46. Consequences
FORTY-SIX
Consequences
Harry
H arry had no idea where Special Agents Fatima Bakshi and Joseph Patterson were.
But he was pleased as fuck they swung into his station just over an hour after Harry phoned them about Michelle Dietrich.
The observation room was packed with Harry, Wade, Sean, Karen, several other deputies, along with Cade, Jason and Jesse Bohannan.
Rus was in the interrogation room with Mrs. Dietrich and the two FBI agents.
And Michelle Dietrich looked as if she’d just left her salon after a hairstyle and a makeup touchup.
As far as Harry knew, she did.
“Let’s start at the beginning, Mrs. Dietrich,” Bakshi began.
“I want protection for me and my husband,” Dietrich retorted.
“We can talk about that later, now—” Bakshi tried.
“And immunity,” Dietrich cut her off. “Protection and immunity.”
Bakshi sat back and looked at Patterson.
Patterson shrugged.
Harry reckoned Bakshi would hand it over to Patterson at this point, her the good cop, Patterson the bull.
That didn’t happen.
Bakshi returned her attention to Michelle Dietrich, and she said, “We know about the insurance fraud. We know about Karl Abernathy’s subsequent extortion.”
Dietrich’s eyes grew large, and her face faded of all color but her cosmetics.
Bakshi didn’t let up.
“We know Simon Avery overheard your husband talking about committing the felony he eventually committed. Abernathy stole your stuff, but you and your husband sold it to get out of the debt you’d accrued in Misted Pines and to live your life until the insurance payout you fraudulently received gave you breathing room to recoup from bad investments. We know Abernathy was a whole helluva lot more gung-ho than you expected him to be in covering all your bases. So we know you’re fucked, Mrs. Dietrich.”
Michelle Dietrich sat completely immobile, her eyes still wide. And it didn’t take an investigator who did hundreds of these interviews to see they’d nailed every bit of it, and she was into it up to her neck.
“Now, allow me to educate you about what it means when you’re fucked in this manner,” Bakshi continued. “You don’t get to make demands. If you don’t make a statement of your own free will, I’ll invite you to walk right out of this station and take your chances with Abernathy running amuck and snipping loose ends. Choose. Now. We got shit to do.”
Dietrich remained still, her eyes filling with tears, everyone tensed, waiting for her to ask for an attorney, before she burst into sobs.
“We loved Sonny!” she cried.
Harry felt eyes on him, but he didn’t take his attention from Dietrich.
“I still can’t believe…I can’t…I can’t…” Her breath hitched three times. “I can’t believe Karl did that to him and Avery. They came to our Christmas parties! ”
Fuck.
They nailed every bit of it .
Bakshi, Patterson and Rus didn’t move and none of their expressions shifted from mild interest.
“It got out of control!” she shouted. “I told Gerald! I told him! And now—” She tossed both hands out to her sides, collapsed back in her chair and said no more.
“Where’s your husband?” Bakshi asked.
“He’s…our son has some friends with a condo in Aspen. He’s there.”
“Fuckin’ bitch,” Jesse groused at learning the Dietrichs were hiding out in a rich person’s playground.
Harry tore his eyes off the woman and looked at Wade.
Wade instantly left the room.
“We’ve been arguing about it, for weeks . He was dead set against me coming. I had to leave in the middle of the night,” she continued. “He’s been calling incessantly, demanding I come back. Well, no. I will not.” She sniffed. “I’m tired of running and I’m so damned tired of hiding . I haven’t been home in a year !”
“Did you know about the murders of Simon and Avery?” Bakshi asked.
“He…he”—more breath hitching and tears—“he told us. He said they’d talk.” She leaned forward and put her hand on the table. “I swear to you, I swear , Ger and I had nothing to do with that. Nothing . We…were… horrified . We couldn’t believe it. And we were so very sorry for their daughter. So, so very sorry for that young woman.”
Not sorry enough to ease her pain at not knowing where the fuck they were for sixteen years.
Cade shifted close to Harry.
Harry didn’t move but it felt he might break his jaw at how hard he was clenching his teeth, so he forced himself to relax.
“Then he told us, Karl that is, he told us we were implicated,” she carried on. “He had to leave the gun with their…um, remains . And it was one of the ones he stole from us.”
“One of the ones you instructed him to steal from you,” Bakshi corrected.
Dietrich looked away.
“And that’s when the money demands started?” Bakshi asked.
“Yes,” Dietrich answered and looked back at Bakshi. “And they were never ending . Sometimes, he’d disappear, a month, two, three, even four, we’d think it was over, then he’d be back . You cannot even imagine. It was a nightmare.”
“Now see,” Patterson entered the conversation, “ my definition of a nightmare is being nineteen, having my parents accused of a crime they didn’t commit, they disappear, I don’t know where they are for sixteen years, then I hear they’ve both been shot multiple times, including in the head and buried on the side of a mountain so all I got back of them is bones. Not I got my shit fucked by making bad investments and I didn’t tighten my belt. Instead, I decided to do something illegal, and as illegal shit has a tendency to do, it spiraled out of control, and I gotta pay for it in a variety of ways over the years. That sounds to me more like consequences.”
Dietrich’s mouth tightened.
“Let’s talk about Dern,” Bakshi suggested.
Dietrich turned to the other agent, her face going slack. “Leland?”
“Shit,” Jason muttered.
Yeah.
She sounded confused his name was brought up.
“Yes. Leland Dern,” Bakshi confirmed. “Did he play a part in all of this?”
“I…” She shook her head. “No. I honestly don’t know how Ger found Karl. He never said. He just said he had an idea, because you’re right, we were having money troubles, and he was going to work with this man to sort it all out. Then it all got crazy.”
“So Leland Dern played no part in it?” Bakshi pushed.
Dietrich’s face got hard. “I honestly don’t know what so many people’s problems are with that poor man. He was a good sheriff.”
“Depends on how you define ‘good,’ considering, after he did time for corrupting his office, he’s up for further charges right now for criminally stalking and harassing women in this county,” Patterson drawled.
Dietrich rolled her eyes.
The woman actually rolled her eyes.
She then said, “People always like to tear other people down. Especially if they have power. Or money. It’s ridiculous. It’s pure jealousy. Kicking a man when he’s already out? Shameful.”
“Karl Abernathy is not only wanted for the murders of Simon and Avery, a man named Clifford Ballard, and Roy Farrell, but also six counts of attempted sexual assault, two of actual sexual assault, all of which he committed while wearing a uniform. Was he a good deputy in your eyes?” Bakshi asked. “I mean, all of that as well as him assisting you and your husband with stealing from an insurance company, that is.”
Dietrich just stared at her.
Rus leaned forward, and while doing it, he pushed a pad with a pen on top in her direction.
“If you would,” he started politely, “write down in your own words all that happened, starting from the beginning.”
Dietrich looked Rus over, her expression turned coy, and she requested, “It’d really help if I had a skinny mocha latte from Aromacobana.”
Both agents appeared ready to intervene, but Rus just said, “You get on writing, Mrs. Dietrich, we’ll get on that coffee. You want a brownie too?”
“I shouldn’t,” she said like she was fishing for a compliment about her figure.
“This bitch is a trip,” Jace growled.
“We’ll get you a brownie as well,” Rus murmured then he got up and left her in the room with the agents.
She squinted between them.
Bakshi reached out and tapped the pad. “How about you get started.”
She let out a huge sigh and picked up the pen.
Rus stuck his head in. “Get Polly ready to type.”
Harry lifted his chin.
Rus disappeared.
“You good?” Cade asked him.
“We’re getting there, we only need Abernathy,” Harry replied.
Cade clapped him on the shoulder.
Harry turned back to the window to see Dietrich bent over the pad, writing.
He then left observation to find Polly himself and get her ready to type out the statement so that woman could sign it.
Forty-five minutes later, they were all back in their places. Harry and his crew in observation, Rus, Patterson and Bakshi with Mrs. Dietrich.
She was signing the statement she just read that Polly had typed out from her handwritten confession.
The empty Aromacobana cup was set aside, the brownie just nibbled on, and she ended her signature with a flourish and put the pen down.
“Oddly, that’s very relieving,” she declared.
The cops in the room stood.
“Michelle Dietrich, you’re under arrest for insurance fraud, accessory after the fact of a double homicide and obstruction of justice,” Bakshi announced to Dietrich’s face under her expertly applied foundation and blush going white as a sheet. “Please stand so I can handcuff you and take you for processing.”
“But…I just helped with your investigation,” she protested.
“No, you just confessed to three crimes,” Bakshi refuted. “Agents from our fraud division will be discussing with you the part you played in that. Warning, insurance companies tend to like us to go hard with people who steal their money.”
“I…this… that wasn’t my intention! ” she yelped. “I was helping.”
“She helped,” Jess said. “Helped put her own Pilates ass right in the slammer.”
“Please stand,” Bakshi requested.
“We’re the victims here!” she exclaimed, stabbing her chest with a perfectly manicured finger. “He’s been demanding money from us for years . Tens of thousands of dollars! ”
“You should be aware that the police in Aspen are moving on apprehending your husband. He’ll be extradited from Colorado to Misted Pines,” Bakshi went on.
“What?” Dietrich whispered.
“And your son is being picked up for accessory after the fact and obstruction as well,” Bakshi finished. “Now please stand.”
“My boy had nothing to do with this!” she cried.
“Did he provide you with a safe house after you found you were wanted by the police as a person of interest in a variety of felonies?” Bakshi asked.
“Of course you help your parents when they’re in a jam,” she sniped.
“You can talk to your attorney and a judge about your concerns. Now please stand,” Bakshi requested once more.
“ This is outrageous! ” she shrieked.
That was when Patterson had enough.
She jumped nearly out of her seat when the side of his fist landed on the table in front of her.
“This is justice, Mrs. Dietrich,” he clipped. “Now, please stand, or we’ll be forced to restrain you in a way you will probably not care for.”
For a second, Harry thought she’d give them a show.
She didn’t.
Shooting venom from her eyes, she stood.
Bakshi moved in with the cuffs.
Patterson put his fists to his hips and Rus crossed his arms on his chest as they watched.
“Michelle Dietrich, you have the right to remain silent…” Bakshi started and finished the Miranda.
Rus opened the door for her to lead Dietrich out.
“She should probably watch more true crime shows. She’d know to ask for an attorney if she did,” Jason drawled.
Fuck, Harry was about to laugh.
Cade got close again. “Two down, one to go.”
Harry let out a long breath.
Two down.
One to go.