Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

M onday was not starting off well for Shane because sporting a shiner for the update meeting with Dawkins and the GBI duo was the last thing he wanted to do. Wearing sunglasses indoors would make it worse, so he was going to have to listen to rousting about it all day.

He successfully avoided anyone in the hallway and was the first into the conference room, looking down at his notes when the door swung open, and the other three filed in and took a seat.

“Morning, Weaver,” Sheriff Dawkins said.

“Good morning.” Shane didn’t look up. He doodled in the margin of his legal pad.

Tuffin and Hanson didn’t bother with niceties. They were well aware of Shane’s resistance to working with them.

“What’s new?” Dawkins asked. “Give me something, y’all.”

Shane finally looked up. “I’m focusing on Cotton Timmons right now. I talked to the neighbor on the other side of him and he says Timmons has an explosive temper. Threatened to kill him a year or so ago over property lines.”

Dawkins nodded. “Whoa. Hold on about Timmons for a minute. First, let’s talk about how you got that black eye.”

“That’s proprietary information and not related to the case.”

“It damn well better not be,” Dawkins said. “Go on.”

Shane ran his hand through his hair, obliterating the perfection of the style he’d left it in when he arrived at work. “I ran him, and it appears that he’s got a record. He was arrested on cruelty to children and false imprisonment and got off with two years’ probation. The crime was against his wife at the time for the imprisonment, and his own children for excessive punishment.”

The sheriff’s phone rang, and he looked at it, then excused himself to take the call outside the room. The door slammed behind him.

“Excessively punishing your children and refusing to let your wife leave is a far cry from committing mass murder,” Tuffin said. “Hell, these days you even yell at your child and someone is calling it abuse. And side note, why did we waste time on a warrant for his DNA if he was already in the system? Sounds like an amateur mistake.”

“His DNA wasn’t in the system, Tuffin,” Shane said, his tone even and deadly. “He didn’t do any time, and his felony was before legislature expanded the database to include certain felony probationers. But speaking of DNA, I thought your team was going to put a rush on DNA collected from the scene? I haven’t heard a thing.”

They stared at each other, a silent challenge.

Hanson finally broke in. “Is this some kind of pissing contest because, last I heard, we’re supposed to be a team. Grow up, boys.” Her lips pressed into a line so fine they were nearly invisible.

Dawkins returned and looked around before sitting.

“What did I miss? ”

“Nothing, sir,” Tuffin said.

Shane continued, but kept his gaze on the sheriff, refusing to look at Tuffin again. “Rumor has it that someone left a bag of dog manure in the Colburns mailbox last year, and the eldest daughter, Missy Ann, says they all believed it came from Timmons. Willis Colburn threatened to have him arrested if he could prove it, but nothing came of it.”

“Probably teenagers having fun on a Friday night,” Tuffin said, rolling his eyes sarcastically toward the ceiling.

“Awful coincidental that it happens during a neighbor spat about a dog crossing over property lines, don’t you think?” Shane asked.

“Did you get his DNA, Tuffin?” Dawkins asked.

“Yes, we did,” he said, lifting his chin proudly.

“Okay, well, when the forensics come back, we’ll see if he pops up in the crime scene,” Dawkins said.

“If he does, we’d better hope he comes back because right now he’s over fifteen hundred miles away, somewhere in Colorado,” Shane said, then looked straight at Tuffin. “He said he made you aware.”

“Well, shit,” Hanson said, sighing her exasperation.

“Why did we let him leave?” Dawkins said to Tuffin.

“We’ve no reason to hold him, that’s why,” he said. “Anyway, he’s not our guy.”

Shane’s eyebrows shot up. “Why is that, Sherlock?”

“If Timmons had done this, he wouldn’t have been sitting around his house waiting on us to show up. He’d have run weeks ago to get a head start.”

“Unless he thought he left things so clean we couldn’t pin it on him,” Shane said. “By the time the bodies were found, Timmons had sufficient time to clean himself up and get back home through their joined properties without setting foot anywhere anyone else could see him. He also has about forty acres in which to hide a weapon. Now that we pressed him for his DNA, he’s got a fishing trip all the way across the country. That’s convenient.”

“Guys—” Dawkins said, holding his hand up. “Nothing we can do yet on him. So what else do we have?”

Hanson tapped her pen on the table as she read off her notes. “I went through all the public records for Willis and Jane, looking through properties they’ve bought and sold. Their current land is the only one they’ve purchased in over a decade. Before that, it was a small place on the other side of town but looks like a clean sale.”

Shane held in his exasperation.

Dawkins leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled as he absorbed the updates. “Alright, we’ve got Timmons out of town, but his DNAs on the way. What about Missy Ann Colburn? Anything else we can dig into?”

“Missy Ann lives in the Atlanta suburbs with her son, Justin,” Shane said. “She’s been divorced for about four years now. She interviewed before and after the funeral, answering all my questions when asked. Claims she hasn’t been back to the family property in over six months. Said she has a strong relationship with her parents but has been busy managing her career and raising Justin. She’s a pharmaceutical rep and travels a lot for work.”

“Anything unusual in her background?” Dawkins asked.

Shane shook his head. “Nothing glaring. Financials are stable, no criminal record. Her social media’s pretty clean—mostly pictures of her and Justin, work events, and a few with friends. She’s kept a relatively low profile online.”

“What about her ex-husband?” Dawkins pressed. “Justin’s father. Could there be bad blood there?”

Shane glanced back down at his notes. “Thomas ‘Tommy’ Pratt. Works in construction, owns a small remodeling business out near Ellijay—not too far from Jasper. Their divorce was finalized about four years ago, and there’s no indication of any custody battles—seems like they’ve kept things civil for Justin’s sake. That said, I did some digging, and Tommy had some financial trouble a while back. A couple of lawsuits from dissatisfied clients, though nothing criminal. The timing of the divorce and the lawsuits overlap, so maybe it put some strain on the marriage.”

“What about his relationship with the Colburns?” Dawkins asked.

“Hard to say. Missy Ann mentioned her parents adored Justin and were always there for her during and after the divorce, but she didn’t bring up Tommy much. Could be worth asking if there were any tensions. Maybe he felt like they sided with her, or there was some falling out we don’t know about.”

Shane thought of something else and interjected, flipping a page in his file. “Hey— this might be worth noting: Seth Colburn was also in construction. Did a lot of contracting work out of Jasper. It’s possible he and Tommy Pratt crossed paths—maybe even worked on a job together.”

Dawkins raised an eyebrow. “You think there could’ve been bad blood between them?”

“Could be,” Shane said, leaning back in his chair. “Small-town construction is a tight-knit business, and disputes over clients or contracts can get ugly. If Seth and Tommy had a falling out, it might’ve created tension in the family. We need to see if there’s any record of them working together—or any legal disputes that might have come out of it.”

“Good point,” Dawkins said, nodding. “Follow that thread. Check for any business connections between Seth and Tommy. If there’s a history there, it could give us a new angle.”

“I already ran his address,” Shane said, closing his notebook. “ Tommy Pratt’s maybe forty-five minutes from here. I’m headed there now.”

“Hold on,” Tuffin cut in. “We’ll handle this. No sense in you wasting your time driving out there when we can?—”

“No,” Shane interrupted sharply, standing up and grabbing his coat. “I’m on it.”

“Weaver—” Tuffin started, but Shane was already heading for the door.

Before anyone could argue further, Shane stormed out, slamming the door behind him. The sound echoed in the room as the others exchanged glances.

“Well,” Tuffin muttered. “That was mature.”

“Let him go,” Dawkins said with a resigned sigh. “If he’s that determined, maybe he’ll get something out of the guy.”