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ABEY
When I returned to the station with the box of T-shirts, I set it on a chair in the reception area and went to check the morning call sheet Shelley had printed out for Roxanne and me. I really was planning to rip the T-shirts up and maybe clean my boots with them or a toilet. I’d give some to Devo too. She’d get a kick out of that.
There wasn’t too much happening around Wisper yet, but with all the sales and local markets going on and more and more tourists finding their way to us, especially with the festival and dance right around the corner, there was bound to be some kind of drama.
Planning to make a dent in some of the annoying paperwork I’d inherited when I’d accepted the acting sheriff gig, I settled into the fancy office chair I’d also inherited when I took over Carey’s office. In my mind, it was still his office. A name plate had been delivered that read “Deputy Sheriff Lee,” but I knew it’d come from Carey and not from any official transfer of power situation. There wasn’t actually an “official” position. You were either the sheriff of a county or you weren’t.
But that sat fine with me. I had no hopes or aspirations to run for Carey’s office. My friend had a lot on his shoulders, and I had no desire to carry all that. I liked my job. Liked working with the townsfolk, liked protecting them and checking up on them, keeping the peace. It was a great job, and it fit me perfectly.
Somebody had to do it, and I was good at it. I felt a lot of pride when the fact that I was a woman turned out to be helpful to someone in need, someone who was scared or in trouble. Screw those fucktwats at Headquarters. And screw assholes like David Locke. This “girl” cop had shot a hole clean through his leg without batting an eye. And at the same time, I’d shown his daughter that she didn’t have to take his intolerant shit.
Served him right.
And who said I needed to be sheriff to make a difference? Maybe I’d been making a difference all along. Carey had done a great job by hiring me, and now Roxanne, and there was a third female deputy who’d been working at the Jackson station for a couple years.
Carey had forced the male deputies to become more tolerant because they had been made to work side by side with women, and we even had an openly gay deputy who’d worked up in Yellowstone with Roxanne. She’d told me all about him and how he’d been the one to introduce her to MM romance. We still had a lot of serious issues facing us in the law enforcement field. I couldn’t hope to fix all that on my own. I didn’t have all those answers, but I’d made my small mark, and that was a good thing.
The people of Wisper and Teton County knew they could depend on me, that I would protect them and treat them fairly, no matter who they were, the color of their skin, where they lived, or who they loved.
I thought about Devo and about all her causes and crusades. I’d never really considered us alike in that way. But now, as I remembered when I’d had to bring her in for protesting without a permit, the thing I respected the hell out of her for, despite her having not quite figured out how to do it peacefully, was that she was a believer. Of many different things, that was for sure, but they all boiled down to right and wrong. Devo fought every day for equality, for tolerance and acceptance. She fought for kindness and education and every other good thing in this messed-up world.
And it was sexy as hell.
But wasn’t it the same thing I did every day? She was the one who’d told Athena that I believed in right and wrong. Fought for it and worked hard to protect it.
Huh.
Yeah, it was what I’d been doing, pretty much since the first day I became a deputy. And I was really proud of myself for that.
So, I decided that, as long as Carey didn’t have any plans to add an official title to my new position, I’d keep the job, and I’d do it justice. Every damn day.
Speaking of, I heard boots marching down the long hallway in what I’d quickly come to know was Dan’s usual stiff way. He was probably headed back to the locker room to change before going back to the one-room rental he was staying in over at Mrs. Ellison’s boarding house after he’d worked the night shift.
In my mind, since I’d met him, he had come to represent the bad kind of officer people were becoming more and more scared of every day. Someone who would’ve tear-gassed Devo at her little protest instead of trying to help her and Red work things out.
Placing that assumption on Dan hadn’t been fair of me.
He hadn’t done anything to warrant such an assessment, so I called him into my office and asked him to have a seat in the chair across from mine. He didn’t sit and continued to stand with his hands clasped rigidly behind his back. His uniform was still buttoned up to his chin even though he’d been off the clock for a good thirty minutes.
Usually, he wore a cowboy hat like I did when he was out working the streets, except his was black. It was a pretty common thing for law enforcement in these parts, but today, covering his tight crop of a haircut was a Teton County Sheriff’s Department ball cap with his sunglasses perched on top of the bill.
“There’s a chair behind you,” I hinted.
“I’m good, thanks.”
“Okay.” Was he really that big of an asshole, or was there something else going on? “Actually, no, sit. That’s not a request.”
A muscle pinched in his cheek. “Yes, ma’am.”
“So,” I began as he lowered himself into the hardback chair, “how do you think things are goin’ for you here in Wisper?”
“Ma’am?” he said, eyebrows pinching together as he removed his hat and sunglasses, then rested them over his leg. “I don’t understand the question. Am I not meetin’ the requirements expected of the job?”
“No. Technically, you’re doin’ what you’re s’posed to. What I mean is, whatcha think? How’re you fittin’ in? Do you like the job?”
He nodded. “It’s fine.”
Jeez! Could this guy emote? Like, did he even know how?
