Free Fatalis by Jeff Rovin

Academy, where his Marine training helped him graduate at the top of his class. He was assigned to a foot beat, Wilshire Area, and, after countless commendations, had risen to Commanding Officer of the Organized Crime and Vice Division.
    But he was beaten there too. Not by the ineffectiveness of his own units or by the enemy-the street gangs, the Mafiosi, or the ruthless new criminal families from Armenia, China, Colombia, and Russia. He was beaten by people outside the trenches, the judges and politicians who believed that the answer to crime wasn't hard time but compassion and rehabilitation.
    Rather than sit back and wait for his pension to kick in, Gearhart packed up his résumé and campaigned for the position of sheriff in Santa Barbara. He wanted to be in a place where the war was still winnable, where the people and leaders had a community vision and would support him. Backed by well-to-do emigres from Los Angeles, who had come an hour north to escape the crowds and crime, Gearhart got his chance. Some people, like Hannah Hughes, still believed that he was overzealous. But Gearhart viewed his job as no different from that of the forest rangers who looked after the local environment. Allow a single spark to go unattended and soon there would be nothing but flame, smoke, and ruin.
    Nearly two years after the election, Gearhart had earned the trust of most of the locals who viewed him as a carpetbagger. He had addressed the state legislature several times on matters of law enforcement. He'd justified the faith of the people who had supported him. But most important, he had the one thing he had always wanted.
    He was winning.
    As he started back toward the sinkhole, he vowed that nothing-no act of God, no madman, and no displaced predator-was going to change that.

Chapter Eleven
    Grand had climbed down the first hundred feet of mountainside, after which the ground sloped sufficiently for him to walk. He weaved his way through the pines that broke the otherwise flat landscape. He was perspiring from the exertion and the cool drizzle felt good. He had parked his sports utility vehicle just past Snyder Trail. After placing his duffel bag in the back, Grand climbed behind the wheel, turned on the wipers and heat, and sat for a moment. It was ironic. Jim Grand spent most of his time in the distant past, trying to think like the ancient settlers of this region-figuring out where they would have lived, how they would have hunted or fished, what they would have done with their dead. He never had any trouble returning to the present-until now. Before he saw Gearhart he wanted to try and flush some of the bitterness and rage away.
    It was difficult.
    Rebecca Schuman-Grand had died in a boating accident off Sandy Point on nearby Santa Rosa Island. She had gone out to assist an elderly colleague who ran a tortoise farm. Grand was going to take the day off and go with her. But he got caught up studying DNA results that had come in early-thanks to one of his students being in charge of the equipment-of nineteen-thousand-year-old fossilized sloth dung that had been found in a cave in Las Vegas. Rebecca's last words to him were a teasing, "You're always giving me one shitty excuse or another."
    That was it. Their good-bye. Just the one-liner, a kiss on the forehead, and she went smiling out the door.
    On the way back, Rebecca's small jet boat was rammed by a motor yacht that just didn't see her. The Santa Barbara coroner later determined that Rebecca had died instantly.
    The United States Coast Guard's Eleventh District Search and Rescue team-which was based on the Channel Islands Harbor in nearby Oxnard-and Sheriff Gearhart's own SAR team were both on-site in twenty minutes. However, after the Coast Guard's motor lifeboat carefully pried the jet boat from the prow of the much larger motor yacht, Gearhart insisted that they bring both vessels to Santa Barbara for impoundment. The ships remained at sea for nearly four hours until the SAR