The Murder of Janessa Hennley Read Online Free

clear my papers.”
    “How long you on the registry for?”
    “Lifetime. This is it, Sheriff. This is my life now. Livin’ a thousand feet away from any other livin’ soul. I can’t even say hello to them kids.”
    “You did a really bad thing, Casper.”
    He kicked his feet out and blew a puff of smoke. “I know, I know. Tears me up inside. Don’t even know why I did it. Just saw her and thought it a good idea at the time.”
    “Do you know the Hennleys, Casper? Ben Hennley and his family?”
    He shook his head.
    “They were killed. Their oldest daughter, Janessa, got the worst of it.”
    He took a drink. “I had nothin’ to do with that, Sheriff.”
    “Where were you?”
    “Right here.” He lifted his pant leg, revealing a blinking monitor. “Ankle monitor. My movement is tracked. You can check with my PO for whatever night you askin’.”
    She shook her head. “That won’t be necessary. I forgot about that.” She rose. “Thanks for talkin’ to me, Casper.”
    “Sheriff, can I ask you somethin’?”
    “Sure.”
    “You talk to anyone else yet about them murders?”
    She paused. “No. Why?”
    “They just always gonna judge me for this, ain’t they? No matter what else I do in my life, this is gonna be what I’m known for.”
    She kicked at a pebble by her boot. “You take care of yourself, Casper.”
    As she walked away, she looked back and saw him glaring at her. Draining the can of beer before going inside.
     

 
    6
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Mickey sat on his porch and enjoyed the warm air. At ten in the morning, his thinking was foggy and slow. Ten was at least two hours after he was supposed to be at the office, but no one ever said anything.
    He grab bed a ham and egg sandwich with an apple juice on the way in to work and could only find parking in the back of the lot again. As he walked inside, the wind whipped his tie over his shoulder. It amused him for some reason.
    Once inside, he cleared security and signed in before heading down the elevators to the basement. It was the one level of this building—world-famous after dozens of movies and television shows had either referenced it or been filmed here—that no one really knew about.
    He unlocked his office and hesitated at the door a moment before sitting down and running through his email. The hesitations at the door were getting longer every day.
    Most of the emails were just interoffice chatter, and he deleted them without reading. He also deleted the memos, office updates, notifications of policy changes, and messages of calls he received from marketers.
    That left only personal emails and requests from law enforcement agencies.
    As the Behavioral Science Unit’s screener, his job was to check requests for help from local law enforcement agencies around the world and see if the Bureau had the time or the resources to help them.
    One email was from the activities director of his mother’s nursing home, informing him that a local elementary school performance was being put on that Friday morning. The director asked if he could volunteer to help. He replied that he’d be happy to, but he had medical issues that might make the parents of the children uncomfortable and would have to decline for their sake.
    Then he went to the requests for help.
    There were four today, two from overseas. Scammers tried to enlist the FBI’s help in various murder cases, hoping to glean personal information about the special agents and use their identities to open new credit accounts. They knew, somehow, that special agents were required to maintain good credit ratings as part of their employment with the Bureau.
    One of the other emails was a request for analysis on a fiber found at a crime scene in Kansas City. The fiber was believed to have come from the jeans of a burglar as he attempted to flee a business he’d just ransacked , shooting the cashier on the way out. Mickey checked the detective’s name that had forwarded it and ran a criminal