And he felt damned relieved about it too. Damn it.
Chapter 9
(Skagit Valley Sheriff’s Department, Mount Vernon, WA)
Sheriff Pete Norton was in his 40s, and if he sounded like John Wayne on the phone, he looked more like Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, complete with a very nice dark gray suit, a white shirt and tie. Mac’s eyes narrowed. One of these things is not like the other, he thought. He’s too young, too polished for the voice. Affectation? Living up to expectations? Interesting.
“Come on then,” he said, and Mac decided he was right about the man’s voice. Very John Wayne, western drawl. He led the way through the building, which looked like a house from the outside with light green paint, and darker green trim, to the various vehicles outback. He unlocked a Ford Interceptor. Nice, Mac thought. Doing well for themselves. The Interceptor was a souped-up Ford Explorer — as if an Explorer wasn’t overkill in this state. Did they even get snow in Skagit Valley? Well they did out Highway 20, he conceded. Was that part of Norton’s turf?
“Girl? You OK with riding in the back?” he asked.
Mac started to say something, but Angie spoke up.
“Mac, you should have introduced us. Sheriff Norton, I’m Angie Wilson, we spoke on the phone,” she said, and stuck out her hand. Norton looked at it for a moment, and then shook it gingerly, as if he’d never shook hands with a woman before. Mac knew he must have; he’d seen women in uniform inside. And he was in his 40s, and looked like that? He had to have women chasing him all over the place. He glanced at the man’s left hand. No ring. He felt like he was being shined on, and he didn’t like it.
“And yes, I’m fine with riding in back,” she said, opened the door and hopped in.
Mac said nothing and got in front.
“So, your editor sends you up here wanting the usual quote from a sheriff opposing gun regulations?” Norton said, as he headed out of town. “Do you even know which end to point?”
Mac laughed, relaxing in his seat. “Do I look like some bleeding-heart liberal?” he asked, genuinely amused. The man was baiting him, and he missed his mark.
Norton looked at him out of the side of his eye, but said nothing.
“Sheriff, I’ve got more guns in my rig than you do in this one,” Mac said, still smiling. He looked out the window. Tulips. He rolled his eyes. “Two tours in Afghanistan in the Marines? You think I’m a bleeding heart?”
“Mac Davis,” Norton said slowly. “You did the story that took out Howard Parker. How do you justify that if you’re some gung-ho Marine?”
Mac looked away from the tulips and studied the sheriff a moment. “Howard Parker started sacrificing his men for his own good rather than for the good of the country. And I put him down like the rabid dog he’d become,” Mac said coldly. “What about you? Have you gone rabid?”
“What the hell do you mean by that?” Norton demanded, red creeping up above that pristine white shirt collar.
“You tell me. What’s with the constitutional sheriff bullshit?” Mac asked.
“This your usual interview style?” Norton asked. Mac just waited.
“Fine. I believe that the Constitution mandates that sheriffs are the top law enforcement, period. We are supposed to enforce the Constitution. No exceptions. And that means none of these gun regulations some Democrat in Olympia thinks we need. They’re unconstitutional, and I won’t enforce them.”
“You think that about all the Constitution or just the 2nd Amendment?” Mac asked. Now that he had the man on topic, he pulled out a notepad and pen to take notes.
“All the Constitution,” he said. “I enforce the Constitution as the people of my county want it enforced.”
“So, most the folks up here are Christian,” Mac said. “Probably don’t believe in drinking. You closing down the bars as part of their First Amendment rights?”
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “There’s a very small minority who believe that.”
“But if it got to be a majority? What then?” Mac persisted.
“Not going to happen.”
Mac shrugged. “Majority of voters think gun laws are a good idea, especially after these school shootings.”
“We can protect our students without stripping people of their constitutional rights,” he said with a snort.
“How, exactly?”
“We need to arm teachers,” he said. “Train them and arm them. Then we station uniformed cops at schools.”
“The answer to a bad man with a gun is a math teacher with a gun?” Mac asked. “Man, my math teacher couldn’t remember where he put his glasses most days. And you want to trust him with a gun?”
“Not all teachers, maybe,” Norton conceded. “But there are vets like you who teach. Why not let them have a gun?”
Mac rolled his eyes. “OK,” he said. “Let’s run with that. I’m a math teacher in a high school in Mount Vernon. I see a kid in the hallway acting strange. He’s got a long overcoat on. He’s looking in the windows of the doors to classrooms like he’s looking for someone. Warning bells go off in my head. It’s shoot-don’t shoot time. What do you want me to do?”
Norton actually looked like he was considering the situation. “You wait,” he said.
“Until?” Mac asks. “Say I recognize the kid. He got expelled last week, isn’t even supposed to be on the premises. I know his home is pretty fucked up right now. Still waiting?”
“You ask him what he’s doing there.”
“And he whirls on me. I’m carrying, but it’s not in my hand, obviously, because that would be weird,” Mac said. “So, I’m dead because he shot me. Or, I pull a weapon, shoot him, and find out he’s not carrying, I just startled him. And he’s dying. Or he pulls a weapon, but I hesitate, because Jesus, this is a kid I know, and he whirls and blasts an AR-15 into the classroom and kills six people, because I hesitated.”
Norton scowled.
“Sheriff, I was trained for shoot/don’t shoot
