Before we made it halfway back to the police station, the jovial and infectious Officer Ollie Gerulis pulled me over for the second time in two days. 

I watched in the rearview mirror as the emergency lights from the cruiser splashed cheerful colors all over the policeman’s lumbering advance. 

“You seem to be as popular in this town as you are at home,” Tony said. He gave his farcical mustache a smoothing stroke with two fingers.

“Funny.” I rolled down my window just as Ollie came alongside. Fresh mountain air hit me in the face, its cool touch and bright odor unable to calm my nerves one iota.

Officer Gerulis leaned forward to let us see his face. His skin tone was more like polished mahogany than I remembered. “Apologies for the trouble, Mr. Pierce. But I’m going to have to bring you to the station.” His grin failed to include his eyes, which appeared a little weepy to me in the shadow of his hat brim.

“What is it, Ollie?” I used the nickname to assuage his distress.

The technique failed. His slumped shoulders pulled the remaining effort at cheerfulness out of his manner, leaving crestfallen in its wake. “I’d like it to be different, but it’s the law I got to follow.” He looked squarely at me. “You promise to follow me into the station with your friend there, it’ll save the hijinks of shifting vehicles.”

“Why am I going to the station, Ollie?”

“We released your sister.”

“Released her?”

“Aidan came to the station.” He looked up and down the road, as if someone might relieve him of this unpleasant task. “I’d rather the sheriff told you.” Those soft brown eyes pleaded with me.

“You want me to drive over to the station so Sheriff de Lude can tell me Aidan dropped the charges against Renée?” I shook my head at the dashboard. “Adds mileage to an already too long trip, Ollie.”

“Well, dammit Mr. Pierce.” He spoke to the ground beside my truck now. “Why you want to make it hard on me?” He looked up, frustration taking the place of disappointment. “Can you just come in peaceful like. I get enough grief from the Sheriff’s Department as it is.”

“And I don’t want to add to it, Officer Gerulis,” I said, hoping to introduce professional courtesy into my argument. “But you can see how I might want to know what I’m walking into, right? I roll on over there, anxiety building the whole way and turning me all edgy and combative. That doesn’t sound like a way to keep the sheriff off your back.”

Ollie smirked and rocked his head back and forth. “Well, it’s a point.” After one more glance up the road, he faced me and said, “Aidan waltzed in with his back up, ranting how it was you attacked him, not Renée. Wants to change his complaint. Says you’re the one who’s been harassing him.”

It was my turn to slump my head. I could have argued the point. Make a fuss about a lawyer and legal rights. Might hold him off, make it go away. For a minute. Aidan’s nonsense was eating into time needed to find his little girl.

“May as well go along,” Tony said, reading my mind. “It’ll take as long to make your point as it will to get in front of the Sheriff.”

I grunted. More like a growl. “Doesn’t seem fitting for the town lunatic to create so much trouble.”

“Maybe so. I can’t answer for that.” Ollie had a hand draped over the Glock. I was hopeful that he did it out of habit, and not out of fear that I might react badly. I liked Ollie and I wanted him to like me, too. He seemed like the one cop in this town who actually cared about the people he served. 

“What’ll it be, Mr. Pierce?”

“I’ll follow,” I told him. Maybe it would be a short conversation, with me promising never to ever hurt the crazy man’s feelings again. Then I could get on with the job of searching for his daughter. Which, by the way, he was probably keeping tucked away up there in his junky little playground.

“Appreciate you cooperating,” Ollie said, the warm glow returning to his caramel colored skin. “Sheriff ain’t been at his best lately. It can be a pain in my backside once a mess like this gets stirred up.”

We rolled onto the blacktop behind him, headed for the station.

Tony’s lips twitched upward into a grin, eyes crinkling at the corners. His deep chuckle provided a baritone note in my requiem, filling the Tacoma with a brief moment of lightness. “Least ways now we got an escort.”

“It’s my life goal to keep a smile on your face, friend.”

“Try a song with fewer bars.”

“You’re a hard audience, Deputy Dog.”

Tony and I traded a few more insults before the Tacoma came to a stop in front of the station.

Sheriff de Lude’s brooding presence met us at the doorway to the station, meaty torso casting a shadow over the world. Steel-grey eyes glinted out from his weathered face, with stern determination meant to enforce the laws of the land. The thick, salted mustache bunched and rolled over his lip as he eyed me with disdain. 

Deputy Spiesz peered out of the shadows behind his boss and gave a shrug as I approached.

“Howdy, Sheriff,” I said, forcing my own shoulders to relax, offering an easygoing posture to counter the authoritarian one.

“Pierce. I’ll get right to it.” He tipped his hat at Tony, but didn’t make room for us to enter the station house. “We got civil rules in Lincoln County. One party cannot poke around, raising Cain with another party, without permission from one of us three.” He pointed first to Officer Gerulis and then stabbed a thumb at Deputy Spiesz. “You and your sister are making a bad habit of causing trouble that I don’t have time to deal with.”

My gaze flicked over Spiesz’s face. His sharp cheekbones and dark almond eyes were a stark contrast to Ollie’s softer features, but the Native American attributes were more evident when they stood near to one another. It reminded me of Timmy Kent’s claim that this recent arrival had an uncanny knowledge of the area for an Easterner. It seemed an odd coincidence that he’d just appeared from another land with mystical intuition of the Tobacco Valley. 

Unrelated thoughts like this arrived to distract me from the trouble I had gotten myself into. I shook the comparative analysis off, hopeful the sheriff didn’t interpret my effort to focus as dismissal. There’s just no pleasing the adults in my world.

De Lude continued to speak, his voice relentless and unwavering. “I expect visitors to come into my County and show respect to the citizens who reside here.” The wrinkles around his eyes deepened as he emphasized the dictate for obedience. But I could see the exhaustion showing through. This man was pushing himself way too hard. He should be thankful for a little help. He went on, ignoring my unspoken wisdom. “We keep it peaceful. The Peale’s bit of drama stirs up dust now and again, but it’s not something we can’t handle.”

I held my chin high and gave him a determined nod. The words, however, had my mind tinkering with his motive for working so hard to make the bad guy good and the good guys bad. 

Another intersecting thought occurred. Did de Lude know another party was horning in on his territory? That his deputy’s loyalty might be in question? And how about this newly acquired information about his past relationship with Vicky Peale? Also, why had it changed? 

Since I’d arrived the Sheriff showed little interest in Kayla’s disappearance. Knowledge of his long standing relationship with her family made that even more suspect. It was possible he already knew Kayla was okay, that he had spoken with Aidan Peale on the matter and simply kept that information from her mother out of spite. 

“I’m not going to arrest you. I’ve let your sister head on back to Lorna’s house. But maybe the two of you should ride the express rail out of town if you can’t toe the line in my jurisdiction.”

“My apologies, Sheriff.” My lips stretched thin, like the skin of a drum, and my eyes opened as wide as a polished silver coin, as I summoned my most charming and persuasive smile. “In my haste to find the missing child and return home in time for Thanksgiving dinner with my own family, I overstepped.”

“You could call it that,” he said.

The salesman grin started to pinch my face, so I relaxed it by two degrees. “It will be my goal to keep things quiet and undisturbed from here on.”

Off to the right, I detected a strained effort on Officer Gerulis’s part to avoid a chuckle.

“You best do that,” de Lude said. “I’ve a limited supply of generosity these days.”

Tony and I climbed back into the Tacoma, steam from my dress-down filling the cab.

“Are you getting sufficient entertainment value?” I asked my kick-in-the-side helper.

His laughter provided a necessary emotional release. 

The respite didn’t last long. By the time my wheels hit the highway’s asphalt, realization that we were no closer to finding Kayla, and had fewer allies to assist us, crashed over me like an avalanche.