I almost opened my mouth to tell him he was our intern and stopped myself. He was willing to take adult risks, he would get an adult introduction. “He’s Ascanio Ferara of Clan Bouda. He works with me.”

Ascanio blinked.

Beau took a long look at Ascanio, probably committing the name and face combination to the extensive files in his sheriff memory. “So how’s business?”

“Fair to middling. How’s yours?”

“About the same. Things quieted down a bit in the last six months.”

“It’s because of your name recognition.” I opened my root beer and took a swig. “‘Beau the Brave’ has a certain menacing ring to it.”

Beau grunted.

“Imagine, in about three hundred years, they will tell legends about you,” I said.

“They will,” Derek added. “Beau the Brave, nine feet tall, able to behead ten vampires in a single swing.”

“Never thought about it much,” Beau said. “But if it keeps the ne’er-do-wells from causing mischief, I can live with it.”

“Ne’er-do-wells?” Derek asked.

“I read.” Beau looked slightly offended.

“Ancient literature?” Ascanio inquired. “Did it have words like ‘dame’ and ‘stool pigeon’ in it?”

“Do you make your deputies call you ‘copper’?” Derek asked.

“Have you two ever thought of taking your show on the road?” Beau asked them.

If Beau’s legend grew big enough and enough people believed in it, he would live for a long time and he might even grow taller. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that. He didn’t look comfortable with the whole thing as it was.

“So what can I do for you?” he asked.

I took out the scrap of the article and pushed it across the table toward him.

He glanced at the clipping. “What’s your interest in the Eakle brothers?”

“I don’t have any.”

“Ahh. You’re in the market for a gold winged horse.”

Gold? Julie’s notes said golden in color. “Something like that. Can you tell me more?”

Beau sipped his root beer. “Chad and Jeremy Eakle are Caleb and Mary Eakle’s sons. Nice enough fellows, but not a lot of brains between the two of them. Never been in serious trouble. My deputies had a few run-ins with them some years back, when they were in high school. Nothing too bad, typical petty things bored kids do: throwing beer bottles at stop signs, making bonfires, mooning people off the Cassidy Bridge. The usual. Both have jobs and families now. Both go to church.”

“Sound like good law-abiding citizens,” I said. Making Beau spill the beans faster would require more magic than my father and I could put together.

“Pretty much. Last Saturday, they were drinking beer and fishing in the Blue River Forest. They’d been at it for a few hours, in which they went halfway through a small keg from Jekyll Brewery.”