Page 41 of Justice for Daesha

On Monday morning,Amos’s first order of business was to go to the lab. As soon as he’d dropped off everything with Eric, he drove to the office. He’d no more than walked through the door before Mack yelled, “Amos?”

“Yeah.” In seconds, he was in Mack’s doorway. “What’s up?”

“Got a call from the AG. She wants to know if there’s anything even remotely true about the report of the deputy jailer down in CrittendenCounty messing around with the inmates. Normally we wouldn’t handle something like that?he’s not an elected official?but it turns out he’s the brother of the jailer. Nepotism at its finest. So if he’s actually done what they’re saying he’s done, then the jailer himself is going to be in trouble. Thought I’d give this to you, let you see what you can come up with.” Amos hesitated for a second, and Mack jumped right in. “Something wrong? Got something better to do?”

“N-n-no. I just didn’t think?”

Mack leaned up and gave Amos a look that said he didn’t feel like being fucked around with. “I know what you’re thinking, but you assured me it wouldn’t take time away from your job.”

“And it won’t. I’ll get on the CrittendenCounty thing right now. Not a problem.”

“Good. I need you on the job, not with your mind wandering somewhere else.”

“No, no. I’m on it. And thanks for assigning it to me. I’ll get started.”Fuck it all!Amos wanted to scream. He had a whole list of things he wanted to do that morning when he got there, but they’d have to wait.

So he started making phone calls all over the place, enough phone calls to find out that the jailer and deputy jailer were the cousins of the county judge executive.You have got to be kidding me, Amos wanted to scream. Holy hell, what a mess. He was trying to find somebody, anybody, in that area who’d tell him the truth about what might be going on when he got a text from Eric:Come over when you can. He was unsure if that was about the ring and the logo or the deputy jailer.

Twenty minutes later, he’d made a list of documents he needed to request from the state elections board and was headed to the AG’s office to see if he could get a warrant. It really wasn’t needed?the elections board would give him what was necessary?but that warrant covered everybody’s asses. In between researching that county’s resources, he’d brought up the KelsoCustom Percussion website, and there on its front page was the logo. He did a screen shot and sent that to Eric. “Stopping by the lab on my way to the elections board,” he said as he passed Mack’s office.

“Good deal,” his supervisor called out to him as the door closed behind him, and he slid behind the wheel and backed the Jeep out of his parking space.

Eric was sitting in front of a computer screen when Amos walked in. “Whatcha got, bud?”

“First, look at this.” He pointed to the computer screen. Amos bent over and planted his hands on the desk, peering at the screen. “Now watch his right hand.”

As Amos squinted at the screen, he could see the deputy jailer walk up to a prisoner. He ran his hand down the front of the prisoner, and when he got to the prisoner’s waist, he ran his hand down into the prisoner’s drawstring pants. The kicker?

It was a male prisoner.

“Holy shit. This is going to be a huge mess unless this guy will plead guilty,” Amos muttered.

“Yeah. Here’s another one.” In that video, the deputy jailer walked up behind another prisoner, wrapped his arm around the prisoner’s neck almost in a choke hold, and kissed the man on the cheek.

“Good lord. Didn’t he know there was a camera?” He thought for a minute. “Oh, wait. He thought his brother the jailer would erase that. Right. I guess Bubba wasn’t quick enough on the draw.”

“Yeah. And as I go through the footage, I’m finding more and more. State’s attorney’s gonna love this one,” Eric said and chuckled. “Aaaaand I’ve got something else for you.”

Amos blew out a breath. “Good.”

“Come over here and look at this.” Eric walked to a small light table and hit the switch. Its fluorescent lights flickered a couple of times and then steadied in brightness. “You need to see this. It’s the marking on the side of the ring.”

“Please tell me you found out whose mark that is.”

“Here.” Eric handed him a printout. “It belongs to an artist in Austin,Texas. ReedEvigan. Find him and you’ll find out who purchased that ring.”

“Thanks. You’re a pro.”

“I’ll remember you said that the first time I fuck something up!” Eric yelled as Amos walked out. He stared at the sheet of paper as he went. ReedEvigan. That was a good place to start.

In some ways, it would be good if it were a Thursday. If it were, she’d be at her house and he’d be at his, or he could stay late at the office. Either way, he’d have time to himself to really dig around. He picked up the warrant from the AG’s office but after going to the election board, he’d drawn a blank. All of their paperwork on the CrittendenCounty jailer seemed to be in order, so there was no indication of election tampering from anyone. When he got back to the office, he’d do a detailed search of newspaper articles and arrest records to see if there was any public dirt on the deputy jailer, jailer, or judge executive. Based on what he found, they’d have a better idea how to proceed.

But as soon as there was no one looking over his shoulder, he had every intention of looking up ReedEvigan. He’d be looking at social media too. He pulled back into the parking lot and noticed Mack’s car was gone. That was sheer luck. “Where’s Wexler?” he asked as he stepped inside.

Alex never turned from his computer screen. “Had to go check on his mom. They think she broke her hip.”

“Oh, shit. That’s no good. Hope he calls and tells us what’s going on,” Amos sat down at his desk and grabbed his mouse. The second it moved, the screen flashed on, and he started digging around. Nothing he found suggested there was a problem with any of the officials in the jail case, but he had to admit, that deputy jailer’s social media page with him hanging all over girls who looked to still be in their teens kinda creeped Amos out a bit. The guy had to be forty-five. What the hell was that about? The jailer and judge executive, however, seemed to be fine. He’d do more digging though.

His next course of action was to look up Evigan on social media. Oddly, there were no social media connections. Then he searched the internet, but found nothing except some very old newspaper articles. Another thought ran through his head, so he brought up the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s website and did an inmate lookup.

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