Sheriff Will Diaz discusses his days in Undercover narcotics.

A continuation of the interview with Sheriff Will Diaz. Will Diaz is the central character in the four novels that currently make up The Lawman Series. The fifth book is expected out about Christmas of 2025.

Muniz – Sheriff, you’ve said these things in the books. Tell us something you haven’t said in the books.

Sheriff Diaz – Like what.

Muniz – You’ve said some really strong things about the people who deal in illegal narcotics.

Sheriff Will Diaz – Oh, you mean like a comment I made in the Senate that I had more use for a serial killer than a dope pusher?

Muniz – That’s one.

Sheriff Diaz – I really irritated some people with that comment, didn’t I.

Muniz – You did.

Sheriff Diaz – When I worked narcotics, I saw first-hand what this stuff does to people. That shaped my thoughts.

Muniz – Can you give me an example?

Sheriff Diaz – When we first started working the streets, one of the first buys we made was from a girl named Debbie.

Muniz – You’ve mentioned her before. You guys used her a lightning rod of sort to get into the local dope stream.

Sheriff Diaz – Yeah. That’s exactly what she was. But Debbie not only pushed the stuff but used it. She worked as a stripper and every night she took her clothes off in front of people.

It was interesting and horrifying to see a human being fall apart. I mean from one week to the next, you could see it. When we first met her, she was a good-looking girl. By the time we’d worked the chain, which took almost a year later, she looked terrible.

Muniz – What effects are you talking about?

Sheriff Diaz – Debbie used Meth, and she was bad. Meth is one of those drugs that plays living hell with the system. Of course, they all do. And it probably wasn’t the only drug she was doing.

One of the first and most notable is weight loss. In the months we worked the chain, she went from a shapely, healthy girl to a living skeleton.

Muniz – What else did you notice?

Sheriff Muniz – Sores.

Muniz – Sores?

Sheriff Diaz – We’re talking sores of every shape and size. Here’s what else Meth does for you. It can cause a little psychosis, and one result is it can cause the user to pick at their skin. Debbie told us she had bugs crawling under her skin. She broke the skin with her scratching and the scratches got infected. And because of everything else the drug was doing to her; they took their sweet time healing. The stuff doesn’t do your immune system any favors, you see.

She also started getting a yellowish tint to her skin and the whites of her eyes. The stuff was affecting her liver functions.

Muniz – What happened to her?

Sheriff Diaz – Because of the work we did, we got into some labs. Warrants were issued. But about this time, she dropped out of sight.

We didn’t see her again for several months.

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Muniz – She was arrested when she came back?

Sheriff Diaz – We let the cops know she was back. The did pick her up.

But man, she looked awful. She looked so bad we didn’t recognize her right away. The surprise was she recognized us. She told us her heart was failing, as was were her liver, kidneys, and she was having seizures.

Muniz – She was dying.

Sheriff Diaz – Yes.

Muniz – What happened to her?

Sheriff Diaz – She was arrested. Truth be told, I think the local cops felt sorry for her. Debbie had nowhere to go, nothing to eat. She was worse than homeless. She died two weeks later in jail because of a heart attack. At least she died warm and having had a meal.

Muniz – Did you guys attend the funeral?

Sheriff Diaz – Odd as it sounds, we did. No one claimed her body. I don’t even know if she had anyone out there who worried about her. She was buried on a wintry day that threatened snow. Her grave was what we’d call a potter’s grave, and she was in a plain pine box. She had a few friends that came.

Oddly, these friends were the same people who fueled her habit. Everyone knew us from the bar and accepted us there.

Muniz – It was nice of you guys to go.

Sheriff Diaz – I wish I could say that our motives were pure on that. It was a calculated move on our part. But we all pitied her. In another time, place, and circumstances, we could easily have called her a friend.

None of us were so cold bloodied that we lost sight of these were people. Yes, they were breaking the law. Yes, they were hurting other people. But some place, somewhere, they were someone’s daughter or son. Someone’s mother or father.

But we used them as a tool.

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Muniz – I can see it bothers you about using people.

Sheriff Diaz – Let’s talk about that later. Okay.

Muniz – We’ve got a lot of things we’ll deal with later.

Sheriff Diaz – Promise, we will come back to it. But we went to her funeral and, truth be told, we pitied her.

Debbie was our lightning rod in life for getting into the drug system. Debbie was our lightning rod even in death. That we were there cemented us with the pushers. That opened doors into places we’d never gotten into otherwise.

That wasn’t meant to happen, but it did.

The real surprise was some of the local cops attended. There were bikers and dopers. It was odd. For at least a few minutes, faced with the common denominator of the grave, people came together.

I remember as we stood around the grave; it started to snow.

A store front preacher said a few words over her.

Someone asked if there was anything anyone had to say.

No one did.

Muniz – Was her grave at least marked?

Sheriff Diaz – There was a small metal holder that a card tucked inside with her name. The writing on it probably faded away within a few months. A girl Debbie danced with placed a small ceramic angel on the grave. I remember the angel was crying.

Muniz – If you could send the words back in time, what would you have said?

Sheriff Diaz – (Took a second composing his thoughts). I think I’d remind everyone there that we are made in the image of God. We’re Children of the Maker of the Universe. And he didn’t mean for us to end up in a box in a hole in the ground. He’d made Debbie beautiful and bright, and greed robbed us of her and countless others.

And that’s why I say I have more use for a serial killer than a pusher. The serial killer has an excuse. He’s nuts. What excuse does a Pusher have?

They know where what they pedal leads. Yet, they ignore it.

Muniz – If you could say one thing to the men and women who make, transport, and sell this stuff, what would it be?

Sheriff Diaz – Consider this. What are you going to say to God when he asks why you were associated with the deaths of his children? Or how you helped ruin their lives. Will your justifications fly with Him?

Consider your answer well while you still can.

CONTINUED

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