His looks hadn’t improved since Thatcher had last seen him. He might have explained that he’d mistaken him for a German soldier and apologized for messing up his face, but the deputy radiated so much hostility as he said, “They want to see you” that Thatcher didn’t bother.
After being handcuffed, he was prodded out of the cell block and into the main room.
Mayor Croft was standing in front of a window, a position that cast him in silhouette, obscured his face, and made him the most imposing presence in the room, which Thatcher figured was his intention. If he thought Thatcher would be intimidated by either his public office or his bootlegging, he was wrong. Thatcher looked him square in the eye.
Sheriff Amos motioned Thatcher into a chair. “Coffee?”
Thatcher accepted.
The sheriff filled a mug from a pot simmering on a hot plate, then brought it over. When he bent down to place the mug in Thatcher’s bound hands, he said under his breath, “Don’t volunteer anything.”
Then he straightened up, sat down on the corner of his desk, and commenced another interrogation. Beginning with the fight and Thatcher’s leap from the freight train, they rehashed Thatcher’s account of that day. The sheriff’s questions were straightforward. Following his advice, Thatcher stuck to the facts and didn’t expand on any of his statements.
Bernie Croft didn’t pose any questions, but expressed his skepticism of Thatcher’s truthfulness with snorts and harrumphs and dry coughs covered by his fist.
Thatcher finished with, “I went to bed, fell asleep, woke up with a shotgun in my face and y’all surrounding my bed.”
The sheriff waited a beat, then looked over at Croft, who had remained in his spot by the window, but was now rocking back and forth on his heels like a man trying to keep his temper under control.
Bill said, “We don’t have one iota of evidence implicating him, Bernie.”
“Except that he was with Mrs. Driscoll earlier that day.”
The sheriff dismissed that with a shake of his head. “Circumstantial. The D.A. has declined to indict him based on that alone.”
“Something could still turn up.”
“Mrs. Driscoll could still turn up.”
“Dead.”
“Let’s pray that’s not the case. But if, after further investigation, we discover something that does implicate Mr. Hutton in any wrongdoing, I’ll be on him like a duck on a June bug.”
The mayor scoffed. “He’ll be long gone.”
“He doesn’t plan to leave town immediately.”
“So he says.”
Thatcher said, “Mr. Barker and I shook on me training that stallion before I leave.”
“That’s hardly a binding contract.”
“It is to me.”
Thatcher’s words fell like four bricks into the room. Croft’s face turned red, but he didn’t respond. No one said anything. Then Sheriff Amos broke the taut silence.
“I’ve got to release him, Bernie. But I’ll do so with the provision that he doesn’t leave town. If not a suspect,
he’s still a material witness.”
“Fine. But you’re gambling with your reelection.”
“Every damn day I’m in this office.”
Because his warning didn’t have the desired cowing effect on the sheriff, Croft strode across to the door, yanked his hat off the coat tree, and stormed out, pulling the door closed so hard, it rattled windowpanes.
Amos signaled to Harold. “Uncuff him.”