“I believe so,” Estrada said. “I don’t think he even knew about the file until I passed it along to you. He may have been surveilling you because you questioned him about Milly’s death. It was just an unhappy coincidence that we discussed the file while he was having you followed.”
“I apologize again for that,” Jessie said.
“You couldn’t have known,” he said. “It’s hard to fully comprehend the reach of a man like Otis until you’re in his crosshairs.”
“But you do and Mrs. Shore does too and you’re still willing to come forward?”
“It’s time for this to end, Ms. Hunt,” he said. “I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep since I heard Marla’s voice. Between me and Maura Shore, that should be enough to tie Otis to these cases and to her husband’s murder.”
Jessie nodded, though no one could see her.
“Sit tight,” she said. “I’m going to reach out to the bureau now. Expect a call from Agent Jack Dolan soon. He’ll work out the logistics of bringing you in. And Mr. Estrada?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
By the time Captain Decker and Gaylene Parker walked in ten minutes later, everything had been arranged. Jessie decided not to fill them in just yet.
“How’s Detective Bray doing?” Decker asked as he took a seat at the conference table.
“They think she may have escaped nerve damage,” Jessie said. “The knife blade got a little muscle but mostly bone. She’ll be on desk duty for a while after she returns but she should be back in the field in a couple of months.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Decker said. “And you were cleared—no concussion?”
“Just a bump,” Jessie assured him. “It’s actually my hand that feels worse. It’s so bruised that I can’t even make a fist.”
“Please don’t,” Parker said, feigning alarm. “I don’t want to get knocked out by Sugar Ray Hunt.”
Before Jessie could crack back, Jamil walked in.
“Sorry for being late,” he said. “I just had to wrap something up.”
“Such a slacker,” Jessie joked.
“Don’t give him a hard time, Hunt,” Decker said. “He just verified who the mole is.”
“Wait,” Jessie interrupted. “Is it safe for us to be discussing this here?”
“We had the whole station swept this morning,” the captain replied. “They found multiple listening devices throughout the station, including in here. But we should be good now.”
“Okay, then don’t keep me in suspense,” Jessie said. “Who did all this?”
“Fred Timmons,” Decker announced.
Jessie searched her memory, but came up empty.
“I have no idea who that is,” she said.
“He’s a deputy desk sergeant,” Parker said. “He usually works nights and the weekend shift.”
“That’s how he was able to do all this surreptitiously,” Jamil added. “The station was usually at about one-quarter capacity when he was on duty and he had easy access to lockers, surveillance footage, logbooks, and schedules.”
“And he just did it for the money?” Jessie asked.
“According to his bank account, it looks like he’s been getting payments for the last two years,” Jamil said.
“He was originally paid to bury those cold cases we uncovered,” Parker said. “He couldn’t destroy them but he misfiled some and hid others. So when Otis’s people found out about the Marla audio file, they already had someone in place to steal it.”
“Is he willing to turn on Otis?” Jessie asked.
“I doubt he ever interacted with the guy,” Decker said. “But Trembley’s working on him in interrogation now. If he turns on his boss, maybe we can work our way up the line.”
“That seems to be the order of the day,” Parker said.
“How’s that?” Jessie asked.
Parker smiled broadly for the first time since the meeting started.
“It’s partly because of your sister. Everybody we caught at that house yesterday is climbing over each other to make a deal. That Rico fella tried to hold out for a while. He kept saying your sister made up the sexual assault claim against him. But when he found out that she was the kid sister of the legendary Jessie Hunt, he changed his tune. He knew we’d go to the mat on that. Truthfully, I think he would have kept his mouth shut if not for her.”
Something about that stirred an uncomfortable feeling in Jessie that she couldn’t quite place. The idea that Hannah had made the exact allegation against Rico that was most likely to get him to cave, an allegation that was based on her word alone, seemed awfully convenient. There was no way she was going to question her sister about her claim that a man had tried to