Page 156 of The Woman By the Lake

Harry kept going.

“So last night, the Chelan County Sheriff, along with the marshals, and a few FBI guys thrown in for fun, rounded up this crew, including the mafia witness, who’s already testified. So now he’s on his way back to Vegas, seeing as he broke the terms of his immunity agreement. Not to mention, he fucked with a judge, and they take that shit super fucking seriously.”

“Mafia?” Riggs finally asked, feeling something strange in his throat.

Nadia shifted closer.

“If you’re worried about Bubbles, brother, don’t,” Harry advised. “This guy has a lot of things he’s gotta worry about, the least of which is figuring out who swung him out there. Primarily, staying alive now that he’s back in a zone where they know where he is and can find ways to get to him. He survives that, he’s gotta answer to the charges they scuttled to get him to testify, since he doesn’t have immunity on them anymore and he has to deal with the shit he pulled up here, including fucking with a judge. He’s gonna see prison time, so then he has to survive prison as a snitch, and a snitch who snitched on the mafia, and his odds are not good on that.”

When Riggs said nothing after Harry quit talking, he started again.

“No one knows Bubbles talked, Doc. One thing Bubbles has a good reputation for is not being a rat, even if he just became one. Even so, they delivered a pretty unmistakable message to him, so they probably won’t consider him the prime suspect of who leaked. The brainiac who trusted Bubbles with that wine, one of the names Bubbles did give us, was the weak link in that crew, and we know that because he dropped the dime on every member of his team practically before we could say boo to the guy.”

Riggs knew Harry saw he remained unconvinced, because Harry kept going.

“This WITSEC guy doesn’t have a lot of friends anymore, Doc, seeing as he squealed on them and is probably going to be doing time alongside them, if he makes it that far. And if they knew it was Bubbles who put him there, they’d probably send him another case of that wine.”

“You sure?” Riggs pushed.

“I’m never sure about how people who live those lives are gonna behave. But I’d pull in every marker I had to get Bubbles safe if I thought there was a credible threat,” Harry replied. “The man makes a lot of bad choices I wish he wouldn’t, but I don’t want him at the bottom of one of our lakes.”

“And you’re sure you got that entire crew?” Riggs pressed.

“If it’ll help you feel better, I’ll let you watch the interrogation tape. Just to say, we had a clean pair of jail underwear available because it was dicey there for a while. This team was slick, but one of the members was this guy’s brother, and he convinced the mastermind to take a chance on his baby bro. And the man even dropped the dime on his brother.”

Riggs relaxed, because that shit was stone-cold wuss.

“Any word on other shit that’s pending?” he asked as Harry took another pull of beer.

Harry’s eyes flicked to Nadia, and he said, “Doesn’t leave this room.”

“Promise,” Nadia replied immediately.

Riggs smiled, because serious as fuck, she was into this shit.

“Won’t breathe a word,” he told Harry something he already knew when it came to Riggs.

Harry nodded. “So, Wade had the great idea, since we’re doing a quiet audit, not to make it quiet seeing as it’s well-known Dern was shit at his job. And instead, let it out in a subtle way that we’re just making sure all the I’s are dotted and T’s crossed because the new sheriff is thorough that way.”

At that, Riggs grinned and shoved the potatoes in the waiting colander.

Harry kept going.

“Using that as cover, we can go over old ground with the Whitaker situation, which folks will think is safe, considering he confessed. So we’ve interviewed some of Roosevelt’s old friends, and his assistant. Cade told you his theory?”

“Yes,” Nadia said, again immediately.

Seriously into it.

Riggs chuckled and replied, “Yeah.”

“Well, we can just say, not everyone in town will think we’re just doing due diligence after a spell of incompetent law enforcement supervision.”

Having finished the slaw, Nadia shoved the flour coating she was mixing aside, leaned into her forearms to get closer to Harry, and she asked, “Really?”

“Yeah,” Harry answered. “No one said anything outright, but some were uncomfortable, others were cagey as fuck, though with all of them, it seemed they had something they wanted to say, they just didn’t. The general consensus Rus and I have is that they don’t think Lincoln did it. And there’s a reason why, and not the normal one where your average person wouldn’t blow holes in two people he loves then burn them to dust.”

“So the brother-husbands theory holds weight,” Nadia pushed.

---