Page 66 of Shadow Sabotage
“We have two options. We keep this to ourselves and continue gathering evidence, this time with Sheriff McGrath as our prime suspect. Or we confront him and see what he has to say.”
“This is terrible,” she said, her eyes welling up with tears.
“Murder always is.”
An hour later,Claire and I both sat across from an irritated Sheriff McGrath in his office. We hadn’t told him why we needed to speak to him immediately, but he was smart enough to tell from our body language that it wasn’t good.
“I’m going to cut right to the chase,” I said flatly. “You haven’t been honest with us.”
“Never once have I been dishonest with you,” he said, giving me a death stare.
“Alright, let me rephrase,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “You’ve withheld information from us.”
He held my gaze for a pause, then nodded. “I’ll admit to that.”
“Right now would be a good time to come clean.”
His eyes flicked from mine to Claire’s, then back again. “I’m guessing you found out about Tony Evans dating Katelyn Brown. To be clear, I was never trying to hide that fact from you. I know how things work, and I knew you’d get the information from Laramie PD and do what needed to be done. But by keeping it quiet on my end, I was able to make Mayor Evans feel like I was doing him a favor. Now, he owes me one. Simple politics.” He shrugged as if that were it.
It seemed like Mayor Evans and Sheriff McGrath were doing alotof favors for each other. And while I knew that’s how it often worked, I didn’t like it. At all.
“I appreciate you clearing that up,” I said, never breaking eye contact. “But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Ah.Those words made him sweat.
“Alright, son, then why don’t you tell me what this is about.”
Smooth.Call me son to put me in my place and form a connection. Ask me to tell him the details so he would know the extent of what I knew.
But this wasn’t my first day.
“Tell me about your personal relationship with Katelyn Brown.”
His eyes went wide with shock. “Excuse me?”
“We know,” Claire said, her voice strained. Broken. “We know about the two of you.”
He gave her an angry glare. “Then you need to check your information, because I didn’thavea personal relationship with Katelyn Brown.”
“To be clear,” I said smoothly, bringing his focus back to me. “You’re denying the fact that you had a relationship with Katelyn Brown, even though witnesses have stated that you were quite cozy with her in public.”
The shock in his eyes was real. “I wasn’tcozyanything. I spoke to the girl once, at the coffee shop down the street. That was it.”
There was nothing about his words, body language, or facial expression that indicated he was lying. I’d deliberately left out the coffee shop part, but he’d known that’s where they had been seen anyway. That was a mark in his favor, indicating that there weren’t multiple locations where he and Katelyn might have been spotted. But I still needed to be sure.
“That’s not what we heard,” I said firmly. “But I’ll give you a chance to tell us your side of the story.”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t you forget thatI’mthe one who calledyouin.” He smacked his palm on the desk. “You’re only here at my request. You think I’d do that if I had something to hide?”
I didn’t answer.
He shook his head, rolling his eyes. “Fine. Back, oh… December, maybe? Seems like it was around Christmas. I was working late—bad accident on the highway—and stopped by the coffee shop for some caffeine to keep me going. I see this kid I don’t recognize sitting in the back corner with tears streaming down her cheeks. As the sheriff of a small town, I like to keep tabs on things. So I got my coffee and went over to check on her.”
“Katelyn was crying?” Claire asked.
I glanced over and saw her mind working a million miles an hour.
“Yeah,” he said, glancing at her. “I asked her if everything was okay. She said she’d had a big fight with her boyfriend.The way she looked, I was afraid we might be dealing with a domestic. So I sat down with her, tried to get her to open up.”
