Hidden Heritage by Charlotte Hinger Page A

sheriff in the first slide? I didn’t recognize him as a Western Kansas law enforcement officer.”
    â€œWell, no. Actually, he was a professional actor. Naturally, we want to have the most effective video possible.”
    â€œAnd all the others? They, too, were actors?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAll the discussions were fake? You didn’t film a real meeting?”
    â€œNo,” he said, his voice crisp.
    â€œI have a question.” Everyone looks at Keith when he speaks. He carries natural authority. Not only because of his size and the timbre of his voice, but by his inherent wisdom. “Did you consult with any single person who actually lives out here?”
    â€œNo, we didn’t.”
    His stark admission didn’t surprise me. I had come to appreciate Dimon’s honesty and dedication—if not his humorless ways.
    A deputy from Copeland County spoke up. “Why the hell not?”
    â€œFrankly, we wanted people who were more objective and detached to devise the best possible plan that is realistically obtainable in today’s economy. We intended and still intend to discuss it with the general population later and make any necessary adjustments it might take to get it up and running.”
    â€œGood luck with that,” I mumbled. It would be impolite, self-defeating, stupid actually, to laugh out loud.
    Last spring, the construction and dedication of Saint Helena’s, our tiny little Episcopal church shared by four counties, had nearly revived the old range wars. Half of the counties in Kansas had had county-seat fights, many of them ending in bloodshed. In the early 1920s Goodland had hired a rainmaker and then sued the neighboring town of Colby when it rained there instead of the expected area.
    And this man actually expected the people in any given county to give up their sheriff? Their jail? For a regional system?
    â€œAny discussion?” Dimon asked.
    â€œI thought we were coming here today for a briefing about the murder in our feedyard,” Keith said. “The murder, remember?”
    Dimon’s lips thinned. “No questions? No discussion about the regional center? All right. I understand that. I understand you, too, Keith. We have a murder to solve. Maybe connected to something bigger than just local. I know that’s why you came here. But hear this,” he pointed to the last slide again. “This regional center is coming. It’s going to happen and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”
    Maybe. Other things, other developments had come whether we liked it or not. School consolidation, county consolidation, medical facility consolidation. Consolidation had been as unstoppable as the railroads pushing across the plains. Iron pushing through thousands of acres of sod. Iron pushing the buffalo ahead of it. Iron pushing Indians away, away.
    Consolidation as relentless and unstoppable as the wind farms dotting the prairies with their sleek towering structures dwarfing the aging old wooden structures. Corporate giants racing across the plains. The prairie was helpless to stop the onslaught.
    I looked at Keith sitting there, faking impassivity, and smiled. I knew what that look meant even if Dimon didn’t.
    â€œThe murder,” Keith said. “Carlton County called in the KBI to figure out who murdered Victor Diaz. Have you made any progress yet? Do you think there is a problem that reaches beyond Carlton County?”
    Dimon frowned. He wasn’t through with his lecture yet. He gazed steadily at Keith. His mouth lipped into a little gesture that passed as a smile for him. Then laying one finger aside his lips, the others cradling his chin, he studied my husband as though he were a scientist peering at a new species.
    â€œActually, we don’t have any evidence to support that. But, yes, we think so. The murder was too simply too suspicious to dismiss it all as happenstance.”
    â€œDrugs?”
    I recognized