Blue Smoke and Murder

57

SEPTEMBER 16

2:30 P.M.

Sheriff Ned Purcell made Jill and Zach wait for twenty minutes in his outer office. They sat side by side on two straight-backed wooden chairs, like truants waiting for the vice principal.

Zach shifted on the hard chair and looked over at the receptionist, who also ran the sheriff’s communications center. The desk nameplate announced that she was Margaret Kingston.

“Would things go a little faster if we told you we chartered a jet to get here?” Jill asked.

Her voice was sharp. She was the designated bad guy for this duo. Zach hadn’t trusted her to hide her irritation with Purcell’s patriarchal Latter-day Saints approach to civil law.

The receptionist held up a hand, asking for a moment, then continued toggling switches back and forth, checking records and relaying text messages to units in the field.

“I told the sheriff that you were out here with a man,” the receptionist said finally, “and that you wanted to talk about your grandmother, who died a long time ago. Not exactly a life-or-death emergency.”

With that the woman gave her attention back to situations that were more urgent than something that had happened before she was born.

“All we really want is to go through some of the old jail records,” Jill said.

“Still need the sheriff,” the receptionist said.

“Why?” Zach asked.

“That’s the way it’s done around here,” the receptionist said as she picked up a ringing telephone.

Zach started to tell her what a waste of everyone’s time that was, remembered that he was the clean-shaved good guy, and shut up.

The door to the inner office opened. Ned Purcell stuck out his head and gave them the kind of look a plumber gives an overflowing toilet. He jerked his head toward his office, then turned to the receptionist. “Hold my calls for a few minutes, honey.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jill looked at the sheriff walking back into his office and then at the receptionist. “Honey? In the real world, that’s called demeaning at best, sexual harassment at worst. Unless, of course, you’re one of his very own honeys?”

Kingston ignored her.

So did the sheriff.

“Ease up, darling,” Zach said calmly. “The sheriff didn’t mean anything disrespectful.”

Jill bit off what she wanted to say and gave Zach an adoring look. “I’m sure you’re right, sugar-buns.”

“Close the door behind you,” was all the sheriff said.

He settled down in his high-backed leather chair, reached for a can of Diet Coke that sweated on the leather blotter, and took a drink.

Zach looked at Jill. “Diet Coke? I thought you said the sheriff was an elder in the Church of the Latter-day Saints.”

“They call Diet Coke ‘Mormon tea,’” she said. “It wasn’t around when Joseph Smith got the good word about coffee and tea being evil, so a lot of Mormons figure soda is okay.”

Zach closed the door. “Learn something new every day.”

“You want something from me, or are you just polishing a comedy act?” Purcell asked.

Zach knew the sheriff would prefer to do business with another man, but he was real tempted to give Jill her head anyway, just for the sport of it. He’d known many men in Purcell’s generation who just hadn’t gotten the message that women were people. Men like the sheriff weren’t necessarily stupid or corrupt-they were just set in their ways. Like old concrete.

“The last time Jill was here,” Zach said easily, “you told her that you had records from a time when her grandmother Justine Breck and Thomas Dunstan were brought in. Drunk and disorderly, I believe.”

Purcell nodded, looking both official and bored-yet he watched Zach with the direct, hard eyes of a man used to summing up other men. He took another swig of Diet Coke.

“Do you still have the record of the arrest?” Zach asked.

“It turned out to be more than D amp; D,” Purcell said. “Justine had a.22 rifle. Said her lover was threatening her, so she shot him. He claims that she was the one doing the threatening. She was too drunk to aim good, thank the Lord. Sure did take the starch out of him, though. Bullet burns do that to a man.” He set down the soda. “Anything else? I’m busy.”

“Were charges brought?” Zach asked.

“Darn right they were,” Purcell said. “Can’t have a woman shooting a man right on the main street of Blessing.”

“Might give the other women ideas,” Jill said sweetly.

Zach quickly asked, “Was Justine Breck kept in the jail here?”

“The old jail, actually,” the sheriff said. One-handed he crushed the soda can and tossed it into the wastebasket. “We used it for females after the new jail was built. Didn’t have but one or two of them. Women were too busy taking care of families to get into trouble.”

Jill said something under her breath.

“What kind of booking procedure was used in those days?” Zach asked, ignoring her comment about sister-wives with the fertility of rabbits and the intelligence of dirt.

“The best available at the time,” Purcell said. “The men in my family have always been forward thinkers. Photographs, fingerprints, defense lawyers, speedy trials, everything they have back East, we have in Blessing. We might be at the end of the map, but we’re not stupid about the law.”

Zach nodded and squeezed Jill’s shoulder in warning. They needed the records and the sheriff was the gatekeeper.

“Yes,” Zach agreed. “I’ve heard good things about this county. Probably comes from having a long line of sheriffs who were raised to do the job right.”

Jill bit her tongue hard enough to leave skid marks.

Purcell nodded. His posture relaxed. “We take our obligations seriously. That’s not something a lot of city folks understand.”

“Did Justine Breck go on trial?” Zach asked.

The sheriff grimaced. “Breck’s lawyer was too smart to go for a jury trial. The judge was an outsider, new to the job. He felt sorry for Justine, because her lover up and hung himself, so he went against my father’s advice and let the Breck woman go after a few weeks. But the judge did tell her if he ever saw her in court again, he’d throw the book at her. For a wonder, she listened. We never had trouble with her again.”

“We’d like to see the booking records,” Zach said.

“Why?”

“Zach’s boss was once a federal judge and is now a high-powered lawyer,” Jill said. “She assured me that such records are public. If you don’t agree with her, she’ll have a warrant here before you can say Mormon tea.”

“She?” Purcell said, sighing.

“Yeah, what’s the world coming to,” Zach said sympathetically. “Women lawyers and judges. Next thing you know, process servers and sheriffs will be women.”

“Want to place a bet on the gender of the person who shows up with a warrant for the records?” Jill asked.

“Slow down, darling,” Zach said. “The sheriff is just doing his job. It’s not an easy one. Some days the citizens are worse than the crooks.”

Purcell looked at Zach for the space of a long breath. Whatever he saw tipped the balance. Zach wasn’t bluffing and he wasn’t insulting a small-town sheriff.

Best of all, Zach was keeping the pushy Breck woman in line.

“Hope you do better with her than other men have done with Breck women,” Purcell said as he reached for the telephone and hit the intercom to the receptionist. “Call the records department and tell them two people are coming by to get dusty.”