AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“If you insist,” Kelly muttered before ripping into the inner packaging. “What do you think Brent will use to charge those guys?”
“He’s working up a list,” Lucien provided as he entered the kitchen through the garage. Beckett and Birk followed. “But getting anything out of Brent took longer than we thought.” He went over to Brogan and kissed her hair. “How’s the head? Are you guys eating without us? We promised to take you to The Pointe to celebrate.”
“Brogan looked a little pale from the blood loss. She needed something to tide her over until you got back,” Jade explained. She glanced at Kelly and added, “And this one would rather have peanut butter than filet mignon.”
Kelly frowned. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“I don’t feel like getting out just now,” Brogan murmured.
“That’s okay. We could call in an order to go,” Birk suggested. “If you’re still interested, I’ll even pick it up because I could eat a horse. Pulling information from Brent Cody is like pulling teeth.”
“You don’t know a thing about pulling teeth,” Beckett pointed out.
“I do so. Remember that time in Pakistan during that mission when I had an infected tooth and we were miles away from civilization? I yanked that sucker out with my handy pliers.”
Jade looked mortified. “You did?”
“Yep. Without one drop of Novocain.”
“No, just a half bottle of Jim Beam,” Beckett muttered. “Could we get back to the subject at hand? Food. You aren’t the only one who’s starving.”
“There’s a menu for The Pointe in the drawer under the coffee machine,” Brogan said. “I’ll take Perry’s famous crabcakes.”
That one order got the ball rolling, and everyone else made their selections for dinner.
During the meal, the six of them speculated what charges Brent could file.
In between bites of ribs, Beckett ticked off his list. “Solicitation for murder, murder for hire, insider trading, racketeering, possession of an altered firearm, and that’s just for starters.”
“Hey, what about shooting Brogan?” Lucien tossed back. “Attempted murder. I’d like to see Tazzie charged with that.”
“She was screaming bloody murder about how it was an unfortunate accident when we left the jail,” Birk remarked. “I have a feeling she’ll be yelling that all night.”
“So Tazzie didn’t take Dennis’s advice and keep quiet?” Brogan asked, moving the food around on her plate.
“God, no,” Lucien spit out. “While we were there, she kept screaming, asking where her lawyer was. Dennis kept telling her to shut up. If you ask me, those two have an issue with anger and tempers to go with it.”
“Yeah, but a juror might buy that the shooting was an accident,” Kelly pointed out.
“What bothers me the most is that Brogan got shot at all,” Jade reiterated. “A few feet from where we were hiding during a chaotic time. No one knew it had occurred. How do we prevent that from happening in the future?”
Brogan reached across the table and laid a hand on Jade’s arm. “Don’t do that. Don’t dwell on it. I’m afraid I agree with Tazzie. It was an unfortunate accident. I feel grateful that I’m sitting here at all. What I’m concerned about is getting DNA from those three. Will the charges prompt obtaining DNA?”
“From felony charges? Absolutely,” Lucien answered. “In fact, I think I spotted Eastlyn taking swabs from them after Colt snapped their mug shots.”
“Good. Did you talk to Sam?”
Lucien nodded. “I called him after the ER on my way to see Brent at the jail. He didn’t seem all that surprised that Dennis wanted him dead or that he wasn’t getting his severance package.”
“The thing is, none of them mentioned Gidget’s murder back at the canyon,” Birk noted. “Not a word about their long history together going back to 1978. It was all about recent events. That recording won’t help us solve Gidget’s murder.”
“I know. That’s been bugging me for the last three hours,” Lucien admitted. “Unless we get DNA from the exhumation, we could be royally screwed.”
20
Over two days, a search of Dennis’s properties revealed a cache of modified weapons, altered magazines, and handguns with suppressors or silencers attached. Brent and his team also found bank records pointing to wire fraud, illegally derived income from an illegally acquired out-of-state casino, a bundle of cash, proof of blackmail, money laundering, and drug deals linked back to New Jersey.
In addition to charging Dennis Marshall with a host of weapons violations, the icing on the cake came with soliciting capital murder. The county attorney offered up a list of other indictments, charging Tazzie with attempted murder for firing the weapon that hit Brogan in the head, citing one basic fact: she repeatedly kept firing the Makarov with its modified magazine. He also charged her with one count of conspiring to murder Sam Brownlee, which also applied to Richie. Additional charges stemmed from reckless endangerment, use, and possession of an altered firearm, using a silencer or a suppressor in the commission of a felony.
