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“When?”
“A few days ago. I just haven’t had time to call, and I didn’t want to just make a quickie phone call. I wanted to give you my full attention.”
“What happened?”
“It was him.”
“He admitted it?” I exclaimed. Just like that?
I turned into the station parking lot and drove to the back where the employees parked, taking my usual spot beneath a tree. I left the wagon running and glanced at the clock, noting I had ten minutes until I needed to go inside.
“He didn’t have much choice.” Dad confirmed. “He couldn’t deny the proof.”
“You found proof?”
“After you left the police station that night, I overheard one of the arresting officers on a private call.”
“You overheard, huh?”
“Well, perhaps I followed him to the back and hid around the corner,” Dad explained.
I grinned, imagining my father, the senator, creeping around the police station to eavesdrop on police officers.
“He was quite upset on the phone. Going on about how he didn’t know his son was in the car. How if he knew he had a son, he wouldn’t have planted the drugs while Matthew was with you. He would have waited until you were alone.”
I growled under my breath. I knew that cop had set me up.
“I couldn’t hear what the man on the other end of the line was saying, of course, but it was obvious he wasn’t happy. The officer seemed very nervous and was very apologetic to the senator.”
I’d say I was surprised by McClaren’s stupidity, but I wasn’t.
“When he ended the call, I stepped from around the corner, and the cop pretty much confessed to planting the drugs in your car with the intent of getting you arrested for possession. He was paid by Senator McClaren to do so. He realized he’d made a mistake after the arrest when Niles revealed Prism’s paternity. Alarmed, he called the senator to let him know that he’d accidentally framed his son along with mine.”
“What a shitshow.”
“Indeed.” Dad agreed. “The officer was worried about his job.”
“You mean the one he doesn’t deserve?”
“Yes, that one. So I made him a deal. I would keep silent about his part in the setup if he provided me with a record of the brief text exchange he had with McClaren, a bank statement showing the payment he’d collected for being dirty, and a screenshot of the call history on his phone, which showed direct calls to McClaren’s personal line.”
“He agreed?” I asked.
“It was that or go to jail.” Dad’s voice was hard, every inch of the powerful senator he was.
“So he gave it to you,” I surmised. “And what, he just gets to go back to terrorizing the people of Westbrook?”
“He was transferred this morning.”
It really wasn’t good enough, but in the grand scheme of things, he was a small fry compared to McClaren.
“And?” I pressed.
“And I hired a PI to dig around and find out if McClaren was also the one who’d planted those drugs at the party you were DJ-ing.”
“Did he?”
“It appears so. He paid someone to slip inside and plant the drugs. They were supposed to plant them with your equipment, but somehow they ended up in the closet. I’m not clear on how or why that happened. Anyway, later, an anonymous tip was called in about drug distribution at the party, which prompted a raid,” he explained.
