But sometimes, the wolf was necessary too.
She nodded.
“Does he scare you?” Mac asked, nodding toward the photo he held.
She shook her head. “No,” she said somberly. “I know the difference between the men who prey on the weak, and the men who chase the predators away.”
Mac felt something relax inside him. He handed the printout back and walked away.
By the time Mac got across the street, Janet was already there with coffee in front of her. She raised an eyebrow, questioning where he’d gone. He handed her the photos of Norton.
She looked at them silently. Then she spread them out on the table; there were six of them. “Interesting,” she said. “Angie is a talented photographer. What is she like to work with?”
“Impressive,” Mac said. “Easy to be with, sticks up for herself without getting defensive. Has her own insights to offer. You can pair me up with her anytime.”
Janet looked at him in surprise. “You don’t like being part of a team,” she observed, as she took another sip of coffee. “A reporting team anyway.”
“I know,” he said. “But the two of us were able to get some interviews I couldn’t have gotten by myself. And those photos?”
He studied them for a moment. “What kind of man do you see there?”
“A cruel, self-important one,” Janet said promptly. “A game player. He’s got all these fake fronts he’s using, and then? She gets him in an unguarded moment, and we see the real man. Close?”
“I think so,” Mac agreed. He told her about the trip, handed her the lists he’d made this morning. She read through them while he sat silently and drank his Mountain Dew. Maybe he’d order iced tea next time, he thought, just to throw them off a bit. He did order a bagel sandwich, and the waitress looked like he’d sprouted an extra head.
Janet looked up at him.
“I feel like I’m all over the place,” he admitted. “I do want to follow up and see if the sheriff did put a word in with Anderson about me going out on the wilderness survival trip. I think there’s one this weekend. Angie wants to go, so I’ll ask, but the trips are usually men only. If they don’t make an exception, she’ll have to make do with my photography. After seeing hers? I can see why she bitches.”
“Then there’s a profile of Norton himself,” Janet said, thinking out loud. “Maybe as a feature sidebar to a bigger piece on constitutional sheriffs? The anti-government movement like Bundy in Nevada last month?”
Mac nodded. “And there’s the whole story about women who are leaving these bastards, and then getting challenged over child custody,” he said. “And that’s the story I wouldn’t have even seen if Angie hadn’t been along. Those women wouldn’t have talked to me alone either.”
“I see that,” Janet agreed. “And white supremacy in law enforcement? Why is that on this list?”
“Because Rodriguez is worried,” Mac said slowly. “You could see it in the fucked-up response to the Army of God last fall. He’s making a connection from that to this somehow — I doubt he could even explain it himself. But I trust him on this. And Dunbar too. A Latino and a Black man. They’re both wary. So, I don’t know. And maybe it’s down the road, but...,” he pulled out his recorder, checked his notes, and queued up the segment from Norton about white men.
She listened to it. “That’s the man without the masks,” she observed.
“Yeah,” Mac said, then reconsidered. “Maybe. He’s also a self-serving, vain piece of shit. I need a couple of plates run, and I’d like a background check on him. His wife mentioned it: he’s never gone back to California, not even to visit, although his mother’s still alive. And it seems odd to me that he never served in the military. Most sheriffs, especially the constitutional crowd, have a military background. Which makes me wonder if there’s a dishonorable discharge?”
She smiled. “I’ll make some calls,” she promised.
Mac nodded. Janet had sources for some things that he just didn’t have. He could probably ask Rodriguez, but he wasn’t sure it would be legal for Rodriguez to give him the stuff, and he thought the Lieutenant needed to walk the straight and narrow right now.
She looked at the photos, at his lists, and considered it all while Mac ate his sandwich. Food helped, he discovered. It was chasing both the headache and the lingering nightmare away.
“OK,” she said. “See if you can get on the next wilderness survival trip. And if you can get Angie included, I’ll get her boss to sign off on it. Because you’re right — you do OK with still photography, but what she does is on a whole other level.”
Mac started another list.
“Then write the profile of Norton. Follow up. And maybe I’m paranoid, but I want to know more about that church. What you had to say worries me. It seems to be another theme lately, this joining of the right-wing political movements and evangelicalism. It may just be I’m sensitized to it.”
“Remember Rebecca Nesbitt?” Mac asked, making a note. “That FBI agent who gave Stan Warren much of the info on religious extremists?”
She nodded. “She owes us,” she said. “After that two-day interview I gave her. Good God! I’ve never put a subject through anything that grueling.”
Mac laughed. That had been Nesbitt’s price for her off-the-record assistance to Stan Warren when they’d gone in after Janet— an interview with Janet about Jehovah’s Valley and the evangelical separatist communities.
“My story list is getting longer, not more organized,” he observed in frustration.
“Normal at this stage,” Janet said comfortably. And because she wasn’t bothered by it, he relaxed too. His last two large projects had mostly been him being tossed in the lion’s den and then fighting his way out. This
