“When’re you going to announce?”
“Two days after the election-November tenth.”
“Why then?”
“Because that’s the day Billy’s promised me he’ll let it out that he won’t be running for reelection in nineteen ninety after all, and my announcement will give me the jump on everyone else.”
“And you want my endorsement?”
“Sure do, B. D.”
“You know I never endorse anyone except at the city level.”
“Thought you might make an exception.”
The mayor sighed. “Cut the crap, Charlie. What d’you really want?”
“I want to help you clean up Durango.”
“It’s not dirty,” Fork said.
The sheriff turned to the chief of police, making no effort to hide his contempt. “Four murders in two days? A serial killer on the loose? If anybody else gets killed here, they’ll start calling it Beirut, California. I can bring my task force in and nail that sucker in ten days max, Sid, maybe even seven.”
“That’s not fast enough,” the mayor said.
Coates’s look of contempt vanished, replaced by one that made him seem honestly puzzled. “I don’t follow you, B. D.”
“It’s simple. Durango is an incorporated municipality that provides its own law enforcement.”
“I don’t need any civics lesson.”
“Politics, not civics. You said you wanted to talk a little politics so that’s what I’m doing. Let’s begin with Durango. It has an elected mayor who’s its chief executive. Me. I hire its chief of police, who’s sitting right next to you. Sid. I hire him with the City Council’s approval and he reports to me. That means law enforcement is ultimately my responsibility. That’s what I’m elected to do and if I can’t do it, the city will elect itself a mayor who can. But if I invite the county sheriff and his task force in to do what the police chief and I’re supposed to do, then even the dimmest voter’ll get the idea that B. D. Huckins and Sid Fork are incapable of maintaining law and order, which would give this same dimmest voter a fine reason to vote for a new mayor who’d hire a new chief of police. You following me so far?”
Coates only nodded.
“I like living in this town, Charlie. I like being its mayor. I know maybe two thousand people in Durango by their first names. I belong here and can’t even imagine living anywhere else. What’s more, I plan to go on being mayor for as long as I can get elected because I’m a damn good one-the best this town ever had. But what you’re asking me to do is commit political suicide by jump-starting your campaign. Charlie Coates for county supervisor-the man who cleaned up Durango in a week or maybe ten days. Well, that’s not fast enough, Sheriff, because the killer, whoever he is, will be arrested by Durango cops and put behind Durango bars in Durango’s jail by the fourth of July and that I can absolutely guarantee you.”
The mayor paused, smiled almost sweetly and said, “So there’s really no logical reason to bring in your task force, is there?”
It was B. D. at her best, Sid Fork decided. On the attack, not giving an inch, her voice low and as cold as ice water and those gray eyes drilling right through old Charlie’s thick skull. Fork decided to lend a hand.
“I don’t know about that guaranteed July the fourth deadline, B. D.,” he said.
“Why not?” Huckins said, faking a note of asperity to make it sound as if she had no idea what Fork’s answer would be.
“Because we’re going to have that sucker in jail by the second of July-the third at the latest.”
Sheriff Coates advanced another inch on the cream couch, reducing the width of his perch to approximately four inches. “How long’ve we known each other, B. D.?”
“Nineteen long years.”
“More like twenty. I remember I’d just started on the same job Deputy Quirt’s got when you and Sid and the rest of ’em rolled in here from Frisco in that old GM school bus you’d painted up like an Easter egg. You parked where you shouldn’t’ve-on Seventh next to City Park-and the next morning I just happened by, woke everybody up and told you to move it before the city cops busted you. I even told you where you could park the thing. Remember that, Sid?”
“Not really.”
“We go back a long, long way, B. D.-you, me, Sid and Dixie. You got to be mayor; I got to be sheriff; Sid got to be chief of police; and Dixie, well, I guess Dixie got to be rich. But wasn’t there another guy with you all back then? Funny-looking short guy. Ugly. Called himself Teddy, I think. Teddy Smith? Jones? Something like that.”
“Something like that,” the mayor said.
“Wonder what ever happened to him?”
“No idea.”
“After the rest of your bunch left for Colorado, the four of you all moved into that old shack out on Boatright, didn’t you? Then Teddy just sort of disappeared-like he’d jumped into the ocean and drowned or something.”
“He jumped on a bus,” Fork said.
“Wonder where he went?”
“No telling.”
Coates shook his head sadly, as if at some old friend’s mysterious disappearance, and turned to the mayor. “B. D., if I thought bringing a task force in to find a crazy killer’d hurt you politically, I’d’ve never even suggested it. I didn’t think it would then and I still don’t. But I’ll accept your judgment.”
“Good.”
“Thing is, what if something happens and our killer’s not behind bars after all come July fourth?”
“There’s another possibility, Charlie,” Fork said.
“Possibility of what?”
“Of his being dead by the fourth.”
“Shot while resisting maybe?”
Fork shrugged.
“Not as much ink and airtime in that, Sid. Thing to do is bring him to trial and let it run forever.”
The sheriff rose, placing his empty beer bottle on the coffee table that had been fashioned from the old steamer trunk. Huckins leaned forward and slipped a coaster beneath it. Staring down, watching her, Coates said, “I’d still like an answer, B. D.”
“To what?”
“To my ‘what if’ question. What if, despite all Sid’s efforts, the killer’s neither behind bars nor dead by the fourth of July? What if he’s still loose out there?”
“Then I’d reconsider inviting your task force in.”
“And if we collared him?”
“I’d have to rethink my endorsement policy.”
The sheriff beamed, crinkled his eyes and suddenly snapped his fingers as if he had just remembered something. He even said, “Damn,” causing Sid Fork to wonder whether the sheriff really had any future in politics where a modicum of acting ability is as necessary as money.
“Almost forgot, Sid, but we found that pink Ford van up on One-Oh-One at a rest stop. Wiped clean as a whistle except for what ninety-nine percent of ’em always forget-the little lever that moves the driver’s seat up and back. Got three good ones off the left hand plus a partial thumb. The state and the Feds are both checking ’em out and if we get a make back, I’ll let you know.”
The deputy, Henry Quirt, was now up and looming over Coates’s right shoulder. “You told me to remind you of that telex we got from Lompoc, Sheriff.”
Coates snapped his fingers again, causing the chief of police to decide that the sheriff’s performance really needed a lot of work. “Shit-oh-dear,” Coates said. “Forgot that, too. Seems the FBI’d like to talk to a couple of guys about something or other that happened at the Lompoc Federal pen yesterday or the day before-I forget which. But the guys’ names are Kelly Adair and Jack Vines.”
“The other way around,” Quirt said.
Coates thought, nodded and said, “Yeah.
