Bad Blood

you’ve got a lifetime job, if you don’t screw up. Sheriff Coakley has to get elected, and you’ve gotta see the political problem in all this.”
    Dunn nodded. “Yeah, I do. I just don’t like it.”
    Virgil looked at Schickel, the one in uniform. “What about you? Or are you the strong and silent type?”
    Schickel’s lips barely moved: “We got to look at Crocker. I’d do it, even if nobody else wanted to.”
    “Then let’s go,” Virgil said.
     
     
    SCHICKEL RODE with Virgil, to fill him in on Crocker, while Dunn took a sheriff’s truck and led the way. Crocker lived seventeen miles out, most of it down I-90. Schickel said, “Greg wasn’t trying to give you a hard time. He says what he thinks.”
    Virgil nodded. “I appreciate that. He didn’t cut Larson any slack, either.”
    Larson had been a state senator who’d gotten drunk, but not very, had run a rural stop sign and T-boned another car on his way home from the bar. The driver of the other car was killed. The question had been whether it was purely an accident, or vehicular homicide. Virgil had helped with the investigation, and though Larson had been indicted on the homicide charge, he’d been acquitted.
    “Greg’s a good guy, but he doesn’t cut anybody a lot of slack,” Schickel said. Then, loosening up a little, “Including his wife. He’s halfway through a divorce.”
    “Been there,” Virgil said. “So what’s with Crocker? Good guy? Bad guy? You think he knew Tripp? Any rumors around?”
    “Jimmy’s not a good guy,” Schickel said. “I’m not talking behind his back. He knows what I think, and I’ve told him to his face.”
    “What’s his problem?”
    “He’s got some bully in him, for one thing. Not physical—that’s one thing I’m not sure about in this Tripp thing. The Tripp boy was a hell of an athlete. Jim Crocker is a big guy and strong as a bull, but I don’t know if he’d have the guts to take on Bobby Tripp.”
    “So when you say Crocker’s a bully . . .”
    “He’s political, always sucking around for something,” Schickel said. “He was Harlan’s messenger boy, when somebody had to give out the bad news. You know, if somebody was gonna get fired, or laid off, or disciplined. He was like the assistant principal, if you know what I mean.”
    “Yeah. Exactly.”
    “And he enjoyed doing it. But he was also one for dodging serious work. When he went for the sheriff’s job, practically the whole department was out there talking up Lee. I would’ve quit, if he’d won.”
    “But not crooked . . . not on the take, or anything.”
    “Not like payoffs, like protection. But he’d do a favor for somebody,” Schickel said. “One time, two or three years back, a doctor’s kid got caught driving drunk, one-point-one blood alcohol. No accident or anything, pretty good kid, otherwise, but drunk. His old man came in to talk to the sheriff. Said they had a family cabin up in Canada, and the Canadians wouldn’t let the kid into the country with the conviction. He wanted a little consideration .”
    “And the sheriff said . . .”
    “Basically, that it was too late. Everybody in town knew about the situation. Best to hire a good lawyer. Anyway, when they went to send the file over to the county attorney, the key evidence was missing. The original ticket with the blow-tube numbers on it,” Schickel said. “So the prosecutor refused to prosecute, because of tainted evidence and mishandled paperwork. She was happy to do it, because she didn’t want to hang up the doctor’s family anyway. And she had an out: she blamed our office. Hell of an embarrassment. The eventual . . . conclusion . . . was that Crocker lifted the file.”
    “But no proof.”
    “No proof, but I’m on board with the conclusion,” Schickel said. “Crocker . . . you can have a beer with the guy, and he can tell a story, but basically, not a good guy.”
     
     
    THEY FOLLOWED DUNN off I-90 at Highway 7, turned south through the town of Battenberg. Schickel pointed out a grain elevator: “That’s where Tripp killed Jake Flood.”
    “Oh, yeah? Was Crocker in on that? The investigation?” Virgil asked.
    “No, he had nothing to do with that. That all happened in the daytime, and Crocker’s been working nights,” Schickel said.
    “Did he work last night?”
    “Nope. Yesterday and the day before was his weekend. He’s on tonight.”
    They passed the high school and went on down Main Street to the intersection of a