“What?”Turner turns to our brother.
“How much did he offer you?”
Turner smirks, and it grates on my nerves.
“Ten grand,” the chief of police answers.“That’s quite a bit of money for a small town modest preacher, don’t you think?”
“You see anything else suspicious out on the farm?”Stone changes the subject.
“Just a lot of little shacks throughout the fields.”
“Shacks?”
“They look like outhouses.Thought maybe they were holding equipment but to have that many spread out didn’t seem right.Why not build two or three big barns?”
“How many would you say you saw?”Reaper asks.
Turner rubs the back of his neck with his eyes looking up at the ceiling, in thought.
“Got to be, several dozen.Maybe more,” he says.
Stone leans up from his chair with his forearms resting on the desk.
“We think Walter is doing some illegal shit and running it through the church to avoid being flagged by the government,” Stone says.
“What kind of shit?”Turner asks.
“Don’t know yet and of course we aren’t using the most legit ways of gathering our intel.”
“When have you ever?”Turner throws out, and it pulls a grunt from my chest.
“Have you noticed any new people in town lately?”Hawk asks, not looking up from his laptop as he types something out.
“Sweetwater is a pass-through town to the big cities.We’ve got new people all the fucking time running through here,” Turner snaps at him.“You’ve got to be more specific.”
“Saw a group of black SUVs not long ago escorting a man.Saw those vehicles a couple times over the last few weeks,” Stone mentions.
Turner narrows his eyes, chewing on the side of his cheek.
“Bradford mentioned a crew of black SUVs coming through last week.One was parked in a no parking zone.He’d spoken with two of them, said that they had business in Big Spring.”
“What’d they look like?”Hawk asks, snapping his neck up from his screen.
Turner starts to scratch his chin.“Shit, ah, young Hispanic guys?Thought they were government at first.Didn’t think much of it when he’d said something.”
“You should probably start paying more attention to people passing through your town, Chief,” Stone scolds.
“Fuck you, Stone,” Turner spits out, and both Reaper and I take a step toward the chief.“This town doesn’t have trouble unless you and your MC bring it.”
“I’d watch how you speak to Prez,” Reapers low deep voice sends a chill through the room.
“It’s because of the MC that the crime rate is so low and you know it.We handle a lot that you can’t touch, Chief,” Stone says standing to his feet, crossing his arms over his broad chest.“I’d remember that if I were you.”
Turner huffs out a frustrated breath.
“What do you want to do about Walter?”Turner finally asks as the tension dissipates.
“We need to find out more about what type of operation he’s running out of that farm,” Hawk states.“Do we know anyone we could snatch from there that won’t alert attention to us?”