“Yolanda, hold my calls,” he says without changing his expression and leads me back through a door to his office behind her desk.

His office, though small, is very much like an up-and-coming

politician’s-on the walls is a picture of him with Bill Clinton and another with the once Surgeon General of the United States, Joycelyn Elders, who I recall as director of the Arkansas Department of Health helped start a controversial school-based clinic over here which made available birth control information. Directly behind his chair is a picture of him shaking hands with Jesse Jackson and Maynard Jackson, the former black mayor of Atlanta. This area of the state is heavily Democratic, and no serious candidate can afford to overlook it, despite the declining population. Beside the celebrities are framed certificates showing his participation in various law enforcement and community activities. On his desk is a picture of presumably his wife and his two children, both teenaged girls who look just like him.

“I’m originally from Bear Creek,” I say as I sit down, determined to make an ally of this man even though he surely must be convinced of my client’s guilt.

“But we didn’t have many big names stopping by here thirty years ago. I remember Orval Faubus campaigning once at the square, but I doubt you would have had his picture up here.”

Sheriff Bonner smiles politely, presumably blanching inwardly at the thought of the state’s most famous segregationist schmoozing for votes in his office.

“If the ugliest girl in town had the only car,” he points out, “there comes a time when it’s convenient to forget who used to ride around with her.”

“I guess you’re right,” I say, not about to rub this man’s face in

whatever compromises he’s needed to make to get where he is today.

Rubbing his chin, he asks, “Did your daddy own a pharmacy here a long time ago?”

I’ll take whatever mileage I can get out of Page’s Drugs.