The cool porcelain toilet seat was doing nothing to warm my ass when Deputy Stan Spiesz showed up. I sat there, with the lid down, to remain as close as possible to the evidence. In case my attacker returned to lay claim to it.

“You all right, Mr. Pierce?” Deputy Spiesz asked, peering at the bandages I’d used to hold cotton in my nostrils.

“It’s nothing.” My fingers touched them. “Some yahoo was hiding inside and hit me with the door.”

“You need a minute?” He pointed to the porcelain stool. A momentary glint in his eye suggested a joke. But dullness returned, and I decided he was serious.

“It made more sense to wait here. Guard this.” I pointed to the journal and stood. The world spun on a wobbly axis, vertigo making my head swim and threatening to tip me over once again. I played it cool, squinting for focus with one hand on my forehead like a punch drunk prize fighter. “Seems Hugh Jenkins kept a record of his transactions.”

“Can I ask what your reason for being here is, Mr. Pierce?”

Shock at the question jolted me with an electric arc that streaked across my features before turning upwards, lifting my eyebrows higher. “To find the journal.” Might as well play on his genetic ignorance.

“Makes sense,” he said. “Don’t know how you can stand the smell in here.”

I gaped and dabbed at the bandages with a finger.

“Aw, yes,” the deputy said with a smile of recognition. He reached for the book.

“Are you going to put gloves on?”

“Sure,” he said, grabbing the small ledger with a meaty hand.

“To avoid ruining any fingerprints that might already be on it?” It took a lot of willpower not to grab the thing out of his hands.

“Oh yes!” He replaced it on the edge of the sink. “Did you touch it, Mr. Pierce?”

“I used a tissue.”

The deputy’s heavy jowled face scrunched until his eyes nearly crossed indicating confusion before he asked, “But did you touch the book?” 

With a wave of the small white sheet, I said, “I picked it up with a piece of tissue to avoid getting my fingers on it.”

The confusion turned to joyful surprise. “Great idea!”

“You have gloves, right?” I asked as he began scanning the room.

His pointer finger shot into the air. “Correct.” He pulled a pair of blue latex gloves from a side pocket in his britches. “You’re very knowledgeable about police procedures, Mr. Pierce. Thank you for your help.”

Phrases like these made me wonder if he was patronizing me from beneath a moronic facade. The idea of challenging him on it popped into my mouth, but I caught it before the words came out. Given the criminal nature of my presence in the room I needed this guy’s stupidity on my side.

“It’s nothing,” I said. A rush of shame squeezed drops of pain from my heart. Personal incompetence at every juncture in this case darkened the situation considerably. “I’d like to see my sister released, is all.”

“I’m afraid that’s not in my control. The Sheriff is in charge of them kinds of decisions. We got the one witness from the Wilderness Club that kind of locks it up for him.” 

“Witness? Who’s that? What did they see?”

Spiesz ignored the questions as he fanned the pages of the journal. “It’s quite nice.”

“Excuse me?” Heat traced the lining of my collar. “I’m not sure what you mean. It’s nice of the Sheriff to keep my sister in jail?”

Spiesz kept his focus on the entries in the ledger. “This is a murder investigation, Mr. Pierce. We have to maintain a tight rein on all suspects.” His words sounded like a direct quote from Sheriff de Lude. He ended the reprimand with, “It may be more depth than you can handle.”

I kept silent. The tight space became suffocating,  walls closing in, air thick with apprehension. My heartbeat thrummed in my ear canals, loud and insistent, while Spiesz flipped the pages of the journal. The rustling sound aggravated the smothering absence of my response. Heat from my neckline rose into my face, and my head pulsated in rhythm with my raging thoughts. My nose hurt from bridge to tip. It took every bit of decorum to prevent me from slapping his face. 

“That offer made earlier,” he said, his voice heavy with the influence of his source. “It came from a man of influence and means in the valley.” Spiesz had slowed his perusal of the lines in the little book. “Mostly, he does good, helps folks out and makes sure the right thing gets done to support the community.”

My jaw clamped at the prompt. I needed the deputy to keep talking. His offer reminded me of Johnny Horton Martin. As much as his decision to drop the purchase of six Tundras hurt my business, Miles City needed men like him. I suspected the individual Spiesz had in mind was a bit less benevolent.

“Every town has one,” I agreed.

“I try to do my part,” Spiesz continued. “As deputy, my job is to keep the good townspeople safe. Sheriff said so. I do my part.”

That niggle in the back of my brain refused the notion of a good Samaritan with lots of money. Why would a person with that much power hide behind a lunkhead like Deputy Spiesz? Even as the thought came, it clarified itself. A doofus was the best choice. As long as they were a loyal doofus. A better question might be, what made Deputy Spiesz loyal to this benefactor?

“I gotcha,” I said. “Lawmen and judges generally do their best to maintain order in their territory.” My eyes watched the deputy’s face. “Only sometimes it takes work in the background to get the job done.”

There might have been a slight twitch at the corner of his eye, but Spiesz avoided the trap. “Yeah, that can happen, I guess.” He closed the ledger and looked at me directly. “I’ll get this to the Sheriff. You best get out of here. Not sure he’ll like that you were the one found the evidence.”

His decision to let me off without a trespass charge raised one more flag. What prompted Spiesz to keep me out of trouble with the Sheriff? The goofy cop’s reasoning felt off, but I couldn’t zero in on the logic of my intuition. Was he a mouthpiece for every potentate in town?

His selection had to be about loyalty. My cynical nature could be getting in the way of logic. The benefactor believed he could trust the deputy to follow along, no questions asked. The cognitively challenged are devoted to those who help them navigate an unsympathetic world. Spiesz’s leader should be Sheriff de Lude. But maybe de Lude had hired him on someone else’s recommendation.

The questions caused the wound on my forehead to ache.

“I can go?” I asked.

“The man of influence,” Spiesz said, as I made my way through the door. “He’s willing to meet with you and tell the truth about what his reasons are. A favor.”

“Is this the kind of favor that comes with strings?”

Spiesz dodged the question. Or maybe he couldn’t follow along. “Might be he pays better than Lorna and Vicky. Also puts you under a sort of protective type of umbrella. One where you’re less likely to find yourself stuck in the pokey. Might even be he can set your sister free.”

My grip on the edge of the door tightened. “Free?”

“Like I said, he has influence. Probably, she’ll avoid any criminal charges.”

It was money I needed. The reason I came. The child was safe. My sister would be free and clear. The decision didn’t take long. But I decided to keep it to myself for now.

“Might be I take that deal. Set up the meeting,” I said, inching toward the door. Here I go again. Down the dodgy mineshaft of debatable investigation. 

Even the alliterative staccato of my anticipation proclaimed caution. Still, I knew I couldn’t resist the temptation to prove my suspicion. Like a moth to a flame I was, unable to resist my insatiable curiosity, sure to singe those evidence-gathering wings. 

Thoughts of what I was about to do gave me the shivers.  But I just couldn’t help myself — sometimes, reckless abandon was necessary despite the potential cost. Curiosity killed better cats than me.