Two weeks of being buried in paperwork, of interviewing and re-interviewing, of staring at photos, of re-reading witness statements, of the fading bruise on his face left by a coffee cup intended for the back of someone else’s head. Brad had had enough. He nightly scanned the real estate news for properties outside of Milborough and imagined a new existence far from here. Sure, most of the people involved in the Elly Patterson case lived elsewhere, but they would still call Milborough home and come back from time to time. He couldn’t arrest all of them. Not legitimately, anyway.
Who wanted to raise their family someplace where a food fight would break out after a funeral? The Pattersons’ dirty laundry – and there was a mountain of it – had been well and truly aired in public that day, and captured for posterity by the lanky guy with the ponytail who was photographing it. The photographer boasted of his dreams of an exhibition: “A Camera in their House”, featuring the distorted faces of enraged Pattersons shrieking at each other for the amusement of a public hungry for more stories of this dysfunctional family. Brad expected that it would be a hit, but not something he’d ever go to see.
Jill was waiting. Brad donned his hat, feeling more and more like a character in a play. The past two weeks had kept them very busy eliminating suspects, and it had been laughably easy to convince everyone that they weren’t allowed to discuss the case with each other. Now they were down to two remaining suspects. John Patterson. Connie Poirier. Time to bring them in.