Page 39 of Forever Dead

“What the hell are you doing?”

He slammed the receiver down hard enough to rattle the pen cup.

For a moment he sat with both palms flat against the desk.

Calling an inspector because Morimer demanded it was corruption, however Connor dressed it up. Maybe the inspection would be legal. Maybe every violation uncovered would be genuine. None of that changed why the sheriff of Harlan County would have initiated it.

Morimer had threatened a businessman, then ordered Connor to use his office to apply pressure.

Connor could arrest him for the threat. Bring him in, put the statement on record, and start pulling at every thread around him.

Morimer would respond before Connor finished the paperwork.

The video would go to the FBI. Connor handing six thousand dollars to Walton Morimer. No recording of the desperation that had led to it. No neat explanation printed beneath the image. Just the sheriff passing cash to a known criminal.

Selena would see it.

That thought bothered him more than it should have.

Their marriage had not failed because of one thing. Selena had shut him out in her own ways, and he had answered by becoming harder to reach. Whenever he was frightened or ashamed, Connor kept it to himself until silence turned into distance. At the time, he had told himself he was protecting her from things she did not need to carry.

Looking back, he knew what it had really done.

Now he was doing it again.

Connor stood before he could reconsider the phone. The yellow note stayed on the desk.

He stepped into the corridor and headed toward the briefing room.

Arnold sat at one of the computers near the far wall, shoulders rounded toward the monitor. The murder board behind him held photographs from Eleanor’s farmhouse, a map of the surrounding roads and the first rough timeline of the night she died.

Connor stopped inside the doorway.

“There was a time we just used this room for storage.”

Arnold turned in his chair. “Yeah?”

Connor nodded toward the board. “This past year, we’ve used it too often for something else.”

Arnold followed his attention. “Can’t argue with that.”

“What are you working on?”

“Deacon Blair.”

Connor crossed to the table. “Find anything?”

“A legal dispute with the county from last year. Deacon filed a complaint against Miss Marsh over the condition of part of her property.”

“What kind of condition?”

Arnold opened a scanned document on the screen. “Overgrowth along the boundary. According to him, rats were nesting there and crossing onto his farm.”

Connor leaned closer.

“He claimed they were getting into his produce storage and feeding on crops,” Arnold continued. “Said it cost him thousands.”

“Did Eleanor respond?”