in, Zack was delivering a blistering lecture to a young boy she didn't recognize. Automatically, she started to step out again, but Zack merely held up a finger and never broke rhythm.
"You're not only going straight over to Mrs. Demeara's and clean up every last scrap of pumpkin guts and apologize for being a moron, but you're going to pay a fine for possession of illegal explosives and willful destruction of property-five hundred dollars."
"Five hundred dollars!" The boy, thirteen at the outside, Nell calculated, lifted a head that had been sunk low. "Jeez, Sheriff Todd, I ain't got five hundred dollars. My mom's going to kill me as is."
Zack merely raised his eyebrows and looked merciless. "Did I say I was finished?"
"No, sir," the boy mumbled, and went back to looking so hangdog that Nell wanted to go pat his head.
"You can work off the fine by cleaning the station house. Twice a week, three dollars an hour."
"Three? But it'll take me..." The boy had smartened up enough to shut up. "Yes, sir. You weren't finished."
His lips wanted to twitch, but Zack kept them in a firm, hard line. "I've got some odd chores around my place, too. Saturdays."
And oh, Zack thought, that one stung. There was no crueler fate than being imprisoned by chores on a Saturday.
"Same rate. You can start there this Saturday, and in here Monday after school. If I hear you're in any more trouble like this, your mother's going to have to stand in line to skin you. Clear?"
"Yes, Uncle Zack... um, I mean, yes, sir, Sheriff."
"Beat it."
He beat it, nearly spinning the air into a funnel as he raced past Nell.
"Uncle Zack?"
"Second cousins, really. It's an honorary term."
"What did he do to earn the hard labor?"
"Stuck an ash can, that's a firecracker, in his history teacher's pumpkin. It was a damn big pumpkin, too. Blew that shit all over hell and back again."
"Now you're sounding proud of him."
He pokered up, as best he could. "You're mistaken. Idiot boy could've blown his fingers off, which is what I nearly did at about the same age when I blew my science teacher's pumpkin to hell and back. Which is beside the point, especially when we'll be in for similar Halloween pranks tomorrow if I don't make an example now."
"I think you did the job." She walked over, sat down. "Have you got time for another matter, Sheriff?"
"I could probably carve out time." It surprised him that she hadn't leaned over to kiss him, and that she sat so straight, so still, so solemn. "What's the matter?"
"I'm going to need some help, and some advice. On the law, I suppose. I've generated false identification, and I've put false information on official forms, signing them with a name that isn't legally mine. I think faking my own death is illegal, too. At least there must be something about life insurance fraud. There were probably policies."
He didn't take his eyes off hers. "I think a lawyer would be able to handle that for you, and that when all facts are known, there'll be no charges brought. What are you telling me, Nell?"
"I want to marry you. I want to live my life with you, and make those children with you. To do that, I have to end this, so I will. I need to know what I'm going to have to do, and if I'll have to go to jail."
"You're not going to jail. Do you think I'd let that happen?"
"It's not up to you, Zack."
"The false papers and so on aren't going to put anyone's sense of justice up. The fact is..." He'd given this angle a great deal of thought. "The fact is, Nell, once you tell the story you're going to be a hero."
"No. I'm no one's hero."
"Do you know the statistics on spousal abuse?" He pulled open his bottom drawer, took out a file and dropped it on his desk. "I've put some data together on it. You might want to have a look at it sometime."
"It was different for me."
"It's different for everybody, every time. The fact that you came from a good home and you lived in a big, fancy house doesn't change anything. A lot of people who think it's different for them or that there's nothing they can do to change their situation are going to look at you, hear what you did. Some of them might take a step they might not have taken because of you. That makes you