Book Title: SHADES OF MERCY
Character Name: Porter Beck
How would you describe your family or your childhood?
Up until a couple of years ago, I would have been able describe my family easily and with lots of fond memories. But it turns out I’m not who I really thought I was. What I can tell you is that I spent more than twenty years in the army, and about three years ago I returned to the place I grew up, Lincoln County, Nevada. My mother died when I was a boy. Like a lot of folks who grew up downwind of all the above-ground nuclear tests in the 1950s, she got cancer. Pop is still kicking, though he has dementia now, and I took over the job as sheriff here, a job he held for more than thirty years. My adopted sister, Brinley, who knows more about guns than anyone I know, swings in and out of our lives like a pendulum, going from one extreme to the next. Our childhood was spent in the high desert here, in a county the size of Maryland but with only about 6,000 people. And while you might think things would be pretty slow around here, our proximity to Area 51 keeps things hopping – like when the aliens escape over the fence!
What was your greatest talent?
I have a fairly unnatural gift. Not many people in the world have it. I have Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM). I can recall past events in almost photographic detail, so if you ask me about a conversation I had with someone twenty years ago, I can tell you exactly what was said and by whom, and I can tell you what everyone in the room was wearing. Weird, huh? Only about 100 people in the world are cursed with this. I say cursed because, while I can remember things in such great detail, I can’t forget any of it. I think our brain shields us by forgetting things sometimes. The painful things. The horrible. I remember it all. Also, I seem to have a gift for languages. I think that’s a benefit of my HSAM because I remember exactly how words are spoken and can parrot them back with ease.
Significant other?
I’m in my late forties now, but I never married. And before you start making any rash judgments about that, it’s because I moved around a lot in the army. My job took me to a lot of places, and there wasn’t much time to meet someone to fall in love with. Now that I’m back home, I’m dating a wonderful female detective named Charlie Blue Horse, and I think she might be the one! You’ll have to tell me what you think.
Biggest challenge in relationships?
You might think it would be my HSAM, right? Because what an ass I might seem like to a woman when I recall exactly everything that’s said or done. Is that irritating? I don’t know. But my biggest challenge is a physical disability. It’s called Retinitis Pigmentosa, and it gets worse over time. Right now, I’m almost blind when the sun goes down, my vision narrowing to a tiny tunnel of light. It might be years before I lose all my sight. It might be next month. I worry about being a burden to anyone, and so my biggest challenge in finding someone to share my life with is overcoming that fear.
Where do you live?
Just outside of Pioche, Nevada, a small town and the heart of Lincoln County. I live at the place my parents built, on forty acres of high desert.
Do you have any enemies?
There are people from my past in Army Intelligence, people who work for our enemies, who would certainly like to hear that I’ve fallen into a deep hole somewhere, but generally I’m a pretty likeable guy.
How do you feel about the place where you are now? Is there something you are particularly attached to, or particularly repelled by, in this place?
When I was young, I couldn’t wait to leave this place. I grew to despise the remoteness, the smallness of it. It seemed almost everyone I knew had no plans to ever leave, and all I wanted was to escape and see the world. And I did. I saw a good part of it. And then suddenly I was home. I thought I would never miss it, but I was wrong. It’s a place of spectacular beauty, the mountains especially. But the people I care most about in the world are here, and that’s what makes a place worth living.
Do you have children, pets, both, or neither?
I’ve got no children. Yet. I’m forty-eight now, so that window started closing a while back, but we’ve got plenty of animals around the place. And I’ve recently hired a new deputy who happens to be a Labrador Retriever. His name is Frank Columbo.
What do you do for a living?
I’m the sheriff of Lincoln County, Nevada. Been doing it a few years now. It’s normally pretty quiet out here, but occasionally we get involved in some interesting things. That’s what happens when you live next door to a place that wasn’t officially acknowledged by the government until 2013. I don’t put much stock in UFOs, but I know a lot of people out here who do.
Greatest disappointment?
Not being able to see the stars at night. Especially out here where there is almost no light pollution. You can literally see the Milky Way. But like I said, I can’t see three feet in front of me in the dark. I really miss the stars.
Greatest source of joy?
I might not be able to see in the dark, but I am able to see what my sister has become. I’ve seen how happy she can be, and there is no greater joy for me than that.
What do you do to entertain yourself or have fun?
Lately for me, having fun has been all about spending time with Charlie Blue Horse. I think she might be the one. Maybe we’re not at that point yet. Maybe we are. But it’s as if she reads my mind and knows what I’m going to say before I do. She’s whip smart and can tell a good joke. Every second I get to spend time with her is gold to me.
What is your greatest personal failing, in your view?
I’m a keen believer in going with your gut. Seldom has that failed me. One of the times it did, it cost someone his life. He was my responsibility, and I made the wrong call. Am I going to change? Probably not.
What keeps you awake at night?
The prospect of waking up completely blind, where my vision is essentially gone every hour of the day. The idea that I’ll need someone to help me survive terrifies me.
What is the most pressing problem you have at the moment?
At the moment, I’ve got someone killing the government agents who are tasked with rounding up some wild horses. And I don’t think the FBI is chasing the right suspects.
Is there something that you need or want that you don’t have? For yourself or for someone important to you?
I want my dad to pass peacefully in his sleep before the dementia completely erases his memories of his life. It’s an absolutely brutal disease.
Why don’t you have it? What is in the way?
Nature is in the way. Physics. The universe. Call it what you will. It’s time, evolution, maybe even God. It’s the damn circle of life.
Porter Beck #2
In the usually quiet high desert of Nevada, Sheriff Porter Beck faces one of his greatest challenges—a series of unlikely, disturbing and increasingly deadly events of unknown origins.
Porter Beck is the sheriff in the high desert of Nevada, doing the same lawman's job his father once did now that he's returned home after decades away. With his twelve person department, they cover a large area that is usually very quiet, but not of late. One childhood friend is the latest to succumb to a new wave of particularly strong illegal opioids, another childhood friend—now an enormously successful rancher—is targeted by a military drone, hacked and commandeered by an unknown source. The hacker is apparently local—local enough to call out Beck by name—and that means they are Beck's problem.
Beck's investigation leads him to Mercy Vaughn, the one known hacker in the area. The problem is that she's a teenager, locked up with no computer access at the secure juvenile detention center. But there's something Mercy that doesn't sit quite right with Beck. But when Mercy disappears, Beck understands that she's in danger and time is running out for all of them.
Small Town | Thriller Historical | Mystery Police Procedural [Minotaur Books, On Sale: July 16, 2024, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9781250848093 / eISBN: 9781250848109]
BRUCE writes stories about families and the people who will do anything to protect them. If you enjoy contemporary fiction with themes of human struggle and the power of love, then you will enjoy Bruce’s novels.
A member of the Western Writers of America, Bruce is a near-lifelong resident of Nevada where he lives with his wife, who he met in the second grade, and all manner of animals. When he’s not writing, you can usually find him on a tennis court somewhere or at his cabin in the mountains of Utah.
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