Page 83 of Hudson
Whittingham said nothing.
Hud handed him off to Beau and looked at Carla. “We’ll need you to come with us as well, Mrs. Whittingham.”
She nodded like she’d been expecting it for a long time. “I know.”
They drove them to the sheriff’s office in Whitefish in silence. Nobody said a word the entire way.
Hud sat across from Whittingham in the interrogation room at the sheriff’s office and let the silence do its work. Whittingham sat with his hands folded on the table, trying to look calmer than he was. The sweat at his temples gave him away.
“How long have you known Harold White?”
“Years. We did legitimate business together for a time.”
“When did it stop being legitimate?”
Whittingham looked at the table. “About two years ago. He came to me with a proposition. Said he was losing money on the dealership and needed another income stream to dig himself out.”
“And your role was what exactly?”
Whittingham was quiet for a moment. “I have contacts. Buyers who don’t ask too many questions about where their beef comes from. Harold would bring me the cattle and I’d move them. That’s all I did.”
“You sold stolen cattle.”
“I facilitated a transaction.”
Hud stared at him. “You want to try that again without the lawyer talk?”
Whittingham exhaled slowly, like a man releasing something he’d been holding onto for a long time. “Yes. I sold the cattle. Harold handled everything else, the trucks, the men, all of it. I didn’t know anything about any insurance fraud until recently.”
“But you knew the cattle you were selling were stolen.”
The silence stretched out long enough to fill the room.
“Yes.” The word came out quietly, almost to himself. “I knew.”
“How did White approach you?”
Whittingham shifted in his chair, hands folded on the table in front of him like a man in church. “Two years ago. Showed up here out of nowhere, which surprised me since Harold and I had never been what you’d call friendly.” He paused. “He said he had cattle to move and needed someone with clean contacts to sell them through. Said there’d be good money in it, and nobody would ever know.”
“And you agreed.”
“Not right away.” His jaw tightened. “But he was persuasive. And the money was—” He stopped. “I made a bad decision. I knew it then and I know it now.”
“Has your wife been involved all along?” Beau asked from across the room.
Whittingham looked at him, then back at the table. “No. She was angry that I would even consider talking to Harold.” His voice dropped. “But I talked her into it. That’s the part I’ll have the hardest time living with.”
Hud stayed silent for a moment. “You knew an agent had been shot during one of White’s operations.”
“I heard about it afterward.” Whittingham looked up for the first time in a while, his eyes tired and flat. “I want you to know I had nothing to do with that. Violence was never part of what I agreed to.”
“But you kept selling the beef after it happened.”
Whittingham said nothing. His hands stayed folded on the table.
“How much did you make off this operation?”
A long pause. “Enough.”
