Page 46 of Hello, Summer
She sat back down. “What are you doing here?”
“Me? I’m doing my job. Protecting this community.”
“No, I meanhere.How did you wind up in this Podunk county in the Florida Panhandle?”
He cracked a semi-smile. “My wife is a Cowart. Half the people in this county are related to her. It’s how I got elected. After we had our daughter, Elise wanted to raise our children around family. So here we are. And what exactly are you doing here, Sarah Conley Hawkins, formerly ofThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution,working for a Podunk weekly paper in the middle of nowhere Florida?”
“The same thing,” Conley said. “I’m sure Grayson told you I’m between jobs. I came home to check on my grandmother, and my sister guilt-tripped me into helping out on this story.”
“Not a very interesting assignment, compared to what you’re used to. Single-car fatality. No evidence of foul play.”
Conley jotted her contact information on a page of her reporter’s notebook, ripped it out, and handed it to the sheriff.
“On the contrary. I find this story fascinating. And I’d appreciate it if you’ll call me with any new information.”
“We’ll see,” he said.
She was out in the parking lot, about to get into her car, when she heard someone call her name. “Hey, Sarah. Hold on.”
It was the sheriff’s deputy she’d met that night at the crash scene, hurrying toward her. He was dressed in sweat-stained workout clothes, black spandex bike shorts, and a sleeveless red T-shirt. She couldn’t remember his name.
“Oh, hi, um—” She flashed an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, I’m completely blanking on your name. Skelly’s friend, right? Popp?”
“Walter. Poppell. These days, everybody calls meWalt.How you doing? Keeping busy?”
He placed a hand on her open car door. Looming over her, his presence was overpowering, as was the combined smell of sweat and a thorough drenching of his pine-scented body spray.
“I’m fine,” Conley said, taking a half step backward.
“You look really nice today,” Poppell said, letting his glance linger.
“Better than I looked that night out on the highway,” she said.
“Yeah. That was sick, right?”
She nodded and slid into the driver’s seat. “Good to see you again, Deputy. I’d better get going. Wouldn’t want to make you late to work.”
He stayed right where he was, with his hand on the car door. “So what are you doing here? I mean, you live over in Silver Bay, right?”
“For now. I’m staying with family. Actually, I was just checking with the sheriff about the victim of the crash.”
“Why’s that?”
“It’s kind of my job,” she said. “I’m doing a story for the newspaper.”
“That’s cool. You’re doing a story about the wreck, huh? I guess you already know it’s that senator dude.”
“He was actually in the U.S. House, but yes, that’s the plan. If I can get somebody to talk to me.”
Poppell glanced over his shoulder at the department’s front door. “The sheriff didn’t talk to you?”
“He talked, he just didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.”
“Like what?”
“Like the cause of death, for starters.”
Poppell snorted. “The dude fried to death! You were there.”
