Paul and Vern immediately ordered him not to move. Brad heard the commotion and was hurrying out even before Carol had a chance to alert him, seeing Paul already slapping on the cuffs. Jasper? Brad was shocked. He had been the one to discover Glen Taggart’s body, so there was kind of, sort of, almost a semi-Bank of America connection. But what could Jasper possibly have against the new teller at Montgomery Community? Even if he had wanted to kill the young man, why had he done so in such an outlandishly gruesome and public way? It made no sense. If Jasper had killed Jimmy Collins and lashed him to the door of the closed bank, why had there been no evidence of it on scene? And why had he waited until now to turn himself in? Nothing about this rang true.

Then Vern unfolded the oil-stained towel Jasper had brought in with him, revealing the murder weapon: a length of metal pipe, covered in dried brown blood.

As with the evidence against Leroy Fritz in the murder of Glen Taggart, that pretty much clinched it, at least from a legal standpoint, and Brad forced himself to put aside the doubts he had been enumerating in his head.

“Bag ’em,” he ordered. “And by the book. We can’t afford any contamination.”

Paul herded Jasper to the interrogation room, while Vern walked down the hall to the supply cabinet for a pair of gloves, an evidence bag and a camera.

Maybe they wouldn’t need the FBI’s help after all, Brad thought.

Immediately after the bombing, he had called the Bureau, and this time they’d jumped to. A bombing implied terrorism, and in the current political climate, any perceived hesitation would read as incompetence or worse. Within hours, men from the Phoenix office had helicoptered in, followed shortly by a team on the ground. They’d swarmed over the credit union all day and night, leaving no speck of dust unexamined. Everything was now being analyzed at “The Lab,” wherever that might be, and though the feds had shared nothing with his people, Brad had been assured that “incidents” such as this were usually resolved quickly. Based on, from what he could tell, nothing whatsoever, he was given a capture estimate of two days.

Frustratingly, even though the Bureau had left two men in town, they had steadfastly refused to help with any other case.

Now, apparently, one of those cases had solved itself.