Cop Said “You Two Aren't Welcome Here” To Twins — Both Were Federal Agents Investigating Him
Chapter 20
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Dempsey looked around the room slowly, at the empty stools at the end of the bar. "Well, would you look at that," he said loudly. "It's a lot less crowded in here this week." He laughed. "Your little FBI girls are gone, Hank! I watched the last one drive out of my county myself—followed her right to the line. Should have seen her face."Hank stood behind the bar wiping a glass, a tiny microphone taped under his shirt. "I heard they left," Hank said."They left," Dempsey said, "and they're not coming back. And Monday, Uncle Gordon's going to put you in front of a judge for lying to the FBI. Funny how that works." He leaned on the bar. "Unless, of course, you plead guilty like a smart man. Then maybe your granddaughter stays out of jail."From the kitchen door, Lucy stared at him with pure fire in her eyes, not saying a word.Dempsey held out his hand, palm up. "Rent's due, Hank. Same as every Friday."Hank reached under the cash register, pulled out the white envelope, and set it in Dempsey's hand. Dempsey opened it, thumbed the bills, and grinned. "Good man. See? Some people never learn, and some people learn just fine." He tucked the envelope in his shirt pocket, patted it twice, and walked out.In the storeroom behind the kitchen, Jayda whispered into her headset: "He took it. 'Rent's due,' clear as day.""Copy," Kendra's voice said—she was parked two blocks away in Hank's old pickup truck with three FBI agents."Webb, if you can hear me, keep rolling."Webb couldn't answer, but his camera kept recording.Dempsey walked down Main Street: The Poor House, Rusty's, The Railroad Bar. At each one, he walked in, held out his hand, and walked out with an envelope; at each one, his own body camera was switched off—Webb's was not.By 10:30, Dempsey sat in his cruiser counting the money from five envelopes, writing numbers on a scrap of paper. Webb sat in the passenger seat looking straight ahead; every word, every bill was going onto the camera under the tape.At 10:55, the cruiser pulled up in front of the old bank building on Main Street. A light was on upstairs. Dempsey got out with a brown paper bag in his hand. "Wait here," he told Webb, going in through a side door and up the stairs."He's inside," Webb whispered into his radio for the first time. "Bag in his right hand. Pratt's light is on."Across town, the federal judge had signed the warrant for Pratt's office at 4:00 that afternoon."Go," Kendra said.The cars came from both ends of Main Street at once. Agents in blue jackets ran up the stairs; Kendra was at the front of the line with her badge out and her gun drawn. Jayda had come out of the tavern and around the back of the bank, taking the back stairs with two more agents.Kendra pushed open the office door. Gordon Pratt was standing behind his big wooden desk with the brown paper bag open in front of him, stacks of bills spread across the desk; behind him, a tall black safe stood open, and inside, on the top shelf, was a small black notebook—next to a thick white envelope with a single word written on it in pen:Delaney.