lesbian friend. At most, she’s your biased lesbian lover. You may not care, but as far as her being your witness, it’s as though she was never there.”
“What if it just happens to get in the paper?”
“Your brother might suffer from the fallout.”
“I don’t want to tell him about the incident just yet, but I know he would say go for it.” She clicked off with Chip and turned back to Linda. “Now I’m worried about you. I know you’ll back me up, but what does that do to you?”
“Won’t affect me because I can’t be named, not at first. I hope you understand that part. I’ll be happy to write the piece, but I can’t control the headline, and it’s going to read, ‘Suspect’s Sister Accuses Local Officer.’ The item will state you have a witness, but if I’m named then we become the story. Then the headline would be, ‘Reporter and Girlfriend Accuse Local Officer.’ It would sell a hellava lot of papers, but it would spin out of control.”
“But if I don’t make it all known then Huress wins. Another creep gets away with it as though it never happened. Will you please go ahead and write it and be sure his name gets in?”
“Sandy, if I’ve learned anything about you in the few hours that I’ve known you, it’s that nothing is going to stop you. I already went ahead and wrote it. It’s done. Let’s go. The editor will read it now.”
They walked back to the glassed-in cubicle in the corner and waited while the editor read the printout. “Linda, you mention here that there is an unidentified witness. That’s misleading, change it to an unnamed witness. Otherwise, it’s good copy. Are you ladies certain you know what you’re doing? Someone might dig in and want the unnamed witness to be identified. You may think you’re out, Linda, but this town doesn’t want to hear about it.”
He then phoned Chief Oehlert to verify the facts. After a long conversation, he hung up. “I agreed to hold the piece until the chief has a chance to talk with you, Sandy.”
Linda frowned. “The downside risk is the additional bad publicity and public outcry against your brother. There’s the danger you’ll come off as the desperate sister attacking the police in a pathetic grasp at some last straw to free her guilty brother.”
That made Sandy think about Moran, all this was perfect for him, exactly what he wanted. And, if Chip was correct then there was no upside. Nothing would come of her complaint, no advantage. Then she imagined Bobby Huress in the darkness of his pickup. Watching a teenage couple parked. Waiting for the right moment. Knowing he had a sure thing going with his threats, badge, and gun. Succeeding again and again with his slimy routine because no young girl would know how to stop him. “Tell the chief I’m on my way.”
“You shouldn’t have argued with him,” the chief said when Sandy was settled in his office.
“Saying, ‘No’ isn’t arguing. Saying, ‘Let me out you creep’ isn’t arguing.”
“If it goes beyond the first hearing, you’ll have to testify.”
“That’ll be the best part.”
“I must tell you, it’s not unusual for people to get upset with the police for one reason or another, and then try to strike back by making some charge. You know, like a charge of excessive force or what some hysterical woman believed was inappropriate touching.”
She bit her tongue and decided it was best not to open up on this guy.
“If you win, Miss Reid, you could ruin his career.”
She remained calm. “He ruined his own career. All I ask is that you apply the law. I’m just testifying to the facts of what he did. That’s what good citizens do. It’s up to the process to determine if he’s guilty. The punishment isn’t up to me either. Whatever the law calls for, apply it, no more, no less. He ruined his career when he locked that truck door. That’s a criminal charge by itself. He ruined it again when he pointed to his badge, and again when he flashed his weapon and said he’d make trouble for me if I didn’t put out. Those are all charges. Then he grabbed me, that’s a charge. Then he added another when he unzipped. I may have missed one in there. Are you counting?”
The chief frowned and thumbed through the stapled pages in his hand. “In his statement, Sergeant Huress stated that when he drove up you were hanging out in front of the store. It was getting dark and he didn’t like the idea of a young woman being out there alone at night. Although he was in a hurry to get home and help his kids with some homework before bedtime, he thought he should wait with you.”
“What a guy.”
“The store clerk remembers you bought chips. Sergeant Huress stated you admired his pickup and asked if you could sit in it. You sat there with your legs up on the dash, your skirt up to your thighs, stuffing chips into your mouth. He said you started making suggestive talk about how cops turned you on, and you got upset when he wouldn’t respond. That’s when he told you to get out.”
“By the way, I was wearing jeans. Did he explain about his unzipped fly? Which Linda Call will corroborate. And how his back window got broken? Come on Chief, you don’t believe that crap. Why do you want that piece of shit—excuse me, that scheming sexual predator on your force?”
“To continue…you got out and he waited there until Linda Call pulled up. You skipped over to her pickup, gave her a long kiss, and drove off with her. Why did you get in his truck if you didn’t want anything to do with him?”
“Every crude word out of his mouth will be in my statement, and you’re not going to like it. Linda did him a favor. If she hadn’t come along when she did, he’d have gone ahead to the next really stupid step and be facing additional criminal charges plus a civil suit from me, and would be missing at least one eye.”
“Will you try to keep it out of the paper?”
“I’m not here to negotiate with you. Start doing your job. Now give me whatever form I need to make a formal complaint.”
When the item ran in the newspaper, it stated the allegation and identified Huress by name. It clearly identified Sandy as the accuser and sister of the jailed suspect in the Towson murder case. An alleged witness was mentioned but not named.
The item brought forth almost total indifference. Although Bobby Huress most certainly caught hell from his wife, the town ignored it. No reaction, no furor at all except for two phone calls and one vulgar letter stating it was the sluttish morals of women like Sandy that was ruining the country.
As predicted, the police review panel dropped the charges at the first reading. It was as though the Bobby Huress incident never happened.
Chapter 20
It was Friday morning. Tomorrow would mark one week since Goddard was handed the Towson murder case. The more he thought of Sandy Reid, the more he realized he had developed no additional evidence against her brother. She says he’s innocent, but it sounded as though she didn’t actually know what he’d been up to the last few years.
Goddard felt the investigation had stalled out, no new evidence and no new suspects. Most likely, that was the reason Moran called a meeting this morning. When Goddard arrived, he was pleased to find a DNA report on his desk left by the CSI team. He scanned the report, smiled and walked to the chief’s office.
There was no indication from his clear desk that the chief was in the middle of a major homicide investigation. He set aside his
“Thanks, I’ve always wondered about that.” Goddard handed the report to the chief. “We got a hit. DNA from Norma Martin’s cigarette butt matches items in Towson’s bathroom.”
The chief tried to appear interested. “So, the restaurant owner was his lover and all those rumors are
