5. The Best in The Business
FIVE
The Best in The Business
Harry
I t was taxing even Harry’s patience to sit at his desk and re-read the Dietrich robbery file, especially the notes of the interviews Dern conducted with Lillian.
Harry had read them before he met her, and they felt dirty to him then.
He read them now in a different light, and now they read as filth.
Dern had personally interviewed her at her home, which had to be daunting for Lillian, especially since he’d done it when her parents were at the station being interrogated, and she’d just been up all night doing a shift at work.
After her parents had run, Dern had then pulled her into the station, when that was entirely unnecessary.
It also was straight-up intimidating to a teenage witness who had no apparent connection to the crime outside her relationship with two suspects who had such a slender link to the offense, it couldn’t even be described as a thread. Further, she’d never been in trouble with the law and was vulnerable, considering her parents were the surprise suspects in a crime and had disappeared.
And Dern had gone hard at her, clearly in an effort to break her in order to coerce her into saying something that would incriminate her parents.
He’d done this even though there were no witnesses placing Sonny or Avery Rainier at the scene, and Sonny’s fingerprints being there were likely left after he did the many odd jobs that the Dietrichs themselves shared they’d hired him to do.
Although Sonny’s prints were everywhere, they’d only found one of Avery’s. And it was so obviously placed, it was laughable, and it demonstrated how untouchable Dern thought he was.
The Dietrichs had reported that Simon “Sonny” Rainier told them he was having money problems and had asked them for a loan. They’d further reported he’d not been happy when they’d turned him down. They’d shared his demeanor was aggressive and desperate.
They’d shared this when no one, even Lillian, who had access to their bank accounts, which had three thousand in checking, and seven thousand in savings and a money market at nearly ten, corroborated their story.
There had been no interviews conducted with informants that could tell them if Sonny or Avery dealt with local bookies, loan sharks or dealers to see if they had a debt that twenty grand couldn’t cover. Nor was there any evidence in the file that the police had gone to any stores or suppliers Sonny or Avery might be in arrears with. No friends or clients came forward or reported under interview that Sonny or Avery had mentioned money issues, asked for a loan, or had gambling, drink or drug addictions. And pulling their credit card histories showed they paid them off in full, every month.
They obviously had a thing about debt, since they not only owned their home outright, they only had one car, and they owned that outright too.
Lillian had given her mother and father an alibi, a thorough one.
That evening, they were home and Lillian sensed nothing amiss. Her mother had made hamburgers and homemade fries for dinner, and Lillian had helped. There were caramel chocolate brownies with ice cream for dessert, and Sonny made those.
They’d then watched TV, and Lillian had stayed up to study before she had to go to work. Her mother dropped her at work. Her protective father had called twice while she was at the gas station, and swung by to visit with her, sticking around for about forty-five minutes before he went home.
As usual, her mom was up and had breakfast ready for Lillian by the time Sonny went to get his daughter and bring her home.
Shortly after, both were picked up for questioning about the robbery.
The night of the robbery, the Dietrichs had been at a party, gone from six thirty, returning at twelve forty-five.
Lillian left for work at a quarter to eleven, and since Avery took her, the drop off caught on an outside camera at the gas station, it gave Sonny and Avery less than two hours to drive the twenty minutes to the Dietrichs, ransack their house, steal jewelry, crack open a safe and lift its contents, grab five rifles and four handguns, and drive away in a stolen Jeep and a Chevy Tahoe, at least one of them having to return to get their own vehicle, before the Dietrichs returned.
It wasn’t an impossible crime, for, say, a career criminal.
A husband and wife finding themselves in money straits pulling it off, including cracking open a safe, was see-through it was so thin.
Sonny was caught on a surveillance camera inside the gas station, arriving at one twenty-seven, and he’d stayed, as Lillian had explained, until two-oh-eight.
Harry had viewed that surveillance video and saw a tall, handsome man with dark auburn hair who didn’t seem to have a care in the world as he chatted with his girl, ate a pack of peanuts he bought at the station and chased them down with Fresca.
Watching that video made Harry’s gut burn.
This was a man who worked hard, that work physical, and he loved his daughter so much, he was up at one in the morning and hanging with her at a gas station because he wanted to do what he could to keep her safe.
The man had to be out of his mind when he and his wife were forced to leave that daughter behind.
And Harry wouldn’t even allow himself to contemplate what was going through their heads the moments before the bullets entered their brains.
The picture was forming, and Harry was seeing they didn’t leave Lillian because they were all good just as long as they had each other.
They left her because they knew the danger would follow, and she was safer at home.
Preliminary interviews with Sonny and Avery done before they saw the writing on the wall and hauled ass, or got tweaked by what might turn out to be the severity of the situation if those bodies were actually them, and they again hauled ass, repeated the same things Lillian said…to the letter.
And no matter how Dern tried to wear her down, both of Lillian’s interviews held up. There wasn’t the slightest deviation in her story, or how it corroborated her parents’.
For some reason, Dern and/or the Dietrichs had targeted them.
What Harry needed to know was…why?
Did he think he could punish Avery not responding to his attentions by fucking with their lives?
Or was this something uglier, shadier, deeper?
Something that had to do with the Dietrichs, who were very clearly in on it, as they immediately pointed the finger at Sonny.
The statute of limitations may have long since expired on the robbery, but considering it wasn’t investigated at the time, it had not expired on insurance fraud, and the Dietrichs had seen a big check after that robbery.
And murder had no statute.
Harry heard them coming before they arrived at the open door to his office, which had Harry reaching to his mouse and clicking to another window he’d opened earlier on his screen.
He quickly scanned his bank balance again, before he closed the screen.
And then Jason and Jesse Bohannan walked in.
He’d called them because a sixteen-year-old crime he couldn’t move forward in any tangible way, one where there was no violence or loss of life, was not something he could, in good faith, spend his department’s resources investigating.
At least, not until (or if) those bodies were identified and tied to a robbery in Misted Pines.
But he could spend his personal resources on Jace and Jesse investigating it.
What Harry knew was, whatever was going to happen, he was damn sure going to get a head start on it.
Seemed it turned out to be good he’d lived a shadow of his life, spending his money on his mortgage, gas for his truck, food that kept him healthy, dry cleaning for his uniforms, and a new pair of jeans and a few shirts every couple of years, because he had a good amount saved up.
Cade Bohannan’s boys were just barely in their early thirties, but considering their father was their mentor, they were still the best in the business.
And they cost a whack.
They were twins, and Harry had learned a long time ago how to tell them apart.
Jesse was cocky as fuck and wore that like a badge of honor.
Jason was so confident, he didn’t have to bother with any badge.
Other than that, they were identical.
“You called,” Jesse drawled after he’d folded his long body in one of the chairs in front of Harry’s desk, Jace doing the same in the chair beside him.
Harry flipped the Dietrich file closed and shoved it across his desk at them.
Jace leaned forward and took it.
“Robbery. Sixteen years ago,” he began. “Clear evidence Dern was trying to frame a couple for the crime. He had a thing for the wife, she only had a thing for her husband. Could be, Dern didn’t like that much and intended to show her who had the power.”
Jace’s lips got tight. Jesse’s eyes got hard.
Like all of Fret County, the twins hadn’t been shielded from Dern’s corruption.
“They hightailed it and haven’t been heard from since,” Harry continued. “Until the cops in Coeur D’Alene ran the serial number on a gun they found in a grave alongside two sets of remains. That gun was reported stolen in that robbery.”
“Fucking hell,” Jason muttered.
“This have to do with Sonny and Avery?” Jesse asked, and Harry’s back straightened.
“Did you know them?”
“Know their girl Lillian was the hot number in school,” Jesse said. “She graduated before we got there, but her legend remained.”
Harry could see that.
“And Dad dug Sonny,” Jace shared. “Dad’s a do-it-yourself kind of guy, but he’d call Sonny every once in a while, if he needed an extra man on a job he was doing around the house. It was a long time ago, you’d have to ask him, but think they’d share a drink on occasion.”
“I do know Dad thought shit was off when they ghosted,” Jesse added.
Harry scratched a conversation with Cade on his to-do list, but that already said a lot. Cade Bohannan was known as one of the best criminal profilers in history. If he had Sonny anywhere near his land, that meant Sonny Rainier was solid as a granite.
“Do you know Lillian?” Harry asked.
Jesse smirked.
Jason watched him closely.
Harry wasn’t surprised at these reactions.
She was an attractive woman. He had a dick.
And these two shared one brain, but they both used far more of that organ than the vast majority of people. They were sharp, shrewd, and between their ex-cop, ex-FBI profiler father’s tutelage and their natural God-given ability, they read practically any situation like it was typed in a book.
“ Know her, know her, no,” Jesse eventually answered. “Seen her around, absolutely.”
“She got hooked up with Willie Z. Shocked the shit out of everyone. Then she took a half a breath and got shot of Willie Z, which no one found surprising,” Jason put in.
He didn’t need it, but that corroborated Lillian’s story.
“If you’re free, I need you in LA,” Harry stated. “Lillian says they lived there before they moved up here. She said the move was sudden, they upped stakes and left and bought their house with cash in Misted Pines. Real estate was a damn sight cheaper back then, but not that cheap. I want to know why they took off from LA and how they had the resources to set up here in MP.”
Jason looked surprised. “You think they did it?”
“As much as this guts me, for them, for Lillian, for anyone who cared about them, I think it’s their remains that were found in that hole, and I want every fucking i dotted and every t crossed when we find the fucks who took a loving couple away from their beloved daughter, their lives ending with multiple bullets in their bodies, before that happened they knew their love affair was at its tragic end and their daughter was going to be alone in this world. I want them exonerated even before anyone thinks to throw shit at them. Which means, once you’re done in LA, I want you in Idaho. Tell me when you’re heading there. I’ll let the locals know you’re on my team.”
“This deputized shit?” Jason asked.
“This is coming out of my pocket,” Harry answered.
Jason’s brows winged up. Jesse’s shot down.
“Harry, we ain’t cheap,” Jesse said quietly. “We’ll give you a discount, because you’re a brother, but you’re talking time, gas, maybe flights, maybe money to loosen tongues?—”
Harry interrupted him. “At one thirty in the morning, Sonny would go to the gas station where Lillian worked just to keep her company and be sure she was safe.”
Jesse shut his mouth, and this time, Jason’s eyes got hard.
“If anyone has the barest fucking doubt that those two were involved in the Dietrich mess, I want it washed away,” Harry announced. “And I want answers for Lillian. She’s waited sixteen years to find out what happened to her parents. That’s long enough.”
The twins exchanged a look, and Harry would give his left ball to know what that kind of thing meant between them, considering at the same time they looked back to Harry, and it seemed in the interim, silently, they’d agreed Jason was the one who would be tasked with asking the next question.
It came quiet, curious…and hopeful.
“You got something going on with her, man?”
“No,” Harry answered.
“Dude,” Jesse said. “Seen her around. She’s smokin’.”
“That didn’t escape my attention,” Harry told him.
“So…” Jace prompted.
“So, she’s coming in tomorrow to give a DNA sample so we can see if those bodies are her parents. Been out of the game for a while, but still not sure that’s when to make a play,” Harry replied.
“But you want to make a play?” Jesse pushed.
Fuck him.
He had good friends. They cared. They worried.
And they could be pains in his ass.
“Let’s just figure this shit out for her, yeah?” Harry requested.
This was met with several beats of silence before Jason raised the file.
“Can we take this, or do we gotta read it here and leave it here?”
“I want it here, but we’ll make you copies,” Harry replied.
He got two identical nods that came in sync.
Then they all got up and headed to the copy machine.