The Accidental Sheriff (3 page)

“I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with me.”
While she didn’t agree with Ward, he was the news director and decided what stories were read on air.

“I’m putting you in charge of the story.”

“Me!”

“You have the experience.”

“I’m no reporter.”

“Your degree’s in journalism, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“And you interned for two years at
The Arizona Republic.
”

“I wrote obits and two-paragraph fillers on spelling-bee champions or Eagle Scouts. This kind of stuff is way out of my league.” Not that she’d do it even if she was qualified.

“I thought you wanted more responsibility.”

“I do, but not at the sake of Neil’s reputation.” Had it been anyone else, Carolina would have jumped at the opportunity. She liked Neil, and investigating him felt a little like betraying a friend.

“Fine.” Ward rocked back in his chair. “Then I’ll give someone else the Sheriff Herberger interview.”

Her mouth fell open. “That’s blackmail.”

“That’s reassigning. And my prerogative as news director.”

“Why me?” Her indignation was turning into anger. She didn’t like being manipulated.

“Because Neil Lovitt likes you.”

“Hardly.”

“He does, and he’s more likely to let his guard down with someone he likes.” Manipulating her
and
Neil. “What if we—”

He cut her short with a raised hand. “I’ve made my decision. It’s your story. End of discussion.”

She refrained from saying more. For the moment.

“Get moving,” he told her. “You’re on again in four minutes.”

Carolina went to her own cubicle around the corner and familiarized herself with the latest traffic update. Her heart, however, wasn’t in it. As expected, there were no changes from earlier. Traffic was slow and go in the center of town, and an RV with engine trouble was creating delays on the highway just outside of town.

Glancing at her watch, she noted the time and jumped from her chair, shoving it just a little too hard. The loud screech caused two heads to pop up over the cubicle walls.

“Sorry.”

She hurried down the hall, waging a silent war with herself. Ward didn’t make idle threats. If she refused this assignment, he might fire her, claiming insubordination. He’d done it before.

How could he not see there was nothing more than a sad, heart-wrenching story in the death of Neil’s wife? Then again, Neil
had
responded oddly several times during the interview and didn’t appear happy about his temporary promotion.

Could there really be more going on with him than immediately apparent?

Her old journalistic itch unwillingly returned.

Damn Ward. He was probably counting on that.

N
EIL’S FIRST DAY
as acting sheriff wasn’t going well, not that he’d expected anything different after the interview with Rowdy and Carolina. Fortunately, his shift was almost over.

Lifting the phone to his ear, he pushed a button on the dial pad. A generic female voice told him, “You have forty-six new messages. Press number sign to—”

He disconnected before the voice could finish.

When he’d first arrived at the station after leaving KPKD, he’d listened to the two dozen messages already waiting for
him and taken another dozen calls before issuing instructions that all nonemergencies be sent directly to his voice mail. The congratulations were nice, if tedious. Even the complaints and angry rants didn’t bother him.

It was the threat to resign or else that got to him, turning his blood to ice and releasing a flood of unwelcome memories.

Neil had no idea if the anonymous caller was serious—the threat wasn’t specific, only saying he’d regret accepting the position of acting sheriff, but he’d refused to take any chances and immediately reported the incident.

He pushed another button on his phone. “Mary, can you come in here, please.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mary Twohorses, Sheriff Herberger’s—and now Neil’s—secretary, padded into his office, amazingly light on her feet for a woman of such generous proportions. She’d started with the sheriff’s department back when two small rooms served as headquarters and typewriters were used in place of computers. “Can I help you with something?”

“Go through my voice messages from today, please. Delete the unimportant ones and make note of the calls I need to return.”

“Of course.”

“There are a lot of them.”

“No problem.”

She wore the same patient smile she always did. Nothing ruffled Mary Twohorses’s feathers, for which Neil was glad. It had taken him less than an hour on the job this morning to realize he’d be lost without her.

“Thank you.” He opened the top right drawer and retrieved his few personal possessions.

“Are you leaving for the day?” she asked.

“Yeah. I have to pick up my daughter from after-school
day care.” He pocketed his cell phone and keys. “Is R.J. here yet?”

“Just arrived.”

“Good.”

Mary followed Neil down the hall as far as her office. She would normally have gone home already but was staying late to help with the transition. In the central room, Neil met up with R.J., his lead deputy and the one in charge tonight, and quickly briefed him before leaving by way of the rear door.

The ride to the elementary school his daughter attended didn’t take long. He swung into the main parking lot and joined the long line of vehicles already there. A few minutes later, Zoey, along with a crowd of about twenty-five children, burst through the double glass doors. They were closely monitored by a trio of energetic day-care workers. Zoey was released only when Neil stepped out of the patrol car and came around to the passenger side.

She skipped over to him, clutching a packet of papers as if they were constructed of spun gold while dragging her Hello Kitty backpack on the ground. The hair her babysitter, Carmen, had so carefully arranged that morning hung down into her face. Her T-shirt was rumpled and stained with what Neil guessed was finger paint, and her sneaker laces were untied.

He ignored her disarray. To him, his daughter looked adorable.

“Daddy, Daddy!” She delicately peeled the papers away from her chest and waved them at Neil. “Look.”

“How about a hug first?” He bent down to her level.

She obliged his request. When he would have held her a moment longer, she pulled away. “You have to read this.”

As if he could. The papers were upside down and moving from side to side. He did manage to recognize the Kinder Kids logo, the after-school activity club to which Zoey belonged.
He assumed the papers were information about another field trip to the movies or the museum.

“Okay. When we get home.”

“No, now. Pretty please,” she added, her small china-doll face filled with excitement and anticipation. “It’s really important.”

“I have to drive.” Her profound disappointment tugged at him while he buckled her into the passenger seat, walked around the car and climbed in behind the steering wheel. “Why don’t you tell me what it says,” he suggested and turned the key.

Her blue eyes, so much like her mother’s, lit up. “They’re giving riding lessons. Every Saturday. Can I go?”

“I need to know more before I say yes.” Cost wasn’t the issue. Neither was transporting Zoey, though it could be complicated while his schedule remained up in the air.

His daughter’s safety was his biggest concern. The anonymous caller hadn’t mentioned Zoey but until Neil found out if the threat he’d received today was real or a prank, he wasn’t about to let her go anywhere except to school without him.

“You promised,” Zoey complained. “You said when we moved here I could learn to ride a horse.”

She was right. He had, in fact, made several promises in an effort to ease their relocation from New York to Arizona. Ones he’d since come to reconsider. She’d begged him for a pony. He had appeased her with an offer of riding lessons. But that was before he saw how big horses were and how tiny and vulnerable his daughter looked sitting on top of them.

“I’ve taken you riding. Twice.” He joined the line of exiting vehicles loaded with their cargos of children.

“A pony ride at the fair doesn’t count.”

“What about that time at Carmen’s cousin’s house? You had fun.”

“Which is why I want to go again.”

She sounded too adult to be just five-going-on-six. Old enough, he supposed, to take riding lessons. The after-school program wouldn’t be offering them to students unless there was minimal risk, right?

Why didn’t she want a kitten or to be a ballerina like other little girls?

“I’ll go over the paperwork when we get home. See how much the lessons cost, what time they are and how long they last.” If they were only an hour, he would stay and watch Zoey.
Closely.
“Wintergreen Stables isn’t too far from home.”

“That’s not where they’re having them.” Zoey studied the papers, her brow furrowed and her mouth pursed. Despite her efforts, Neil doubted she could read more than a couple dozen words. “Miss Meyers said Bear Creek Ranch.”

“Huh. Really?”

Well, that threw a whole new light on the subject. After the interview this morning, Neil wasn’t sure he wanted to cross paths with Carolina again. Not until Sheriff Herberger returned to work. She’d asked too many personal questions. Questions Neil hadn’t wanted to answer.

On the other hand, what were the chances she’d be at the ranch when he was there with Zoey? Probably nil. Certainly not enough for him to break a promise he’d made to his daughter.

“I’m not saying yes, mind you,” Neil told Zoey. “But if everything works out, you can take lessons. For a while, anyway. Then we’ll see how it goes.”

“Thank you, Daddy.” She leaned across the seat as far as her seat belt would allow and hugged his arm. “I love you.”

“Love you, too, kiddo.”

Neil hoped he didn’t regret his decision. Carolina’s probing questions weren’t his main reason for avoiding her.

It was the temptation she presented and what could happen if he gave in to it.

The threatening call had served to remind him of the dangers associated with his job and his commitment to keep the people he cared about safe. Something he’d failed to do with his late wife.

Protecting Zoey might prove difficult, but protecting Carolina was another story. He just had to stay the hell away from her.

Carolina stood at the foot of Sheriff Herberger’s hospital bed and listened to him answer Rowdy’s questions. An earbud attached to a tiny portable transmitter allowed her to hear both ends of the interview, though the echo effect was disorienting.

A firm grip on the bed rail and a tapping right foot allowed her to vent a little of the frustration building inside her.

Ward hadn’t been completely forthright with her the other day, which made his strong-arming her into doing an investigative piece on Neil all the more unconscionable. Carolina wasn’t interviewing Sheriff Herberger as much as babysitting him, a task one of the techies like Adrian could have easily handled. The questions she’d been given for the sheriff were actually being asked by Rowdy. Her job was limited to going over the list with Sheriff Herberger before the interview and coaching him with his responses if necessary.

Right. The sheriff might have undergone major surgery two days ago, but twenty-six years as an elected official had honed his public-speaking skills, enabling him to carry off a simple radio interview with ease.

Carolina watched him and wavered between telling Ward off when she got back to the station or being a good girl and just shutting up. This could be a test, she reasoned. If she pitched a fit, Ward could use her reaction to shoot down
her next bid for a better assignment…and the next, and the next.

If they turned out like the one she was doing on Neil, maybe she should consider changing careers.

A few tentative forays into researching the death of his wife had produced little more than what Ward had already learned and nothing that implicated Neil. Carolina hoped additional digging would provide the same. Then she’d go to Ward and tell him she couldn’t find dirt because there wasn’t any.

She tried not to think about the—in her opinion, nonexistent—possibility that Neil had acted irresponsibly and caused his wife’s death.

Sheriff Herberger caught her eye. She smiled encouragingly, giving him a silent thumbs-up. For someone who’d just had a heart attack followed by a triple bypass, he looked good.

Then again, the man was made of granite, as his record proved. He’d seen a lot of change in the past quarter century and endured his share of difficulties, both professional and personal. He’d stood strong for what he believed in, even when those beliefs weren’t popular, and was a staunch advocate for the rights of the people who’d elected him.

He was also a longtime friend of the Tuckers, especially Carolina’s uncle, who’d managed the ranch before her cousin Jake took over. From tales her uncle told, he and the sheriff had run around together as teenagers and young Otis Herberger had tangled once or twice with the law before deciding to switch sides.

“Well, thanks for having me today, Rowdy,” he said into the phone.

“We’re glad to hear you’re doing well.”

While the sheriff and Rowdy were wrapping up the interview, Carolina’s thoughts drifted to the station and what she’d
say to Ward when she got back. It took a moment for her brain to register that Neil’s name had been mentioned.

“I’d be back on the job tomorrow if those dang doctors would let me,” Sheriff Herberger continued. “In the meantime, I’m sure Deputy Sheriff Lovitt will do a bang-up job, no pun intended.”

The sheriff and Rowdy both laughed.

“He’s kind of a serious guy, isn’t he?” Rowdy asked.

“When it comes to work, yes. But off duty, he can relax and kick back with the best of them.” Sheriff Herberger glanced at Carolina and winked.

She felt her cheeks warm. Did he know about the double date she and Neil had shared last year? Touching a finger to her earbud, she smiled back while trying to appear preoccupied with the broadcast.

The sheriff and Rowdy exchanged a few final comments, then said goodbye. Carolina went over to the sheriff and helped him hang up the phone, which was on the nightstand and beyond his reach.

“How’d I do?”

“You were great.” She patted his arm, the one without tubes and monitors attached to it. “A real pro.”

“I hate this.” His smile dissolved. “I’ve never been sick a day in my life. And now…” He laid his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes. In that moment, he looked his age and then some. “Three months’ mandatory leave of absence. I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold up without going crazy.”

The door cracked open, and a nurse peeked in. Carolina waved to her, and she entered, brandishing yet another floral arrangement. “I didn’t want to interrupt if you were still doing the interview.” She went over to the dresser.

“No problem, we’re done.”

The nurse moved two arrangements to make room for the new one.

“It’s starting to look like a damn funeral parlor in here,” the sheriff grumbled.

“You should be glad it’s not a funeral parlor,” Carolina said.

“You’re right.” He laughed again. “Be sure to tell your family thank you for the flowers they sent.”

“I will.”

The nurse left. Carolina would give anything to do the same, but figured she might not have another opportunity to be alone with the sheriff for a long time. Besides, if Ward asked, she could tell him with complete honesty she was working on the story about Neil.

“We did a little research on Deputy Sheriff Lovitt before his interview the other day.”

“Is that so?”

“To help us with questions.” She winced at the bald-faced lie. Fortunately, the sheriff didn’t appear to notice. “I read about his wife’s death.”

Sheriff Herberger shook his head sympathetically. “A truly terrible accident.”

“I saw that he was investigated by Internal Affairs.”

“Standard procedure. Nothing more. Neil acted properly and in the line of duty. There were also more than twenty civilians who witnessed the incident.”

“Is it normal for an off-duty police officer to go after a suspect?” Carolina hated to admit it but she was becoming curious, from a strictly personal standpoint. “Especially out in the open like that with lots of people in the area?”

“Protecting the public doesn’t stop just because a law enforcement officer clocks out. He had a responsibility.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“Neil’s a good cop.” The sheriff yawned. “He’ll be a great acting sheriff.”

“Of course.” She gathered the rest of her things. “You’re tired. I’ll leave and let you rest.”

His thick salt-and-pepper eyebrows came together in a pronounced V. “Is there some reason for your curiosity about Neil?”

“I’d like to know that, too.”

Carolina whirled at the familiar voice. The slight embarrassment she’d felt earlier with Sheriff Herberger was nothing compared to now.

Neil stood in the doorway. On second thought,
filled
the doorway was a better description. There were two inches of empty space between his shoulders and the doorjamb. She involuntarily swallowed.

“Neil!” Sheriff Herberger instantly perked up. “Did you hear the interview?”

“No, sorry. I was in the E.R.”

“Someone hurt?” The sheriff became instantly alert, all signs of drowsiness gone.

“A hiker took a fall near Windy Canyon. Nothing serious but we brought him in just to be on the safe side.” He shot Carolina a piercing look.

She straightened her spine, not about to let him see his unexpected arrival had unnerved her. “Good morning, Sheriff Lovitt. Sheriff Herberger and I were just chatting about you.”

“So I heard.” He didn’t move except for his eyes, which tracked her as she slid away from the head of the bed. “If you have any questions about me, I’d rather you ask me directly and not trouble other people.”

“Good idea.” Sheriff Herberger’s weary face broke into a grin, and he shooed them out of the room. “It’s about lunch-time. I hear the cafeteria makes a decent cheeseburger, not that my doctor will let me have one.”

“I really need to get back to the station.” Carolina made the excuse, thinking she was saving Neil an awkward situation.

He took her completely aback when he said, “Lunch sounds great,” and stepped aside to let her pass. “My treat.”

T
HE CAFETERIA WAS CROWDED
and noisy. Not exactly the best place for a personal discussion. But, then, was there ever a good place to lay open old wounds?

One good thing, Neil thought as he bit into his club sandwich, the food was decent. He’d wolfed down most of it, which meant he couldn’t put off talking with Carolina much longer.

He still wasn’t sure how much he’d tell her. Generally, he didn’t care what other people thought of him. The months of living beneath a microscope after Lynne’s death had thickened his skin. But of everyone he’d met in Payson, Carolina was the one person besides Sheriff Herberger that he wanted to know the truth and not some distorted version of it. Why her opinion of him counted, he wasn’t sure, but it did.

She ate her tuna salad, patiently waiting for him to start. He liked that about her. He’d found most people in the media to be pushy and high energy. Carolina had an appealing calm about her, though he sensed she wasn’t a softie by any means.

Amazing that some lucky guy hadn’t swept her off her feet and slipped a ring on her finger. She must have had her share of offers.

Neil polished off the last of his sandwich with some milk.

“You going to eat all of those?” Carolina asked, eyeing his French fries.

“Help yourself.”

She did—to three large ones, dunking them in the leftover pool of ketchup on his plate before popping them into her mouth. It was something his daughter, Zoey, would do.

He chuckled.

“What?”

“You.”

“I gave up fries a while back. Too many carbs.” Carolina smiled coyly. “Sometimes my willpower gives out.”

He started to answer, then stopped, realizing she’d asked for the fries more to put him at ease than to satisfy any food craving. It was enough to break the ice.

“His name was John Leity,” Neil began without preamble. “A normal-sounding name, a normal-looking guy. If you were standing behind him in line at the grocery store, you wouldn’t think him guilty of anything more serious than an unpaid parking ticket. We called him the Delivery Man because that was his method of entry. No one was afraid of his face when they saw it through a peephole.”

“He was a serial killer.”

“Suspected of raping and killing seven women, slitting their throats and leaving them to bleed out on their apartment floors.”

Carolina gasped softly and placed her folded hands in her lap.

“There was also sufficient DNA evidence to tie him to a string of other, lesser crimes.” Neil absently rubbed his thumb up and down his glass of milk, removing the condensation. “We’d been searching for him for six months. He always managed to remain one step ahead of us.”

Neil paused. It had been years since he’d told anyone the entire story. Emotions long buried rushed to the surface, and he needed a moment to rein them in.

“Lynne and I were having a late brunch at a neighborhood outdoor deli. They had the best lox and bagel in the city, and she liked to go there on my days off.” The memory struck a gentle chord in his heart. “Zoey was asleep in her stroller, which was parked beside our table. Lynne and I were talking,
I don’t even remember about what, when I suddenly looked up and saw the Delivery Man at the newsstand across the street.” He involuntarily tensed, much like he had that day. “I didn’t believe it at first. His regular territory was forty blocks away.”

“What did you do?”

He’d gone after the guy. Carolina knew that. He decided to tell her what she didn’t know, what very few people outside the NYPD did.

“I told Lynne what was going on and pulled out my cell phone. I wanted to call in his location before he got too far away. She grabbed the phone and told me to go after him.”

“That was very brave of her.”

“It was.” The background din of the busy cafeteria faded into nothingness as Neil relived that horrific day. “You’d have thought with all the violent crimes she dealt with in her own work, she’d have been afraid. For Zoey, if not for herself. But Lynne understood the importance of catching that bastard before he killed another girl.”

“What did she do for a living?”

“She was a crime scene investigations analyst. She took an extended leave of absence when she was pregnant. I wish now she’d gone back to work. We might not have been at the deli that day.”

“I don’t remember reading anywhere she was a cop.”

“The media somehow always forgot to mention it. Painting me as the irresponsible cop husband willing to endanger his wife and child sold newspapers and raised TV ratings.” Anger and bitterness roughened his voice, and he cleared his throat. “It was bad enough I lost Lynne. Worse that I played a direct part in her death and would have to live with the guilt and grief. But the media went out of its way to make my life a living hell.”

“I’m so sorry.”

A lot of people had spoken those words to him. Few with as much sincerity.

“A group of
concerned citizens
thought I should be fired for being remiss in my duty. The really screwy thing is, according to protocol, I would have been remiss in my duty if I hadn’t gone after the guy.”

Neil forced himself to relax and breathe deeply. The air in the cafeteria had become stifling. When he could talk again, he said, “I was almost on him when he spotted me. I figured he’d run, especially when I pulled my gun. Hell, who wouldn’t run?”

“But he didn’t?”

“Turned and hit me like a three-hundred-pound defensive tackle. People scattered like a bomb had exploded. I went down hard on the concrete but got a hold of his pant leg. He shook me loose and cut back across the street instead of disappearing into the crowd.”

“Toward the deli?”

He could hear the horror in Carolina’s voice. It wasn’t unlike the horror gripping his chest, freezing his heart. The kind he experienced every time he recalled what happened next.

“I ran after him. He fired two shots at me. I…didn’t realize he had a gun—he’d always used a knife on the girls—though I’m not sure it would have made a difference. I was operating on pure adrenaline by then. The second bullet grazed my scalp. I returned fire. And didn’t miss.” Neil concentrated on the condiments clustered in the middle of their table, sensing Carolina’s gaze on him, feeling her compassion. “The same bullet that winged me hit the building and ricocheted off…into Lynne’s neck. A quarter inch to the left, and it would have missed the artery. She was dead before the ambulance arrived. Loss of blood. Like all his victims.”