No Mercy by John Gilstrap

deep porch that wrapped the front and two sides. The backyard featured the overgrown remains of what had once been a magnificent garden. With a little imagination, she could still see within the out-of-control boxwoods the shadowy remains of a sculptured pig, turtle, and donkey. Or maybe a goat. A farm animal of some sort.
    Fixing up the gardens and restoring them to their previous grandeur was high on the list of things that Gail was going to take care of once she got a little extra cash. Fixing the gardens, in fact, was trumped only by her goal of buying furniture for the living room, dining room, library, parlor, and three spare bedrooms.
    Gail lived in the Petrie house, named for the family who'd built it in 1915. In the early 1990s, Natalie Petrie, the ancient family scion, had started listening more intently to television evangelists than she did to the pleas of her own children. By the time the children could convince a court to intervene, they had seen their inheritance plummet from something close to $10 million to something more along the lines of a dollar ninety-five.
    It was literally the house of Gail's dreams, a la Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street . She offered the family's asking price, and within days, the deed was done. Now, eight months later, workers still labored on to bring the plumbing and electrical services into the twentieth century, never mind the twenty-first.
    Gail's purchase of the Petrie house was a source of great scuttlebutt. How could a single woman on a public servant's salary afford to pay $550,000 for a house, and then go on to fund extensive repairs and renovations? Her political enemies had their theories, of course, fueled by ugly rumors, but few people actually believed that she was selling drugs out of the basement, or had accepted hush money to protect those who did.
    She protected the reality as nobody's business. Her father had spun an independent accounting firm into a fairly successful investment practice, and when he passed away, he'd left her with enough of a nest egg that she could afford her love of law enforcement without suffering the financial hardship that most cops endured. She could afford to tell the Bureau where they could stick their good-old-boy network. She'd never been a boy, never would be, and ne, and she was doubly done with the small-minded resentment that accompanied the recognition when it finally came.
    After her father succumbed to the cancer that had been eating him for over a decade, she'd left the Bureau with extreme prejudice, not caring if she ever saw a badge again. After a while, though, when you're good at it, busting bad guys becomes a part of your DNA. She'd heard about the desire of the local Democratic Party to find themselves a good female candidate for sheriff in Samson, and the rest, as they say, was...well, you know.
    The ten-block-square section that defined downtown Samson looked like something off a movie set for Depression-era urban living. Its main streets sported storefronts and taxpayer construction that looked at first glimpse to be the American dream--all the infrastructure for a midsize city combined with the feel of a small town. She liked the people here more than she didn't like them, but a reality of law enforcement in a small community is that you could never allow yourself to get but so close. Every citizen was her boss, and one day, any one of them could end up on the business end of her nightstick. When the borders were as close as they were in Samson, and the line between accepting help and accepting graft was so fine, it helped to keep people at arms' length.
    Gail was just entering her driveway when her cell phone rang. "Sheriff Bonneville."
    "Afternoon, Sheriff," said a very cheerful and very southern voice. "This is Max Mentor with the state crime lab. How you doin'?"
    Gail smiled. She'd worked with Max a couple of times since her election and always found the experience to be pleasant. "I'll be better when you