Privileged to Kill (Hardcover)

Cruising along state road 17, Undersheriff Bill Gastner is sitting warm and comfortable in his patrol car, looking for no one or nothing in particular, when he first lays eyes on Wesley Crocker, who is pushing his baggage-laden old bicycle toward Posadas along the road's shoulder. Gastner notices the man's flat tire and offers him a lift into town. Now, Gastner is not one for small talk or nosy questions, and Crocker strikes him as a good man. A good man in need of a good meal, but a good man all the same. Gastner drops him off in front of the Don Juan de Onate Restaurant, having learned little about the traveler, but soon afterward, a child's body is found beneath the high school's bleachers. The traveler is camping in the neighboring field and quickly becomes the police chief's suspect. Gastner may regret not having done a bit more snooping when he had Crocker in the passenger seat, but he can't argue with his gut instinct: Wesley Crocker may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he did not murder this child. In this fifth outing, Gastner remains arthritic, overweight, insomniac, and in otherwise fine form as he sifts through Posadas County's greater egos in order to find out what happened that night under the bleachers.