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lane of US 98, known locally as the Emerald Coast Highway, red hot cinnamon set fire to his taste buds.
    He claimed his unmarked cruiser a few moments later. A quick check with dispatch revealed relative quiet for a Tuesday night. The only disturbance involved an altercation at a little league softball game that had landed one over-aggressive parent in the county jail.
    “He’s waiting for his wife to bail him out,” Wilena reported with a deep, rich chuckle. “Just between you ‘n me, sheriff, she plans to let him cool off for a day or two.”
    “Hope we don’t have to respond to a 10-16 when she springs him,” Steve drawled. As he’d learned all too well during his years on the Atlanta PD, domestic disturbances could turn deadly in the blink of an eye.
    Advising the sultry-voiced dispatcher that he intended to stop at the new down-county substation on his way home, he signed off.
     
     
    The Walton County Sheriff’s Department sub-station had been constructed less than a year ago and still smelled of new paint. It was headed by one of the department’s newer captains. Steve had personally selected Jay Dubois to command the ten officers assigned to the substation. Jay was experienced enough to hold their respect, yet young enough to walk the fine line between the needs of the ante-bellum communities of North Walton County and the booming tourist economy to the south. It didn’t hurt that his wife, Pam, had a way of baking the rainbow trout Steve and her husband reeled in that could make wild dogs grovel and grown men weep.
    Jay was at home, no doubt sprawled in his recliner after another of Pam’s delectable suppers, but the shift officer in charge welcomed the chance to shoot the breeze with the sheriff. They traded the morbid war stories only cops could appreciate for a good twenty minutes. Steve was just getting up to leave when Wilena Shaw’s voice came through the console.
    “Substation, this is Central Dispatch.”
    “Damn!” the grizzled officer muttered, reaching for the mike. “The way that woman sounds over the radio, she could make a monk cream.”
    Privately, Steve agreed with him. Publicly, he refused to tolerate sexual innuendo or off-color jokes on the job. The pointed glance he sent his subordinate had the man reddening and mumbling an apology before he keyed the mike.
    “This is Officer Harriman. What’s up, Dispatch?”
    “Is Sheriff Paxton still there?”
    “He’s standing right beside me.”
    “Be advised we have a signal-seven, Sheriff.”
    Steve lifted a brow. Two dead bodies in less than a week. Business was certainly picking up. Edging the shift officer aside, he thumbed the mike.
    “This is Paxton, Dispatch. What are the particulars?”
    “Two kids gigging bullfrogs up around Harry’s Bayou found a floater. Their mama called in the report about ten minutes ago. From what the boys told her, the body’s pretty putrid.”
    “Who’s responding?”
    “Officer Martin’s on the way. I’ve notified Captain Alexander. He’s sending an investigator. Want me to call the fluff?”
    Steve smiled at the local’s less than flattering acronym for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Although he made it a point to maintain solid relations with the various state agencies his department interfaced with, the complicated jurisdictional lines could and often did blur.
    Like in the matter of Ron Clark’s death.
    As Steve had relayed to Jessica Blackwell only a few hours ago, the state was ready to close the case. None of the probes into the realtor’s business and personal financial holdings had turned up anything irregular or suspicious. But neither had investigators uncovered a clue as to what might have driven him to suicide. Or why Clark had muttered Lieutenant Colonel Blackwell’s name just before he died.
    The state boys could close the case if they wanted to. Steve intended to dig a little deeper.
    “Go ahead and notify FDLE,” he instructed Wilena. “I’ll swing by,