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Tears streamed down his eyes, and Faith felt a moment of pity for him. She recalled the devastation she felt when Jethro Trammell temporarily paralyzed her. She had spiraled into a depression that had nearly cost her her job and her friendships. It might still have cost her her boyfriend. She couldn’t imagine what she would do if she hadn’t recovered.
How far would this proud, once strong man go?
“So you didn’t get the results you wanted,” Faith said, “in the hospital or in the courtroom. What did you do about it?”
His eyes grew shifty again. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “Well, you don’t seem like the kind of person to just let something like that happen to you. You must have wanted to dosomethingto get back at the people who hurt you like this.”
“I didn’t kill them!” he exclaimed. He chuckled. “Even if I wanted to, what would I do? It’s not like I’m going to win a wrestling match.”
She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. “No,” she said, “but maybe you had help.”
He blinked and looked between the two agents. “What are you suggesting, Special Agent?”
“Maybe you had help. You’re a smart guy, Jerry. You have to be to run a successful funeral home for over twenty years. You could come up with a plan, a good plan.”
“That’s right,” Michael said. “You know how cemeteries work. Maybe you had an inside man. Maybe you offered to pay them if they dug some holes for you and buried a few bags.”
Fear and anger washed over Hunt’s face in equal measure. The fear was genuine, but the anger was genuine as well. He was sincerely shocked at being accused of murder. “You have to be kidding me!” he shouted. “I didn’t murder anyone!”
“I’m not gonna lie,” Michael said, “you’re looking really good for those murders now.”
Hunt looked between the two agents and said, “Are you serious? You can’t be serious.”
Faith and Michael continued to stare silently at him. Turk got lazily to his feet, his tail switching slowly back and forth as he too kept his eyes on Hunt.
Hunt swallowed and said, “What do I need to do to prove to you that I’m not the one responsible?”
“Can you give us your whereabouts two nights ago?” Faith asked. “As well as Thursday the eleventh and Thursday the fourth?”
“I was here,” he said. “I did my shopping during the day on Thursday the eleventh, and then I came home. I can’t really do much outside.”
He was trying to play on their sympathy, but Faith didn’t buy it. She looked at his legs and said, “I believe that you struggle physically, Mr. Hunt, but your mind appears as sharp as ever. I’m sure you can find a way to do whatever you want to in life.”
“I didn’t kill them!” he insisted.
“Do you have anyone who can verify your whereabouts?”
“I…” He looked between the two of them fearfully. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, “Look, you guys are here about the murders, right?”
Faith nodded. “That’s right.”
“So you’re not investigating anything else?”
Faith and Michael shared a look. “If you have something to say, Mr. Hunt, start saying it,” Michael said. “Because like I said, you’re looking really good for at least conspiracy to commit murder.”
He leaned back in his wheelchair, and Faith could see him trembling. Finally, he said, “Look, I…” He tapped the arms of his chair and then finally sighed. “Okay. Look, my injury definitely exacerbated my condition, but that’s not why my legs are so skinny. Or rather, they’re a lot skinnier than they would be. I…” He took a deep breath. “I have ALS. I’ve been losing muscle mass little by little for the past eight years.”
Faith and Michael shared a look, this time of disappointment. “So youwereattempting to defraud your insurance company.”
Hunt’s eyes flashed. “You don’t know what it’s like to have your entire life’s savings gone. These doctors, these insurance companies: all they do is take from people. They’re supposed to be here to help you, and they don’t, they just take, take, take. When I got ALS, my insurance company raised my rates by almost sixty percent. But you know what, Agent? I didn’t defraud them. Look at my medical records. Look at my insurance statements. I declared my disease. I did the right thing, the honest thing, all my life. When I got hurt, I expected them to do right by me like I did right by them for so long, and they didn’t. Do you know what they did? They refused to cover my medical care because they said that my injuries were due to a preexisting condition. I guess because my lower body was already atrophying, they didn’t think that having my back broken was reason enough to cover my hospital expenses.
“I didn’t sue Dr. Ames because I wanted to defraud her. I sued her because I’m now almost one million dollars in debt. Money I don’t have. I wasn’t going to get rich off of that judgment. I was going to be able to die in peace and not leave my children in debt because of me.
“But I didn’t kill her. I didn’t kill any of them. At the end of the day, it’s the insurance companies who are evil. I’d kill all of them before I went after a dime-store lawyer and a doctor.”
He fell silent, and a moment later, Faith said, “The problem, Hunt, is that you’ve now confirmed for me that you have motive. You’re desperate. You tried to win some money from Dr. Ames just to survive your medical debt, and thanks to Hucksley’s legal skill and Prescott’s testimony, you didn’t win that money. You have motive and you have experience with cemeteries. It’s obvious in your expression that you’re angry, and it’s obvious that you’re afraid.”
