Truth Be Told by Ryan Hank Phillippi

Author:Ryan, Hank Phillippi [Ryan, Hank Phillippi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Suspense, Crime, thriller, Contemporary, Adult
ISBN: 9780765374974
Amazon: 0765374978
Goodreads: 21531468
Publisher: Forge Books
Published: 2014-09-30T07:00:00+00:00

39

Peter Hardesty leaned against his parked Jeep, staring past the loops of yellow crime scene tape sealing the front door and the one boarded-up window of 2002 Moulten Road. According to the unenthusiastic beat cop assigned the low-rung job of guarding the place and now pacing the front walk, that smashed window was how his client Gordon Thorley and Thorley’s supposed victim, Treesa Caramona, had gotten into the vacant house, a seedy and deserted white vinyl ranch on a melancholy cul-de-sac.

Wrong side of the tracks, Peter thought. The desirable homes are on the other side of the Arboretum. This one, a remnant from the GI Bill, felt left behind and forgotten. Two city blocks from here, under the cool verdant branches of the Arboretum woods where diligent gardeners cultivated and pruned and families picnicked away their afternoons, Carley Marie Schaffer had been killed.

Here on Moulten Road, not a tree had survived the years or the heat or the housing crash. The city had apparently given up the fight. Peter felt the hot sidewalk through the soles of his shoes. The sun, relentless, baked the red paint on his Jeep. At the Arboretum, he knew, there were already lilacs, with Lilac Sunday a few days away. No lilacs here.

This case. There was more to it. Or maybe less to it.

The whole thing was a crock of shit. “Crock of shit,” Peter said out loud.

“Sir?” the cop said.

“Nothing,” he said. He’d left messages for Brogan and Sherrey, hoping to meet them here this morning. He’d come on his own, before he heard back from them, planning to get the lay of the land before the two detectives or their cohorts tried to fast-talk him out of coming. “You hear back from HQ? About when I can go in? They going to send someone?”

She pointed to the cigarette-pack radio velcroed to her right epaulet. “Negative, sir,” she said. “Sorry.”

Peter wiped the sweat from his forehead, lifted the limp oxford cloth shirt away from his chest, peeled his pants from the toasting Jeep. Standing out here in the heat was a waste of time. Thorley was in lockup, awaiting “further investigation” as the cops put it. Sandoval was in lockup, awaiting arraignment, which still could come this afternoon. Would the judge grant bail for his client? Often they’d allow defendants to post a bond, but the Sandovals had already lost their home to foreclosure. Could the couple ask relatives to put up their houses to get him released? A tough call for all involved.

Might Elliot Sandoval have to stay in jail because he had no home to offer as collateral? The whole thing stunk.

Peter snapped some photos of the exterior of this crime scene with this cell phone, just in case. He dug out a business card, handed it to the cop.

“I’m headed to another appointment,” he said. “If Brogan or Sherrey contact you, can you tell them to call me? No matter when?”

“Will do,” the cop said. He saw her put his card into the pocket of her uniform pants, wondered if it’d see the light of day again.

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