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)
Owen worked the chew in his mouth considering this option, then he said, “I’d be votin’ for that referendum.”
“Your time is up!” someone shouted from the line.
“Hold your horses!” Owen shouted back. “Darn!” He leaned into the microphone so close, when he said, “I’m done,” people cringed at the feedback, including Rus.
He circled off and the next lady came up.
She gave the rigmarole the three before Owen gave, about how uncomfortable she and everyone in the town was about the lack of information the sheriff’s office was releasing about the murder of Brittanie Iverson and the hunt for Ezra Corbin.
Rus didn’t listen to her.
After he shook his head in understanding and looked away from Porter Sexton, who was sitting next to his mother and giving him an I told you expression, Rus’s attention focused on Ellen Macklemore.
She was again wearing a lot of denim, silver and turquoise, and she was in line next up to speak.
He looked back to the front when Megan spoke sharply.
“Okay, Mandy,” Megan interrupted the speaker, then she scanned the whole congregation, before she demanded, “Anyone in line waiting to complain about the Brittanie Iverson case, step to the back. We’ll hear you at the end, but I’ll warn you, we won’t be listening. As I said the last three times someone complained about this, and I won’t say it again, active investigations are confidential.”
She zeroed in on Mandy.
“Now you tell me, Mandy, if someone you loved was hurt, do you want Harry Moran out front of the sheriff’s office, gabbing to media, or with his boots up on his desk, talking to citizens, or do you want him out doing policework?”
“Policework, of cour—”
“And do you want the media to know every little thing about what’s happening so the bad guys know what the good guys know so they can make sure to cover all their tracks?” Megan demanded.
Mandy was getting red in the face. “That’s not what I mean, Megan, and you know it.”
“What do you mean?” Megan asked sharply. “That you should know because you’re interested and you’re not a bad guy? Or you should know because you’re scared and knowing they’re working hard at finding who hurt Brittanie will make you feel better? Well, rest assured, Mandy, they’re working hard. But even though you knew that already, you don’t feel better, because something awful happened. And no one ever feels good when something awful happens.”
Megan looked through the congregation again and kept lecturing.
“Not one person in this room is entitled to know the intricacies of how Harry is handling this case. That’s for starters. But it would actually hurt Brittanie even more if he parceled out all the information. He is not Leland Dern. He’s Harry Moran. He does his job well. And if you don’t like it, don’t vote for him in four years. For now, you have to trust him, because you voted him in. As for me, I want them to find who murdered Brittanie, so I’m going to let him and his men do their gosh darned jobs.”
She glared at the line.
“Anyone got anything else to say?” she asked, each word sounding like a threat.
The vast majority of the line, heads hanging, melted away from the aisle.
“She’s a ball buster,” Rus said under his breath. “I like it.”
“Our last president was one hundred and seventy years old, so the whole council was dicked up with corruption and complacency. In real life, she’s a very nice woman. Up there, she has to bust balls, because she has her work cut out for her.”
Even though Rus knew he liked her, he felt sorry for her.
“And,” Moran continued, “you see what she has to work with.”
That was the truth.
“Right, Ellen, what’s on your mind?” she asked as Mandy slunk away and Ellen took the microphone.
Ellen looked back and forth across the five-person council seated across the continuous arc of a desk at the front of the room.
Then she announced loudly and elaborately, “Tyler Cook!”
Startling Rus with her urgency, suddenly, a woman in the crowd stood up and shouted, “Ellen!”
“Michael Mitchell!” Ellen said.
Another woman stood up.
Both of them were pale and clearly rattled.
Just from the look of them, Rus came away from the wall.
“Don’t, Ellen!” one of them yelled.
Ellen ignored her.
“Dylan Rogers!”
Rus looked questioningly to Moran.
His face was set in granite.
What the fuck?
“Ellen, stop it!”
Another woman had stood up, actually, three more of them.
“Austin Brooks!”
“Why’s my boy’s name in your mouth?” a man yelled.
Ellen turned his way but kept leaned into the microphone, “Because eight years ago, he and his friends gang raped a high school girl repeatedly.”
A groundswell of shock rippled physically and audibly through the crowd.
“Holy fuck,” Rus bit off, already on the move.
Moran was too, shouting to Megan, “Shut it down!”
“The fuck he did!” the man yelled.
“Ellen, if you—” Megan started.