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Department’s HQ was next to the courthouse, a couple of cruisers and a 4x4 parked out front. The sheriff’s department had got in there first and claimed black for its cars and uniforms, which meant the police department had to settle for tan. Black on a cop car was always going to look way cooler than tan. The police department vehicles looked as bright and shiny as everything else on Main Street, like they’d just rolled off the factory floor.
    In the middle of the park was a tall white statue of a stern-looking man. The Stars and Stripes hung from a flagpole beside the statue. There was no breeze to stir the flag and it clung limply to the pole. The red, white and blue was so bright it hurt your eyes. The manicured grass could have been a golf green.
    We carried on north and the buildings dropped down in size to two storeys again. Shops on the first floor, apartments on the second. The sheriff department’s station house was based in a large building right up at the north end of Main Street.
    Taylor pulled into the lot at the back and reversed into a slot beside all the other police vehicles. There were four vehicles on our left, five on the right, a mix of sedans and 4x4s, the oldest only a couple of years old. A ten-car fleet like this indicated a recent investment in the hundreds of thousands.
    On the other side of the lot were two rows of vehicles that weren’t cop cars. These cars didn’t look brand new. Most were at least five years old, and almost all of them were American. There was a mix of makes and models, a mix of conditions. Some were well loved while others were suffering from a serious case of neglect.
    Stepping outside again was like stepping into a blast furnace. Mid-afternoon and the mercury had to be pushing past the hundred mark. The heat was a solid thing that slammed into you and stole your breath away. By the time we’d crossed the parking lot, I’d already worked up a sweat. I wiped the drops from my forehead as we walked into the air-conditioned cool of the station house. The heat was bad, but the humidity was the real killer.
    The dispatcher at the front desk told us that Sheriff Fortier was expecting us, and Taylor led the way through a maze of corridors to a door with a smoked-glass window and SHERIFF PETER FORTIER stencilled in gold. Taylor knocked once and a voice on the other side told us to enter.
    Like the rest of the station house, Fortier’s office was immaculate. A tidy oak desk with a large leather chair dominated the space, and the in- and out-trays looked well under control. The whitewashed walls were actually white, and the striplight had been cleaned this side of Christmas.
    One wall was taken up with pictures of boats and fish. Fortier was in all of them, either standing at the wheel wearing a battered blue cap with a red anchor stitched on the front, or standing in that same cap holding up the catch of the day. There was a marked difference between the grim-faced man behind the oak desk and the smiling, tanned fisherman in the photographs.
    Fortier came around to the front of the desk, arm outstretched, and we shook. He had a grip like a bear and I could feel my bones grinding together. He gave me the once-over, trying not to make it too obvious. I was used to being stared at so it didn’t bother me.
    While Fortier looked me over, I checked him out. The sheriff was in his mid-fifties and stood at five-five, four inches shorter than me, and a whole foot and an inch shorter than Taylor. Put us in a line and we could have been the three bears. He had grey hair and a ruddy outdoors complexion from all that time spent fishing. There were red blooms on his cheek, and the skin was tight and shiny. His uniform was as immaculate as his office. Creases in all the right places and shoes spit-shined.
    He looked tired, though, bone-weary, like all the fight had been knocked out of him. My guess was that he wouldn’t be running for sheriff in the next election. If that decision