an hour? I’d hoped—”
He raised his hand to cut her off. “Can that car of yours withstand a week’s worth of cruising these roads?”
“I intend to ride with you.”
He rubbed his forehead as the headache came roaring out of retirement. “I don’t think so.”
“Deputy Whittaker, this article was Sheriff McQuire’s idea. He contacted my paper. He suggested a human-interest story on a week in the life of a sheriff’s department. I wouldn’t get much of an idea of what the job entailed if I were to follow several car lengths behind you, would I?”
“I doubt Garrett—Sheriff McQuire—had a ride-along in mind. Liability issues—”
She flipped through her notebook. “I’ve done my homework. Ah, here it is. Sheriff McQuire encourages public-safety interns from the college. They ride in the cruisers. I’ll ride in the cruiser.”
“He didn’t tell me—”
“Call him.”
“He’s on his honeymoon.”
Victorious, she dropped the notebook in her lap, crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “Then it’s settled. You’ll have to take my word for it. I’ve already kept my word once by having that taillight fixed.”
She wasn’t riding with him. He wouldn’t argue now, but he’d sure as tomorrow think of some excuse not to have this reporter dogging his every move. Hell, he’d only recently begun talking to his fellow deputies. Had Garrett really planned this? Could Mack get someone in the county health department to sanction the sheriff for practicing psychology without a license?
“Now…” She was scribbling something on her notepad. “One way we might approach the article is from the perspective of the evolution of a rural office. I noticed a huge vacation community—Ryder’s Ridge?—as I was entering town. And another new year-round subdivision closer to town. Surely progress, if you want to call it that, has changed the complexion of the county. Changed your job.”
Putting aside for a moment the problem of her riding with him, he stared hard at her. It had taken her only a few minutes to get to the root of the department’s problems. Sheriff Easley hadn’t been able or willing to move into the twenty-first century. Of course, the problem was more complicated than what she’d picked up on, but she’d come very close to the mark. Not too shabby for a green reporter.
“Deputy Whittaker? How’s my assessment?”
“Rapid growth is a major issue,” he grudgingly replied.
She wrote something down. “I have an idea about the who, the what, the where and the when. Now all I need is the why.” She licked the tip of her pencil. “Why did Sheriff McQuire call in the media? Is this an election year? Does he need to look good in the polls?”
Mack didn’t like questions that began innocuously but packed a hidden sting. “Sheriff McQuire wants you to write about the department. Not about him. Not about me. Not about any of the other deputies. Not as individuals, but as a team. Doing what we’re supposed to do. Our job is to protect and serve.”
He came around the desk, then leaned forward until his face was within inches of hers. “Now, let me ask you a few questions. Do you have something to prove? Is this assignment a stepping-stone to bigger and better assignments? Would your boss be happier with solid reporting or with some trumped-up exposé?”
Chloe reacted to his deliberate intimidation by inhaling sharply and sitting back in her seat until her spine pressed against the hard molded plastic. What had lit a fire under Deputy Whittaker? Did he interact with all reporters this way, or did he have a problem with female reporters specifically? She made a mental note to find out the number of women in the department and how they were treated.
“Let me rephrase the question,” she replied. She’d get to any prejudices he might have later. When she caught him in an unguarded moment. “Why would the sheriff want an outsider poking about the department? Why not issue a press release? In any event, why do you think your day-to-day operations would be of interest to the general public?”
“Why would the public be interested in how we run the department?” he asked, his expression growing darker. “Did you skip your junior-high classes on local government?”
“No. I happen to have loved—”
“Let me spell it out for you.” The muscles in his jaw twitched as he leaned back against the desk. “The history of this office—this public-safety office—goes back to England and the days of Robin Hood. The sheriff’s an elected official, the highest law-enforcement official in the county. Entrusted with keeping the peace.”
“The point being?” It was her turn to bridle. She’d never liked lectures. And she didn’t like overbearing men.
“The point…” He tapped her notepad with his index finger. “If the electorate has the sense they were born with, they better damn well want to know how we’re carrying out our duties.” As his voice rose, he accidentally knocked a stack of file folders off a tall cabinet onto the floor. He ignored the mess.
Heavens. If this was the deputy in charge, what was the sheriff like? Chloe refused to be daunted. If the truth be told, his civic ardor excited her. Electrified the room. What good was a career if you weren’t passionate about it?
She crossed her legs, sat up straight and met the deputy’s fierce expression. His eyes weren’t merely dark brown, they were hickory-nut-brown, she noticed. And hard. “Then we’d better back up. The sheriff said y’all had turned the office around. What was the problem?”
He remained immobile for several moments, staring at her. The information had to be public record. Narrowing his eyes, he appeared to come to a decision.
“Five years ago,” he began with great deliberation, “Zach Taylor sold four hundred acres of prime land to a real-estate developer who, in turn, built two complexes—year-round executive homes and expensive vacation homes. Those complexes attracted hundreds of families to Applegate. The population of Colum County soared.”
“Bringing new problems to your department.”
“It wasn’t our—Sheriff McQuire’s—department at the time.”
“But there were problems.”
“Yes. But I think Sheriff McQuire intended that you concentrate on the present, not the past.”
That wasn’t how the media worked, but she knew to choose her battles. “How have things changed?” She tuned into his body language as she waited.
He began to pace the cramped quarters, stepping over the spilled folders. “For one thing, we now run things strictly by the book.”
Chloe took down his words without comment. There would be time enough to determine if the new sheriff ran an honest department. Believe only what you see, what you can prove, her mother, a scientist, always said.
She raised her head. “And for another?”
“For another, we’ve brought the department into the computer age.”
Suppressing
