Page 20 of Jon's Helter Skelter Cold Case

I laughed, mostly in a sour way. “Has he ever done anything smart?”

“Not noticeably.” Agathatsked, expression irate. “The man drives me to drinking most days. Part of the reason I was willing to hear you out was because I knew this was one of Solomon’s cases. I did look at the brief you sent me, Borrowman. I do see why the man was given a guilty verdict, as the circumstantial evidence is rather damning. But you couldn’t see any guilt in his lines, Jon?”

“I could not,” I confirmed. “Actually, Abby was the first one to spot him.”

Agatha flashed Abby a thumbs-up. “Good job.”

Abby grinned back. “Thanks. He’s not guilty of anything, Your Honor. He’s a genuinely good person.”

“I don’t know if the man’s even had a mean thought about someone,” I confirmed. “Also, no motive to hurt his sister. She was his anchor and he misses her dreadfully.”

Agatha was listening carefully, hands folded over her stomach in a thinking pose. “What else?”

“Well, some of the evidence isn’t viable.” Borrowman pulled out several things from his bag, laying them on the table. “Here’s what we’ve got to show. The murder weapon was apparently made in the backyard. Carol couldn’t trace any other origin point for it—”

Agatha let out a surprisedhuhsound, eyes widening. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish I was. Also, she can’t locate the body. She tried that first.”

Donovan lifted an attention-drawing finger. “We also asked a favor of Grant Walker, which he was happy to do, and we got another plot twist. He could connect to the dream plane but said he couldn’t trace her location.”

Agatha stared at him like she expected a punch line to make an appearance any second. “Grant. Our Grant Walker?”

“The same.”

“The man who has an insane range and can find anyone on earth? He said she’s alive, but he can’t track her? Hoooo boy. That’s…that’s something, right there.” Agatha abruptly sat forward, picking up the typed witness statements and scanning through them. Her face soured as she read. “I see. You’re able to discount half the evidence that locked this man behind bars, and you’ve barely started investigating.”

“About the size of it,” I admitted.

“How can anyone possibly hide a person from both CarolandGrant?”

“I wish I knew.” I splayed my hands in a helpless shrug. “Trust me, this is the weirdest thing I’ve heard in months. And I hear a lot of weird crap.”

“I bet you do.” She set the folder down, lips compressed into a tight line. “I see Solomon did his usual trick of finding someone to pin the blame on and didn’t actually investigate. I’ll hang the man by his balls over this one. He made a colossal mistake here, as this case received national coverage.”

Eh. It had?

To be fair, I rarely watched the news.

But that meant we had lots of witnesses to Solomon’s stupidity, which filled my heart with joy. Maybe we could finally kick this man off the force.

Borrowman put yet another folder in front of her, this one full of pictures. “To make things even weirder, the blood splatter in this case makes no sense. Forensics only found two spots—some drops on the garage floor and traces of blood in the shower drain. Nowhere else.”

Which was impossible. Blood didn’t clean easy, so carting a body around through the house and not getting blood anywhere but those places? Not happening.

“There’s too much here that doesn’t make sense.” Agatha gave a nod, standing and then making her way back to her desk. “I’m reopening the case. Keep me posted on your progress. I’m very eager to have this sorted out.”

I mentally punched a fist in the air. Yes! Dwayne would be so excited to hear about this.

Feeling like I could press my luck, I asked, “Can we have Dwayne transferred out of max security and get him a therapist?”

“I’ll send over the request myself,” she promised me.

Y’all, today was a good day. One of those days where justice triumphed and good things happened. Hopefully this was a harbinger of how this case would work out in the end.

We all thanked the judge profusely for her help, she got Abby’s number with the promise they’d talk later, and off we went. Really, us getting thirty minutes of this woman’s uninterrupted time was something of a miracle.

I felt like skipping out the door. Not only did we get our case officially reopened, with Dwayne soon to have the help he needed, but Solomon was in trouble~ Na na na na na~

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