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.Copies of interviews with Searcy’s friends and family were thumbtacked to the wall, and meaningless notes had been scrawled all over them.The intent was intimidation—to make Waldrip think the full force of the Blanco County Sheriff’s Department had been dedicated to bringing him to justice.It wasn’t far from the truth.So far, Tatum had noticed Waldrip’s eyes wandering to that wall on several occasions.After a full ten minutes, Tatum finally placed the paperwork back on the table.“This is big stuff, Duke.Big stuff.”Duke shrugged.“I don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about.You still ain’t told me what you arrested me for.”“You’ll be arraigned tomorrow,” Tatum said.“Meanwhile, I want to give you a chance to tell your side of it.Hell, Kyle’s run off and left you holding the bag.You’re the one we got, so you’re the one that gets charged.But see, that’s not so bad.You can tell us what happened, and Kyle’s not around to say you’re lying.”Tatum was walking a thin line here.Later, if the videotape was used in court, the questions had to be seen as applying to the illegal animal charge.If Waldrip misinterpreted them, though, and began giving information on the Searcy homicide, that was all fair game.“The big question is,” Tatum said, “was Kyle even involved? Right now, to be honest, Duke, everything’s pointing at you.Maybe there are mitigating circumstances, though, or maybe the evidence isn’t showing things the way they really were.All of us want to be fair here, and nobody wants to charge you with something you didn’t do.That’s why it’s so important to tell us what happened.”Tatum did his best to present a cool demeanor, but inside, his heart was firing like a piston.The bluff came down to this moment.If Waldrip was going to give them any kind of toehold on this case, it would be now.Waldrip looked up at the wall, his eyes roaming over every scrap of paper, and then back at Tatum.“You ain’t got shit, do ya?”Never in a million years, Tatum thought, would an innocent person ask that question.It renewed Tatum’s feeling that the investigation was on the right track.In his experience, innocent men didn’t taunt.But he kept a poker face and didn’t answer.Clearly, this approach wasn’t working as well as he had hoped.Waldrip didn’t seemed cowed in the least.The door opened again, and this time it was Ernie Turpin.Something showed on his face—urgency maybe—as he stepped into the room and handed Tatum a note.Tatum unfolded it and read Turpin’s scrawl: “Marlin just found Kyle Dawson’s body.”30FOUR HOURS LATER, Tatum and Marlin stood back and watched the Bobcat operator tear at the soil.Marlin was impressed by how quickly Tatum’s team had responded to his radio call.Within thirty minutes, Tatum and his deputies had arrived, along with the medical examiner, Lem Tucker, and the forensics technician, Henry Jameson.A cluster of county vehicles was parked thirty yards from the site of the body, with a KHIL news van looming behind the yellow tape that had been stretched in a wide arc around the crime scene.So far, the deputies had bagged the following evidence: the toaster, what appeared to be the remains of a swimsuit that had been torn from Dawson’s body, and an extension cord found inside the hole that had obviously served as Dawson’s tomb.But Tatum wasn’t content with merely peering into the hole or having a deputy crawl inside.He wanted every last scrap of evidence possible, so he was having the hole slowly excavated by the Bobcat, a small tractor equipped with a backhoe.Meanwhile, Ernie Turpin was back at the office, typing affidavits for a search of Duke Waldrip’s office, his home on Flat Creek Road, and his truck.“Yesterday,” Tatum had said earlier, frustration in his voice, “Hilton didn’t think we had probable cause on Waldrip.Now I’d say we do.I’d say he and Kyle teamed up on Searcy, and then their little partnership went south.Hell, we got Waldrip’s fingerprints on the deer mount, calls from Searcy to Waldrip … and now somebody offed Kyle.Am I crazy, or is that probable cause?”They were all hoping the judge would see it the same way [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]