Fatal Fraud: A Fatal Series Novel Read online

“We’ll take whatever we can get,” Sam said.

  They spent another hour chatting with him before they stood to leave. Nick went to the door and gave a knock to let Brant know they were ready.

  “We have to wait for him to come get us,” Nick said.

  “This is fascinating,” Michael said. “Truly.”

  “Glad you think so,” Nick said. “It drives me bonkers.”

  “But it beats the alternative.” Sam took hold of her husband’s hand, hoping to calm the agitation he felt whenever he was reminded of the many restrictions of being vice president.

  They said their goodbyes to Gonzo and loaded up the SUV for the ride back to the District.

  “He seems really good,” Nick said when they were on the way out of Baltimore.

  “So much better than he was,” Jeannie said.

  “I’m fuming about him pleading to anything,” Sam said.

  “Ah, yeah, we could tell,” Freddie said. “As usual, you had no poker face.”

  “It’s complete bullshit,” Sam said. “I’m not about to pretend otherwise.”

  “Is there anything that can be done?” Nick asked.

  “I’m going to talk to Malone,” she said, referring to the detective captain who was her boss and mentor. “And the chief.”

  “Gonzo sounded pretty determined to take the plea,” Freddie said tentatively.

  “He’s going to screw his entire career if he takes that plea,” Sam said. “We can’t let that happen.” She caught Freddie and Jeannie exchanging concerned glances and knew what they were thinking. Tommy’s recovery was fragile. This was what he wanted. And she respected that, but if there was anything she could do to save him from taking this massive hit to his career, she was going to do it.

  Her phone rang with a call, and the single word on the caller ID made her groan. “Dispatch.”

  Which meant someone in the District had been murdered, and that was now her problem.

  Chapter Two

  “Lieutenant Holland.”

  “Lieutenant, we’ve received a report of a body found in a garage off MacArthur Boulevard in Kent.”

  Sam ducked her head to see out the window to figure out where they were. Greenbelt, Maryland. “I’m about fifteen minutes outside the District. Have Patrol secure the scene until my team can get there. Don’t let anyone in or out.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Let them know I’ll be about an hour.”

  “Will do.”

  Sam slapped her flip phone closed and filled in the others. “Figures it had to be on the whole other side of the city.”

  “Murder is inconvenient that way,” Nick said, “or so you tell me.”

  “Yes, it is. This means you’re in charge of dinner, baths and bedtime.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “I know.”

  He put his arm around her, and Sam took the minute with him while she could, disappointed she wouldn’t get to spend the evening with the kids when they got home. Since Aubrey and Alden had come into their lives, Sam had a whole new appreciation for working mothers and the challenges of trying to balance it all. It was tough, even with the tremendous help that Shelby provided, especially since the twins had joined their family. Scotty had been quite a bit older than the twins, who’d soon be six, when he joined their family and much more self-sufficient from the get-go.

  The motorcade pulled onto Ninth Street and stopped in front of the double townhouse Sam and Nick called home.

  “Thanks for the lift,” Freddie said, kissing his wife and sending her home in his car while Jeannie said goodbye to Michael.

  “Let me run in and get my stuff,” Sam said. “Be right back.”

  Nick followed her up the ramp that had been installed for her late father so he could come visit them in his wheelchair. One of these days, they needed to see about removing the ramps at her house and his, three doors down. But not today.

  A new agent was working the door and opened it for them.

  “Good evening, Mr. Vice President, Mrs. Cappuano.”

  “Evening, Henry,” Nick said.

  Of course he knew the agent’s name. He knew everything.

  Sam grabbed her keys from the hook in the kitchen where she kept them, ran upstairs to the master bedroom to retrieve her cuffs, weapon and notebook from the bedside table drawer and returned to the kitchen to speak to Nick. “Tracy promised to have the kids home by six, and there’s leftover pizza from last night if you don’t feel like cooking.”

  “We’ll figure something out.”

  Sam wanted to be there to help him figure it out, but duty called. “I guess I’ll see you when I see you.”

  He put his arms around her and kissed her. “Be careful with my cop. She means everything to me.”

  “Take good care of my family. They mean everything to me.”

  “I gotcha covered, babe. Don’t worry.”

  “I’ll try to call the Littles before bedtime.”

  “I won’t promise it in case it doesn’t happen. We’ll be fine.”

  Sam had to pull herself away from him. “Love you.”

  “Love you too. Be safe.”

  “I will.”

  Henry opened the door and nodded to her, probably wondering who she thought she was, running around without her own detail.

  She walked down the ramp to the sidewalk, where Freddie and Jeannie waited for her.

  “All aboard,” Sam said.

  They got into the tricked-out black BMW retrofitted for her as a surprise from Nick. Sam joked that she could survive a nuclear explosion in that car, but it wasn’t far from the truth. She used her flashers to get them across the city as quickly as possible, but Sunday-night traffic was light to begin with.

  Sam took a call from Captain Malone when they were about five minutes out. “What’s up?”

  “Heard we caught a new one and was just checking in.”

  “Not sure what we’ve got yet. I’ve got Cruz and McBride with me, and we’re almost there. We were on the way back from seeing Gonzo.”

  “Let me know what you’ve got when you can.”

  “Will do. Can we talk tomorrow about Gonzo?”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s about to accept a deal on misdemeanor drug charges.”

  “I heard about that.”

  “And you’re okay with it?” Sam had to remind herself that going ballistic with her boss wasn’t the best idea.

  “I’m not thrilled with it, but it’ll take care of the problem and allow him to keep his job.”

  “Without any chance of ever being promoted again? That’s complete bullshit, and you know it.”

  “I do know it, but I also know there’re people within the department who aren’t going to let this go, and he’s better off to plead than have it become an even bigger deal. Especially right now when his sobriety is fragile. I talked to him. This is what he wants.”

  “It’s freaking infuriating that he’s having to put up with this shit because of people who’re coming at me. This doesn’t even have anything to do with him.”

  “He’s the one who scored pain meds on the streets, Sam. Not you.”

  “You know as well as I do that the only reason he’s having to plead this out is because of Ramsey’s beef with me.”

  “It might’ve come to light without Ramsey.”

  “No one else is looking for shit to pin on my team.” Sam wasn’t sure how to process the sheer rage she felt at this drug charge putting the brakes on Gonzo’s career.

  “I’m sorry. I agree it’s unfortunate. But it is what it is. While I have you, I wanted to remind you of the commanders’ meeting at zero eight hundred tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be there.” They were meeting with Special Agent in Charge Avery Hill and others from the FBI about the upcoming investigation of the department. “This job is nothing but nonstop fun lately.”

  “That’s what we’re all about. Check in after you’re done at the scene.”


  “Will do.” Sam closed the phone and wished it wouldn’t be such a hassle to get a new one, or she might be tempted to hurl it out the window.

  The GPS on Freddie’s phone guided them to the exact address, a palatial house surrounded by public safety vehicles and gawking neighbors. Why did the neighbors always gawk? Sam wanted to ask them why they were so curious about murder.

  “Get Patrol on the neighbors. I want them nowhere near here.”

  As she got out of the car and made her way around the vehicles that blocked the driveway, she heard one of the gawkers say, “That’s the VP’s wife!”

  “No pictures,” she said to the man who was reaching for his cell phone. Sam was always concerned about saying or doing something that would embarrass Nick in his position as VP, but sometimes she just didn’t care. She was so pissed about the situation with Gonzo that she probably shouldn’t have been let out of the house. But alas, murder didn’t wait for her to be in the right mood.

  “What’ve we got?” she asked the female officer who met them at the yellow tape line. Sam noted her name tag read Phillips.

  “Virginia ‘Ginny’ McLeod, age fifty-six, found in the garage by her husband, Kenneth, when he returned home from playing golf.”

  “Where is he?”

  “In the kitchen with my partner. I instructed him not to touch anything and to remain seated at the kitchen table until you arrived.”

  “Excellent. Let me see the vic.”

  “Sam,” Freddie said.

  “I’ll be right with you,” she said to the officer as she stepped back to consult with her partner.

  “Virginia McLeod is the woman we were talking about earlier who ripped off her friends,” Freddie said.

  Sam processed that information as she signaled to the officer to lead the way. With Freddie and Jeannie following, Sam thought about what she’d heard earlier about this woman. How many people would’ve wanted her dead after she defrauded her own family and friends? Was it ten people or hundreds?

  She would find out soon enough.

  They walked past a navy-blue Mercedes sedan with District plates parked in the driveway.

  In the garage, they encountered a bloodbath—on the floor, walls, ceiling, and splattered on the silver sedan parked on the far side. The victim was on the floor by the door that led into the house, surrounded by a massive pool of blood. The unmistakable smell of death filled the air.

  “Any sign of a murder weapon?” Sam asked the officer, who was making an effort not to look at the victim. Once was probably enough.

  “Not that we could find on a quick canvass.”

  Whatever it was had been sharp and lethal, judging by the wounds to her face and neck. “Where’s Crime Scene?”

  “On the way,” the officer said. “As is the medical examiner.”

  “Good job, Officer Phillips. Watch for them while we go in to talk to the husband.”

  The young officer hightailed it out of the garage, probably relieved to get away from the dead person.

  “McBride, take a good look around the garage and the grounds for the weapon.”

  “On it,” Jeannie said.

  Sam and Freddie went into the house through a breezeway that connected the garage to the kitchen. A silver-haired man was sitting with another Patrol officer, this one a young man who jumped up when he saw Sam coming. She scanned his uniform and found his name tag. Jestings.

  “Lieutenant, this is Kenneth McLeod. Mr. McLeod, Lieutenant Holland.”

  “I know who she is. Everyone knows who she is.”

  All righty, then, Sam thought. “Thank you, Officer Jestings. You can wait for us outside.”

  The officer took off, leaving Sam and Freddie alone with the charming husband.

  “If your first question is did I kill her, the answer is no, even though I had good reason to. I’m sure you know all about what she did, how she fucked over our family and friends.”

  “When did you find that out?” Sam asked, taking a seat at the table while Freddie did the same.

  “The same time everyone else did, when she was charged in federal court last week.”

  “Prior to that, you had no idea?”

  “None.”

  “It must’ve made you pretty mad to find out that she’d defrauded people you call friends.”

  “Mad,” he said with an ironic smile that made him look mean. “That’s one word for what I was. Do you have any idea what she did to my life? The people she stole from, some of them are my clients.”

  “And what do you do?”

  “I’m an attorney.”

  “What kind?”

  “Estate.”

  “How many people were taken for a ride by your wife?”

  “Hundreds.”

  Sam had been afraid of that. Nothing like a murder with motive for days. “And you know them all?”

  “Not all, but many of them.”

  “How much money are we talking about?”

  “Twenty million, give or take.”

  “I’m not aware of the case against your wife beyond the basics. Fill me in on what she did and how she did it.” Sam wanted to hear the story in his words.

  “She’s in finance, or she was. She puts together investment opportunities for her clients.”

  “What kinds of opportunities?”

  “Everything from construction to travel to tech. You name it, she’s dabbled in it. The project that got her in trouble was for a real estate business she started, to rehabilitate run-down properties. She would identify properties, get people to invest in them and then promise them returns on their investments when the properties sold.”

  “Except,” Freddie said, “most of the properties people were investing in didn’t actually exist.”

  “Right,” McLeod said, his expression grim.

  “So what’d she do with the money?” Sam asked.

  “I have no idea,” McLeod said. “That’s one of many things Ginny will take to her grave with her. However, I’ve come to believe she had a gambling addiction, so that might account for some of it.”

  “Where were you today?”

  “At the Potomac Country Club all afternoon. I played eighteen holes with three close friends, some of the only friends I have left because they didn’t have enough cash to make them worth her time.”

  “We’ll need their contact info.”

  “Why?” he asked, seeming astounded that they would check what he’d said.

  “Because people lie to our faces all the time.”

  “I’m not lying! I played golf.”

  “Great, then you won’t have any problem giving us the names and contact numbers for the people you played with.”

  He sagged and seemed to accept the inevitable, which was good because not cooperating would count as wasting her time, and Sam hated when people wasted her time.

  Using his cell phone to get the info, he wrote down the names and numbers of the three men. Sam handed the notebook over to Freddie to make the calls.

  “When was the last time you saw your wife?”

  “Before I left this morning.”

  “Spoke to her?”

  “After her arraignment when I drove her home and asked her what the fuck she’d been thinking stealing from people, let alone people we know. When she couldn’t give me a satisfactory response, I told her to stay the hell away from me. I was planning to immediately file for divorce and wanted her out of the house.”

  “Was she aware you were planning to divorce her?”

  “Not yet, but I hardly think she would’ve been surprised in light of what I’ve learned about her. I didn’t want to be on the hook to make restitution to her victims.” As he said those words, it seemed to occur to him that he might be now that she was dead. “I didn’t kill her, but I can think of hundreds of people who had reason to. One of our closest couple friends, Dan and Toni Alino, both his parents have Alzheimer’s, and she got them to invest in her scheme with money she knew they’d need to care fo
r his parents. She took money from her own cousin as well as my brother. Who does that?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said. “Was anyone particularly outspoken after she was charged?”

  “Her phone was ringing nonstop for days. She ignored the calls. People were calling and texting me, but I didn’t know what to tell them except I was as surprised as they were to find out what she’d been doing. I’m sure they don’t believe I didn’t know, but I really didn’t. I was horrified when I heard the full extent of what she’s charged with. If I’d known…” He looked at them, seeming shattered. “I would’ve done something to stop it. I’m an attorney, an officer of the court. There’s no way I would’ve let this go on and not tried to stop it.”

  “Take me through what happened when you found her.”

  “I came home from the club, opened the garage door and saw the blood all over the place, and then I realized it was her. Ginny. I… I recognized the running shoes she had on. I immediately called 911 and waited outside until the MPD arrived.”

  “You never touched her or went near her?”

  “No. I could tell there was nothing I could do for her.”

  “Is her phone here?”

  He nodded toward the kitchen counter. “It’s there.”

  “Do we have your permission to take it into evidence?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Sam pulled an evidence bag out of her coat pocket and handed it to Freddie.

  “Is there somewhere else you can stay tonight? Crime Scene will be coming in to work the scene and will probably be here at least until tomorrow.”

  “I, um, I can go to my brother’s. I think. Is it okay to text him?”

  “Yeah, go ahead.”

  Sam stayed with him while he texted his brother.

  “I can tell him what happened with Ginny?”

  “Yes.”

  He typed the information into the phone and then waited for his brother to respond. “He said I can come over.”

  “We’ll get Patrol to take you.”

  “I can’t drive myself?”

  “Everything here is considered evidence until Crime Scene is finished processing it. Where is your brother’s home located?”

  “Chevy Chase.”

  “Detective Cruz, will you ask Patrol to arrange transport for Mr. McLeod?”