Fifteen minutes later, I’m striding through the entrance and headed for the conference room. Patricia Shelby’s husband, new baby in his arms, sits in the lobby. I don’t slow. No time. At the conference room door, I give the officer standing by, Officer Loudon, a nod of dismissal and enter the room. I close the door behind me and look over the assembled group.
The six study me, their faces clouded with fear and exhaustion. None look as if they’ve slept in days.
I settle at the head of the table and say, “Who wants to start?”
Janie Hyatt raises her hand. “I guess I started this, so I should finish it.”
Interesting way to put it. “All right. I’m listening.” They can write their statements later. I figure it’s better if I hear what they have to say before we do anything official.
“When I learned Fanning would be released on probation rather than serving the last five years of his sentence, I had to do something. I could not let him go free.” She sends a pointed look around the table and then at me. “Pedophiles don’t change. They can’t. There is no rehabilitation. They’re either carrying out their sick desires or they’re dead. There is no in-between.”
I say nothing. My opinion is the same.
“We—the seven of us—got together and decided to take care of him.”
“Number seven being?” I ask rather than dive into the admission of planning a murder.
“Mario Sanchez.”
I nod for her to go on, but then I hold up a hand. “First, I need to advise you all of your rights.” When several start to argue, I interrupt, “It’s the law.”
I recite their rights and then motion for Hyatt to continue.
“I believe Melanie has already told you how we decided who would do what.”
“She did.” Anticipation and a weird kind of dread is thumping inside me. I’m having trouble feeling good about all this.
“Dana and I decided to take the final step. This was our plan, and we didn’t want to put that monkey on anyone else’s back. So it wasn’t one of the steps that could be drawn by the others.”
I suspect she means they didn’t trust anyone else to do the job.
“What part did Sanchez draw?”
Hyatt and Reeves share a look before Hyatt explains. “He was supposed to help us, but then he backed out. Said he couldn’t do it.”
All this time, Liv and I have wondered about Sanchez. Seems he bowed out. Understandable, I guess, since he and his wife have a baby on the way. Or maybe he has another reason I don’t know about yet. Like his own plan.
“We picked Fanning up,” Hyatt says, “when he came home from work one night and drove him to the cabin. The one you and your partner visited.”
So they had cameras.
“Trail cams,” she confirms before I can ask.
“Was Fanning in the barn when you set it on fire?” I ask. No need to beat around the bush.
“He was. Our mistake was in leaving before it burned to the ground. There was no wind. It had rained like hell the night before. We weren’t worried about the fire reaching the cabin or the woods. But we didn’t go far. When we returned a little while later, the fire was basically nothing but smoldering embers. We hoped and prayed that meant the job was done. The ash was too hot to dig through looking for whateverwas left of him, but the answer was obvious. My old blue truck—the one I kept at the cabin—was gone.”
“We’ve stayed hidden since then,” Reeves says. “We couldn’t be sure what he would do. But after what happened to Patricia, and then when Melanie told us about her coming clean, we decided it was time to end the charade.” She draws in a big breath before she goes on. “We would have killed him—we tried. But we failed, and we have no idea where he is now.” Hyatt puts an arm around her and pulls her close.
That certainly explains a lot. No matter that both Shelby and Hardeman have spoken about this plan, it’s damned mind-blowing to hear it in detail—particularly recounted in such a calm manner. “Can you tell me if he was injured in any way? Before the fire.”
Apparently he was capable of driving.
“There was a big gash in his left arm, but he had that before we picked him up. I have no idea how he injured himself.”
That likely explains the blood in his house. I scrub a hand over my face. “This is ...” I’m not exactly sure what to say. In all my years as a detective, I have to admit I have never heard a story quite like this one. Damn.
“I appreciate you all coming forward.” My thoughts are racing. I need to find Liv and fill her in. More importantly, we need to find that bastard. I hope to hell he drove off and died somewhere. The trouble is, nothing has come back on the BOLO for the truck. He could be any-fucking-where.
