Chiefs (novel)

Chiefs

Author	Stuart Woods
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Thriller novel
Publisher	Norton
Publication date	June 1981
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	432 pp
Followed by	Run Before the Wind

Chiefs is the first novel in the Will Lee series by Stuart Woods. It was first published in 1981 by W. W. Norton & Company. The novel takes place in the fictional town of Delano, Georgia, over three generations, as three different police chiefs attempt to identify a serial killer operating in the area. It is Woods' first published novel. As the author explains in a note, it was inspired by the story of his grandfather's death while serving as a police chief. Chiefs was made available in e-book format on January 23, 2012.

The First Chief: Will Henry Lee: The novel opens in 1919, when the growing town of Delano, Georgia hires its first police chief. The city council, led by banker and prominent investor Hugh Holmes, chooses farmer Will Henry Lee over Foxy Funderburke, an eccentric, wealthy, dog breeder and gun collector, for the job. Will Henry is unschooled as a policeman but is honest and determined to do the job well. Not long after he assumes his new responsibilities, the dead body of a young man is found naked at the bottom of a cliff. A medical examination concludes that the boy died from a broken neck as a result of his fall but also that he had been tortured—cuffed and beaten with a rubber hose—for some time before his death. The medical examiner tells Will Henry that the crime had a strong sexual component, and that while the boy had not yet been sodomized, the assault on him could have gone further had the boy not evidently escaped.

Will Henry conducts a thorough investigation but is frustrated in his attempts to locate the killer, not least because the uncooperative Skeeter Willis, the sheriff of Meriwhether County, of which Delano is a part, insists that the boy was killed by some of the many transients in the area at the time. Will Henry is unconvinced, but eventually runs out of leads. He believes that a second murder, taking place some four years later and just outside his jurisdiction, is connected to the first but has no real proof and no real authority to pursue the matter.

Finally, Will Henry hears from Skeeter Willis about a young runaway who might be passing near Delano and also learns that someone with a Delano PO Box had attempted to purchase a pair of handcuffs from a police supplier. The box belongs to Foxy Funderburke, whom Will Henry had questioned after the two murders, since the bodies were discovered near Foxy's property. Other clues also point in Foxy's direction. Looking around the property, Will Henry notices the outline of what appears to be a freshly dug grave but is observed by Foxy. As he rushes to obtain a search warrant, Foxy follows, intending to kill him, and so is nearby when Will, diverted by a problem involving the Coles, a black family that had once worked for him, is shot and killed by the black father, who is in the grip of a malaria-induced delirium. Will Henry dies as the shooter's teenage son, Willie, is escaping to relatives in another town.