This week I’m hosting Linda Hall with Critical Impact and Jill Elizabeth Nelson with Legacy of Lies. If you want to enter the drawings, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (October 24th) evening.
Interview with the hero from Legacy of Lies by Jill Elizabeth Nelson:
1.Rich Hendricks, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
In a long line of farmers, I’m the only cop. A pistol always fit better in my hand than a plow. But I do stay close to the land by serving in a rural community. Being familiar with farm and small town values helps me in my job.
2.What do you do for fun?
I hunt and fish in my spare time, but if I have a choice between that or hanging out with family, I’ll take family any day. It’s just me and my daughter now, since my wife passed away a few years ago. But my daughter is getting ready to fly the nest, and I don’t look forward to being alone in the house. That new woman in town, Nicole Mattson, gives me hope. Maybe . . .
3.What do you put off doing because you dread it?
I hate having to give bad news to people about loved ones. Unfortunately, it’s part of the job, and I don’t have the luxury of putting it off.
I do put off grocery shopping, though, until I’m down to my last moldy crust of bread. My daughter’s gone to Bible camp this summer as a counselor, and I had relied on her to keep the cupboard full. Now I’m on my own, and I never realized how confusing all the choices in the grocery store aisles could be. I’m confident with a rifle or a pistol, but hand me a grocery cart, and I quiver in my boots. Unless someone takes pity on me and provides a home-cooked meal, I’m doomed to restaurant fare or take-out pizza. Hopefully, Nicole can cook like her grandmother. But, honestly, I’d be interested in her even if we were both stuck with take-out for the rest of our lives.
4.What are you afraid of most in life?
Letting the perp walk due to some stupid mistake of mine. I believe in justice, both for society and for the victim of a crime. When justice miscarries, I take it personally, and I sure don’t want to be the cause. This cold case—dredging up that old business of the Elling baby’s kidnapping—gives me that in-over-my-head sensation. I’m not too proud to ask for help from an agency like the MN Bureau of Criminal Apprehension that deals with this sort of thing all the time . . . or to accept a hand from a local like Nicole.
5.What do you want out of life?
I want the peace of a clear conscience, the warmth of a loving family, and the satisfaction of a job well done.
6.What is the most important thing to you?
Doing right before God, and next is serving the public with integrity.
7.Do you read books? If so, what is your favorite type of book?
I’m more of a magazine-reading type of guy. Hunting and fishing magazines, mostly. A few police periodicals, too.
8.If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I don’t have much patience with the lame excuses people give themselves for doing selfish, or downright criminal, things. I don’t know how God puts up with us, and I guess I’d like a smidgeon more of His merciful disposition.
9.Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
No pets right now. I’m thinking about getting a dog though. Maybe a lab for pheasant hunting and for company at home—unless I get a wife. That would be much better! But I don’t think she’ll care to flush pheasants for me. 😉
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
I wish I’d been the investigating officer fifty years ago when the crime originally took place. I like to think I would have gotten to the bottom of things and helped right an outrageous wrong before decades of sorrow and evil festered to spew its poison on good folks today. Of course, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe back then I would have been as dazzled by the Elling fortune and influence as everyone else. I like to think I’m not that sort of guy, but truthfully, how can any of us say for certain what we would do in a different time and place?
