South River Incident Read Online Free PDF

something missing in our relationship. I
still can’t seem to get that trust back we once shared when we first started
seeing each other. Maybe it had something to do with the time I told him a
piece of confidential information while under the influence, and he did his job
by reporting it to his boss. That really blew my mind. I tried to put the
incident behind us and start over again, but it’s been hard. I love him—I just
don’t trust him.
    Mom looked across the table
at Billy and said, “Let’s have it.”
    “The body is pretty
mutilated. Sheriff Hudson thinks it might be the body of Mary Keen, the woman
who has been missing. She was reported kidnapped, the ransom was paid, but she
never made it back home. It’s pretty hard to tell from the corpse, but the
diamond ring was a dead giveaway. Roy Keen, her husband, used to be a Greene County deputy
until he was fired last month. Prior to all this, about six months ago, he gave
his wife a huge diamond ring that raised eyebrows within the department. A
deputy’s wife saw it and started asking all kinds of questions. Later, the ring
showed up in a photo taken at a party, and eventually the photo got passed
around.”
    My instincts kicked in.
“Why was he fired?”
    “Don’t you remember, Jesse?
It was in the papers and all over the news. He was involved in stealing drugs
from the evidence room and selling them on the street. It was a black eye for
the department.”
    “What you’re saying is the
kidnappers received the ransom and killed her anyway? That’s pretty sorry.”
    “That’s what it looks
like.”
    “How much was the ransom?”
    “It was fifty thousand
dollars. What difference does that make?”
    “That’s a lot of money for
a deputy, especially for someone who has been out of work. Where did he get the
money to buy the ring?”
    “He sold drugs!” Mom
snapped. “Gosh, Jesse, even I could figure that one out. He’s a criminal!”
    “If it was all about money,
why didn’t the kidnappers take the ring?”
    “That’s a good question,”
Mom added.
    We sat there contemplating
the situation.
    “If this is the Keen woman,
the only problem we have is that she was dumped on our property, right, Billy?”
    “Let’s hope so.
Unfortunately, the cops have a way of screwing things up or making a bad
situation worse. Una-ye-hi-di the wa-hya !”
    “What?” Mom looked befuddled.
    “Fear the wolves.”
    “Oh, that’s a pleasant
thought,” I mumbled. “I think what Billy’s trying to say, Mom, is that once the
cops sink their teeth into you, they don’t let go until they come away with
some meat. Even if we’re not the guilty party, they’re still going to gnaw away
at us.”
    “That sure doesn’t sound
very pleasant. It’s just not fair.”
    “No, it’s not fair,” Billy
said. “That’s why I don’t get along with them. They take good people and turn
their lives upside down. This bit about innocent until proven guilty is a
farce. In the eyes of the law, you’re guilty until you can prove yourself
innocent. What starts out as an open and shut case turns into a witch hunt and
innocent people get hurt.”
    “What else did you find out
from the sheriff?” I asked.
    “It wasn’t from the sheriff
that I learned anything,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “I overheard one of
the deputies tell another that Roy probably had something to do with it. He also made a
reference to the police not being called in until after the ransom was paid.
And they wondered if Roy had actually paid a ransom. I find the whole scenario
a little strange myself. It just doesn’t wash.”
    “That does add some spice
to the pie,” Mom added. Her face lit up like a Christmas tree. She seemed to be
coming to terms with the situation now that she didn’t have to worry about
going to jail.
     However,  I found it
strange that she would make such a comment. She never used to talk about
people, let alone make silly remarks about them.
    Billy has been a