Chapter 2 Jordan Burke
TWO
JORDAN BURKE
Guilty! Guilty! Guil-tay!
Madera County Sheriff Jordan Burke braked to a halt at the end of the gravel driveway as two people suddenly emerged from the bushes. When they began hammering on his windows with their hands, he instinctively shifted into reverse, dropped his hand to his hip, and unsnapped his holstered Glock.
After a second look at the man and woman attacking his car, he sighed and shifted into park.
He had been surprised by tweakers and crazies in the backwoods before, but none of them had been wearing Lululemon and Patagonia.
COVID-19 and the ensuing work-from-anywhere revolution had brought with it a bougie invasion he suspected he’d never really get used to.
Lifting his handset, he addressed them through the PA of his Ford Police Interceptor Utility: “I’m coming out. Please step away from the vehicle.”
The man at the passenger-side window jumped back in alarm when he heard Jordan’s amplified voice.
The woman on his side—wearing yoga pants and a puffer vest over a hot-pink crop top that read 100% THAT BITCH—folded her arms. When he opened his door, she stepped back just far enough for Jordan to swing it open.
He stepped out and surveyed the scene. He was parked next to a brand-new Tesla X, behind a new home with a green metal roof and red cedar trim. The door to the house was wide open.
The woman pursed her artificially bee-stung lips, her panic seeming to have evaporated since his arrival. “It took you long enough.”
Jordan knew from long experience there was no point in telling her how far he’d come or how fast he’d driven.
He’d been dealing with folks like this more and more often; job number one was to calm them down and assess the situation.
All he knew was that Gracia, his sixtyish, grandmotherly dispatcher, had relayed a near-hysterical 911 call from two Airbnb renters about an intruder.
“What seems to be the problem?” he asked.
The man came around the hood and stood next to his wife, breathing heavily.
“I’m Dan Cashmore,” he began, his voice rising. Catching himself, he found a lower register and continued. “We were setting out lunch on the deck, going in and out of the house. Lena wanted to eat outside so she could get a picture—”
“He must have come from the woods,” interrupted Lena. “We left the sliding doors open all morning because we were trying to let out a bat that flew in last night.”
Dan chuckled awkwardly. “The trees come right up to the deck, which is one of the reasons we chose this place, but the listing didn’t say anything about bats coming into the house, let alone bears. I was bringing out the salad when I saw him. Then he decided to come inside, so we ran out here.”
“There is a bear in our house,” said Lena. “A bear.”
While they were talking, Jordan sidled closer to the house, climbed the steps, and looked inside.
Down a short hall, the place opened up into a great room lined by tall windows that offered stunning forest views.
A medium-sized black bear was standing on two hind legs at the kitchen island, snout deep in an impressive slab of smoked salmon.
“Now get him out, please,” said Lena behind him, sounding like a guest who had discovered a stain on her sheets at a five-star hotel.
Jordan led them back to the driveway before answering. “You said the deck doors are open, too? I’ll wait with you until the bear leaves and then you can close up the house.”
“Can’t you shoot it?” asked Dan, a little too eagerly.
“Not unless it’s necessary for our protection. If it comes out on this side, I recommend you climb inside your car for safety.”
Lena looked like she was thinking about asking to speak with Jordan’s supervisor. “Well, can’t you at least call animal services?”
“They’re pretty much limited to dogs and cats. If he comes back enough times to become a nuisance, you can file a report with Fish and Wildlife, and they’ll see if he needs to be relocated. But black bears usually aren’t dangerous unless they feel threatened.”
“But what if it chews up our stuff?” Lena persisted. “The food I can deal with, but I have an open suitcase in there with two thousand dollars’ worth of new outdoor clothing inside. Not to mention all of Dan’s electronics.”
“Look, this won’t be like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The bear might eat your lunch, but it’s not going to play with your iPad and try on your clothes.”
After eating all their salmon, the bear probably would get sleepy—unless they had also left a pile of cocaine on the kitchen table.
“But what if the bear . . . comes back?” asked Dan.
Jordan nodded. “He most likely will. Bears love salmon. And you pretty much invited him to lunch by leaving your door open.”
Tires popped gravel behind them. Jordan turned and saw a gleaming orange Ford Bronco fully equipped with roll bars, a winch, and a snorkel, ready to churn mud and ford rivers in the jungle, should jungle ever overtake the foothills of the Sierras.
Unfortunately, he recognized the car.
“I texted the Airbnb owner right after we called 911,” said Lena, sounding proud of her resourcefulness.
Jordan tried to never let his guard down in front of civilians, but he could have spit and sworn as he watched Troy Silverman—the owner of this and a dozen other local Airbnbs—check his gray but luxuriant locks in his ridiculous rig’s rearview mirror.
The real estate speculator had left Montecito the previous year to establish residency in Yosemite Lakes—the reason for the move becoming clear when he announced his candidacy for Jordan’s seat in next month’s sheriff’s election.
Jordan had been a deputy for twelve years and sheriff for five, landing in the job only after his father, the sheriff before him, died at sixty-four of COPD and heart disease.
Jordan’s grandfather had held the job, too.
Burkes had maintained safety in Madera County for seventy years, give or take.
And while the job itself could be exhausting—he sometimes daydreamed about what it would be like to live life without being on call twenty-four seven—he was proud to serve his community and knew he would never stop feeling responsible for the place he’d lived every year of his life.
It was hard to say which way the election would go.
Jordan hadn’t thought there was much appetite for a self-promoting slickster from SoCal, but these days, a lot of people wanted change for change’s sake.
And Silverman had spent plenty on his effort to get elected, even hiring a campaign manager, media consultants, and a team of so-called volunteers, all of whom did their best to make Jordan sound like an out-of-touch good ol’ boy who didn’t believe Black and Brown lives mattered.
Which couldn’t have been further from the truth.
While his grandpa, Chester, and his dad, Jerry, may have done their jobs like the other White sheriffs of their times, Madera was about 60 percent Latino.
Spanish speakers formed the core of Jordan’s constituency.
They weren’t just good, hard-working people—they were his friends.
Jordan suspected the real reason behind Silverman’s sudden interest in the job was to expand and protect his real estate holdings, but so far Jordan had been forced to play defense. He’d been too busy being sheriff to run much of a campaign.
Troy Silverman’s slogan? The Burke Stops Here.
Ignoring Jordan, the lanky Troy unfolded himself from his Bronco and aimed a smile at his renters. “I heard you’re having a little bear trouble.”
Lena and Dan perked up, perhaps sensing that Troy was one of their own, someone who would be just as alarmed as they were about what the bear was doing to their salmon and mixed-green salad at that very moment. Maybe they were from Montecito, too.
“The bear is still in there,” Lena told him. “And this man says we just have to wait until it leaves. It’s not even that big.”
“It’s Sheriff Burke, ma’am,” said Jordan wearily. “And even small bears can be dangerous if they’re spooked.”
“We just don’t know what kind of damage it’s doing to our stuff—or to your place,” Dan told Troy, clearly no stranger to the art of negotiation.
Troy turned to Jordan. “Sheriff Burke, are you going to stand by and let taxpayers’ property get torn up by local wildlife?”
“I’m sworn to protect the lives of anyone in my county, whether they pay taxes here or not,” said Jordan. “As for your property, I suggest you take it up with your insurance company.”
For once, the Cashmores didn’t weigh in, but instead watched Troy to see what he would do next.
“As someone who pays your salary, I find that answer disappointing,” he told Jordan. “But I don’t intend to employ you much longer.”
He winked at his renters. “Watch this,” he said, and strode into the house.
Jordan could feel the eyes of the Cashmores on him, their continued silence suggesting a disappointment that he hadn’t resisted Troy’s challenge to his authority.
A bear encounter and a fistfight would have been an even better story to tell their friends.
But even though what Troy was doing was stupid, there was no law against it.
Pans banged inside the house as Troy shouted, “go on, get out of here! go on, git!”
The country twang was a nice touch.
There was more banging, a few heavy thumps, a moan of distress—Jordan was pretty sure it was the bear—and the clatter of a thrown chair. Then a muted crunch.
Shedding crumbs of safety glass, the bear scrambled over the railing of the back porch, performed an ungainly belly flop into the bushes, and quickly disappeared into the trees.
Troy emerged triumphantly from the back door and casually chucked the frying pans onto the porch like a gunslinger tossing his smoking pistols.
“See?” he said, arching an eyebrow at Jordan. “No big deal.”
“I’m glad you’re safe,” said Jordan through gritted teeth. “I’m also glad I don’t have to radio for an ambulance. That could have gone another way.”
“If I were a local voter, I know who I’d want for sheriff,” said Lena, as Troy almost visibly swelled with pride.
“Just remember it’s not all chasing bears out of rentals,” Jordan told him. “Next time it could be a tweaker with a gun.”
“Or even worse for you, it could be a raccoon!” chuckled Troy.
As Troy, Dan, and Lena all yukked it up, Jordan searched his mind for a comeback. He had never been particularly quick with words.
Then his radio crackled with a call from dispatch.
“Sheriff, there’s been a multivehicle accident on Highway 41 with probable fatalities,” said Gracia. “Sending other units, but you’re the closest.”
Jordan was behind the wheel before she finished.
The Airbnb trio shrank in his windshield as he floored it in reverse.
He was sorry he couldn’t stay to watch Lena’s face as she realized the bear had plowed through the closed side of the sliding doors.
All kinds of forest creatures were likely to come in.
Actually, that was guaranteed.