30. The Pain Was Real
THIRTY
The Pain Was Real
Harry
L ate that same morning, after listening to some relief when Harry shared his news about meeting Lillian, Harry then got the kind of talking to he hadn’t received since he was about eleven from his father. This talking to was about Harry calling to share he was seeing someone he wanted his father to meet the day before her murdered parents’ memorial.
Onward from that, happiness from his brother, until Josh learned what was going to happen the next day, which meant Josh said, “Fuckin’ hell, Harry. Give a man at least forty-eight hours to find a babysitter.”
To which Harry told his brother they didn’t have to come, and they could meet Lillian later, maybe at Christmas.
And now Harry was again in the observation room at the station.
Rus was in interrogation along with Special Agents Patterson and Bakshi, Dern and Dern’s attorney.
“Now, weird thing is,” Agent Patterson was saying, “we’ve been on this,”—he looked to his partner—“what we got logged on this case, Fatima? Twenty-six whole hours?”
“Around there,” Bakshi replied casually.
Patterson went back to Dern. “Twenty-six hours. And in those twenty-six hours, we uncovered the fact that Gerald Dietrich made a bad investment, and to cover those losses, he made another one. It was the Great Recession. Shit like that was happening to a whole bunch of folks. But this put his boxers in a bunch, and they were squeezing his balls tight, especially considering he and his wife didn’t think that maybe, money was scarce all of a sudden, they might want to cut back on the Chanel and fresh-flown-in Maine lobster. I mean, you all got lobster right here in the Puget Sound. That’s a diss to the locals for sure.”
Dern sat there, working hard at keeping his face a mask of nothing.
Then again, Harry understood it would be difficult since he’d spent the night in a cell it used to be him who provided that accommodation, so he didn’t wake up in a good mood. And now he was being spoken down to by a special agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
“This put them in a lot of debt. A lot ,” Patterson stressed. “Though, the hefty insurance payment helped them out with that. Thing is, they seemed to get out from under it before they got that check.”
Dern said nothing.
“So, we’re looking at their finances,” Patterson continued, “and imagine our surprise, after that robbery but before they got their insurance payout, they suddenly have much less overhead. Now, this isn’t unheard of if you’re in financial straits, but a man and a woman gotta eat, and get their highlights touched up, and there were no longer any credit or debit transactions for things like groceries, gas, hair stylists and barbers, or meals out.”
“Maybe they went on a diet,” Bakshi suggested.
“Maybe,” Patterson said, his attention not leaving Dern. “Or maybe they were paying in cash.”
Dern looked to the table.
“Then, doing some more poking around,” Patterson kept at him, “we got a hit on a domestic dispute. Happened years ago. Years . Man brandishing a gun at his girlfriend in Olympia. Strange thing was, when they ran that gun, it wasn’t registered to him. It was registered to a Gerald Dietrich and reported stolen. When asked where he got it, he said he bought it from an online site. That site has since closed down. But we sent some agents to talk to this gentleman, and he changed his tune when the FBI knocked on his door. Suddenly, he remembered where he got that gun, and several others. And damned if the man didn’t describe the guy he bought the guns from as a man who looks exactly like Gerald Dietrich.”
Dern continued to look at the table.
“Now, you were here, working that case, my question is, how we got all this in a little over a day, and in that day, we also had a sleep, took a long drive, and personally, I accomplished a very gratifying shit, so how on earth did all of this slip right by you?” Patterson asked.
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.
“I need calories, that diner we passed got pie?” Patterson asked.
“If they have their Dutch apple, get two scoops of à la mode,” Rus suggested.
Patterson jerked up his chin and prowled out.
“I better go with him so he doesn’t arrest someone for looking at him funny,” Bakshi joked. “We’ll be back in an hour.”
Rus and Harry nodded. She took off.
Rus turned to the window, and Harry followed his gaze.
Heads close, Dern and his attorney were conferring.
Or, his attorney was talking fast and Dern was listening.
“If I had to guess, that attorney is telling him not to open his mouth and say another word, ride it out, don’t offer an opening, and he’ll get him home,” Rus guessed.
“Definitely,” Harry agreed. “And it isn’t enough, not near enough, but he’s in a hell right now that we don’t get, but it’s the worst thing for him. He spent the night in what he considers one of his own cells, and if he had any support, any respect, anyone thought he got a raw deal, with this, all that’s going to fade away. Everything he was, was tied up in being the elected sheriff of Fret County. Now he’s the bad cop. The lazy cop. The corrupt cop. The dirty cop. The man indirectly responsible for the deaths of two of his citizens. He’s got no authority. He’s nobody’s hero. If he had any delusions of a comeback, that dream is dead. He can’t twist it, even in his own head. He’s a stain on the history of this department. He knows it. He’s gotta live with it. And he’s gonna die knowing that’s his legacy.”
“Well, there I was, all ready to have a shitty day, and you just made my week,” Rus joked.
Harry smiled at him.
Rus looked back to the window. “If that’s all we got, I’ll take it.”
“That’s all we got,” Harry said to the window. “And along with me knowing he’ll burn in hell for all he did, especially how it ended for Sonny and Avery, I’ll take it too.”