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)
Harry felt his pulse thump.
“She paid in cash?” Harry asked.
“Three-thousand-five-hundred-some-odd dollars in cash,” Kimmy confirmed. “I keep my receipts, Harry. Would have to dig, may take some time, but you need it, bet I’d be able to find it.”
“I don’t know if I need it, Kimmy, but it won’t hurt to have it,” he told her.
“Then I’ll get on it.”
Harry narrowed his eyes on her. “That all you got?”
She jerked up her head. “What’s concrete that I know. But you want rumor and innuendo?”
Fuck yeah, he wanted everything he could get on Gerald and Michelle Dietrich.
“Hit me,” he invited.
Kimmy didn’t hesitate.
“Gerald and Michelle made an art of in-your-face living large. They wanted everyone to know they were the haves, and the rest of us poor suckers were the have-nots. They both came from money, and I guess that crap is ingrained in people like that.”
Not all of them, but some, definitely.
Kimmy continued, “So they weren’t big on letting that reputation slip, even if, around that time, they were living large everywhere ‘on account.’ It wasn’t only me they strung along, waiting to get paid. And it wasn’t only me they threw attitude at for expecting money for goods and services rendered, pulling the ‘loyal customer, how dare you’ card. They sure did quiet that all down once they got stuff sorted, though. They burned a lot of bridges, but it wasn’t that. It was like, they were suddenly being careful not to bring any attention to themselves.”
It sucked, but the truth of it was, rumor and innuendo often uncovered the nasty shit.
As Kimmy just proved.
“And you’re absolutely certain all of this happened around the time the Rainiers disappeared,” Harry pushed.
She gave him one nod. “Absolutely. Wasn’t long after, Michelle came in with her cash. Now, I know some time has passed, but we didn’t have serial killers hanging around back then and no sex tape scandals were going down. It wasn’t usual for people to get robbed and other people to go missing. So I remember.”
That worked for him.
“You know who they had these accounts with?” Harry asked.
“I’ll go back to my shop and write you a list. Then I’ll get on that receipt.”
“It’d be appreciated, Kimmy.”
She gave him a salute that was so smart, it had the Christmas tree on top of her skull wobbling, then she trudged out.
Harry stared at the door, thinking insurance fraud was so fucking on the table.
The shit of it was—with what was reported missing, which meant the claim paid out was hundreds of thousands of dollars—this would land the Dietrichs into the felony arena for fraud, and that carried prison time as well as fines. He’d seen people kill for much less.
But as far as he knew, that couple had their rough patch, got beyond it and carried on with their lives. They might have been quieter about it, but they did it.
So, if Lillian’s parents lost their lives in that deal, whittling this down, the Dietrichs took those lives for the sole purpose of not only not wanting to sort their shit out in a legal way, but also not wanting to lose face.
And that was some petty-ass shit.
Harry stood still, having to take a second to calm himself down so he didn’t do something man-stupid, like throwing his computer through the window.
When he got a lock on it, he sat down and called Rus.
First, he wanted to know where the fuck the Dietrichs were.
And second, he was allocating Rus not only Karen, but Sean, because once Kimmy gave him her list, they were going to run down everyone on it.
And then keep digging.
TWENTY-ONE
Under the Bus
Harry
Later that afternoon, Harry was standing outside the county morgue, waiting on Rus to show.
He was also texting the twins.
At the same time, he was structuring dual investigations in his head. One that went after answers for Muggsy Ballard’s family, and the other that would hopefully find justice for Sonny, Avery and Lillian.
He had responsibility for an entire county. Though it wasn’t anywhere near overpopulated, they had a lot of tourist traffic, and considering the state of human nature, once the Ray Andrews deal happened, that tourist traffic ratcheted up significantly, and on top of all that had gone down since, it hadn’t diminished.
This was good for the town of Misted Pines. It was bad for law enforcement.
In other words, his deputies didn’t twiddle their thumbs.
But he only had one investigator, outside himself, and that was normally all right, considering it was Rus, and he was literally one of the best in the business.
Now, though, Harry also had thirteen other cases they needed to run shit down on.
Wade had never made any murmurings of sitting the detective’s exam, but Karen and Sean had.
Wade had been on staff the longest, and Harry trusted him with his life.
But he needed to carve out some time to encourage all of his deputies to look toward future advancement.