“Not a thing,” she admitted reluctantly, wondering if she had been deliberately left out of some loop. Men often tried that with her.
“He’s good,” Cade said. “Not your average elected official whose chief accomplishment has been kissing babies.”
Despite herself, she almost wanted to laugh. Even as an MP she’d had to deal with that kind of local law enforcement occasionally.
“He’s former DEA,” Cade went on. “Undercover operative until a car bomb nearly killed him and wiped out his entire family. He still carries the scars.”
DeeJay swore quietly. She knew a lot of stories of car bombs all too well. Some of them had involved families.
“Yeah,” Cade answered, apparently hearing her. “Anyway, long story short. He came here to heal, got hired as a crime-scene investigator, and years ago when the old sheriff retired, he was elected. Folks still call him the new sheriff.”
“Of course.” That didn’t surprise her at all.
“His name is Gage Dalton. Runs a tight ship. His predecessor, Nate Tate, was sheriff for forty years and still sticks his finger in the pie. Let him. There’s no one and nothing he doesn’t know about this county.”
“Except who the killer is.”
“Obviously.”
DeeJay hesitated. Then, offering a slender olive branch, she said, “Sounds like a couple of good men to have on our side.”
“The best. The deputies are good, too. Nate started a trend of inviting his old military pals to come this way. He was Special Forces. Anyway, they joke sometimes that they have more Special Forces types in Conard County than most military bases. Makes for an interesting and sometimes useful mix.”
He was trying to tell her to be careful of stepping on toes, she realized. Trying to warn her that she’d be meeting men with backgrounds similar to hers and who shouldn’t be casually dismissed. Or wisely dismissed. While she resented the implication that she made a habit of stepping on toes, she’d certainly been stepping on his since their first meeting. Since she couldn’t just come out and say that she only stepped on toes she meant to break, she decided to take it as a good omen that he was trying to fill her in. Much as it killed her, she said, “Thank you.”
“The sheriff knows we’re both coming. It’ll be up to him to decide who to trust with that information, but from what little I know of him, I doubt he’ll trust very many. They’re already working the case, though, and as you know we’re here by invitation.”
“Got it. Been there, done that before.”
“I guess you have.”
She hesitated, then asked, “You read my jacket?”
“That stuff’s private. What I know about you is exactly nothing.”
That wasn’t good, she thought. They were partnered and both of them had to have some basis for trusting each other’s instincts, as far as the investigation went. They didn’t have to like each other, just to develop a professional trust. Partners could succeed no other way. But she still had a burr.
“You didn’t want to partner with a woman,” she said.
“No.” He didn’t varnish it. “Nothing to do with you personally. Bad experience once.”