, Sheriff.”
Somebody heard me and whistled. Some other joker called, “Ooh-so do we, Sheriff.”
I could feel the heat in my face.
Should have kept it simple and gone with oh, yeah?
5:27:54 p.m.
“Are you okay?” Ainsley asked me for the third time.
“Same answer. Stop asking,” I said. Town hall was not where I wanted to be. “We’ve got work to do. Let’s blow.”
“Not much of an afternoon person either.” Ainsley amused himself. “Follow me.”
My funk made it hard to appreciate either the tour by the mayor-elect or Our Town’s Sesquicentennial celebration. College seemed to have a vision, so I let him go with it. He shot general footage and some distance shots of Amish mingling with the crowds, selling vegetables and sizing up livestock. I interviewed a couple geezers in plaid shirts about how the town gets along with the Amish community. Unraveling a story with so little of the groundwork prepped was tricky. The whole thing could end up flat, dull or predictably salacious. After an hour of shooting B-roll we had decided to call it quits.
While Ainsley packed the truck, I phoned home. Tonya reported she and Jenny were on the way out to the Sally’s Discount Beauty Supply-no need to hurry back. She also told me they’d taken a weird call an hour before.
“I think it was a kid,” T explained. “Said her name was Rachel and you were expecting her to phone. Told me she’d wait in the Buona Beef parking lot until sundown.”
“Until sundown?”
“Yeah. Sounded like she’d been watching too many old movies.”