“Glad for you, Harry.Both of you.”
“Thanks, Hutch.”
“And ignore that text I sent earlier until Monday.It’s about work.”
“Lill gets the job, Hutch.And I’m curious.”
Mark of a good investigator.
“Right, so I got there early, in time to watch them load up for the farmer’s market.”
“Okay.”
“And by ‘them loading up,’ I mean the men stood around shooting the breeze while the women loaded up.Assholes didn’t even back the trucks closer to the houses so the women didn’t have to lug their shit all the way to the truck port.”
Harry was the same type of man Hutch was, so the irritation in his tone was strong when he said, “Not surprised.”
“Thing is, if you look at those pictures, I caught some interesting snaps.”He didn’t make him ask for it.“Lars Enstrom’s wife, or woman, or whatever they have, is either neck deep in Stockholm syndrome, she’s very at one with the mission or she’s in on whatever they’re up to.For supposedly devout folks, the way they buried their tongues in each other’s mouths, and he groped her ass over her ugly dress, was more than a little odd.”
“No shit?”
“None at all.And that isn’t it.The one you say is called Heath Burress.Their resident attorney?”
Another thing taking his time?
Harry and Rus were keeping him abreast of what they were learning.
“Yeah,” Harry said.
“They were rolling out to go to the market, some woman comes rushing out of a house, flags down the truck Burress is driving.He stops, rolls down the window, they have a chat, she’s all smiles.And then she gets up on the footwell to lean in to lay one on him before she let him go.”
“Are you saying you think we’re on the wrong track and the women are actually into this shit?”Harry asked.
“No, because none of the other women behave like that.They don’t even lift their heads enough for me to get a full-face shot of them.Got plenty of full-face shots of Enstrom and Burress’s women, though.”
“Have you seen them before?”
“Nope.”
“Any other differences?In clothes?Hair?”
Harry was good.
“Same dresses, but Enstrom’s wife had her hair up in one of those messy knots women wear.The kind that looks good, not like they’re about to climb into a covered wagon.Burress’s woman, though, had her hair down.”
“So they either have some kind of elevated standing, or they’ve earned some kind of reward.”
“Or they’re in on whatever those guys have going on there.Just to say, when I see the women, they’re working, Harry.They got shit to do and places to be.Conceivably, in all the time I spent there watching, not seeing those two women?—”
“Means they maybe have their feet up and they’re chilling,” Harry deduced.
“Maybe.But what isn’t a maybe is that those two women have a completely different affect than the other seven I’ve seen on that compound.”
“Right.We’ll get to work on seeing if we can identify them.You got more?”
“That’s it.”
“Each little bit is a piece of the puzzle,” Harry told him.“The picture will eventually get clearer.Thanks, Hutch.”
