Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
“Cin give you anything useful?” Bohannan asked.
“The use of her office and scheduling service. She’s setting up interviews tomorrow afternoon with her staff.”
Bohannan’s lips in his beard curved. “Unsurprised.”
“Brittanie babysat for her,” Rus told him.
The lip curve faded. “Fuck.”
Moran stopped texting, so Rus looked to him. “She wants us to convince Melanie Iverson to release the body to her.”
“I don’t know the woman well, but on first impression, I suspect the minute Iverson knows Cin wants her, Iverson is going to dig in, when before, she probably couldn’t give two shits how her daughter was laid to rest,” Moran told him. “She’d do this for no other reason than to be a pain in somebody’s ass.”
“We’re gonna have to finesse that.”
Moran’s brows went up. “You told her we’d get Melanie to release Brittanie to Cin?”
“I told her we’d do what we could. But somehow, we’re going to get her to relinquish claim to Brittanie so Lucinda can take care of her.”
Moran and Bohannan exchanged a look.
Rus would be worried about this if they didn’t know Lucinda. Therefore, they knew she was the kind of woman who found ways to wrap everyone around her finger.
Considering what he was doing for her was innocuous, and he knew they all knew it would be for Brittanie, he didn’t mind they thought she’d gotten the twist on him.
“I think it’s important for her to know how much a funeral costs,” Bohannan suggested.
Yes.
It was best for Brittanie.
“And she needs to understand the state will handle it if the body isn’t claimed,” McGill put in.
“Right, so we got a plan on that,” Moran said, then shared he was done with it by getting into the most important topic of the night. “Now, anyone have any fucking clue why someone would copycat kill a woman in my town? Is this just some sick fuck? Or is it something else.”
“My call, something else, and still definitely both. You want her dead, and you want to get away with it, it’s a good plan to kill her in a way suspicion is going to turn in another direction that is nowhere near you,” Bohannan suggested.
“So she steals a few boyfriends,” Moran replied. “Who hates her so much they do that to her? It takes planning. It takes effort. It takes follow through. It’s grisly and it’s personal. We won’t know what we got until the coroner makes her report, so all we got right now is that it’s gotta be a guy.”
“It’s cute you’ve never heard of a dildo,” McGill ribbed.
Moran wasn’t in the mood to make light of the situation, even to take the edge off.
He proved this not only by not shoveling it back, but by what he said next.
“You saw her. It’s overpowering her. It’s tying her up. That wasn’t sexual assault. It was sexual brutalization. And she checked in herself, and so far, we’ve had no indication she has lesbian or bi tendencies. So she checks in, odds are she’s meeting a guy and that guy is our perp. She hits a motel out of town that doesn’t have security cameras, it’s probably a married guy.”
“I wouldn’t know, but I suspect some married men don’t feel guilt at taking in a burlesque show,” Rus remarked.
“Cin’s list,” Moran said.
Apparently, Dickerson had briefed his boss.
“It’s all we got right now,” Rus replied. “Along with the ex-boyfriends.”
“List?” Bohannan asked.
Rus filled him in.
After he was done, Bohannan nodded and muttered an approving, “Good.”
“So we got that, interviews with family, staff who might know something, and fuck all else,” Moran bitched.
“It’s more than I have on the Crystal Killer,” Rus pointed out. “And I’ve been working that for years.”
“You’ve looked into the plastic sheeting?” Bohannan asked.
Moran jerked up his chin. “Any store that sells it in that amount anywhere in the county, which is one store, has not sold that amount to anyone,” Moran told him. “We’re pushing out to other counties. But I’d guess it was bought online.”
Rus jumped in.
“Any joy on the crystal?”
Moran shook his head. “On the other hand, there’s a lot of New Age shops in the county. We’ve shown the picture around. No one remembers selling that particular one. We’re going to cast a wider net on that too.”
“How are you on warrants?” Bohannan asked McGill.
“We’re working on the bank, we’ll have it tomorrow. Another couple of days for her bank to get us data. Credit cards and cell will take longer. She’s in the queue to get a tech guy to work on her laptop. I hope to have access to email soon.”
Rus already knew this because it was part of his morning briefing before he even got to the scene.
But while McGill was sharing, on mentioning the ex-boyfriends, it hit Rus unusually belatedly that a couple of guests to their party hadn’t showed.
“Your boys coming?” he asked Bohannan.