A Blind Eye by G. M. Ford Page A

got you elected.”
    “Actually, it was his death proclivity.”
    “Ah.”
    “Two weeks before the election.”
    “Good timing.”
    “Better for me than Sam.”
    “That’s the way things generally work out.”
    “Sam was gonna outpoll me twenty to one. I was only running for sheriff because I couldn’t figure out what else to do with my life.” Her eyes clouded over. “Just got back in town. Came home to look after my dad.” She met Corso’s eyes. “Alzheimer’s,” she said. “I had a degree in criminal justice and five years’ experience as a Saint Paul County deputy.” She shrugged. “So I ran for sheriff.”
    “And then…that fateful night.”
    “Sam took Sissy up to his family cabin on Hunter Lake. Came out later they’d been up there a bunch of times.” Her lips were pressed tight. “He died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Dropped stone dead on top of her while flying united. She had to call search and rescue. Fire department don’t service that far out in the boonies.”
    “So they find Sam Tate dead.”
    “They also find a Polaroid camera and a bunch of snapshots of what she and Sam had been doing with each other. That’s when the rumors started about the others. How she had a bunch of other lovers. How she’d taken pictures with all of them. I’m telling you, this town was humming.”
    “Rumors from where?”
    The sheriff shrugged. “Who knows. It’s a small town.”
    “Full of prominent men,” Corso said with a sneer.
    “And the shit hit the fan. Just about this time of year—a month or so before Christmas—the town is buzzing. Everybody’s looking at everybody else and wondering. We’ve got our own version of Peyton Place going on. I’m figuring either one of her lovers is gonna kill her or the wives are gonna get together and ride her out of town on a rail, and either way, with Sam dead and only two weeks to go till the election, sooner or later I’m going to end up having to deal with it.”
    “So you won the election.”
    “Hell, no!” She laughed. “He beat me from the grave!”
    “Musta been the sympathy vote,” Corso said.
    “Town charter says if a candidate dies, the other candidate gets the job.” She spread her hands in mock resignation. “The rest is history.”
    “What was the big attraction?” Corso asked.
    “Whadda you mean?”
    “What was the big sexual attraction to Sissy Warwick?”
    “I wasn’t aware men needed one,” she said.
    Corso’s lip curled. “Work with me here, Sheriff. Prominent men don’t risk their tranquillity and let people take pictures of them doing it unless there’s something pretty special going on.” He watched as her neck began to redden, as the color began to work its way into her cheeks and finally all the way to the tops of her ears.
    “Supposedly…she was just hell in bed.”
    “That’s it? She was a good roll? These guys risked life, limb, and community property just to…”
    She winced at the gesture he made. “The pictures of her and Sam made it plain that she was…you know…”
    Corso kept silent.
    “Kinky,” she finally blurted. “She was quite…” Again she stopped. Regrouped. “Of an alternative persuasion.”
    “What alternative was that?”
    She looked as if she’d just smelled something vile. “Dressing up…spanking…that sort of thing.” She waved a hand in front of her face as if to brush the odor away. “And whatever else it is those people do to each other.”
    “Did the names of these prominent men ever come to light?”
    “Not officially. But believe you me, Mr. Corso, everybody in this town’s got their own list of who they think it was.”
    She took a deep breath and turned away. The set of her shoulders told Corso all he needed to know. “What else?” he pushed.
    She spun his way, embarrassment turned to anger. “Else? What do you mean else ? Isn’t that enough? Jesus.”
    She met his stony gaze with her own. Silence settled into the room like cigarette smoke.