A Two Thousand Dollar Nebraska Land Purchase Leads to a Federal Fraud Case
“Mrs. Fairmont, put your hands behind your back,” the marshal said.
Brinley looked at me, her eyes wide with a cold, sharp anger that had no words left.
Chadwick sank back into his chair, his hands covering his face as he began to breathe in quick, shallow gasps.
“She made the filings,” Chadwick said, his voice cracking. “She had the digital signature files on her laptop, I just ran the address checks.”
Brinley did not look at him as the marshal took her wrists.
The quiet click of metal handcuffs around her manicured wrists, the first real silence we had in months.
That silence followed me all the way out of Sarah’s office and down to the sheriff’s department parking lot at one in the afternoon. The cold autumn wind was coming straight out of the north, whipping the dry leaves across the cracked asphalt and sending a chill right through my denim jacket.
The county building was a low, square structure built out of brown brick in the seventies, its windows narrow and grey under the heavy clouds. I stood near the rusty tailgate of my truck, my hands shoved deep into my pockets to keep them warm while I watched a lone maintenance man salt the back steps.
