Drama in the sheriff’s office unfolds, and parallels a contested election.

By all accounts, former Monterey County Sheriff’s Det. Sgt. Brian Pickens was a cop’s cop, what they call “natural police.” He’s maybe a little cowboyish (“unorthodox” is an adjective a few people used to describe him) but they also say he liked nothing more than taking guns and drugs off the street. Pickens liked doing the job. More importantly, he respected the job. He worked hard at it and he expected those who worked under him at the sheriff’s office to respect it as much as he did and work just as hard.

If they didn’t, he didn’t hesitate to call them out on it. When you do that, it tends to piss people off. And when you do that in the highly politicized atmosphere of a law enforcement agency, you also tend to make a lot of enemies.

Earlier in March, after 29 years on the job, Pickens turned in his retirement papers and left a job he loved but that no longer loved him back. The reason behind it is at the heart of a Monterey County District Attorney’s investigation into purported corruption at the Sheriff’s Office.

To get to that part, though, we have to go back to a series of incidents that started things.

Last fall, a sheriff’s commander was fired and four detectives working under him reassigned to other duties after someone within the department alleged they had been drinking on the job. Pickens wasn’t one of them, but after word of the on-duty partying reached Sheriff Steve Bernal, Bernal launched an internal affairs investigation. Pickens was interviewed as a witness in the “Pizzagate” investigation (so called because the alleged partying took place at a Salinas pizzeria). When investigators asked what he knew, he was reportedly candid.

If Pickens had pissed off co-workers in the past, well, he hadn’t seen anything yet.

After the firings and the reassignments, someone sent an anonymous letter to the Monterey County District Attorney alleging corruption in the sheriff’s investigative unit, and laying the blame at Pickens’ feet. The letter reportedly portrayed Pickens as the Machiavellian puppetmaster of the bunch.

The DA’s office launched an investigation.

According to two sources with knowledge of the investigation who asked to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to speak in an official capacity, about two dozen deputies have been called in and questioned. The Sheriff’s Office is cooperating, and has asked for any audio recordings of interviews to be forwarded to them after the investigation is complete so that Internal Affairs can determine if any policies were violated.

“The investigation is almost complete,” says Chief Assistant District Attorney Berkley Brannon. “The sheriff’s office has been extraordinarily cooperative and we have kept them abreast of the investigation.”

Sources says the investigation might reveal procedural errors, but has so far found nothing that has risen to the level of criminal behavior. And procedural issues would be dealt with in-house.

As the DA’s investigation is taking place, an election is shaping up, one that pits Bernal – the guy who ordered the Pizzagate investigation – against one of his deputies, Scott Davis. Bernal is unable to comment on a pending investigation, and Davis didn’t return a voicemail.

Both the fired commander and the reassigned detectives are members of a politically powerful union, the Deputy Sheriffs Association. While many union members live outside the county and thus aren’t able to vote in Monterey County elections, the union has a war chest and a Political Action Committee through which it funnels money and muscle to candidates and causes it supports. (In 2014, one of those candidates with the DSA’s support was Bernal.)

This election is already shaping up as peculiar, as a campaign consultant who formerly worked for Bernal is now in the employ of Davis – and the Deputy Sheriffs Association. That consultant, Christian Schneider, has been paid just over $27,000 by the DSA since last May, according to a copy of the DSA check register that was forwarded to me by a source, while the Davis camp has paid him about $21,000.

There may a second race to watch this election cycle: cowboy v. Pizzagate.

MARY DUAN writes The Local Spin for the Weekly. Reach her at maryrduan@gmail.com