Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Dern’s attorney shifted awkwardly.
Dern didn’t move or speak.
“Now we got two dead bodies. A husband and wife. A father and mother.” Patterson’s tone was deteriorating. “A man and a woman who were just living their lives, paying their taxes, raising their girl, keeping their home, doing their jobs, and suddenly, their asses are hauled in by the local sheriff, aspersions cast on their characters for a crime it would be clear to any imbecile they did not commit.”
Dern reacted to that: he seemed in pain. Whether it indicated he carried guilt for what befell the Rainiers, or he understood at the very least, his reputation, which couldn’t stand another hit, was going to be tarnished beyond repair, Harry didn’t know.
But the pain was real.
“They went on the run, and gotta say,” Patterson didn’t let up, “I don’t blame them. The caliber of law enforcement in this county, I would have gone somewhere else to find help too.”
More reaction.
Dern’s face got red.
“And they got this close,”—Patterson held up a thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart—“to being able to report to someone what was going down, clear their names, shed light on the guilty, and they…got…dead. And the day after their bodies were buried in an unmarked grave on the side of a mountain, you…”—he jabbed a meaty finger at Dern—“you hauled their teenage daughter to your station, and you went at her like she was sitting on the plans of a fucking terrorist attack.”
Patterson was about to lose it, and his partner knew it, so she chimed in.
“You got any ideas how that might have happened to Sonny and Avery?” she asked.
“None whatsoever,” Dern replied, but it sounded like it came around a frog in his throat.
“You got an alibi for where you were May eighteen of that year?” Bashki went on.
Dern glared at her. “I was here, working the Dietrich case.”
“I’d like to reiterate the fact that my client had reason to suspect—” the attorney started.
“Shut the fuck up,” Patterson bit out.
Yeah, definitely losing it.
He turned to Dern. “I can barely stand to look at you. And before I hurl, I gotta take a break from being in the same room with you.”
With that, he got up and stormed out.
“Maybe it’s time for all of us to take a break,” Bakshi drawled.
She and Rus got up and left too, just not as dramatically.
Patterson joined Harry in observation, and they waited until the other two did the same before Patterson unleashed.
“The fuck of it is, we got nothin’ on that asshole,” he clipped. “It fucks me, but his lawyer is right. He set it up so interrogating the Rainiers seemed the logical step. How he did it, no. But I can’t arrest someone for being an overly zealous cop and a dickweed, as much as I’d fuckin’ like to.”
“We might be able to find some links between the Dietrichs and Dern,” Bakshi said. “But all we have is Avery Rainier’s journal saying a Fret County sheriff’s cruiser was in the Dietrichs’ drive, and Sonny thought it was Dern, not that he saw him. She recorded Dern followed them, but it was also known he had a thing for her, so we might be able to contend stalking, but she’s gone, so there’s nothing we can do with that. We can’t place Dern in Idaho, but I bet in this station, there’s evidence to place Dern as being in Misted Pines the day they died. Dern’s financials do not show an influx of cash, or anything hinky, that would say he got something out of the sale of the stolen items or the insurance payout. Unless we get another miracle like those journals, all we got on him is shitty police work with no follow through, and he’s essentially already been tried and found guilty for doing that, he did his time and paid his fine.”
“So you’re saying we’ve got to cut him loose,” Rus boiled it down.
“I want another crack at him,” Patterson said.
“And after that, you’ll have to cut him loose,” Bakshi added. “I think he’s coated in the filth of this. I think he was in on it. But I don’t think he knew how far it’d gone.”
Rus and Harry exchanged a look.
But this was where they were at.
With all of it.
Farrell, Ballard and Abernathy were all no-shows at work that day, with Ballard calling in again, but Farrell just not showing. Knocking on the doors of their homes garnered nothing.
Sean, Wade and Karen were out, talking to friends, family and co-workers.
And with regular shit to do on top of all this, he didn’t have the staff to sit on Farrell’s, Abernathy’s or Cheryl Ballard’s residences, and had to rely on random drive-bys and door knocking.
So until they got a hit on the Dietrichs, or had time to plow through what would come in now they had their warrants on the Ballard case, they were dead in the water.