Cop Said “You Two Aren't Welcome Here” To Twins — Both Were Federal Agents Investigating Him
Chapter 15
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"You always tell me," Kendra said.Jayda's phone buzzed; she pulled back and looked at it, then called their boss in St. Louis. He picked up on the first ring."I saw it," he said. "It's all over the news—that judge just tore Pratt to pieces." He paused. "All right, you're both back on the case. You have one week. Make it count."Jayda hung up, grinning. Then her phone buzzed again—a text from a number with no name:He knows someone talked.They met Tyler Webb at the closed car wash on Saturday afternoon. This time, he was already there when they pulled in, sitting in his blue sedan with the engine running, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. When he saw them, he got out and walked straight to their car."He's going crazy," Webb said as soon as he got in. "Ever since the hearing, he's been asking everybody who's been talking. He's been checking my phone when I leave it in the car. Yesterday, he asked me if I'd ever met you two before Friday.""What did you say?" Kendra asked."I said no, which is true." Webb took a deep breath. "But I watched that video in court. I watched him sit up there and lie under oath about a shove that never happened." He shook his head. "I can't do it anymore. I'm not going to be that guy. I've got a daughter—I want her to grow up knowing her father was a real cop."He reached into the front pocket of his hoodie and pulled out his phone. "Thursday night, he left his truck unlocked at the station while he went in to yell at somebody. I opened the lockbox." Webb's hand shook a little as he held out the phone. "I took pictures."Kendra took the phone; Jayda leaned over to look. There were 11 photos—pages from a small black notebook written in pencil in Dempsey's messy handwriting. Each page had a list:Delaney's, The Poor House, Rusty's, The Railroad Bar—dates down the side, amounts beside each one:500, 500, 500. And at the bottom of every page, the same two letters circled:GP, and next to them, a number:40%. On one page from three years ago, someone had written a note beside a bar's name:Didn't pay. Raided. License pulled. Closed."This is it," Jayda said softly. "This is everything.""Will you sign a sworn statement now?" Kendra asked.Webb nodded. "Yes. Today. Right now. Whatever you need."They drove him to a federal office two counties away. He sat at a desk for three hours and wrote it all down: every Friday night, every bar, every envelope, every time Dempsey switched off his own body camera before he walked inside, every time he counted the money in the car, every time he wrote GP at the bottom of the page. When he was done, he signed his name at the bottom and put down the pen."There," he said. "Now there's no going back."