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Jack had nodded at her, then changed the subject. He’d look into Holden’s brother on his own. The last thing he wanted to do was involve Robin by asking her questions that were either unreliable (if they were based on town gossip) or uncomfortable simply because of the subject matter.
But now, here he was, alone in his car, wondering what to make of the news that Holden had a brother who apparently caused enough problems that it was the first and only thing that’d popped out of her mouth related to the subject.
Jack spent the next few minutes on a private browser on his phone, searching for everything he could find about Holden’s brother. It seemed like this kind of snooping would be fast enough without raising red flags within the department since they’d be able to easily see his daily activity on the laptop mounted to his dash.
His name was CJ Snitker, according to the yearbook photo he’d found from Snow Hill High. When he’d discovered—thanks to a social media post on the guy’s very public profile—that CJ currently lived in Philly, his brows shot up.
Philly, huh? Wonder when he moved out there?
As Jack continued to investigate CJ’s socials, his heart pounded in his chest. The first post from CJ that was tagged in the Philadelphia area was from a month after Matthew’s death.
He swiped to Tommy’s contact info and called him immediately. “Hey,” he said when his old partner answered. “Can you look into a guy for me?”
“Related to Robin’s husband’s case?”
“Does it matter?” Jack asked with a short laugh.
“Yeah, because I wanna know ifsheknows what you’re doing before I agree to help you with this.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “She knows, and she’s grateful.”
“Oh, good. Carry on.”
“Thanks,” he said dryly before relaying the information he’d snooped out on his own. “I’m thinking it’s sketchy that he moved to Philly right after the incident.”
“I agree.”
“Can you put some feelers out, and see what you can dig up?”
“Sure. But I’m gonna tell my supervisor and loop in the detectives so we can make sure whatever we find out will hold up in court. You don’t wanna mess this up by going all renegade cop on the guy.”
“I know, I know. In fact, now that this has come up, I’m even more convinced there might have been some shady stuff going on with how the case was handled. I’m considering reaching out to the mayor here in Snow Hill for his help, so I can make sure it’s all on the up and up.”
Tommy hummed while he thought that over. “Skipping the chain of command is touchy, but I guess you don’t know how high up this goes.”
“Exactly. And the current mayor wasn’t the mayor at the time, so he wouldn’t be involved. Plus, he’s Robin’s boss, so he’d have a vested interest in helping us figure this out.”
Besides, Andrew Thompson’s father was once the police chief in Snow Hill. He’d probably want to make sure there wasn’t any funny business in the department on his watch, especially with his father coming out for Christmas, which he’d learned during their chat at the station that day. Jack wasn’t sure how long ago Andrew’s father had left the department, but he’d want to find that out before he went into the rest, just in case.
“If anything dirty went on, hopefully it’s limited to Holden, and it won’t be a big thing. But I need to cover my bases,” Jack said.
“Good call. Alright, shoot me the details on the guy, and I’ll see what I can see.”
“Thanks, Tommy. I appreciate you, man.”
“Anytime, brother.”
Jack got off the phone and leaned his head back on the headrest with a sigh. If he wanted to loop in the mayor so he wouldn’t be branded as a rogue cop himself, there was no better time than the present.
CHAPTER14
Robin
After beingon her feet all day, Robin was overjoyed when Abby agreed to watch a movie on the couch before dinner so she could take a bath instead of build gingerbread houses as they’d previously planned to do. She felt bad about changing things up on Abby since she knew her daughter had been looking forward to the holiday activity, but she wasbeat.
Sensible heels or not, her feet were killing her after running back and forth between her office and Colonial Hall to make sure everything was on track for Andrew’s father’s first Gingerbread Ball in years. She’d only intended to pop by once in the morning to get a progress report from Nick, but she’d wound up getting roped into errand after errand to help with the cause.
Robin leaned back against the tub and stared at her ruby-red toenail polish. One thing she hated about winter in Snow Hill was the fact that she couldn’t wear open-toed shoes. She was an at-home pedicure pro—as was Abby—and they made it a point to have a spa night as often as they could. It was just a shame Snow Hill’s chilly temps this time of year made it impossible to show off their handiwork in the foot department.
