Bullies Spit On A Waitress — Unaware She Was A Commander For 10 Years!
Chapter 16
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Claire waited."Kevin Webb," Lena said. "He was prepared to testify. He'd agreed to it. He was on the witness list.""Was?" Claire said."Three weeks ago," Lena said, "someone went to Kevin's house. I don't know who; I don't have proof. But after that visit, Kevin called the federal investigator's office and withdrew his statement."The air in the car felt different suddenly."He's scared," Lena said. "Genuinely scared, and I understand why. Dale Mace has been here for fourteen years; Kevin Webb has been here his whole life. He knows what it means to cross that man and lose."Claire looked out the passenger window at the bare branches of the oak tree."There's something else," Lena said. "Something I found out this morning." She reached into the backseat and picked up a manila folder, holding it out.Claire opened it. Inside was a single-page document, an internal memo. She read it quickly. Her expression didn't change, but something behind her eyes went very still.The memo was dated four days ago. It was from Sheriff Mace's office to a county commissioner. It referenced a commercial development proposal for a stretch of Route 7—the same stretch where Kevin Webb's accident had occurred, the same stretch where the second vehicle had been and never been followed up on. The memo referenced the need for a clean title on the land adjacent to the guardrail: a land parcel that had been under dispute since the accident, a parcel that was currently in Kevin Webb's name as part of an inheritance from his grandfather.Claire closed the folder. "He didn't just cover up the accident," she said."No," Lena said."Kevin was in the way of a development deal," Claire said. "The accident was supposed to scare him off the land. The closed investigation was insurance, and the visit to Kevin's house three weeks ago was to make sure he stayed scared.""Yes," Lena said. She said it quietly, like a word that had been waiting a long time to be said out loud to someone who could hear it properly. "The federal investigator knows about the land deal," Lena said, "but without Kevin's testimony, they can't connect Mace directly to the cover-up. The physical evidence is circumstantial; the financial trail is complicated. Kevin's statement was the clean line between everything.""And now Kevin won't testify," Claire said."He won't even open his front door," Lena said.Claire was quiet for a long moment. "How long do I have?" she said."The hearing is at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow," Lena said. "If Kevin's name isn't on that witness list by 7:00 a.m., he's off the record, and the case against Mace on the Route 7 incident collapses."Claire did the math in her head: eighteen hours. She handed the folder back to Lena.