Page 132 of Wild Card
My heart lurched. What was the mayor’s play here? Had he shown the sheriff my evidence on Dallas and confronted him?
I wasn’t sure if that would help anything unless the mayor had some serious leverage. He’d mentioned he wasn’t powerless, though…
The yelling reached a fever pitch, and suddenly, the office door flew open. It wasn’t the mayor but the sheriff who stormed out.
His face was bright red, and there was a box in his arms containing photo frames, the signed baseball he was so proud of, and other belongings.
He glowered at me as he neared. “You wanted my job so damn bad? Well, now we’ll see if you can really handle it.” He scoffed. “I give it three months before you crumble under the pressure. You’re fucking soft, Harvey, and they’re going to eat you alive.”
“Maybe they will,” I said. “But I’ll go down as a man of principle. Which is more than I can say about you.”
“Fuck you,” he growled. “Fuck the mayor.” His voice grew into a shout. “Fuck this whole fucking town!”
He stormed past, slamming out the glass doors.
Ava and Chloe exchanged wide-eyed looks. “So what does that mean? Is there still going to be an election?”
“I don’t know,” I murmured.
The mayor had lingered in the sheriff’s office while he left. Now, he emerged and strode over to me. “Didn’t expect to see you here, Harvey.”
“Didn’t think I’d see you either.”
“You’ve probably gathered that Sheriff Hale is resigning.”
“Is that what he’s doing?” Ava said faintly. “He seemed rather angry for a man leaving by choice.”
Mayor Prince smiled sardonically. “He was reluctant, but he eventually agreed there was no other wise course of action for him.”
“How did you pull that off?”
“I am very persuasive, and I have friends in high places,” he said. “It was time for Hale to go.”
So, the mayorhadleverage, then. More than my old reports, I’d wager. There was no other way Hale would have left.
“So, what now?” I asked.
“As of now, you’re the acting sheriff,” he said. “You’ll still have to run for election, but you’ll run as the sitting sheriff. Should be an easy win.”
My heart thumped. “Are you serious?”
Mayor Prince handed me an envelope. “Sure am, Sheriff Harvey. And I thought as your first act as sheriff, you might like to execute this search warrant.”
I opened the envelope, tugged out the warrant to read it, and laughed when I saw the sheriff’s address printed on the side.
Dallas lived in an apartment with street parking only. A little fieldwork under the radar had confirmed he was keeping his car in his dad’s garage. I had the bastard now. I’d have legal means to document the damage to the car and confirm that he was the driver in that hit-and-run weeks ago.
“Thank you for this.”
Mayor Prince slapped my arm. “Don’t thank me. Just go get your man, Sheriff. It’s time we clean up the mess Hale has made. You can start with this one.”
As soon as he was gone, Ava and Chloe turned to me.
“Did that just happen?”
“You’re sheriff!”
“What’s on the search warrant?”
