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

Rich Muniz – I’d never heard that story about running that guy into the ground.

Sheriff Diaz – Can’t say I was proud of it. But he got the point. Some people forget there’s a difference between being boss and bossy.

Muniz – One thing I’m curious about?

Sheriff Diaz – Oh-oh!

Muniz – Yeah. Oh-oh. You were called by several people as one of the best investigators in the world.

Sheriff Diaz – Nope. I’m not that good. People forget or don’t know that I oftentimes just got lucky.

Muniz – Whatever. Why didn’t you join CID?

Sheriff Diaz – Do you really want the answer to that?

Muniz – I think your readers would like to know.

Sheriff Diaz – Okay. My stinking temper.

Muniz – Your temper?

Sheriff Diaz – Yeah. You forget, I’ve got a big one!

Muniz – How odd. Everyone I know says that when the defecation hits the rotary oscillator, you’re the calmest guy in the storm. That you always know what to do and you’re steady at the helm.

Sheriff Diaz – Well, there’s such a big difference in working the problem and panicking.

Muniz – So what happened?

Sheriff Diaz – I don’t think we’ve ever spoken about the robbery that happened at the Officers Club at Ft. Riley.

Muniz – Off and on, but never much.

Sheriff Diaz – I’d put in an application for CID and from all appearances, it was going to be green-lighted. Then the O-Club happened. It was a Sunday, I recall. I was duty-investigator that day. The manager had his back to the door and the safe open when a man walked. The man told him not to turn around, that he had a gun. Again, without turning around, he told the manager to give him what was in the safe.

Of course, the guy did. And the second he was gone, he called us. We converged on the O-Club.

Once I got the place secure, a team of MPs and I did a sweep of the building to ensure the perp was gone. Then I asked the manager a question. I wanted to know how much the guy got away with.

“About sixteen thousand,” he answered.

“About?”

” I’m not sure to the penny. Receipts haven’t been added up yet.”

Like any good manager, he kept a running balance in his head and while it wasn’t exact, he’d know roughly where they were.

But he also gave us one other piece of information. “I think I know who the guy is.”

He told me of a former employee who had worked there till the week before. He didn’t see the guy, but he sure knew his voice.

A quick cross check showed his wife was military, and they lived in enlisted housing on Custer Hill. I called in one the MP NCOs and briefed him. “I’m going to see if can get Jonesy or Terri to go with you and you guys put the collar on the guy.”

I called the Barracks. Jonesy was happy to go up with them. They went up and about fifteen minutes later, Jonesy called me. “We got him, Will. And we recovered fifteen thousand, three hundred and seventy dollars.”

“Did he spend any anywhere?” I asked.

“He said he stopped at the shopette on the hill and bought a couple of cartoons of smokes, and a twelve pack. We found the receipt in the car.”

They cuffed and stuffed the guy and took him down to the station.

And that’s when CID showed up. They also asked the manager how much there was and he said, “About.”

According to Webster, the word “About” means in the general neighborhood. Well, they ignored that word. Even after the receipts were added up and it bore out what the amount minus what he spent at the shopette was correct, they insisted there had been sixteen thousand dollars.

They accused me and or my MPs that we’d stolen some six hundred dollars. Their working theory was the guy dropped it and we picked it up.

Muniz – What did you tell them?

Sheriff Diaz – I told them they were full of shit.

Muniz – So what happened?

Sheriff Diaz – They called me and all the MPs in and advised us of our rights and questioned us regarding theft. And when no one admitted to stealing money that wasn’t there, they polygraphed us.

Muniz – And if you told them to stuff it.

Sheriff Diaz – They told us we wouldn’t be MPs anymore.

Muniz – So, they put you all on the box.

Sheriff Diaz – They did. Afterwards, the polygrapher said we were clear, but deception was still indicated.

Muniz – What did you tell him?

Sheriff Diaz – I told him to make up his mind.

Muniz – And what did he say?

Sheriff Diaz – He said that’s what his reading said. And then he asked if I had anything to say. I smiled and told him, “You know that little speech Captain Kirk makes at the beginning of Star Trek. The one about going where no one has gone before?”

“Yeah,” he answered. I think he knew where I was going with it.

“Take your box and go there. And when you get there, you know what you can do with your box.”

Muniz – Then what happened?

Sheriff Diaz – He’d done the same thing with all the other MPs. Not all of them were as nice as I was.

The worse part of it was I saw their final report. Nowhere was the work we did even mentioned. And they were still insisting that there was six hundred dollars missing.

Two weeks later, I got my orders to go to CID school. I turned them down.

Muniz – Why?

Sheriff Diaz – I refused to be part of an outfit that took cases that were already solved and claimed them as their own. And I sure as hell wasn’t working for an outfit that couldn’t add and subtract.

Muniz – So you were angry.

Sheriff Diaz – Boy. Do you have a gift for understatement. I was royally pissed. For a long time, there was a lot of bad blood between me and CID.

It would be a couple of years before that was fixed.

Muniz – So how does that factor into your temper?

Sheriff Diaz – I let my anger take over. The robed us of the glory of the kill. And then accused me. Accused us of being thieves!

I should have just let it go, but didn’t.

In a fit of self-righteous anger, I denied myself what could have been an outstanding career. I let my temper blow it for me.

Muniz – You know what?

Sheriff Diaz – What?

Muniz – I think you’re still upset about this!

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