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“How much?”
“Fifty bucks here and there. Not no twenty-four-hundred dollars’ worth! I don’t know where he got all that!”
“For what?” Annie asked. “What kind of information?”
“What else? Drug deals and such.”
“And how many drug arrests have you made off this information since he’s been back in town?”
“A few.”
“Do you think I won’t check?”
“Information doesn’t always lead directly to an arrest! You should know that.”
“So, I’m supposed to believe your CI went missing and you have done basically nothing to find him. You put forth so little effort, his mother gave up on you and came to the SO. Are you a moron, Dewey?” Annie asked. “I don’t understand how your brain works.”
“I was looking for him!” he insisted. “I told his mother I was looking for him!”
“You told his mother he probably took off. You told me he’s probably dead somewhere. Where in all this were you actually looking for him?”
He seemed to be having trouble getting a good deep breath. He couldn’t stand still, the nervous energy winding up and up.
“Or do you not need to look for him because you already know where he’s at?”
“I don’t know where he’s at!”
“But…” Annie prompted.
He shook his head, not at her, but as if he couldn’t believe he was finding himself in this fix.
“You sure as hell know more than what you’re telling me,” Annie said. “You’d be a damned sight better off telling me all of it now than having to explain yourself to your chief and to Sheriff Noblier later. I’m thinking you wouldn’t come out of that with a career intact.”
“Oh, fucking hell,” he muttered to himself, turning around in a little circle with his hands on top of his head. He was sweating now.
“I’m not trying to gloat here, Dewey,” Annie said, “but I’ve got you by the short curlies. I’m not looking to ruin your life. My only obligation here is finding Robbie Fontenot. So, you might as well spill it.”
He sucked in a big deep breath and let it go as he made his decision.
“He told me he could get me information on a ring of copper thieves,” he said. “He wanted me to advance him two hundreddollars. I gave him one hundred. He said it might take a few days. When his mother came looking for him, I thought,Just stall her.A couple of days turned into a week. I figured he played me for a sucker and he just split. Maybe he did.”
Annie said nothing for a moment. Dewey Rivette had let this go on for more than a week. Because he was pissed off. Because he thought he’d been played. If Robbie’s offer had been genuine, Rivette had given him money for information on potentially dangerous people, then left him hanging out there because he was mad, and then told everyone who would listen that Robbie Fontenot was gone because he was a worthless drug addict.
“You are something else,” Annie muttered, glaring at him. “You left your CI hanging over a hundred bucks. That’s what his life is worth to you.”
“I still say he left,” he said, but without much conviction. He didn’t believe that any more than she did.
“You really think he’d take off and leave twenty-four-hundred-fifty dollars in a box in his mother’s house?” Annie asked.
He had the grace to look ashamed as he avoided her eye contact. “No.”
“Me neither.”
She turned to go back into the house.
“What are you gonna do?” Dewey asked.
Annie rounded on him, wishing she had some of her husband’s ability to physically intimidate people. Nick would have left Dewey Rivette sitting in a puddle of his own urine. The best she could do was tell him the truth.
