HAVING TAKEN ONLY ONE mouthwatering bite of a homemade hermit, Chloe set the still-warm bar on a paper napkin to photograph Whittaker slowly maneuvering the branches with an indignant tabby in his arms. He’d left his hat in the car, and his dark, wind-ruffled hair no longer looked regulation. Although the climb in the tree had taken some of the starch and press out of his uniform, he still looked like a man used to commanding authority.
Sarah Culpepper stood beside Chloe on the narrow back porch and wiped her hands on her apron. “Despite the scrapes he’s been in, that boy was destined to be a lawman.”
“Scrapes? What—”
“Weren’t you listening?” Sarah snapped. “I said Mack was destined to become a lawman.”
For a fleeting instant Chloe thought the deputy might have engineered this particular PR stop. “Always?” If dirt were to be dug, she had a week to do it.
“Well, I’m not saying he always acted out what he knew to be right,” Sarah said as she lined up three tall glasses on the porch railing, then filled them with tea. “And as a boy, he did have a devilish sense of humor that sometimes compromised his better nature.”
Humor? He’d been pretty taciturn to this point. Chloe looked in the deputy’s direction. In one fluid motion, he lowered himself to the ground, then deposited Buster at his feet. Cricking his tale, the cat stalked haughtily a few paces away, then sat and began to wash himself. Chloe continued taking photos as Whittaker brought the kitchen chair back to the stoop.
“Thanks for entertaining Ms. Atherton,” he said. To Chloe he added, “Time to go.”
Chloe slipped a couple hermit bars in her pocket in case he meant it.
“Sit down.” Sarah thrust a glass of sweet tea at the deputy. “And you,” she ordered Chloe, “need to go get that picture of Buster. Make sure his eyes are open. He has beautiful gold eyes.”
Chloe was quick to comply. When she’d taken several photos of the cat, she hurried back to show Sarah, only to find her deep in conversation with Whittaker, who was actually chuckling.
Seeing Chloe, he stopped short, then drained his glass. When he turned toward the cruiser, Sarah reached out to hold him back. “I was about to tell Chloe about your devilish sense of humor,” she said.
“Don’t believe a word of it.” Mack ran his fingers through his close-cropped hair, resignation settling over his features.
“Well, Myron Hapes had a workshop behind his house,” Sarah began. “A shed, really. Used to relax after a day of delivering the mail by doing woodwork in the evenings. Now when nature called, he’d avail himself of an old outhouse on the back of his property. If Estelle Hapes knew I was telling you this, she’d have a cow, especially seeing how proud she is of that new twenty-thousand-dollar bathroom she had put in off the master bedroom.”
How was this shaggy-dog tale going to connect with Whittaker, and how was he going to react? Chloe wondered. Right now his arms were crossed and his eyes were closed as if he was writing up the report of the recent high-school meeting in his head.
“Come October,” the elderly woman continued, “Mack carves a jack-o’-lantern, lights it and puts it in Myron’s outhouse after dark. Nearly gave the poor man a coronary. Mack was all of six. My, but I can tell you tales…So can most of the neighbors.”
“I paid my debt to society,” the deputy deadpanned. “Washed and waxed Mr. Hapes’s Pontiac every Saturday for four weeks.”
“Funny,” Chloe said, getting into the spirit. “Perhaps I should follow up on this. Discover what other former scoundrels are now county leaders.”
Whittaker froze. “Are you here to dig up dirt? Or are you here to write about a department in transition?”
“A good story’s always worth the investigation.”
Even Sarah bristled. “Well, you won’t find any dirt on the sheriff or Mack. They are truly Colum County’s finest. Why, Mack’s a war hero. Got the medals to prove it.”
“That and a dollar-fifty will get Ms. Atherton—”
“Chloe,” she said.
“Chloe—” he repeated her first name as if it were strictly against regulations “—a cup of coffee at Rachel’s Diner. We need to get you back to the B and B. Afternoon, Miss Sarah. Thanks for the tea.” Abruptly he marched out to the patrol car.
When Chloe started to follow him, Ms. Culpepper asked, “You’re not here to make trouble, are you?”
“No, ma’am. I plan to write the facts.”
“There’s facts and then there’s truth.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She’d found the human-interest core to her story.
CHAPTER THREE
“DID YOU HURT YOURSELF climbing that tree?” Chloe asked.
Mack started. Damn, he’d blocked the extra presence out of the cruiser. “No. I didn’t hurt myself.” He pressed down on the accelerator.
He needed to check back at the office and have a quick briefing with the staff. A heads-up concerning this article, which was becoming more intrusive than he’d anticipated. He needed to see Tanya. And he needed to remember not to call this kid reporter Chloe as she’d insisted. More than the familiarity rattled him. The name itself was unsettling. Feminine and faintly seductive. When he’d said it, it had nearly pulled him out of business mode.
“Where do you live?”
Her simple question caught him off guard. “What does that have to do with your story?”
“Everything has to do with my story until I sort out my notes and choose a central theme.”
“I thought we agreed the focus would be the department. The team.”
“That’s what you want it to be.”
He’d seen how Atherton’s face had lit up while Miss Sarah was talking. Reporters loved to chase human-interest stories the way Buster loved to chase squirrels. So let this rookie reporter humanize Breckinridge’s story, or McMillan’s or Sooner’s. His was confidential. There were some things even the electorate had no right to know. He winced as he thought of Miss Sarah describing him as a war hero.
Atherton reached out and ran her fingers lightly over the instruments on the patrol car’s dashboard, distracting him.
“Don’t touch,” he snapped.
“You or the dashboard?” she asked, pulling her hand back. “Where do you live?”
“Not in one of the expensive new developments,” he replied, ticked at himself for explaining. “So you can stop suspecting misappropriation of department funds.” Make that double-ticked for elaborating.
“Where, then?” She rolled her window down. Then up. Then halfway down. Then settled in to review the photos she’d taken. “The question’s not out of line. A big issue in many metro areas is that teachers, firefighters and police officers often can’t afford to live in the neighborhoods they service. Is it the same in Colum County?”
“Above the office there’s a small barracks. I live there.”
She plunked the Nikon in her lap. “Do the other deputies?” The surprise in her voice warned him to be cautious.
“Not full-time,” he admitted.
“Why do you?”
“Because I’m married to my job.” He wasn’t about to tell her how the sheriff, afraid Mack might backslide into alcohol, had installed him in the barracks. When his life had stabilized, Mack hadn’t seen much point in moving, although his parents kept bugging him about how