The commotion with the skeletal remains discovered had since died down, due to the condition of the skeleton, it'll be a few days before there's an official statement.
There are talks of it possibly being murder, but due to the discovery being in what typically became a protected dune during spawning season, but until then, the skeletal remains have since been moved to the morgue where they'll remain under identified.
Sitting at his desk, Sheriff Lucian sighed as he went through the reports from today, how there's a possibility that mainlander police might come to the island to investigate a murder.
"Damn it!" Sheriff Lucian muttered as he dreaded the moment the island became ground zero with detectives on every corner, talking to every person, disrupting the seemingly quiet town.
Collecting the reports, Sheriff Lucian stacked them neatly, tapping them against the desk, before shoving them in his desk, and reaching in for his bottle of wine given to him by Dolores.
She'd always give him bottles of wine, though he warned her not to do it, because he's the sheriff, and it'd be against everything he stood for if he kept taking wine from her.
Still, she found a way of forcing it on him, and he couldn't argue against her.
Here he was, popping the cork, pouring out the wine in a wine glass, the vivid red swirling to the bottom as he filled it half-way.
A hint of clementine, vanilla, and cinnamon, as he brought the glass to his lips.
Before he's about to drink, he gets a phone call, and he's forced to sit the glass on his desk as he reached over to take the call.
Picking up the receiver, Sheriff Lucian gave a brief, "Sheriff's Department."
On the other end, he heard an excited, "You have to come to the winery!"
It's his wife.
Blinking, the sheriff echoed, "The winery? Bonnie, I can't leave my post."
He's on shift for another two hours and they're running short on people as it is, but Bonnie persisted as she excitedly said, "Mama caught one!"
Shushing her, Sheriff Lucian calmed her down, reminding her not to shout over the phone, and Bonnie apologized, before insisting that he come to the winery.
Shaking his head as he held the receiver, Sheriff Lucian pointedly yells at her, "We're already looking at an investigation, Bonnie!"
Despite his wife's excitement, Sheriff Lucian didn't have the same enthusiasm, the skeletal remains of the tax collector's already getting people in a tizzy, the last thing he needed was more!
"Don't you take that tone with me!" Bonnie grew irritated by Sheriff Lucian's tone of voice and he quickly apologized, before she calmly went on tell him how they have a treat.
Hearing the details over the phone, Lucian's eyes widened as he tried arguing against this, before Bonnie informed him that there's no investigators on the island.
He got played.
"Now, get over here!" Bonnie pointedly tells him before she hung up on him, leaving him alone to his thoughts, unsure if he wanted to attempt drinking his wine, when another phone call came through.
Initially, he thought it was Bonnie, again, and Sheriff Lucian gotten angry, as he picked up the phone, ready to yell at her, when he heard a man talking on the other end.
His temper quickly cooled and Sheriff Lucian listened to the man asking if he's the sheriff, with Sheriff Lucian affirming that he was, and he heard the man tell him, "Your… debt… will be… paid… tonight, sheriff. I… expect… you… to go… to the… winery."
Somehow, the man knew that Sheriff Lucian had gotten a phone call from Bonnie seconds before, made him turn around to see someone in one of the empty desks, but there was nobody in the building except him, everyone went home.
"Don't… forget… what… we… discussed… Lucas…" the man subtly threatened him, reminding him of a previous discussion that was held sometime ago, which Sheriff Lucian immediately recalled with clarity, nodding vicariously as he stated he hadn't forgotten the deal he made with the man on the phone.
The line went dead, Sheriff Lucian hung up, sat quietly at his desk, staring at the glass of wine that he'd left, unsure to drink it, on his mind, the conversation he had leading up to the deal he made, and the man holding it over his head since then.
A chance meeting, the man knew everything about him, knew all the answers without him giving them, it was chilling, then the man told him a series of events would occur, and it was then Sheriff Lucian took a deal with the strange man.
That deal served him well, but now it's time.
Briefly closing his weary eyes, he opened them again, compelled to repay his debt to the strange man.
Standing up from his chair, Sheriff Lucian exhaled sharply, finally reaching for his wine, drinking it in one gulp, resting the empty wine glass on the desk, the inside of it, a sticky red.
Retrieving his keys, the lanky sheriff walked through the empty department, reaching the front, where he exited, and gone around the side where the cruisers were parked.
Got into the one he normally drove, turned over the engine, and began making his way to the winery, passing the trelliss lined with various grapes cultivated over the years.
It was mere luck they managed to find a strain of grapes that'd survive on the island, since they've been relying on them for their wines, some said the salty air from the sea and the bitingly cold wind helped foster wine like no other.
Though despite this, there's underlying problems that've plagued the winery, carefully swept under the rug for years at this point.
Against his sworn code, Sheriff Lucian was forced to cover the winery's tracks, everything he did ensure that nobody knew the truth, but unfortunately, that was coming to an end.
It was bound to happen sooner than later and with the appearance of someone strikingly in the likeness of someone else herald the final act for this arc.
The blowback will be terrible, people's livelihoods will be at risk, and nothing could be done about it, because everything coming out at once, it'll be biblical.
The strange man warned this would happen, but as the sheriff quietly pulled up to the front of the winery, he knew it had to happen.
It was the only way.
Going up the concrete steps, every step felt heavier than the last, until he reached the top of the elegant entrance into the main area of the winery where tourists would go through when they wanted to go on tours around the winery and vineyard or visit the gift shop.
The doors open inward and he sees an excited Bonnie standing in the doorway, her lopsided smile greeting him as she immediately dragged him into the winery, closing the doors behind him.
Despite his attempts, Sheriff Lucian's helpless as Bonnie forcibly pulled him towards the hidden cellar, where he sees another woman waiting for them.
"Dolores, are you out of your mind?" Sheriff Lucian pulled his hand away from Bonnie as he stared at Dolores with ire, calling her choices into question, as they've began causing a stir.
Scoffing at him as she had her hands on her hip, Dolores leaned forward, chewing him out, "Without my help, we'd never get anywhere, is that the tone you take with me?"
Forcing his comments that wanted to lurch out of his mouth into his throat, Sheriff Lucian stated, "You got any idea what you're doing?"
Since they came here, everything gotten too warm for comfort, with them taking the natives, then the tourists, now they're looking at possibly swarms of officers coming from the mainland to investigate the disappearances.
It was different then, when the islanders didn't go mainland for hardly anything, but now that commerce took off, and the tourists, there's too much attention drawn.
Her lips contorting in a scowl, Dolores said, "I, at least, provide for my family!"
The hidden insult dug into Sheriff Lucian as Dolores mocked his inability, before he staunchly pointed out, "Imagine the hell if there were more of us running around on the island!"
Had it been different, there'd be an even more hell to pay, they'd be found out quicker.
Bonnie's cheerful face changed into a scowl as she spoke up with, "We wouldn't know, would we? Since the union, you spend more time with them than with your wife!"
Always stayed late at the sheriff's department, always took the calls, always gone out to take reports, anything to get out of coming home to her, and she grew irritated as Sheriff Lucian gave his reason, "We lost two of our men last year to transfers, everything stacked up!"
Losing two of his deputies to transfers into the mainland forced Sheriff Lucian's hand, he had to take more work to keep up with demand, especially around tourist season.
There are hardly enough people on the island as it is, he can't expect replacements to appear out of thin air.
The three squabbled until Dolores silenced them, pulling them back to the main topic at hand, she captured the alien that killed their family and left them desolate.
As an act of vengeance, she planned on draining every ounce of blood from him, until there's nothing left in those blue eyes of his!
"And if you're not with me, darling, then tell me, why should I keep you?" Dolores challenged Sheriff Lucian's hidden disposition.