AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I tried breathing through my mouth. It did no good. I coughed and fought my gag reflex like hell. Three years ago I had been a college professor, with cares like getting published, fighting the post-structuralisms, and deflecting, gallantly, the come-ons of Heather Jameson in the twentieth century American history seminar that met Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Kimbrough said, “He’s in the room to your right, Sheriff.”
The floor seemed to give a little with an awful linoleum stickiness as I stepped inside. The little room was cramped with too much dirty old furniture, stacks of yellowing newspapers, big plastic bags full of empty aluminum cans and wine jugs. There wasn’t enough space for the orange upholstered chair to overturn. So the chair sat at a cocky angle against a pile of newspapers, and a man was sprawled in it.
He had a large, black hole in his chest.
I looked back at Kimbrough.
“Remember him?”
I shook my head. Between rigor mortis, lividity, and impatient body gasses. the corpse didn’t have what we would consider a face. But even the ghastly fun house mask that stared straight at me held no memories.
“That’s Dean Nixon,” Kimbrough said.
I stood straight and nearly beamed myself on the low ceiling. Something was coming down the railroad track straight for me, and I didn’t have time to move.
“You were a deputy with him, right?” Kimbrough said.
I nodded. “Jesus. I haven’t seen him in twenty years.”
I stepped back out of the trailer, feeling the stickiness clinging to my shoes. Kimbrough followed me. It was only about 5:30, but the daylight was nearly gone. The sky above the White Tank Mountains was washed with brilliant orange and rust. A single cloud to the north stood out like a pink-and-white cotton ball. If you painted the Arizona sky realistically nobody would believe it. We walked far enough away that the only smell was the familiar mixture of Phoenix smog and dust.
Dean Nixon. He was a forgotten figure in my personal history. I had joined the Sheriff’s Office halfway through college, full of idealism and restlessness. Despite a lifelong attraction to books and ideas, I had wanted to be a doer, not some pasty egghead in an ivory tower. I think I had a vague plan of going on to get a law degree. But I also had a high school buddy who had become a deputy sheriff. He told me I’d be great at the job. His name was Dean Nixon.
Somehow the department took me. I spent four years on the job, mostly as a patrol deputy. The jail held no fascination for me, and the administrative bullshit increasingly bored me. On the side, concealed from most of my colleagues, I finished my degree in history and went on to get a master’s. Then the Ph.D., and a chance to teach at a well-respected college in the Midwest. The world of ideas had me by the mind and the heart. I left law enforcement behind as a cherished youthful adventure. And although I stayed in touch with Peralta for the next twenty years, the connection with Dean Nixon had begun to lade even before I left the department.
Imagine having the name Nixon in the mid-1970s. In fact, Dean was handsome and magnetic in a rough way, with dry, wheat-blond hair and a tall frame that muscled out in high school working summers on Texas oil rigs. Women would walk up to him and give him their phone numbers. I saw it happen more than once. He had the inevitable nickname “Dick Nixon,” but that held more irony than most people realized.
“When did you last hear from him?” Kimbrough said.
“Who knows?” I said. “Maybe 1980.”
I realized with a pang of guilt that I hadn’t even thought to look for him at my high school reunion last fall. I never imagined I’d find him like this. Law enforcement is full of unhappy career endings. Retired cops who put the service revolver in their mouths. Dean never seemed like that. He played the guitar and laughed a lot. Last I heard he was dating a doctor. I imagined he’d retired to the happy life of a kept man.
“He’s been gone from the department for years,” Kimbrough said. “He made ends meet as a bounty hunter and security guard.”
I looked around us. “Not much making ends meet.”
“No,” Kimbrough said. He licked his lips and adjusted his suit coat. “The guy had a service record with lots of brutality complaints. A tough guy. Didn’t get along with his bosses, either. Went through three marriages. Counseling for alcohol abuse. Looked like the wine department of Circle K in his refrigerator.”
I said, “He was just a kid I knew in high school.”
Kimbrough said, “You believe in destiny, Sheriff?”
I kicked at the ground and ruined my loafers in the dust. I realized the frustration and anger that had been building in me. Yeah, and insecurity But it was too late. “What a joke. Sheriff.” I said. “I’m just the chump you guys decided on while Peralta’s down.”
The glass crunched under our feet, opaque shards of beer bottles mashed into the timeless topsoil of the desert. “Is that what you think?”
“You tell me. Captain Kimbrough.”
He smiled unhappily. “Maybe that’s what some of them think. I don’t know. I think you’re a good cop, Mapstone. Maybe because you and I are the only people in Arizona law enforcement with good taste in clothes.”
He made me laugh. It was true. “So what is it?”
He shook his head. “They need a sheriff. The brass agreed on it. It’s the first time Abernathy and Davidson have agreed on anything in the fifteen years I’ve been in this department.”
He faced me. We had walked as far as we could, and stood above a bleak ditch filled with garbage and standing water.
“Just go with it, David,” he said. “Hell, fuck with ’em if you want. You’re the sheriff. The real deal. For now at least. Look at it this way: if Peralta recovers, you’re looking out for his interest.” He paused and all we heard was the deep growl of the trucks out on Grand Avenue. “If things don’t work out, well, you and I
