Chapter 7: What Gregg Sutter Said
Gregg Sutter was sixty-one years old, and he looked every year of it.
He sat across from Delgado and the county sheriff's deputy with his hands flat on the table and his eyes fixed on a point somewhere between them.
He had driven himself to the sheriff's office.
He had not called a lawyer.
He had asked for a glass of water, drunk half of it, and then started talking.
I watched through the glass with the DA's liaison, a woman named Carol Vance who had driven forty minutes to be here and was worth every mile.
"Ryan approached me twelve years ago," Sutter said.
"He had a business partner — Daniel Marsh — who had inherited a parcel of land in Harwick County.
Prime development land.
Ryan wanted it transferred without Daniel's knowledge.
He needed someone with county connections to make the paperwork move quietly."
"And you provided that," the deputy said.
"I introduced him to Councilman Hale.
Yes." Sutter looked at his hands.
"I told myself it was a civil matter.
A business dispute.
I told myself a lot of things."
"When did Daniel Marsh find out?"
"About three years in.
He came to me directly.
He had copies of the transfers.
He wanted to know if I'd testify." Sutter paused.
"I told him no.
I told him to let it go."
"And then he disappeared."
Sutter's jaw moved.
"Six months after he came to me, yes."
"Did Ryan tell you what happened to him?"
A long silence.
"Ryan told me Daniel had been dealt with.
Those were his exact words.
*Dealt with.*" Sutter's voice was flat.
"I didn't ask what that meant.
I told myself it meant he'd been paid off.
Scared off.
I told myself that for eight years."
Carol Vance, beside me, wrote something on her notepad.
"What changed?" the deputy asked.
"The boy." Sutter looked up.
"I knew about Evan.
I knew Ryan had moved into the mother's house.
I knew he was raising Daniel's son." He stopped.
"Last week Ryan called me.
He said the boy was becoming a problem.
That he was asking too many questions.
He said he needed me to help him move Evan somewhere — a relative, a group home, somewhere out of the area — so he couldn't talk to anyone."
The room on the other side of the glass was very quiet.
"He wanted you to help him remove a child," the deputy said.
"Yes."
"And that's when you decided to come forward."
Sutter looked at his hands again.
"I have grandchildren," he said.
"Two of them.
Seven and nine." He stopped.
"I sent the messages to the officer.
Marsh.
I found his number through the department directory.
I needed someone to find the storage unit before Ryan could get to it.
Ryan didn't know I knew about it — Daniel had told me about it when he came to me.
He said it was his insurance." A pause.
"I should have told someone then.
I know that."
The deputy leaned forward.
"Mr.
Sutter, you said Ryan told you Daniel had been dealt with.
In the eight years since, have you received any information about Daniel Marsh's actual whereabouts?"
Sutter was quiet for a long moment.
"Ryan mentioned, about two years ago, that Daniel had tried to make contact with the boy.
He was furious.
He said he'd handled it.
He said Daniel wouldn't be making contact again."
"Handled it how?"
"He didn't say." Sutter's voice dropped.
"But after that, he started talking about the storage unit.
He was worried Daniel had left something there.
He asked me to go check.
I went.
The unit was empty by then — Daniel must have moved things.
But I found the address of the house on Crestfield Road in a notebook Daniel had left behind.
I think Ryan found it too, eventually.
I think that's why he was so careful about the boy."
Carol Vance tapped my arm.
"We have enough for Hale," she said quietly.
"And we have enough to hold Ryan without bail pending the fraud charges alone, before we even get to the child welfare matter."
"What about Daniel?" I said.
Her expression shifted.
Not unkind.
Just careful.
"We're going to need Ryan to tell us that himself," she said.
"And we're going to need him to believe that cooperating is his only remaining option." She looked through the glass at Sutter.
"After tonight, it is."
I went back to the station.
Evan was awake.
He'd been given a proper meal and someone had found him a pair of socks.
He was sitting up straighter than before.
He looked at me when I came in.
"Did you find something?" he asked.
"We found a lot," I said.
"Did you find my dad?"
I sat down across from him.
"Not yet," I said.
"But we know more than we did this morning.
A lot more."
He nodded slowly.
He looked at the bracelet in his hand.
"My dad said you'd find him," Evan said.
"He said if I ever got to you, you'd find him."
I looked at my brother's name on that faded plastic band.
"I'm going to try," I said.
"I promise you I'm going to try."
Evan looked up at me with Daniel's eyes — the same shape, the same steady way of holding a gaze — and said, "I know."
May you like
Down the hall, Ryan Calloway was about to find out that Gregg Sutter had walked into a sheriff's office and taken everything with him.
I wanted to be in the room when he heard.
