Page 168 of The Woman Left Behind

Harry didn’t move even as Rus made his way into the house.

They exchanged a glance, and Harry stayed where he was as Rus conducted his own inspection.

Eventually, Rus came to stand at his side.

“Theresa says carbon monoxide poisoning,” Rus shared.

“She’ll find sedatives in his stomach.”

“She will?”

Harry crouched.

Rus crouched with him.

Harry pointed under the couch. “Karl missed one.”

“Fuck,” Rus said, and Harry knew Rus saw the little blue pill there.

They both straightened.

“Struggle in here,” Rus caught on quick and started to run it down. “Farrell in shit shape, Abernathy got him subdued, forced the pills in him, waited for him to go unconscious, took him out to his car, started it up. Death would seem like suicide, even the sedatives wouldn’t bely that. You find a note?”

“Nope.”

“No note. Man’s got children. He’d explain. Clean in here, the rest of the house is a mess,” Rus kept on. “He swept away prints, DNA, but he wasn’t smart enough to go through the rest of the house. Instead, this is like a neon sign that says, ‘something happened in here.’”

“Theresa notice any bruising that might indicate he was in a struggle?” Harry asked.

“She didn’t say. But she was just strapping him to the gurney when I arrived. She’ll find out more when she gets him on her table.”

Harry stared at a living room that was far less attractive than the one his mom and dad left him and Winnie, even if it was less dated.

Roy Farrell had cheated on his wife repeatedly. She kept taking him back. Until she couldn’t hack it anymore.

She left, taking the kids with her.

Through water cooler talk, Harry knew Farrell fought for full custody, just to be an asshole, and bitched about it constantly, because attorneys cost a fortune.

In the end, they shared custody, and that was all Harry knew about it, especially the last nearly four years when Farrell had been out of the department.

Then again, there were two kids’ rooms in that house, and it didn’t look like they’d been touched in years. Doing the mental math, his son was close to graduation, his daughter also in high school, and both rooms were still little kids’ rooms no teenager would be caught dead in.

It didn’t take an investigator’s power of deduction to theorize that the kids were about as fond of their dad being a cheating loser as their mother was. They got older, they found ways to stay away from him.

Farrell ended his life working security at Box and Save, MP’s big box store. He was head of it, but it had to be a pay cut. It was definitely a status drop.

Could be, he just couldn’t afford to feed three mouths when he was so intent to stuff so much into one.

“You have a look at those bank statements?” Rus asked.

Harry turned to him. “Abernathy’s?”

Rus nodded.

“Been kind of busy, what’d you see?”

“Consistent deposits. Cash. Five hundred here, a thousand there. Nothing the IRS would ask questions about. But also not on any schedule. Sometimes months would go by, nothing. Then there’d be random deposits for a few months, then nothing again. Though, over the years, that shit was adding up.”

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