Cop Said “You Two Aren't Welcome Here” To Twins — Both Were Federal Agents Investigating Him
Chapter 21
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"FBI!" Kendra shouted. "Hands where I can see them, both of you!"Pratt froze with a stack of money in his hand.Dempsey spun around, his face going white. Then he did what bullies always do when the game is over: he ran. He went for the back door of the office—the one that led to the back stairs—and yanked it open.Jayda Holloway was standing right there, badge up, blocking the doorway.Dempsey stopped so fast he nearly fell. He stared at Jayda, looked back over his shoulder at Kendra, then back at Jayda. "No," he said. "No—I watched you leave! I followed you to the county line!""You followed my sister," Jayda said."You said it yourself, Sergeant," Kendra said from the other doorway. "We all look the same to you."An agent opened the white envelope from the safe: five crisp $100 bills. He read the serial numbers out loud; Jayda checked them against the list on her phone. "Those are ours," she said. "The first Friday. The night you told us we weren't welcome."Pratt sank slowly into his leather chair, all the color gone from his face. For the first time since the twins had come to Hollis County, the man who always had something to say had nothing to say at all.Dempsey looked from one twin to the other, his voice coming out cracked and small: "You two... you two aren't welcome here."Jayda pulled out her handcuffs. "We hear that a lot," she said, and snapped the cuffs on his wrists.On Monday morning, Kyle Dempsey and Gordon Pratt stood in front of a federal judge in St. Louis in orange jumpsuits, their hands cuffed in front of them: Pratt's perfect silver hair flat and messy, Dempsey refusing to look up from the floor. The charges took the judge four minutes to read—extortion, conspiracy, bribery, civil rights violations, lying under oath—each charge carrying years in federal prison.Pratt's lawyer asked for bail. The judge looked at the black book in its plastic evidence bag: 11 years of names, 11 years of envelopes, 11 years of GP 40%. "Denied," she said. "Both of them held until trial."That same morning, Tyler Webb sat down with federal prosecutors and told them everything—this time without reading from a paper, looking them in the eye, handing over the full video from his body camera: every bar, every envelope, every word in the cruiser, right up to the side door of the old bank building. His wife kept her job.The county had a new prosecutor by Wednesday, and the first thing he did was promise in writing that no one who helped the FBI would be punished. The charge against Hank Delaney for filing a false report was dropped before lunch on Monday; the charge against Lucy for serving a minor was dropped an hour later, after a boy from the next town over admitted that Dempsey had paid him $20 to say he'd bought a beer at Delaney's—he had never been inside the place. The Cold Creek police chief retired on Tuesday.