Mac nodded. Interesting. Of course, a scary man who commanded the loyalty of veterans might make him another candidate for Shorty’s list of Sensei candidates.
“If there is one thing you think we should know about Norton, what would you say?” he asked.
She considered that as she finished her cobbler. She took another sip of coffee. “He’s ambitious,” she said finally. “People miss that, with his good-old-boy routine. He wants to be on top of the heap. The bigger the heap the better. It was why he left the police department and ran for sheriff. Personally, I don’t think he thinks sheriff of Skagit County is a big enough heap. He wants to be more important, more powerful. But he also doesn’t want to play well with others. Run for governor? Maybe. A state legislator? Never.”
Mac considered that. “Yes,” he said. “Thank you,” he added simply.
She nodded and got up to leave. “And be careful? In case you haven’t heard, he’s a vindictive SOB.”
“Got an example?” Mac asked.
She started to say something, then stopped. “I’ve already said more than I should have,” she said ruefully. “I’m trusting you to keep me out of this. If you don’t, you’re likely to find your example — and it won’t be pretty.”
Mac fished out a business card and handed it to her. “Call me,” he said quietly. “If you get blowback? Let me know. It won’t come from me and what I do. But this is a small town.”
She took it, smiled her thanks and headed out the door. She stopped to say something to Sue, who laughed.
Mac looked at Angie. “Ready to head home?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s making me nervous to linger here.”
Mac dropped Angie off at her apartment, waited until she got inside, and then he drove home. He needed to make a lot of phone calls tomorrow, he thought. But tonight, he’d hit Facebook. He wanted to know who MLK4whites was. And who was Sensei? And he had to do some posting. Facebook ate up time, he thought sourly. He’d really rather go to the gym for an hour instead. Most people would be better off using the gym instead of Facebook.
But there was an interesting post from MLK4whites talking about Mac’s visit to Skagit. About a reporter who knew which end of the gun to hold and which end to point. And then he segued into a rant about liberal media that didn’t know anything about guns but thought they could write about gun rights. Mac shrugged. He didn’t know the in-depth info on hardly anything he wrote about. That’s why he interviewed people who were experts. But gun-rights advocates seem to think that only those who were experts were entitled to an opinion — and if your opinion disagreed with theirs? Then obviously you weren’t an expert.
Kind of the opposite of Steve Whitaker and his ‘you can’t be objective if you’ve had an abortion, or even faced that crisis’, Mac thought. Indifference as objectivity.
Which reminded him. He called Timothy Brandt and asked for his help. Janet’s son might be a prick, but he was an incredibly bright one. And sure enough, he had ideas about how to find out what he wanted to know about last fall’s stories about the Pregnancy Crisis Centers. Just tying up loose ends, he told himself. And he asked about Eli Andrews. “Doing well,” Timothy said. “I was home for Easter. He preached.” Mac smiled.
When he fixed himself a late-night sandwich, Lindy joined him in the kitchen. “I like the artist you found,” she said, settling in at the kitchen table with a cup of tea.
“Good,” he said. “She’ll need lots of encouragement.” He told her about Carole, and then about the rest of the trip.
“Be careful,” Lindy warned. “You’re dealing with fanatics.”
He shrugged. “Fanatics with guns seems to have become my beat,” he said. “The religious extremists last fall. Parker the year before, when you come right down to it. Now this. Seems like a growing theme in my life.” He wasn’t sure he liked it either.
Lindy frowned. “Growing theme in our society,” she corrected. “Got started during the economic downturn, I think. Now it’s snowballing among the racists on the right with their birtherism and other conspiracy theories. The right wing’s reaction to Obama is disturbing.”
“I’ve been reading them,” he said morosely. “And they’re forming cults.” He told her about the church service and the bumper stickers that read Psalms 109:8 and what it stood for.
She nodded. “Social media fuels that,” she agreed. “Instead of it being just you and your two buddies talking shit over a couple of beers, you can go online and have thousands tell you ‘damn right!” and you feel validated. That scares me. Mob mentality gets people killed.”
“That’s what this militia shit is encouraging,” Mac said, thinking out loud. “This paranoia that our government is the threat, that we must be prepared to fight our own government... what the hell? People who do that are called traitors, not patriots. But these extremists don’t see it that way.”
He frowned. “And yet, here I am with all my weapons. It seems different, but I think other people would lump me in with them. Angie was really taken aback to find out I was armed most of the time.”
Lindy laughed. “Your gun fetish is a bit obsessive,” she teased. “But I love you anyway.”
Mac smiled. “Lindy? Truly? I....” he trailed off, not even sure what he was wanting to ask.
His aunt studied him. “Mac, you are who you are,” she said gently. “You grew up rough, then you and Toby got into some ugly shit. You went into the Marines and went to Afghanistan. That doesn’t produce a man who knits booties as a hobby. You’re intelligent, you see things clearly. You stand by your friends, you take care of them. You work hard. You’re
