An Interview with Sheriff Will Diaz – Part 16 – Fallout from Olympus

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.

Rich Muniz – There was life after Max left the team?

Sheriff Will Diaz – There was life. Boy was there life.

Muniz – A question I need to ask. What did this do to your marriage?

Sheriff Diaz – Truth be told, I think it was in trouble before I even started with the team. None of this helped. There were a lot of things that happened.

Muniz – Such as?

Sheriff Diaz – We, meaning my family and I, had gone into the Junction City Walmart. We’re going down an aisle and who do I see coming up it? One of the very guys we were working to get into the chain. He hadn’t seen me and I sure as hell didn’t want him to see me with my family.

I did a one-eighty and warped out of there.

Muniz – What did your wife do?

Sheriff Diaz – She accused me of turning to follow a girl in short shorts.

Muniz – Was there a girl?

Sheriff Diaz – Hell if I know. All I knew was I’d worked a very carefully crafted cover. And that would have blown that and almost six months’ work right out the window. And I couldn’t even let them think I had a family.

Muniz – So, that was a defensive maneuver on your part.

Sheriff Diaz – Purely. When I tried to explain what had happened, she said, “I would like to have met them!”

Muniz – You’re kidding. What did you say?

Sheriff Diaz – Just that. Are you kidding? I told her you don’t want to know these people. They didn’t know about her and the kids, and I’d just as soon keep it that way.

Muniz – What did you do after that?

Sheriff Diaz – We stopped going into Junction City. In fact, we moved to Ogden, Kansas, a small town just outside of the post.

Muniz -What were so other times?

Sheriff Diaz – Without going into too much about what happened, we got into one major lab. It took a lot of time, and we had to team up with DEA to do it, but we did.

Muniz – You’ve kind of alluded to this in the books. You described in Event Horizon of meeting a Junction City cop during the manhunt. He was the one who busted you as an undercover agent.

Sheriff Diaz – (Laughs.) Yeah, that was fun. It’s not every day I end up with a .357 Magnum screwed in my ear. Worse, I was treated as a bad guy.

Muniz – How did you get in there?

Sheriff Diaz – We worked our way into the lab. We made a massive buy out of it. And we learned some things we hadn’t expected.

Muniz – Who’s we?

Sheriff Diaz – Terri and me.

Muniz – How did you manage that? You said some of these people had issues dealing with members of another race.

Sheriff Diaz – Actually, it wasn’t all that hard. She’s pretty and can talk a line of bull better than anyone I know. We handled the racial things easily. I told everyone she was my girlfriend.

You know, I’m not sure I should be talking anymore about that operation than I already have. Suffice it to say after a lot of hard work, we took down a major lab.

Muniz – Are you sure you can’t talk about it.

Sheriff Diaz – I’ll let you know. Move on.

Muniz – Since you took the place down, all’s well that ends well, I suppose.

Sheriff Diaz – Not really.

Muniz – What do you mean?

Sheriff Diaz – Well, you want the stuff that isn’t in the books. Here it is. My then wife accused me of having an affair with Terri! We were spending more than a little time together on this operation. I don’t know where she got it, but she decided we were doing something besides buying dope.

Muniz – What did you say?

Sheriff Diaz – I told her, “You do not screw your partner, literally or figuratively.” It was some advice I received as a young officer from a street cop I knew. I always thought it was good advice. Getting that involved with anyone not your spouse can blow up in your face.

Terri and I both know that. We denied it, but whether she believed us or not was a whole different question.

But I guess that’s the problem. We had a huge victory. But there was a payment demanded for it.

Muniz – Are you sure about that? That you guys didn’t have anything going on?

Sheriff Diaz – Not a thing.

Muniz – I’ve met Terri. She’s very pretty. And I see how you two interact. It’s obvious you care for each other a lot. Would it be safe to say, you love her?

Sheriff Diaz – Of course I love her. We’ve been friends for a very long time and been through some tight spots. But it’s not romantic love. It’s the kind of love among siblings. She’s my sister.

It’s what I was trying to explain easier. You can have Love without Sex. People don’t get that. They want the scandal.

Muniz – So what did you guys do?

Sheriff Diaz – We’d spent a very productive year with DST and then it was time to rotate out. About this time, something happened that didn’t help our case. Jonesy, Terri, and I all came down on orders to go to MPI school at Ft. McClellan. The big surprise here was Max joined us.

Muniz – So, you all went to school?

Sheriff Diaz – And when we came back, I can’t say things had improved.

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