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Jonah drilled Hunsacker with a meaningful glare. “You want to go over that again?”
Hunsacker adjusted his position, putting even more strain on the buttons holding his shirt together. “You’re a consultant, okay? That’s all I’m saying. You’re here to give advice. I’m reminding you of your role.”
“My ‘role’ is to provide your department with the benefit of my experience and to help solve these murders in the most efficient manner possible. You got a problem with that, you need to talk to the sheriff, because if you remind me of my ‘role’ again, I’ll see to it that one of us gets kicked off this case, and it might not be me.”
When Hunsacker didn’t respond, Jonah leaned forward. “In other words, forget whatever it is you’re holding against Ms. Moretti. Got it?” He knew he was probably being too much of a hard-ass. It wasn’t his style. But he was hoping to provoke Hunsacker. If Hunsacker told him to go to hell, he’d have a good excuse to approach the sheriff and have himself replaced with someone else from Department 6. One second, all he wanted to do was return to California and forget he’d ever seen Francesca again. The next, he was eager to prove that he wasn’t as bad as she thought. Regardless of his feelings, however, he had enough to do without tolerating a belligerent investigator, especially one as mediocre as Hunsacker.
Finch nudged his partner. “Come on, Hugh. I know you’re stressed. We all are. But fighting among ourselves won’t help.”
“We’re just as important to this investigation as he is,” he grumbled, jerking a thumb at Jonah. “Maybe we’re not getting paid the big bucks, but we’re local. We’re the ones who know the area and the mind-set of the people living in it.”
“What are you after?” Jonah asked. “An ego boost? Are you not feeling valued?”
Hunsacker’s watery eyes lifted. “I know Butch, okay?”
Silence engulfed the room, a silence that stretched until Finch murmured, “What’d you say?”
Releasing a heavy sigh, Hunsacker rubbed his forehead. “He goes to my church.”
“And you didn’t think to mention it before now?” Jonah asked.
“I didn’t want you to assume I was biased, that a previous…affiliation would get in the way of the investigation.” He glowered at all of them. “Because it won’t. I’ve just been trying to point out that Butch is innocent until proven guilty, and we currently have no proof that he’s done anything wrong.”
“We’ve got to start somewhere, Hugh,” Finch said.
“I have a slightly different perspective on Butch.” He hesitated. “I’ve seen his good points.”
Francesca slid the wire she’d put on the table to one side. “Which are…”
“When Peggy lost her job at the supermarket last year, we went through a hard time financially, okay? It happens to the best of us.” His tone challenged any one of them to disagree. “We assumed she’d have no problem getting on somewhere else so we didn’t start saving soon enough. And then she didn’t get a job for several months, and we began to fall behind on our mortgage. We were about to lose the house when some of the people at my church took up a collection.”
“You never said a word to me about any of this,” Finch said.
Hunsacker shot his partner a self-conscious glance. “You knew Peggy lost her job.”
“But I didn’t realize you needed help, that you weren’t making ends meet.”
“You have your own problems.” He spoke into his chest now. “And I didn’t want you to know. I guess…I guess I was embarrassed. It’s not easy to talk about.”
“Don’t tell me Butch contributed,” Jonah said.
Hunsacker’s double chin wagged as he lifted his face. “He did. He lent us a thousand dollars, much more than anyone else. And you can tell he doesn’t have a lot. That says something about a guy, doesn’t it? That he’d help an acquaintance who was down on his luck—without asking for anything in return?”
When no one answered, he added, “Sociopaths aren’t supposed to feel empathy.”
“That doesn’t mean they can’t ever be kind,” Francesca said. “Maybe he liked the ego boost of being able to help you, a cop.”
“If so, he never rubbed my nose in it.” Hunsacker shrugged. “He never spoke of it at all. Treated me just the same as he ever did.”
“Still, we know Butch is no saint—” Francesca began, but Hunsacker cut her off.
“He might not be faithful to his wife. He might not be all that nice to his mentally impaired brother-in-law. But maybe he has reasons for what he does that we know nothing about. Maybe his wife is frigid and won’t let him near her. Maybe his brother-in-law is such a pain in the ass he can’t stand living with him but does it because Dean has nowhere else to go. Who can say? I can’t believe he’s a killer. I need proof. But so will a jury,” he said, as if that justified his stance.
“We aren’t going to charge him without proof,” Jonah said.
“I realize that. I’m just…asking you to keep an open mind, to understand that this guy is a decent person, at least some of the time, and that maybe there’s someone else out there, someone we’re overlooking.”
“Like Dean?” Francesca said.
