[Morning at the Police Department Office]

“Hiya Team,” I said as I walked into the County Police Station that Monday morning.

My name is Matt Beecher and for my sins, I’m the Sheriff of Custer County.

“I trust that you all didn’t get took drunk at the Custer County Fair at the weekend?”

There were collective mumbles from the five officers who’d arrived for duty just in front of me.

“Good. Well this is another week and that means we have another week of traffic tickets to give our citizens. We gotta keep our roads safe.”

Then I smelt the air.

I turned to one of the officers.

“Walt! How many times have I told you to get rid of the sheepskin jacket? It still reeks of afterbirth no matter how many times you get it cleaned. And just because your first name is Walt, your last name is never gonna be Longmire. You don’t have the
brains to become sheriff and we sure ain’t in Wyoming, now are we?”

Walt went red in the face.

“But Matt?”

“Don’t Matt me. Just because you are my brother does not mean you can call me by my first name during working hours. It is Sheriff. Understand?”

Walt didn’t answer.

“Now go and get rid of that coat once and for all. If you don’t I’ll arrest you on charges of being a public nuisance brother of mine or not, I can’t have you offending members of the Public and people who will be looking to re-elect me this time next year. Got it?”

The Sheriff had made that statement in such a tone that left the others in no doubt that he meant it.

The offending coat had been used to wrap up a newly born baby her a few weeks earlier. A minor traffic accident had caused the mother to go into labour and give birth before the ambulance could arrive. The mother had named her son Walt after the police officer but the coat still ranked to high heaven despite at least three attempts at cleaning it.

To make matters worse, Walt had given the new mother a traffic ticket for leaving her car in a place that might cause an obstruction. I’d ripped the ticket up and had to apologise for my over-zealous brother.

The memory of that event made me say something else to the team.

“Despite it being a Monday, Mrs Schultz will be coming into town today to get her hair done. It is her friend Maudy’s Eightieth on Wednesday and the girls are going out to Lunch. We all know that Mrs Schultz shouldn’t be driving but coming into town is the one time she gets out of her home in the week. Her son Ron is taking the ladies out on Wednesday so we don’t have to worry about their erratic driving. Ron is also going to use this opportunity to get his mother to give up driving and move into ‘The Gables’ where Maudy already lives. So, our collective blind eyes will only have to be blind for one more week. Unless… Well you know the rules. As long as she does not hit anyone or anything she can drive.”

There were some mutterings from the group of Officers but no one said anything outright.

I turned to look at my brother again.

“Walt, since you are not going to give up that thing you are wearing easily, you can do phone duty this week and every week until you get rid of it.”

Then Matt turned to the one woman present.

“Sue-Ellen, I’d like you to be out with Tom on Highway 1. Billy-Joe and Stan, I’d like you to spend the day at the stockyards.”
Billy-Joe and Stan let out a collective groan. That duty not well liked.

“I have it in good authority that the Circle ‘K’ is sending a lot of steers to market this week. We have to make sure that they aren’t packing too many steers into each truck. Even one over the new limit and you can give them a $1000 fine as mandated by the State Congress Critters for each beast over the limit. I know that the Circle ‘K’ won’t appreciate getting any fines but I made it clear to Old Man Sanders at the county show that we are simply doing as we are told and following the law. He promised to make sure that they complied but it is our duty to make sure that they are not breaking the law.”

“What are you going to be doing Sheriff?” asked my brother slightly sarcastically.

“I shall be doing some home security talks to a number of old folk. Unless you want to do it once you get rid of that coat? Then you can do it instead of me?”

He muttered something under his breath but nothing out loud.

As my team dispersed and got on with their assigned tasks, I thought back to my time before coming home and standing for election as Sheriff. Being an MP in the US Army was a far simpler existence. I followed orders and gave them to my team. Now I had the responsibility of coming up with the orders in the first place. Being the boss was not always easy but thankfully our county was very law abiding. I looked at the two cell doors that were closed and had been for the past nine months. It would give me a sense of pride if we could go for a whole year without arresting anyone. Our motto was ‘Be Prepared’. Yes, that was taken by the scouts but by heading off problems before they could escalate out of hand was far better than arresting people for the slightest offense. That was the way my brother wanted to work. Arrest someone and ask questions later. He often chastised me for not arresting people.

As I drove out of town to my first lecture, I wondered if I would have the nerve to fire Walt if he didn’t toe my very exacting line. I knew that the others had had more than enough of him so come the day I would ask him for his badge I wouldn’t get and resistance from them.

---

[The following Friday]

It had been another quiet but good week. We’d made our quota of money from traffic violations. These were mostly from out of state truckers using our county back-roads to avoid going through the State Weigh Station when they left our fair state and entered Colorado. The previous year, I’d managed to stretch our equipment budget far enough so that we could buy a set of portable scales. They were paying for themselves many times over now. Thankfully for us, 50% of the income from the tickets was fed back into our budget. It gave me a lot of pleasure to report that we were self-funding and had been for the last two years. That certainly pleased the mostly GOP voting residents of the county apart, from those who had to pay for our services through fines.

The downside of the week was that if anything, my brother was acting more and more like his small screen hero, Walt Longmire. The smelly coat was still hanging in the office.

Seeing him with his feet up on the desk reading a magazine about NASCAR was the last straw.

“Walt? Don’t you have some filing to do?” I remarked and pointed at the pile of files just to the left of his big left foot.

“Those? Sue-Ellen can deal with them next week.”

“No. You are going to do it now. We are an equal opportunity department. When I say do some filing you are to do it. Understand!”

He looked at me with those huge baby blue eyes. Then he looked at the clock. It said a little before 5pm.

“It is time to knock off. Fancy a beer at Harry’s Place?”

I stopped in mid stride and glared at my brother.

“Walt!”

He didn’t move. The smile or was it a smirk remained plastered all over his face.

“Walt, you do that filing or you are out of here and out of a job.”

“You can’t fire me. I’m family. Besides, Ma will tan your behind.”

“That’s where you are wrong little brother. Ma’s had enough of your backchat and general idleness. When was the last time you mucked out the horses? One of them is yours by the way. If I fire you, you are out of the house as well. I spoke with Ma last night about it. So, what is it to be?”

He just looked at me obviously hoping that I’d back down. I was not going to give him the pleasure.

“That’s it then. You are fired. Give me your badge and gun. I’ll take you home so that you can pack a few things then my idiot brother, you are on your own.”

He still didn’t move a muscle.

“I’m serious or do I have to arrest you first?”

Slowly, he took his gun out of its holster and after unloading it handed it to me handle first. Then he gave me his badge before standing up. Then he said,

“I take it that it is a no, for a beer then?”

It took all my willpower not to sock him right on the chin there and then.

“Get out of here. You are not welcome here any longer.”

He left me alone to lockup purposely leaving that smelly coat behind as a present for me to dispose of.

It didn’t take me long to find a solution to the smell. I located an old body bag in the supplies closet and after putting the coat into it and sealing it tight, I left to go home where the first thing I was planning on doing was burning the bag and its contents.

My mother was not exactly overjoyed to have ‘that coat’ back at home again, but she calmed down when I explained that I was going to cremate it and scatter the ashes into the wind.

My dear brother Walt hadn’t waited for me to take him home so by the time I arrived, he was long gone. Ma had been resolute in her decision to evict him if (and when) he lost his job in the Police Department. No amount of pleading on his part would change her mind. She said to me that her parting words for him were, “If you are so keen to be a County Sheriff in Wyoming then why don’t you head on over there and see how you get on?”

I let out a little chuckle when she told me about her encounter with my brother. I gave her a hug and said,

“Don’t worry Ma, Walt is a grown man and it is about time he had to stand on his own two feet. Leaving home and enlisting in the Service made me grow up pretty fast.”

Ma replied,

“It is not his feet that I am worried about. Why any woman in her right mind would let him into her life is beyond me.”

She was right. Walt was a Ladies man. He went through women like they were going out of fashion.

“Don’t worry Ma, some gullible soul will take pity on him.”

“That’s exactly why I am worried.”

We both chuckled.

---

[The following Monday]

My team of officers was assembled in the office for my weekly briefing.

“As you all know, Walt no longer works for the department. Until I can hire a replacement each of us will have to pull a double shift, every three days. I expect that the overtime will come in useful but I am expecting all of us to pull together.”
I looked at Sue-Ellen.

“Sue-Ellen, I know you may have childcare problems but Ma is willing to help out if she can and at no cost to you I might add.”
Her sad face suddenly gained a smile.

“Thanks boss. I’ll see your Ma later to sort out a few things.”

“Great.”

There was a silence so I carried on.

“I will be advertising for Walt’s replacement. I’d like Sue-Ellen to help with the interviews if that is ok with the rest of you?”

No one disagreed so I carried on once more.

“Ok. You all have your assignments for today. I’ll be here trying to put together an advert for the job.”

A few minutes later the office was quiet again.

---

[The following Tuesday]

“Hello. County Police Department, Sheriff Matt Beecher speaking. How may I help?”

“Oh, hello Mac. What are you stuffing today?”

“Oh! I see. Where are you exactly?”

“The pond on the Bar K ranch near the junction of Cedar Creek Road and County Road 34? Does old man Cummings know you are on his land? You know how sensitive he is to even pre-arranged visitors.”

“Ok. Got that. So, what’s the problem?"

As the man on the other end of the phone told him what he was looking at, I sat down at my desk with a look that said that all the world’s troubles had suddenly landed on my broad shoulders.

“Are you sure it is a body? Not a bit off a fallen tree?”

“I understand. Don’t go near it and don’t disturb any tracks around the pond. We’ll be there as soon as we can. I’ll need to track down Doc Adams first.”

“Is he? Thanks for the tip off.”

The two officers that were currently in the office were looking at me for some guidance. The word ‘body’ had certainly pricked up their senses.

“Sue-Ellen, can you get onto the Receptionist at the County Hospital and tell them that we need Doc Adams pronto in his capacity as Police Surgeon. We need him at a possible crime scene on the Bar-K ranch.”

When you get in touch with him, contact the duty ME and give him a heads up. Also, the lab and get them primed for evidence processing.”

“Are you assuming that it is a murder then?” asked Tom.

“Better to get the troops on call now than trying to explain why we need them later.”

I got into my Patrol SUV with a heavy heart. If Mac said that it was a body then I was inclined to believe him. The location was not one that you would choose if you were going to top yourself. He hadn’t mentioned a vehicle in the vicinity so the odds were stacking up that this was a murder.

As I headed out to the scene, I tried to remember the last time there had been a murder in the county. If my memory served me right, it would have been around 1946 when a GI came home from his time as a POW in WW2 and found his wife shacked up with a draft dodger. The GI had walked free because 12 good men decided that the dodger deserved what he’d got. Then a month later the ex-GI was found hanged from a tree with suicide note but no means to have gotten himself strung up in the first place. No one was ever arrested let alone convicted for that crime.

I arrived at the crime scene to find Mac a.k.a. Bruce Mackay, the local Taxidermist rooted to the spot. He’d taken my advice literally, which was no bad thing.

“Hi Mac,” I said as I got out of the Patrol Car and walked towards him.

“Hi Sheriff.

“Why don’t we take it from the top so that there can be no confusion later.”

He nodded.

“First off, what are you doing on this property? We all know that old man Cummings is a stickler for prosecuting trespassers.”

“It’s ok Sheriff, I did a bit of work for him a few years ago. You know how much of a skinflint he is so we came to an arrangement. He lets me come onto his land from time to time if there are any specific items I might need for a current project. If there is then we come to some agreement over payment.”

I knew what Mac meant.

“So, what drew you to this particular bit of his forty odd square miles?”

“Them!” he replied pointing at an assortment of Crows and Buzzards that were in the vicinity. “Them’s a sure-fire sign that something has or is about to die.”

I could not find fault with his logic.

“I came over here and saw something floating in the water. I took a closer look and then called you. I haven’t moved since.”

“Where’s your truck?”

He pointed at a couple of decrepit buildings about 400yds away.

“Have you have driven close to the pond?”

“No Sir.”

“Good. Stay right where you are, I’m going to circle the Pond and look for evidence.”
Mac smiled.

“I can save you the trouble Sheriff, there are drag marks on the other side and some tracks leading off to the North. I believe there is a gate there that leads onto Dry Gulch Lane. You can see them from here.”

“I can at that but I do need to look over the whole area just to be sure. I really don’t want to miss anything critical to the case at this stage. The ‘early-bird and all that’.

I walked slowly around the pond. At the moment I estimated that it covered almost 4 acres but could get a lot bigger. I passed the spot where it was evident that something had been dragged into the pond. There were two sets of tire tracks. One coming from the gate that I’d used to enter the property and the other leading away to the north. I took that to be the exit route due to the copious amounts of wheel-spin debris in the mud that were easy to see.

I’d just moved on when I heard a truck heading our way. Any hopes that it was Doc Adams were immediately dashed when I saw the monster F-350 that was heading right for me. The only person in the county with one of these was the landowner, Mr {high and mighty} Joseph Cummings. Joe was of the opinion his land was his and only his to enjoy. Since he’d bought the spread he only allowed a few ranch hands onto the property. Everyone else was soon dispatched once they’d seen the business end of a shotgun.

I was between the oncoming truck and the drag marks. The last thing I wanted was his truck to obliterate them before we could examine them. I stood my ground. The truck came to a halt about 6 feet away from me.

The cab door opened and Joseph (no one ever called him Joe to his face) emerged.

“What are you doing trespassing on my land?”

“This is a crime scene Mr Cummings.”

“No, it’s not. This is my land and I say who comes and goes. You need to leave now before I call my lawyer.”

“Go on call your Lawyer. When you do so, please remind him of County By-law 2012-18-56. This gives an officer of the law the right to declare a crime scene anywhere they like. Until that scene is released by the said officer then the property owner or other party has no rights of access to the crime scene.”

Joe looked as if he was about to explode. He went back into the cab of the truck and I could see him on the phone. It was clearly not a hands-free one. I made a mental note to keep tabs on him when driving around the area. The State had recently outlawed the use of non-hands-free cell-phones. The fine starts at $2500. I would love to stick one of those fines onto him but sadly as he was on his own land I couldn’t.

After some obviously heated discussion he slammed the phone down and reversed the monster truck around and headed off back the way he’d come narrowly missing a pickup containing the Doc and Sue-Ellen who were coming the other way. Tom wasn’t far behind them.

We quickly set about processing the crime scene. Tom led the way because he had been on a crime scene-processing course in Denver the previous spring. This would be good practice for him.

I taped off the area where the body had been extracted from the pickup and let Tom get to work.

The doc donned some waders and went and rescued the body from the pond. When it was ashore, he went through a preliminary examination. He didn’t need to ask if we knew who it was. It was Sandy Thompson. She’d appeared in town in early spring and got a job at Harry’s Store. She also worked four evenings a week in his bar which was adjacent to the store. Harry had let her live in a trailer out on Black Hills Road. Knowing the victim made it all the sadder.

“What’s the cause of death doc?” I asked once the preliminary examination was over.

“I think it was asphyxiation. There seems to be something in her mouth.”

“Well?”

“You want me to take it out now?”

“Anything that could give us a clue to the perp is vital.”

“Fair enough.”

He proceeded to force open her mouth. She was in Full Rigour so that gave us a window for the Time of Death.
Then I heard Doc Adams swear an oath. I’d never heard a bad word leave his lips so this piqued my interest.

“What is it Doc?”

“Look for yourself.”

It didn’t take a genius to see what had choked her. It was a man’s penis.

“The testicles are lodged in her throat.”

I resisted the temptation to throw up and asked.

“Who’s are they? If anyone from around here had presented themselves at an Emergency room missing their balls we would have known about it by now. Or are we looking for another body somewhere?”

The Doc looked up her skirt. A blood stain in the crotch area was clearly noticeable.

“Hers.”

It took a second or so for what he’d just said to register.

“So… she was a he?”

“It seems that way.

“Being in the water has shrunk her skin and I can see the tell tale signs of quite a bit of plastic surgery on her face and neck. I’ll know more when we do the full PM.”

Then I made a decision.

“Listen up people, I want all of you to keep the fact that Sandy was not who she seemed to be quiet. The less people who know about her sexuality the better for the time being. Lets’ investigate this as if she was really a woman. That’s the least she deserves. Any questions?”

None of those present disagreed with my order. They were too stunned by what was unravelling before our very eyes. Either in the Store or at the Bar, she had all at one time or another served us. None of us had even an inkling of her past.

She’d seemed a jolly young woman and had been adamant that she was not interested in dating any of the men. She’d also denied that she was batting for the other side. I respected her stand. Far too young women in my opinion got themselves knocked up far too early in their life. Plus, far too many of the men that did the knocking up refused to take responsibility for what they’d done. I’d seen enough of that in the Army to last a lifetime.

The Doc brought my wandering mind back to reality.

“Sheriff, can you give me a hand to get her into the body bag? Sue-Ellen still looks a bit green around the gills and Tom hasn’t finished taking impressions yet.

“Sure thing.”

We loaded her body into my Sheriff’s SUV. I was going to take her body to the next county where they had the facilities to do the PM. The Doc was going to go with me. Before we left, I gave my instructions to Sue-Ellen and Tom.

“When you finish up here, please leave the crime scene tape in place and take a good number of pictures of the overall scene.

We don’t want to miss anything. If I know a certain landowner, he’ll have 500 head grazing here before morning just to make a point.”

“Sue-Ellen, I'd like you to go and get a statement from Harry and also get access to her trailer. Her car is nowhere to be seen so I presume it is somewhere around town. We need to locate it. Get her fingerprints from her trailer and get them off to the FBI. She may have been reported as a missing person in her former life. This is a hate crime. As such they will be more than willing to help out just in case it is some white supremacists were involved.”

“Tom can you, setup a Murder Room? Please use my office. Keep the door shut all the time. As I said, the less people who know the truth about this the better.”

I looked at my watch. It was now quite dark.

“Get as much as you can do done today and then get off home and try to get some sleep. We start our murder hunt tomorrow morning. Briefing at 8am sharp. You too Doc.”

“It will be nice to have a break from dressing Maudy’s Ulcers.”

Maudy’s very vocal complaints about her legs were well known in town.

---

[The following day]
Bright and early for my team but not for me we all assembled in the office. I’d managed only an hour or so’s sleep. The PM went on longer than I’d anticipated and dawn was nearly upon me by the time I got home and crawled into bed.

“Tom, you take the lead. Start with the crime scene.”

No sooner had the words ‘crime scene’ leave my lips when we were interrupted by ‘T Dan Davis’, our local ambulance chaser of a lawyer.

“Sheriff. I need to talk to you on a matter of utmost importance,” he announced as he barged straight into my office.

I didn’t answer but led him forcibly outside.

“There is no need to be such a bully,” cried the lawyer.

“Yes, there is when you burst into an office where key details of a murder case are on show. For all I know, you could be the murderer.”

He knew that he’d done wrong but still carried on with the reason he’d come into the office in the first place.

“I want to make sure that you fully understand that if you or any of your officers go onto my clients property without permission from the landowner or a court order then he won’t be responsible for his actions.”

“Ah. I was wondering about that. Did you advise your client that a crime scene is more important legally than any act of trespass.”

“I did but my client said that there was no crime scene left now so the matter is moot.”

“Moot? Who the hell does he think he is? I will be visiting the crime scene later to gather evidence of his wilful obstruction of justice. That is a matter for the States Attorney as you are no doubt aware. State Police will accompany me. If your client has a beef with them he keeps telling us that he knows the Governor so he can take it up personally. If by some chance your client points a firearm at me or any of the State Police Officers then, I won’t be responsible for their actions. Please go and make sure that your client understands that 100%. Now? Anything else?”

The ego freak that was Tracey Dan Davis slunk out of the office leaving us alone. To make sure, I locked the door to prevent more interruptions and went back to the briefing.

Tracey and I had been at school together. He was the class 'creep' who would lie and scheme his way to the top. He'd left town to go off to college and it had been a big surprise to many in town when he'd returned from Wall St and hung his shingle in our very out of the way county. I still hadn't forgiven him for going to the Prom with Louise Young even though we'd been dating for almost 6 months. He was still a slime-ball no matter what good he did around town.

Tom was just finishing up as I returned.

“Thanks Tom. Comments people?” I asked.

Sue-Ellen was first.

“Who do we know who pesters women in pairs and drives a pickup and lives in the direction the truck took off in?”

I smiled. We all knew the prime suspects, Jeb and Seth Clancy. Sadly, they lived just over the state line in Colorado. They were not the brightest people to inhabit this plant.

“Can we put them in Harry’s place last night? Also have we found the missing car yet?”

“I’ll get Harry’s statement first thing,” said Tom, “he knows I’m coming over but does not know why at the moment.”

“Good. Lets’ find that car pronto. There might be more evidence on it.”

The meeting broke up and I sat down at my desk making a mental list of things to do.

I’d hardly started on the first when my phone rang.

“Sheriff Matt Beecher speaking.”

“Oh. Yes. We are investigating a sex crime that is also a murder. Do you have an update of the search we put out last night?”

“You do? That’s good. Can you send it to me?”

“Thanks. We owe you guys one for getting results for us so quickly.”

I hung up and tried to remember where I was before the phone call came in.

I couldn’t remember so I went in search of Sue-Ellen to give her the good news.

“We know where our victim grew up and her real name,” I announced.

“Was that the Feds on the phone?”

“Yes, it was.”

“I thought a much. I could smell their obnoxious odour from here.”

I knew that her family had had more than one run in with the FBI in the past. A past that went back to the days of J. Edgar and Prohibition.

Then she looked at me expectantly.

“Her or rather his birth name was Troy Spencer and comes from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The Feds are sending me his full details. Apparently, he was reported missing two days after his 18th birthday some 6 years ago. Troy was arrested for some minor vandalism when he was sixteen. Apparently, someone had called him out as being gay at school so he painted their car Pink in retaliation.

That brought a smile to all of us.

“Did you find any documentation at her trailer?”

“Yes. She changed her name in Vegas two years ago. I also found close to twenty grand in a locked box in the Oven. Two guesses what that was for? There were also doctor’s records from LA and Vegas where some of her surgery was done.”

It didn’t take a genius to guess that the money was for her final bit of surgery. The one that will make her dream of becoming a woman come true.

“Rather sad really. She was such a nice person,” remarked Sue-Ellen.

“It is easy to guess what happened. Two drunken men who couldn’t take ‘No’ for an answer suddenly found out why she said No all the time. They couldn’t accept this slight to their manhood so they took action,” she added without prompting.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna become a lawyer? That was a very good opening for a trial!”

She smiled briefly.

“Who is going to tell the family?”

“The South Carolina State Police have agreed to do it for us. They may not want her body back given what she’s had done since she left home.”

“Did the PM estimate how much she’d spent on all that work? My guess is around ten ‘G’s.”

“His estimate is rather more than that. Her breast and other implants have serial numbers so they will be traced so we should have something in a day or so but the general consensus last night was that it was good work and good plastic work does not come cheap.”

“But how did she end up here? In this off the beaten track neck the woods?”

“That is a mystery and one we may well solve in time. Meanwhile we have some obvious suspects there might be another reason for her murder and specifically how brutal it was.”

Tom came back to me just after lunchtime with more news.
“The tire tracks didn’t make sense to me. There was just too much distance between the tires to be a normal six-wheeled pick up.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I could not understand it so I’ve been out to the Circle K. Their foreman, Jess Butler drives a six-wheeled pickup. Here are the pictures of his tire tracks.”

I chuckled.

“He has a bit of a short temper. How did you get him to co-operate.”

Tom didn’t reply right away.

“I showed him the pictures of the tire tracks from the crime scene. I said that I knew they weren’t from his truck but wanted to use him to compare tracks.”

“And?”

“He wasn’t happy but agreed to let me take the pictures as long as I destroyed them after the case was over.”

I didn’t answer that. They were evidence and would remain as part of the case file no matter what have been promised.
Tom put the latest set of pictures up on the wall so that I could see the difference.
The difference was obvious. There was a larger spacing between the pair of tires on the crime scenes pictures than on the new pictures.

“What does that tell us?” I asked.

“I called my contact at the Colorado Police Crime Lab. They think it is an after-market conversion of a four to a six-wheeled truck. The bodywork could get in the way unless the spacers are used to offset the outer tires so they are totally outside the existing wheel arches.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to modify the bodywork?”

“Yes, it could but if the truck is leased then that might not be allowed.”

“Ah. I get it.”

I looked at Tom.

“What?”

“Have you inquired about our suspects truck?”

“That is my next job. I really don’t want to tip them off.”

“Why don’t you change out of your uniform and take a ride on that new Harley of yours over the state line and see if you can find the truck? Sort of incognito like. Just look and don’t touch."

Tom smiled.

“Are you really ok with that boss? We know how you like to do things properly.”

“Anything goes when it comes to finding the killer. Well anything legal that is. If you happen to take some pictures of the suspects truck then… well it would be nice but as I said, look, if safe take some pictures otherwise do nothing but look. Understood?”

Tom’s grin told me that I’d said the right thing.

With Tom out of the way and the station quiet, I closed up and went over to Harry’s diner for some Coffee.

“Good Morning Sheriff. The usual?” said Harry as I walked through the door.

“Yes, please Harry.”

I sat down at a booth instead of at the counter as I normally did.

Hank brought me my Coffee and sat down opposite me.

“Sheriff, I would like to pay for the Funeral. She was a good worker. Always polite and with a smile on her face.”

“Hank, there is something you should know,” I said quietly.

“Oh that. She told me the day after she started working for me.”

“Really?”

He nodded his head.

“I checked her Social Security Number to prove that she was over 21. It didn’t check out properly so I asked her. She told me what she was … and how she was saving to take the final step. She was nice. Everyone liked her. Such a shame and not good for business.”

I understood.

Hank saw my hesitation.

“Sheriff, I had hoped that she would stay on here after her operation.”

I looked at him in the eye.

“You liked her, didn’t you?”

He nodded.

“Ever since my ancestors came to this country from China to work on the Railroad we have been cooking for other people. My great, great grandfather settled her more than a century ago cooked for the Saloon. Prohibition came and the Saloon became a Café and my Grandfather took it over. Over the years we have seen people come and go. Our business slowly expanded and passed from father to son or daughter.”

Then he paused.

“Until now. My son Joe decided that he wanted to earn the big bucks as a fancy lawyer in Salt Lake. My daughter Suzi is going to be a fine surgeon but won’t be back from Chicago anytime soon. I saw a possible successor in… in Sandy. I know that she liked working here. Well she did until the other night.”

I could see the sadness in his face.

“Henry Chang, you are a good man. The whole town knows that.”

“It shouldn’t have happened. I left her to close up when I should have done it myself. Those two….”

“Hank, don’t go blaming yourself. We don’t know who did it.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Really? I have a good idea.

“We have two suspects but we need proof.”

Hank nodded.

“I’m still gonna pay for her Funeral.”

“Her family is back east.”

He looked me earnestly.

“Do you think that they will want her back? Will they want to bury her as a him? I’d like to think that she’d want to stay here where she was clearly happy.”

I couldn’t agree more.

---

Later that afternoon I had another visitor.

“Well Tracey? What is it? Is it more complaints from a certain client?”

His face said that her was here on serious business.

“No. It is about the last Will and Testament of your Murder Victim.”

This was a bolt out of the blue.

“She left a Will?”

He nodded.

“She had me draw it up a month or so back.”

“Just in case something happened to her.”

“I…”

I stopped before I possibly said the wrong thing.

“Did she leave any instructions for her Funeral? Her family is back East.”

“Yes. She was most insistent that she would not be sent back to her family. She had some problems with them a few years ago. I don’t know what they were, she wouldn’t say.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“When are you going to read the Will?”

“When I can get everyone together. Probably after her funeral. Do you have any idea when her body will be released?”

“The ME says, the day after tomorrow.”

“Good. I’ll instruct Slater and Mansell to collect her body when it is released.”

He was either a good liar, well aren’t lawyers trained to do that or he genuinely didn’t know about Sandy’s past. I wasn’t going to ask him.

Once he’d gone I sat quietly with my eyes closed thinking about Sandy. In all my encounters with her she’d been friendly and polite even cracking a few jokes with the customers in Harry’s bar.

This is when I felt the loss. The feelings I was experiencing were nothing like I’d ever had before. I tried to recall how I’d felt when one of my MP’s had been killed. This was far more intense that anything I’d ever felt before. Someone who was trying hard to be themselves and to make a life for themselves had been cruelly struck down before… before she could reach that goal.

Ma noticed that I wasn’t really with it within a couple of minutes of me arriving home that evening.

“She meant something to you, didn’t she?”

“I’m not sure. Sandy was trying to build a new life. Her death is just a horrible waste.”

Ma smiled back at me.

“Did you fancy her then?”

I shook my head.

“No. She was just a nice pleasant woman.”

Ma’s look told me ‘yeah right, pull the other one’.

“No Ma. I didn’t even think about asking her out on a date. She was just a nice person and she shouldn’t have been murdered. That’s it. Can't I be sad at the loss of someone who was building herself a life in our community?”

---

Tom reported in the following morning.
“The Clancy’s Truck fits the bill,” said Tom grinning from ear to ear as he pinned up a picture on the wall.

“It gets better,” he said calmly.

“An hour after I’d driven past their place I was having some coffee at the truck stop on the Interstate when who should drive up in the very same truck but the Clancy brothers.”

Tom pinned up some more pictures.

“Their truck shows some damage on the right front. The damage is consistent with hitting the gate as they exited Joe Cummings property. These were all taken from the public highway. As you can see, everything is in plain sight.”

Another picture showed the damaged field gate.

Everyone’s eyes were on me.

“What? It is still all circumstantial. I can’t go to the States Attorney with that. She’ll laugh in my face in an instant.”

I looked at my officers. One by one they nodded their head.

“We need that truck,” said Sue-Ellen.

There was no disagreement with that.

“I think I can help here,” said Tom.

We all turned to look at him.

“One of the brothers is sweet on one of the staff at the Truck Stop. I heard one of them say ‘see you tomorrow’ as they left the Coffee Shop.”

---

[Two hours later, at the truck stop]
I was sitting in my Police Cruiser on the over-bridge at the intersection. This was not out of the ordinary. We used the location at least twice a week to check for stolen cars or unsafe loads.

Tom and Sue-Ellen were in a borrowed pickup at the back of the Truck Stop. They were pretending to fix a problem with the engine.

Half an hour later the Clancy’s drove up in their truck. I afforded myself a little smile.

The brothers parked up and disappeared into the Truck Stop.

Tom calmly walked over to their truck and leaned over the tailgate. He had a spray of luminol in his hand. Thirty seconds later, he gave a thumbs up. He’d obviously found human blood in the back of the truck.

I walked into the Truck Stop slightly nervously. Tom and Sue-Ellen were covering the exits in case the suspects decided to flee.

I approached the two brothers. They were sitting in a booth with a woman.

“Good afternoon. I am arresting you both on suspicion of the murder of Sandy Thompson. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you might say can and may be used against you in a court of law; You have the right to have an attorney present before and during the questioning, You, have the right, if you cannot afford the services of an attorney, to have one appointed, at public expense.”

They just sat there with their mouths open.

The girl was first to speak.

“What do you mean? Murder?”

I smiled at her.

“Sandy was the server at Harry’s Bar. She was found brutally murdered a couple of days ago. We have found evidence of human blood in the back of your truck that is parked in plain sight outside this very establishment.”

She looked at Seth.

“Seth? Tell me that he’s wrong?”

Both Jeb and Seth said nothing so I pulled out two pairs of handcuffs and formally put them on the brothers. At least they had enough working brain-cells to realise that they should not resist the arrest.

Tom had joined me at the table. We each escorted a brother out of the building.

---

[A week later]

The Rev’d Harris conducted the funeral. We, as in the Police Department turned up en-masse as did a good proportion of the customers of Harry’s Bar and a many of the customers to his store. This made this sad occasion a bit more bearable however the promise of a free Beer after the service was probably the reason but nevertheless, it was pretty impressive.
Harry gave the eulogy. He came over as an adoptive father which brought a little tear to my eye.

[the next day]
“This is the last will and testament of Sandy Thompson,” said T. Dan.

A small group of us were gathered in his office.

He cleared his throat.

“The people of this town have made me very welcome. For that I am eternally greatful. If you are reading this then obviously, I’m no longer here. Whatever I have should be sold and given in equal measures to the Omaha Women’s Shelter and the Local Wildlife Refuge. I spent a lot of time there enjoying its peace and solitude on my days off. Nothing of my estate is to go to my family. They wanted to have nothing to do with me after I’d came out to them.”

T. Dan looked up and closed the file.

“She was very specific in her wishes and that all of you were to be here. She didn’t have much but I will gladly handle the selling off of whatever she has ‘pro-bono’”.

I smiled back at him.

“I’m glad you have said that Tracey. We found out the other day from her brother that she has a Life Insurance Policy worth a cool half million that is going to pay out. I’ll give you the details of the policy later today. I think both beneficiaries will be happy to receive such a nice donation. It appears that her parents carried on with the payment despite what had gone on between them.”

Tracey smiled. This was about the first time I’d ever seen him smile.

“Nothing is as simple as it at first appears.”

---

[Three Months Later]
I walked out of the courthouse at the end of the trial. I was smiling. It had been a tense week but the brothers had really offered no realistic defence. The jury had taken less than an hour to return the verdict. The only controversial bit of the trial had been Sandy’s sexuality. Luckily the Judge had slapped down the Defence Attorney saying that a murder was a murder regardless of the victims perceived sexuality.

The brothers had been given a life sentence with a minimum of twenty-five years for their crimes.

Neither of them had taken the stand so no one was any the wiser as to the real reason why they had killed her. It didn’t matter to us. We all knew the reason.

I felt that was just but no amount of jail time would bring back Sandy and her infectious laugh. Such a waste of a life.

[The end]

[Authors note]
It is pretty obvious that a few elements in this story were inspired by the TV show ‘Longmire’. But the plots for this and some other stories are all my own work and most of them popped into my mind during a drive from Cheyenne, Wyoming to Lakeview, Oregon over two long days much of it spent driving along I-80 in torrential rain around 16-17 May 2015.

I’d already decided that the vast open spaces the western part of the USA was a suitable place for a story.
Setting the story in the Police Department is most certainly cribbed from the show but it is not set in Wyoming (Although Longmire was filmed in New Mexico…). Its exact location is possibly somewhere in Western Nebraska. Many thanks to the writer of Longmire for providing me (via the TV show) an insight into how a rural Police operation runs. That also allowed all those ideas come together in my mind and get it down on paper.

I have two further episodes completed and another in progress. If any readers have ideas for other stories please let me know.