The Last Straw (The Jigsaw Files #4) - Sharon Sala Page 0,48
at the road leading up to Jeremiah’s house, his stomach rolled. It was all he could do not to throw up. Something bad had happened. Something worse than the bounty on his head. He was afraid to go home for fear the cops would be waiting for him, and pulled off the side of the road to call Judy. He needed to hear her voice.
It only rang once before Judy answered.
“Where are you?”
“About ten minutes from home. I just drove by the church and Jeremiah’s house, and there’s crime scene tape everywhere. What the hell happened?”
Judy started crying. “It’s just awful. The FBI came to serve warrants on Jeremiah for money laundering, and found him shot dead in the front yard.”
Farrell gasped. “What? Money laundering? But—”
“That’s not all. Jessup Wallis’s girlfriend, Britta, already put Jessup out of her house. His things were all over her porch. I don’t know if he’s come back to get them, but everyone is pointing fingers at him being one of Raver’s chosen.”
“What are they sayin’ about me?” Farrell asked.
“Nothing that I know of,” Judy said. “Your brother David came over this morning to borrow the tractor. He got himself stuck up in his back pasture. He asked where you were, and I said you’d gone into the city for a doctor’s appointment, and that you’d be home later today.”
“A doctor’s appointment? What’s supposed to be wrong with me?” Farrell asked.
“I told him you’d been feeling dizzy a lot, and I pressured you into getting a checkup. You know how high blood pressure runs in your family. It was all I could think of.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s good. Oh, God, Judy... I’m so sorry I got mixed up in this.”
“Just get your ass home,” she said.
Farrell put the car back in gear and accelerated, but there was no way to outrun the mistake that he’d made.
* * *
It was just before 8 a.m. when Charlie walked into the kitchen. He made himself a cup of coffee, then sat down at the kitchen table to call Detective Floyd, and then his phone rang. It was Hank Raines.
“Good morning, Hank. You’re up early.”
“Yes, just one of those days,” Hank said. “I have an update for you. The ATF went to serve an arrest warrant on Preston Davis, who likely instigated the hit on Raver, hoping to cut the link between them before anyone found out. He resisted arrest and pulled a gun on six armed ATF agents. Needless to say, he’s dead. And it is my understanding that the info they confiscated is leading to the arrests of the people Davis had been doing business with.”
“Good,” Charlie said.
“No problem. Have a good day,” Hank said and hung up.
Charlie reached for the notes Wyrick had given him, and called Detective Floyd. The call rang three times, and then he answered.
“Detective Floyd, Dallas PD.”
“Hey, Floyd, this is Charlie Dodge. Got a minute?”
“Yes, of course. I was just getting in the car to head to the precinct. What’s up?”
“Wyrick was running searches last night and made quite a discovery. Something you may not be aware of.”
“Like what?” Floyd asked.
“Rachel Dean isn’t the first woman to go missing from the Detter House. She’s the fourth. The first one was eleven years ago.”
“No way!” Floyd said. “We would have picked up on this ourselves if—”
“Let me finish,” Charlie said and laid out what Wyrick had told him, giving him the names of the women and the dates they went missing. But it was the inactive social security numbers for all three of the women that made the case for Wyrick’s theory.
“Oh, man. This isn’t good,” Floyd said. “I’ve only been with Missing Persons three years. I was in Homicide before that, so I had no personal info on any of these other cases. I’ll pull them immediately. I need to see why they closed the cases and start verifying the inactive numbers.”
“We’re going back to Detter House soon. Wyrick strongly believes there has to be some kind of hidden passage built into the old structure, and I learned a long time ago not to doubt her instincts.”
“Is she really psychic?” Floyd asked. “Don’t get me wrong...I’m not discounting her. But I’ve also never known anyone like her.”
“That’s because there is no one else like her,” Charlie said. “If we find out anything new, I’ll call.”
He disconnected, then laid the phone aside and was getting up to make himself some breakfast when Wyrick entered the kitchen.