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Lee Bodecker would never say he was a criminal. Most don't. But Lee wasn't, not really. He just took care of things others didn't. He knew when to look the other way. That wasn't crime…that was just…looking out for his community.
It started on the schoolyard, as a lot of things do. Squabbles where no teacher could intervene. Someone said something about a friend of his, and he wasn't going to stand for it. One summer in high school, he ended up as a filing clerk for the county, and he may have had a look or two at some files regarding the families of some guys who had been giving him grief. He started using that for leverage.
“Ah, Paul, you wouldn't want people to find out about your Pop, would you? Obscene behavior down at the Magnolia with another man?”
Paul's eyes had widened. It may or may not have been true, Paul knew. Pop did get into trouble with the law, but he didn't know all the details. If Pop got a bit squirrelly with other men, people might think that he, himself, was funny too. Paul opted to leave Lee alone and encouraged his buddies to back off too. Lee never actually divulged the information he had seen; he just let it be known on the downlow that he knew, and that seemed to be sufficient.
In school politics he saw how some of the dumbest guys got put into positions of leadership, even if it was just over a couple other guys. He saw the same thing in his hometown and wondered if he could go far in local politics by working the system. He had wanted to join the sheriff's department after high school, but they said he needed experience, so he joined the Army first. The current sheriff was a jack-off, and Lee didn't think he'd still be there when his four years was up. He'd have to watch and see.
Lee couldn’t use much coercion while in the military; he had no access to files here. Things didn't start going his way until he caught one of the guys with a girl who didn't look much older than his sister. That got under his skin. Sure, he could have gone to the higher-ups, but then there really wouldn't be evidence, and it would be a verbal back-and-forth. The girl looked scared to death, so once again, Lee took justice into his own hands and made an example of the man involved; a bar fight gone bad was what the military police had said; the soldier would recover eventually. Lee was the one who “found” the man outside one of the gates. He was commended for helping his fellow soldier. The injured soldier never said a word.
Eventually, Lee's time in the Army came to an end, and he found himself starting over yet again, this time with the sheriff's department in Ross County, Ohio. This had been his ultimate goal since high school: to work for the sheriff's department. It wasn't hard to go through the training; the Army had been tougher. Once again, Lee found out that a bit of coercion could go a long way with some folks. He also learned that looking the other direction for some things paid handsomely too. He wouldn't let a man slap his wife around, but if someone was trying to push other things in the county, he may have been blind to it. His line in the sand was where kids were concerned, only because he didn't want his sister getting involved with anything funny.
Lee learned the tricks of the trade. He knew when to keep his mouth shut, and he learned how to deal with business off the record. Sometimes all it took was a few guys to rough someone up to get the message across.
This wasn't crime. This was keeping his county safe. He vowed to keep his county safe when it came time for the elections. By then, he had a pretty thing on his arm to help improve his image. He would move heaven and earth for her.
Lee kept his word as the years went on. Ross County didn't have a lot of crime to begin with, mostly petty stuff, but occasionally something bigger flared up. It usually involved someone from the church causing a ruckus about some folks in the county imbibing marijuana. The church folks didn't want such sin in their county, even though Lee knew two of the deacons were involved down at the whorehouse. Lee said he would take care of it, and that amounted to Lee telling the growers and the smokers to take it to the woods for a while. Everybody was happy.
Lee was content with his place in the world. He had a beautiful wife who supported him. The county trusted him to keep the wiles of the city out of their little towns. Lee's life was good.