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)
Or they’d drown in it.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Coors and Sundresses
Harry
That afternoon, Harry was in his office with Rus, running the day down.
The crux of what both of them had was dick.
No one knew where the Dietrichs were.
They had a son, Gerald Jr., who lived in Virginia, was some kind of lobbyist in DC, who did answer his phone.
And he reported he hadn’t heard from his parents in weeks but reiterated the lie they were in Seattle seeing to a relative. He wasn’t stupid enough to claim his grandma was still alive. He told Karen it was some great aunt once removed or some shit.
He then probably got right on his parents and told them they were fucked, but Harry’s team couldn’t do anything about that.
Pressure sometimes worked. Sometimes, people who did tremendously stupid shit smartened up when it went south, and their best bet was to sort it out or it would just get worse.
But it usually had to get pretty damned bad for them to pull their heads out of their asses.
The condo they told people they’d bought in Seattle to live in to look after Gerald Dietrich’s mother was not a condo they owned or lived in. As such, no one in his office knew where he was. But they did know, if he got in touch, they were to report it and tell Dietrich he needed to get in contact with the Fret County Sheriff immediately.
Deputies spent the day running down Kimmy’s list of businesses that the Dietrichs received goods and services from on account.
All of them reported the same thing Kimmy did. Non-payment for months, promises of restitution, weaponizing their attitude and entitlement to get people to back off, eventually making the debt good paying cash and not doing business with them again.
In fact, it seemed the Dietrichs ended up only living and maybe doing their grocery shopping in MP, otherwise, they’d burned all their bridges at shops, bars, restaurants, even the golf club.
A few of these vendors and businesses had threatened legal action, and got close to it, but Gerald and Michelle ponied up before that happened.
And this added pressure might have been why they took things to extremes.
Kimmy’s word was corroborated about living quiet too.
The Dietrichs might take most of their custom out of town, but deputies were told by a number of people, after the public money problems, the alleged robbery and the Rainiers going missing, the Dietrichs kept a low profile.
He worked at his export business, dealing mostly in sporting goods, with a focus on hunting gear and air rifles. She had a few friends she’d visit. Both came from money to begin with.
Other than that, they didn’t pull their Lord and Lady of Misted Pines bullshit at all.
Not since the Rainiers disappeared.
And now that the file was reopened, they were gone.
That said a lot to Harry, and it said the same thing to Rus.
Rus was hitting up banks and credit cards. Gerald and Michelle had two vehicles under license, and they had alerts out to other agencies to pick them up as persons of interest in a violent crime if their cars were spotted, and they were waiting for warrants to track cell phones.
Fortunately, the Feds were all up in this, and they could get shit done a lot faster than the locals.
It was the same with Cheryl Ballard, Karl Abernathy and Roy Farrell, just without federal backup.
Cheryl had called in sick the last two days at the bookkeeping firm where she worked.
Abernathy had put out a PI shingle in a neighboring town, and he wasn’t in his office when Harry’s deputies swung around. Harry had not bumped up against him since he left, so he figured Abernathy was doing cheating spouse cases, if he was getting any casework at all considering how little he was liked, and the state of his office. It was in a strip mall, and a
Google search Harry did on it showed a façade that wasn’t anything to get excited about.
Farrell had called in sick that day.
They too had alerts on them and their vehicles, and Sean was working on warrants for Abernathy and Farrell’s bank records and cell phones.
Tomorrow, they’d dig into friends, family and co-workers.
Unfortunately, all these fucks were going to make them work for it.
Harry just hoped something came of it.
They were wrapping things up when the screen lit on his phone with a call from Jason.
He glanced at Rus, who was staring at Harry’s phone.
Then he took the call and put it on speaker.
“Hey, Jace,” he greeted. “You’re on speaker and Rus is with me.”
“I’m here with Jess and Lynda, and you’re on speaker too,” he said. “Wade left. We told him we’d brief you. He wanted to get on the road with the Rainiers.”
Harry mentally made a note to tell Polly to call Pullman’s and give them a heads up.