xxxix. no body, no crime

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CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE:NO BODY, NO CRIME(episode two: the heist)

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CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE:
NO BODY, NO CRIME
(episode two: the heist)

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VICTOR SHOUPE WAS LIKE a child playing dress-up in clothes that weren't fit for him. He was no Susan Peterkin, and he certainly wasn’t any decent Sheriff. He had big shoes to fill, and siding with the murderer time and time again did nothing to help his case. Haven felt foolish for even considering it for a second. She was right when she told Kie off. The police wouldn’t do anything for them. They were playing a losing game.

“Look, it was right here,” Kie insisted as Shoupe and the pogues surveyed the place Gavin had lost his life. The body was nowhere to be seen, meaning Ward had returned when they ran back to JJ’s van and hid any evidence. Haven wondered if things would’ve been different had Kie not given them up. If Ward didn’t know they were watching, they could’ve called Shoupe and caught him in the act. “This is where that maniac claimed his next victim!”

“His next victim?” Shoupe echoed Kie’s words with a tone of sheer disbelief. The site looked untouched; no body, no blood. They had nothing to prove what they’d seen, just an unreliable story. Haven sighed and hung her head in her hands. She knew what was coming, but the pogues kept on going.

“Yes.”

“Right. And how long ago did you say it happened?” Say. Not ‘how long ago did it happen.’ To Shoupe, this was nothing but a waste of time.

“Like forty-five minutes ago, Shoupe,” JJ sighed. He’d previously been kneeling on the floor looking for signs of blood, but nothing was there. The rain had long since washed it away.

“Okay,” he muttered, half-heartedly jotting the time down on his notepad. Haven had a feeling he wouldn’t have done it had Arden and Kie not been staring him down like vultures. “So, what? Ward Cameron just popped one off and shot him?”

“That’s what we said, isn’t it?” Arden scoffed, but with a warning glance from the older man, she forced herself to stay quiet and turn away. Like Haven, she could see what was coming, and boy did it infuriate her.

“Execution style? And then cleaned it up in forty-five minutes?”

“Obviously,” Pope snapped, jaw clenching as Shoupe just sighed and wrote something else down.

Kie gestured to the camera in Pope’s hand, clinging desperately to the hope that she hadn’t made a big mistake. “We filmed the entire thing,” she said, a fact that was quick to catch Shoupe’s attention.

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