“Nash,” she says.
“Here’s all you need to know, Sheriff,” the group leader says. “I called him a has-been, and as soon as I did, he proceeded to lose his shit like a crazy man.”
The one I’d helicoptered against the gate says, “Threw me across the lot like I was a damn football.”
“Is all of this true, Silas?” Hader asks.
It’s clear where this is going, something that doesn’t even surprise me a little bit. Hader is treating me like the perp here. I briefly consider asking him if hedoesstill have my dad’s cleat marks on his chest like a permanent tattoo.
Instead, I take in some air and let it out, trying not to make things worse for myself than they already are.
“I saw what I saw,” I say. “They were pushing product whether any of them are still carrying or not.”
“Prove it,” the group leader says.
Hader turns and snaps, “Zip it, boy. I’ll handle this.”
He turns back to me, taking a step closer. He’d be putting his badge in my face if he were a few inches taller.
“I frankly don’t care what you think you saw, Silas Tucker,” he says. “Or what you think these boys were doing before they hurt your feelings with some of they chirp. You’re not the law in this town or the other twelve towns in this county under my jurisdiction, because I am.”
And now I do make things worse for myself, making no attempt to stop what comes out of my mouth next.
“I assume, Sheriff Hader, that you’re referring to the towns where all these girls are disappearing and all these kids keep overdosing,” I say. “Thosearethe towns you’re referring to, correct?”
I see his own eyes nearly close now, and the skin on his face get so tight it’s as if somebody is pulling on it from behind.
He takes one step closer.
“How about I just use the cuffs on my belt and slap them on you for assault, the way I should have that time when you were in high school?” he says. “How about I do that, and take you into town and let you do your smart-mouthing from inside a cell?”
There’s just enough room for me to put my hands out, wrists together.
“Go ahead,” I say. “And then when I’m out, maybe I’ll put in a call to theGazette—I’m sure they’d be happy to hear from me—and tell them you arrested me instead of some drug dealers I just saw crawl out from under a rock.”
He turns back to them now.
“Any of you boys want to press charges?”
“You know they’re not going to do shit to Silas Tucker in this town,” the group leader says. “So, no thank you.”
“Shocker,” I say.
“Fuck you,” he says.
They walk back to their truck and get in and drive off about a minute later. Hader and Taylor and I watch them make a right on Pine Street and disappear, hear the engine being gunned as they do.
“I don’t need you telling me how to do my job,” Hader says.
“You call what just happened doing your job, Sheriff?” I ask.
“I’d tell you what you can do with all your smart talk,” he says. “But there’s not just a lady present, she happens to be a lady whose husband is an officer of the law, too.”
He pokes me in my chest with a finger, just one time, not hard, because he can.
“I’m sure there’s a lot of people in this town who still worship the ground you walk on, even if you are a has-been now,” he says. “But I’m not one of them. You ever do anything like this again and I will run your ass in, whether you’re a Tucker or not. We clear?”
“You don’t have to worry about me trampling you,” I say. I’m the one smiling now. “No, sir.”
