“We do?”
“Yes,” she said, getting to her feet. “Walter, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it so much more knowing how difficult this all must be for you.”
“Wait,” he said, getting to his feet as well. “What can you tell me about the investigation?”
Candice smiled gently at him, but she took the time to say, “The Austin police are still hunting for their main suspect. There’s been no sign of him anywhere in the Austin area. We’re hunting down other leads to see if perhaps this was more than a home invasion gone very bad.”
“The Murielle McKenna angle,” he said.
“Yes.”
He drew in a deep breath, lifting his chest and slumped shoulders as he did so. “I’ll tell you this,” he whispered. “If that hag had anything to do with Mario, Andy, or Robin’s death, APD won’t have to arrest her.”
“Why’s that?” I said, almost too afraid to ask.
“Because I’ll kill that bitch myself before they ever get close enough to put handcuffs on her.”
Candice stepped up to our host and laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Walter,” she said firmly. “I promise you that we will get to the bottom of this and find out who’s responsible, and we’ll find out why they murdered Mario and your friends, but if you go making threats like that, you’ll only slow us down and distract us from our course. I need you to promise me that you won’t do anything to tip Murielle McKenna off that we’re digging into her history for a connection to these murders. Okay?”
Walter stood rigidly in front of Candice for a long moment, but then he seemed to falter and his eyes welled. “All right,” he said, so softly that only the tiniest sound came out.
Thank God my lie detector didn’t go off in that moment, because I didn’t know if I could’ve told Candice that he’d lied to her face about keeping his word. Part of me, the ugly, angry, vigilante side of myself, wouldn’t have batted an eye if Walter had raced out of his home with a loaded gun, ready to hunt Murielle down.
People like her always deserve what they get in the end.
Chapter Twenty
“What’cha got?” Candice asked as we hustled into the substation in response to the text Nikki had sent Candice, requesting our immediate presence.
Oscar was seated next to Nikki in her cubicle. The pair looked a bit cozy, and that’s not just my opinion; all the other detectives in the area were currently giving Oscar the stink-eye.
“You’re not gonna believe this,” Grayson said, waving a piece of paper at us.
I reached Nikki first and took the paper, scanning it for details. “Wait . . . what?”
“See that code at the top?” Nikki said, referring to an abbreviation at the top of the page.
“Yeah?”
“That’s an acronym. It stands for Silver Woods Hospitality.”
“Okay,” I said, reading the text below the acronym, which spelled it all out. Then I realized what I was looking at. “Someone charged one hundred and twenty thousand dollars to Silver Woods Hospitality?”
“Must’ve been some party,” Candice said.
“Oh, it’s not a party planning company,” Nikki said, handing us another piece of paper.
Candice read over my shoulder the printout of what appeared to be a pamphlet. “‘Silver Woods Hospitality, where your family becomes ours.’”
Synapses fired like alarm bells in my brain. “It’s a nursing home!”
“Yep,” Nikki said, a look of triumph on her face.
“Why would someone charge a hundred and twenty thousand to a nurs—,” Candice began, and then abruptly stopped as she put two and two together.
Turning to me, she said, “Robin’s mother!”
I pumped my head up and down, then turned back to Nikki. “She’s got Alzheimer’s, right?”
“Yep. And she currently resides . . .” Nikki leaned forward to tap the paper in my hand with her pen.
“So . . . wait . . . ,” I said, trying to think it all through. I still felt like I wasn’t seeing the whole picture. “Robin’s Amex Black Card was charged for her mother’s stay at Silver Woods?”
“A year of residency,” Nikki confirmed.
“When did the charge go through?” Candice asked.
“This morning. About ten a.m.”
“Did Robin set it up in advance to be charged today?” I asked, still working to put it together.
“Nope,” Nikki said, swiveling back and forth in her chair.
Candice crossed her arms, her patience waning. “How about you just tell us what’s going on so we don’t have to keep guessing?”
Nikki waved her hands in apology. “Yeah, sorry. Okay, so Rachel Tibbons, Robin’s sister, used the card to charge a year’s residency this morning at a little after ten. I spoke with the nursing home’s clerk, and she said that the card was used to pay the entire invoice online, and the username to log in to the payment system was Rachel’s.”
“You can pay for an entire year’s residency at a nursing home online?” I asked.
“You can pay for most things online these days,” Candice said, her focus still on Nikki. “Is the clerk going to reject the charge?”
I understood what Candice was asking. The card clearly didn’t belong to Rachel Tibbons, and she had no legal right to use it, so she’d probably purposely made the payment online hoping it would go through without question, since, likely, both Rachel and Robin were listed at the nursing home as their mother’s next of kin.
“I asked the clerk not to take any action at this time,” Nikki said. “She’s willing to cooperate and she’s not going to question the charge for at least a few days.”
My brow furrowed and I looked at Nikki in puzzlement. “Why is this so significant?” I asked. “Wouldn’t Rachel stand to inherit lots of money now? I mean, I know it was wrong of her to use the card, but I could see how she’d be pretty desperate given the fact that we overheard her on the phone with the nursing home the other day and it sounded like they were getting ready to evict Rachel’s mother. Plus, she’ll definitely be able to pay off the balance once Robin and Andy’s estate is settled.”
“You’re right,” Nikki said, her eyes gleaming with the hint of more information. “I’m sure she’ll be able to pay off the balance. As long as she’s not in jail for murdering her sister.”
Candice took a step back. “Whoa, what?”
Oscar spoke next. “When APD did their inventory of the Roswell home, the Amex card wasn’t recovered. It’s why Nikki—I mean Detective Grayson—thought to put a marker on the card to see if there’d be any attempts to use it. We think it was taken at the time of the home invasion.”
“Couldn’t Robin have given her sister the card to use for that purpose, though?” Candice asked.
“No,” Nikki said. “Robin used her card ten minutes before Dave’s truck drove past the neighbor’s security camera. She bought ten thousand dollars in luggage from Louis Vuitton.”
“Ten grand?” I said. “What’d she get? A toiletries case?”
“Compact mirror and lipstick holder,” Candice quipped.
“Change purse,” I countered, poking Candice in the ribs with my elbow.
We chuckled heartily until we saw Nikki and Oscar looking at us like they couldn’t believe we were making light. Sometimes gallows humor is so unappreciated. “Sorry,” we both said.
“Anyway,” Nikki continued, “I’m reasonably sure that Robin had that card in her possession in the minutes before she was murdered.”
“So how’d Rachel get it . . . oh!” I said. “Oh, oh, oh!”
Nikki stabbed the air with her finger. “Exxxxactly.”
“Is it enough to get a warrant?” Candice asked. “And will APD want to? I mean, this blows the whole theory out of the water that Dave McKenzie acted alone.”
“
It’s enough for you guys,” Nikki said. “It’s electronic fraud, after all. Plus, we also have this.”
Nikki handed us another piece of paper and Candice and I studied it. On the paper was a grainy photograph of Rachel Tibbons, standing at an ATM, counting out some bills. “She used the card to withdraw cash,” Candice said, a smile spreading to her lips.
“Yep. About a half hour after making that online payment to Silver Woods, Rachel went to visit her mother, and stopped at the Bank of America across the street to withdraw eight hundred dollars.”
“Even if she lied and said someone else used the card and her username to make the payment for her mother, the photo is proof that she committed fraud,” I said, a smile emerging on my own lips.
“It is,” Oscar agreed. “I’ve already e-mailed Harrison a copy of what you’re holding there. He’s working on both the arrest and search warrant. We’ll go when he gives the okay.”
• • •
Rachel Tibbons was arrested and brought to our bureau field office for questioning. There was some debate as to who would get to interrogate her, and I was somewhat buoyed by the fact that there was a unanimous call to have me be in the room while the interview was being conducted. The advantage of course was that my lie detector would hopefully allow us to know when Rachel was being a big fat fibber.
Finally, Brice made the decision. “Let’s go with the girls’ team again,” he said. “Nikki. Candice. Abby. Get prepped.”
“You want me in there?” Nikki asked him, and I could see that she’d lost some confidence since our interview with Hekekia.
“Of course,” he said without hesitation. “You’re good, Grayson. I’d have you on my team anytime.”
Nikki beamed before turning away to prepare for the interview, and I could’ve hugged Brice right then and there. God . . . am I lucky to work for a guy like that or what?
I was about to say as much when he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Try not to let her screw this one up, okay, Cooper?”
Well, so much for thanking my lucky stars.
• • •
When we entered the conference room where Rachel Tibbons was seated, she started and wiped her cheeks. I wasn’t surprised that she’d been crying. I wondered if they were tears of regret for her sister, or for herself.
“Rachel,” Candice said smoothly, sliding into the chair directly across from her. Nikki took up Candice’s left side, and I took up her right. We’d already spoken about strategy, and all three of us were wearing small earpieces connected to either Oscar, Brice, or Dutch, who were watching the feed from cameras placed in the corners of the room.
“There’s been some kind of mistake!” Rachel said immediately. I noticed she was trembling from head to toe. “I’ve never committed fraud in all my life!”
Oscar and Agent Cox had arrested Rachel and brought her downtown. They’d told her only the charge of fraud. They hadn’t given her any of the details.
“Someone must’ve stolen my identity!” she continued, her voice cracking with barely restrained panic.
Candice calmly opened up the cover of a blue folder embossed with the FBI’s logo. On top of a stack of papers was the famous Amex Black Card, secured in a plastic evidence bag. “Look familiar?” Candice asked.
Rachel’s lids fluttered. And then her brow lowered and she went from staring at the credit card to Candice and back and forth. “Where’d you get that?” she demanded.
“It was in your purse,” I said.
“You had no right to search my purse!”
“Ah, but we did,” said Nikki, and she motioned to Candice, who then pulled out the snapshot taken from the ATM where Rachel had withdrawn the cash advance.
Rachel’s mouth hung open. “That’s what this is about?”
“Yes,” I said. “See, it’s against the law to use someone else’s credit card without their written authorization, and since you withdrew funds from a federally insured institution, you actually committed a felony. Also, you used this same card to pay for your mother’s residency for the next year at Silver Woods. At a hundred and twenty K, we’re now possibly talking grand larceny.”
Rachel crossed her arms and legs, the fury on her face plain for all to see. “You people!” she snapped. “My sister is dead! By all rights that card belongs to me!”
“Ah, see, but it doesn’t,” Candice told her. “The court has yet to award you anything from your sister’s estate, Rachel.”
“I’ve already contacted Andy’s attorney, you idiots!” Rachel spat. “He said that the court would grant me custody of the house and everything in it just as soon as it’s released from the police department.”
“Yeah, that may be true, but there’s the problem of timing on this one,” Candice said. “See, the court hasn’t made a decision yet, and Andy’s estate attorney hasn’t actually handed over anything to you proving that you’re entitled to their property and everything in it. That won’t be decided until probably Monday.”
“What difference does it make if it’s Monday or today?!” she shrieked. “My sister gave me that card to use as I saw fit, okay?”
My lie detector went off big-time. I tapped the table twice with my index finger to let the girls and the boys know I’d just picked up Rachel’s first big lie. “Can you prove that?” I asked.
Rachel glared meanly at me. “No,” she said. “And you can’t disprove it either.”
“Actually . . . ,” Nikki said, leaning forward and motioning again to Candice, who took out another piece of paper from the file and moved it across the table to Rachel. “See that?” Nikki asked.
Rachel’s eyes were scanning the paper, and I could tell she didn’t know what she was looking at. “I don’t know what this is,” she said. Beads of sweat had broken out across her brow.
“That’s a printout of purchases your sister made from Louis Vuitton, and that IP address belongs to Robin’s laptop, which we did find at the scene. The time stamp shows that Robin completed her purchase at one oh seven p.m., which was maybe four or five minutes before her killers arrived. So, either you were there at the time she was murdered, Rachel, or you stood next to her as she completed her online purchase, got her permission to take the card, then bolted out the door before the killer or killers arrived. And, I gotta tell you, that’s the sort of timeline that we in law enforcement like to call ‘suspicious.’”
Rachel’s eyes were wide and she began to chew on her bottom lip. You could practically see the wheels turning inside her head, searching for an explanation that would put her in the clear. At last she said, “I’d like to make a phone call, please.”
In my ear I heard Dutch say, “You can press her, Abby. She hasn’t actually asked for her attorney yet.”
“We’ll let you make that call just as soon as you tell us how you came to have this card in your possession,” I told her.
Rachel leaned forward to get up into my face as she shouted, “Lawyer!”
Magic word spoken, the three of us got up and began to walk out.
“Hey! Are you going to give me a phone?” she said.
I handed her my cell. There wasn’t anything important on it except some amazing sudoku and Candy Crush scores, and I’d know if she went snooping around anyway. “Here,” I said. “Take all the time you need.”
In my ear I heard Dutch say, “Cut the audio, Webber, but keep the feed going. We can’t listen to her call, but we can watch her.”
I shut the door behind me and followed Nikki and Candice to the large conference room where the boys were monitoring Rachel.
We gathered around the table and watched as Rachel got up and began pacing the room. It looked like she was yelling at the person on the other end of the line just like she’d yelled at us. “That girl is definitely unstable,” Candice said.
“Yeah,” Nikki agreed. “I could see her snapping and taki
ng an AR-fifteen to her sister and brother-in-law.”
“She’s been under significant financial strain,” I said, still watching Rachel pace like a caged tiger. “Which makes me wonder why Robin, with all her wealth, never ponied up the funds for her mother’s nursing home.”
“Maybe they didn’t get along,” Candice said.
I could understand that.
Rachel spoke angrily one last time into the phone and then clicked off the call. She tossed the phone onto the table like she didn’t care about cracking the screen. “Hey!” I said. “That’s my freaking phone!”
“Best get in there and retrieve it, then,” Candice told me with a hint of a smile.
I rolled my eyes and went to get my phone. When I opened the door to where Rachel was, I found her standing in the corner, her arms wrapped tightly about her and that same tremble radiating up and down her limbs.
There was almost a moment when I thought to offer her a word of comfort, but then I remembered the scene at the Roswells’ house and all the sympathy for her evaporated.
A moment later I had my phone and was gone.
“So now what?” I asked when I was back with everyone else.
“Now we wait until the lawyer gets here to see if we can have another crack at her,” Brice said. “Only this time, Dutch and I will take point.”
Candice arched an eyebrow as if to question the change of team midplay, but she didn’t argue with him.
I could see Brice’s reasoning, though. He’d want it to appear that we weren’t about to let up on the pressure just because she’d called an attorney. And since Rachel was financially on thin ice until she got some money from her sister’s estate—if she ever got that money, that is, and if we could prove our case, she wouldn’t—then her attorney was bound to be cheap and not very good.
“Hello?” called a voice from outside the conference room.
We all looked at one another. The voice sounded . . . familiar.
No way, I mouthed to Candice.
She looked ready to spit nails and she and I were the first two out the door. Zane Maldonado stood in the middle of the large room, looking about. When he saw us emerge, he brightened. “I was wondering if the office had been abandoned,” he said.