Page 87 of Unexpected Danger
Juanita hiccupped. “Do you need to answer that? Because I don’t want to take you away from important things.”
“It’s fine. It can go to voicemail.”
Brodie felt ill-equipped to deal with this issue. “Juanita, you know that I care about my employees and that I have an open-door policy. I am here to help if I can.”
“Thank you.” Juanita craned her neck toward the door. Her gaze then darted from Brodie to the desk, then back to Brodie again. “As you know, I met him at the bar, and we went out five times in two weeks. We seemed to hit it off. Now, looking back, he probably just said all the right things.”
“What is his name?” Call it the investigator in him, but Brodie felt he’d be better able to assist Juanita if he knew the heartbreaker’s name. Had he ever met the guy? Did he have a prior record?
“Linder. But I don’t think that’s his real name.”
The latter part of Juanita’s statement took Brodie aback. He knew guys lied in the dating world sometimes, but if Juanita suspected he was lying, why had she…
“Anyway, we were hanging out a lot, and he told me he was thinking about a future together. So here I am, thinking all about marriage and family and children.” Juanita blew her nose, and her next words choked out between mournful whimpering. “I’dalready told my family I’d met the one, but then I saw him with someone else.”
Brodie shifted in his chair. “I am sorry to hear that. Are you sure you don’t want to discuss this with another woman?”
“No, Sheriff, I have to speak with you.” Juanita wrung her hands. “I confronted him when I saw him with the other woman, who is a nurse at the hospital. I had the unfortunate instance of meeting her when I had to go there to visit a friend of mine who’d recently had an operation. Linder apologized and told me she meant nothing to him. He went out of his way to reconcile with me and bought me this beautiful backpack purse I had my eye on at a store downtown.”
“Well, maybe nothing is going on with the nurse.”
“That could be the case, but Dorena later told me they were exclusive and had been dating for some time.”
“Did you say Dorena?” Brodie’s spidey antennae went into overdrive.
“Yes, she’s the nurse.”
Brodie was about to inquire further when Juanita continued, her words tumbling from her mouth in a rush. “It’s not so much that he apologized. I could probably forgive him and move on if that were the case. But it’s what I discovered and what I’ve done that are the issue.”
“What did you discover?”
“I discovered that I—"Juanita bit her lip. “I discovered that I was dating a man who also had another name and is the one you have been searching for.”
Pronghorn Falls law enforcement was currently only searching for one individual. “Do you mean Dustin Haack?”
“Yes. But at first, I talked myself out of it because he told me his name was Linder. But when I saw that flyer we distributed...”
Brodie spun in his chair and reached for a paper from the other side of his desk. “This flyer?”
Juanita nodded. “Yes. Things started fitting together. His name might be Linder, but it’s also Dustin Haack. It began to make sense why he kept asking me to do things for him. Things I did at first. Information I shared,” She palmed her face with both hands, and her breathing shuddered.
Brodie attempted to wait patiently, but the questions filled his mind in rapid-fire fashion.
Juanita removed her hands from her face. “He told me the reason he was asking all these questions was because his dad was a cop, and he’d always been interested in law enforcement. I’m such an idiot for falling for this.” She started to sob again.
Pieces of the Haack puzzle were slowly beginning to fit together. “Dustin Haack, who told you his name is Linder, asked you for information that you, as a dispatcher, were privy to and not allowed to share?” Brodie’s toes curled in his cowboy boots. It was obvious Juanita had been duped, and he was grateful she’d come forward, but if Brodie had known earlier, he might have caught Haack by now.
Juanita sniffled. “Yes. All kinds of information, especially about when law enforcement answered certain calls, and other things, too. And I didn’t realize he and Dustin Haack were one and the same, and then when I did realize, I didn’t want to believe it. Not when he told me he cared about me, and I’d fallen in love with him.” She picked at her purple-painted nail. “I’m in a lot of trouble, aren’t I?”
A mixture of anger, irritation, and pity for Juanita rose within Brodie. Juanita had been feeding Haack an impressive amount of information, making it more of a challenge to apprehend him. Putting Londyn in further danger. Brodie ran a hand through his hair. “I’m going to record this, and I will also need a signed statement from you.”
“Okay,” Juanita muttered. “Whatever you need, I will cooperate.”
Brodie Mirandized Juanita before pressing record and videotaping her as she repeated everything they’d discussed so far. After she had done so, he continued with further questioning.
“He was buying me all kinds of presents and treating me like a princess, and I thought he was so charming and handsome, and I told him about when the police were going to be arriving in certain situations.”
“Did it not occur to you that he was committing crimes?”
