Kempton, who kept a careful eye on his own reputation and its possible value, also kept an eye on the whiskey in the evidence closet. The stack of wooden cases seemed to him visible testimony to his prowess as a scourge of bootleggers and as a lawman. He had no particular plans for his future. He liked and respected Sheriff McBride, and he liked his position as deputy, though, more often than not, McBride seemed to favor Wootan when it came to doling out responsibility, and Wootan wasn't shy about shoving responsibility in Kempton's face. Kempton thought that maybe, one of these days, he would like to have more responsibility, just to see how Wootan liked those apples.

Where McBride was hesitant to put himself in the public eye, Kempton didn't shy away from the newspapermen who frequented the diner on Main Street and even sought them out, buying them coffee, which, as a practicing Mormon, he did not approve of, but he was willing to abet others in the indulgence. It was not so much what you did as what people thought you did.

The troublesome aspect was the whiskey in the courthouse evidence locker. Or the lack of it. Kempton would transport whiskey seized in an arrest to the courthouse two days before the case went to trial. The whiskey was to stay in the courthouse for a couple of months after the trial, then be given back to the sheriff's office to be destroyed. Trouble was, it wasn't coming back.

And it wasn't piling up in the courthouse. It was disappearing. Someone was taking the liquor from the courthouse evidence locker. And that wasn't causing a great deal of concern because there had yet to be a need to bring the evidence back for a retrial. That seemed to show that whoever was taking the whiskey, and, surely, someone was taking the whiskey, knew what cases were open and what ones were closed. Kempton couldn't help but think of Kane Wootan. It was generally accepted that when there was trouble in Graham County, there was a Wootan nearby. They were like moths to the flame, except that they carried their own matches.