Chapter 12 The Chase #2
With a heavy sigh, Shane grabbed his notepad and headed down the hall, where he found the sheriff’s door ajar. He knocked anyway. “You wanted to see me, sir?”
“Close the door,” Chesterton barked without looking up from his phone.
Sheriff Rory Chesterton was a stout man in his late fifties, with thinning salt-and-pepper hair and a ruddy complexion.
Though he wasn’t originally from San Juan County, he was a Colorado boy, and folks around here liked him enough to keep re-electing him—or maybe his success hinged more on the fact no one else wanted the job.
Shane had considered it fleetingly before shifting his ambitions toward different jurisdictions rather than roles in the same sheriff’s department.
Besides, he would need more “seasoning” before the electorate found him worthy, and how did one get the experience in a town where elk in school parking lots and peeping raccoons were the usual complaints?
Disappearing garage owners and mysterious SUV chases aside, of course.
A little unkempt at the moment, the Sheriff’s tie hung loose and his sleeves were rolled up, revealing tattooed Popeye forearms. His desktop was littered with paperwork and stacks of campaign mailers in a haphazard pile cluttering one side.
Finally, he looked up and leveled Shane with a scowl.
Black bags smudged the undersides of his eyes.
He looked as though he hadn’t slept in a week, though he’d acted plenty refreshed when he’d been glad-handing the muckety-mucks and flashing his politician’s smile at the Boarding Call yesterday.
“I just got a call from a buddy on the highway board who heard about a chase on 550. You wanna tell me why I’m hearing about this from him and not you? ”
Shane sucked in a silent, bracing breath. “I’m in the process of filing the report after working the scene.” And it’s my day off. “I was going to brief you when—”
Chesterton cut him off. “Save it. What the hell happened out there? Walk me through it, from the moment you spotted him, so I’m not left standing in the dark like a damn mushroom.”
Shane willed himself to keep his cool as he ran through the details.
Leaning back, the sheriff rubbed his jaw, the furrows deepening the creases lining his face.
“Jesus. Seventy-one on that road? You know what that looks like this close to the November elections? We’ve got half the county bitching about tax levies and the other half mad we don’t patrol enough.
Last thing I need is a headline about one of my guys chasing some junkie into a damn fireball. ”
“I terminated the pursuit when it became unsafe,” Shane clipped. “There was no backup close enough, and I didn’t have a spike strip at my disposal.”
“Why not?”
“I was in my personal vehicle.” Chesterton gave him a blank stare. “It’s my day off.” When Chesterton still didn’t respond, Shane gritted out, “I followed policy, Chief.”
Finally, Shane’s words seemed to register, though Chesterton didn’t verbally acknowledge that Shane had worked on his day off. “No backup?” he said instead.
Backup was never close enough in these wide-flung spaces, though usually guys didn’t need it. And if you were in this game long enough, it meant you damn well had the chops and the cojones to handle yourself alone out there.
“Not according to Dispatch. You can check the logs.” Shane’s fingers tightened as he waited for the Sheriff’s response.
“Policy's a moving target right now, Deputy. You should’ve had Dispatch flag me the second it escalated.”
“With all due respect, sir, I was updating Central the entire time.” Still, doubt began a slow creep.
Had he done enough? Should he have done anything differently?
Could he have gotten a better result? Maybe he wasn’t qualified for a bigger county that saw more action.
“I prioritized road conditions and suspect location. You’ll see all of it in my incident report. ”
Chesterton canted his head and looked up at the ceiling. “You engaged in a pursuit in your POV, so obviously we’ve got no dash video.”
“That’s correct, but I reported details to Dispatch as I went.” He had been hyper-aware of those details, knowing he wouldn’t have video to back up his observations. In Shane’s book, anyone who didn’t record careful mental notes didn’t deserve to wear a badge.
“That incident report had better be airtight. If this turns into a goddamn PR nightmare where some attorney is poking holes in your report, you’re the one that’ll be on the hot seat. I am not losing this election because of a bad call on a throwaway junkie.”
Shane’s jaw clenched, and a muscle pulsed.
The sheriff leaned forward and exhaled a lung-clearing breath. “Look. I get it. You were doing your job. On your day off. But next time, remember who else has skin in the game. Keep me in the loop.”
“Understood, sir.” Yeah, I’ll stop on the side of the road and fucking call you before making a move. That’ll save me the aggravation of pursuing a fleeing vehicle because it’ll be long gone by the time I get off the call.
Chesterton’s gaze returned to the papers on his desk, and he waved a dismissive hand at Shane. “Go finish your report before I have to answer another phone call.”
Back at his desk, Shane finished writing and uploading his report in record time, dotting every “i” and crossing every “t.” He wanted the hell out of there.
Why stick around—on his day off—and give the sheriff more chances to chew his ass out for doing his job?
Besides, he had a café owner who needed him.
As Shane drove toward Mountain Coffee, the second-guessing took over.
You followed procedure. You made the right choice.
Let it go. The sheriff’s on edge, and that’s the only reason he lit into you.
If you weren’t thorough, if you weren’t doing a good job, he would have fired your ass by now.
But it was one more frustration on top of the mounting heap.
Shane was by-the-book. Always had been, partly because of what his father had done—he didn’t want to be anything like the guy.
He turned over the chase in his head one more time, examining it from different angles, making sure he hadn’t left any details out of his report.
That was when the tickle at the back of brain started back up again.
The driver, he was sure, had been Benny.
The passenger, though … As images flickered on his mind’s movie screen, a picture emerged.
And now he had a good idea who that guy was too.
Shit.
Amy’s call jolted him from his musings. He picked up the instant her number glowed on his screen. “Hey. I just finished up, and I’m on my way to you.”
“That’s why I’m calling. I got away early, and I’m back at the house. Still no sign of Micky.”
“I’ll be there in five.”
He had a lot more questions to ask her.