Fatal Fraud: A Fatal Series Novel Read online

  “That’s the way. Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  “No worries. We’ve all been there. It’s the worst.”

  “Yes, it is.” Gigi made a visible effort to shake it off. “In other news, we’ve got Mandi and Ken McLeod Jr. in the cooler, and their father has been calling every six minutes to demand we release them.”

  “Is that right?”

  “He’s been quite insistent,” Carlucci said. “He says we have no grounds to hold his children, and we need to let them go immediately, or he’s going to the media.”

  “And you told him where they were found and where they were going?”

  “We did,” Carlucci said. “He said they were going to the Bahamas for a long-planned trip for Thanksgiving.” The tall, blonde detective put two pieces of paper on the desk in front of Sam. “Except we can prove they purchased the tickets yesterday afternoon, which takes the steam out of that explanation.”

  “Very well done, as usual, ladies.” Sam loved the buzz of knowing they were closing in on murdering scumbags. “Cruz is going to call in as soon as he has anything from the hardware store.”

  “The thing is,” Gigi said, “I’m still having trouble picturing one of them actually killing their own mother.”

  “I think it was heat of the moment,” Sam said. “Maybe Mandi went to the house to have words with her mother about what she’d done to her life by scamming her friends’ parents, and when things escalated, she reached for the closest available thing and swung.”

  “So you think she didn’t mean to kill her?” Gigi asked.

  “I think maybe she wanted to,” Dani said, “but didn’t go there planning to do it.”

  “That’s what I think too,” Sam said. “Let’s see what she has to say. Put her in interview one and him in interview two.”

  “Will do,” Gigi said.

  After Dominguez left the pit to see to Sam’s orders, Sam glanced at Dani. “Is she okay?”

  “She will be once she gets rid of him. I think he’s getting rough with her, but she denies it.”

  “Do we need to have a talk with him?”

  “I asked her that, and she pleaded with me to let her handle it, so I’m trying to do that. She promised me last night that this is it. She’s going to end it with him.”

  “What do we know about him?”

  “He’s got a sealed juvie record, but nothing as an adult. I did a deep dive on social media and picked up a vibe that he’s not a good guy when it comes to women. I tried to tell her that without letting her know I was looking into him. Fine line, you know?”

  “I hear you. Thanks for watching out for her.”

  “She’s like my baby sister. I want to stab that dude through the heart.”

  “I got a rusty steak knife you can borrow anytime you need it.”

  Dani laughed. “I may take you up on that.”

  “Do I need to worry about her?” Sam asked.

  “I’m keeping an eye on it. I’ll let you know if we need to get more involved.”

  “Do that.”

  “Thanks, LT.”

  “I’m going to bring her in with me when I talk to Mandi,” Sam said. “Give her something else to think about.”

  “Good call.”

  “I’ll take you in with Ken.”

  “Let her do them both. She needs it more than I do right now.”

  “Sounds good. And keep being generous to your fellow officers, Carlucci. You’ll never regret it.”

  “I’m lucky to work with awesome people. Gonzo looked great when he was here last night.”

  “By all accounts, he’s doing very well.”

  “I’m relieved to hear that.”

  “Me too. The poor guy has been through hell.”

  “I heard they’re going to charge him…”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  Dani cracked up. “Why did I know you were going to say that?”

  “Because you know bullshit when you see it, and so do I.”

  “I’m so glad you’re all over that. Here’s the rest of what you need to know about our friends Mandi and Ken.”

  Sam spent the next few minutes scanning the reports from the marshals who’d apprehended the siblings and reviewing financials for both of them.

  Gigi returned a few minutes later. “They’re in the rooms.”

  “Any talk of lawyers?”

  “Not to me, and I didn’t see anything about that in the reports from the marshals. They both seem scared shitless.”

  “Good. Come in with me, Dominguez.”

  Her entire demeanor brightened. “Really?”

  “Really. Let’s do it.”

  Sam went into her office to grab her notebook and pen, put her hair up in her favorite clip and headed for interview one with Detective Dominguez. When they burst into the room, Mandi startled and then seemed to shrink into the orange jumpsuit. Her hands were shackled.

  “Detective Dominguez, you can remove the cuffs from Ms. McLeod.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  While Dominguez took care of that, Sam stared at Mandi, taking pleasure in the way she wilted. Fluorescent lighting tended to make even the prettiest people look wan and sickly. “So, Mandi. We meet again.”

  “I told you everything I know the first time.”

  “Did you, though?”

  “What does that mean?”

  Sam took her time withdrawing the report on Mandi’s financials from one of the file folders and placed it on the table in front of Mandi. “See the item we highlighted? That’s your card being used at a hardware store half a mile from your parents’ home on Sunday, when you told us you were…” Even though she knew the list by heart, Sam opened her notebook, scrolled back a few pages and glanced at Mandi. “At study group, napping and writing a paper all day. You said you never left campus. So which is it? Did you never leave campus, or did you make a trip to the hardware store near your parents’ home around the time your mother was killed?”

  “I… Um, I’d like to speak to a lawyer, please.”

  Sam pushed the notebook and pen across the table to her. “Write down your lawyer’s name and number.”

  “I, uh, I don’t know who to call. Our family’s lawyer was one of the people my mother scammed.”

  “We’ll call the public defender’s office for you.”

  Sam and Gigi got up and turned to leave the room.

  “Wait. Where’re you going?”

  “Once you make that request, we can’t talk to you until your lawyer arrives.”

  “You need to let me out of here.”

  “Sorry, but that’s not happening anytime soon.”

  Mandi broke down into gut-wrenching sobs. “I didn’t do anything!”

  “Then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

  “Don’t go. I don’t want to be here.”

  “I’m not allowed to talk to you until your lawyer gets here, and I’ve got other stuff to do until then.”

  “Please. I’ve never been in any trouble. I didn’t do this.”

  “We’ll talk about it when your lawyer gets here. It’s apt to be tomorrow, though. The public defenders are always backed up.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want a lawyer.”

  “Are you officially rescinding your request for an attorney?”

  Mandi nodded and used the sleeve of her jumpsuit to wipe her eyes and nose.

  “Are you sure? Because that might not be the smartest idea.”

  “I’m sure. I want to get out of here.”

  Sam and Gigi returned to their seats.

  “Detective Dominguez, please record this interview and add that Ms. McLeod has declined her right to an attorney.”

  Dominguez did as requested.

  When she was done, Sam said to Mandi, “We’re listening.”

  “I… I wasn’t entirely truthful about Sunday.”

  “We already know that. Why did you go to your
parents’ house?”

  “Because my brother asked me to meet him there. He wanted to talk to my mom about where the money was and what could be done to make restitution to the people she stole from.”

  “But you knew where the money was, because you made the deposits in the Cayman Islands, right?”

  Mandi hadn’t been expecting that. Her mouth fell open and then snapped shut. “I… I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Save it, Mandi. We can put you in Georgetown, Grand Cayman, four times in the last two years.” Sam put the printouts from her social media in which she’d posted about being there.

  “How did you… That account is private.”

  “Funny thing about social media. Nothing is really private if you know how to dig deep.” Which Sam had no idea how to do, but thankfully, she had detectives who did.

  “That doesn’t prove anything other than I took some vacations.”

  “In one of the most notorious tax havens in the world? Try selling that to someone who’s buying that BS. You know exactly where the money is. Does your brother know that you know? And you might want to start being truthful, because we’re talking to him next.”

  “He knows I went on vacation. That’s all it was.”

  “And your mom never asked you to deposit cash or a bank check in a Cayman account while you were there?”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “I’m sending a detective to Georgetown tonight. I’m going to have him match up the security footage from the dates you were there with every bank on that island.”

  “I used the ATM at one bank to get out cash.”

  “And that was it? He’s not going to find that you made any deposits while you were there?”

  “What if I said I did but had no idea why I was doing it? Would that matter?”

  “Potentially. If you were to provide account numbers and other salient information that would allow for restitution to your mother’s victims, I’m quite certain there’d be room to negotiate on any other potential charges you might be facing.”

  “What other charges?”

  “Murder, for one.”

  “I didn’t kill her!”

  “But I think you know who did, and you helped clean up after that person. If you know who killed her and don’t tell us what you know, you can also be charged with hindering our investigation.”

  She started crying again, sobs jolting her petite frame. “I was just a college kid minding my own business. My mom offered to pay for my vacations if I did a favor for her while I was there. I’m not sure how that’s a crime.”

  “It’s a crime because you’ve known all along where the money is stashed and you denied it.”

  “She told me she’d kill me if I breathed a word of it to anyone. ‘They’ll never think to investigate you,’ she said. And the Feds didn’t. No one asked me anything until you came to my dorm.”

  And until Cameron Green dug into the financials and social media for the entire McLeod family. Why in the world hadn’t the Feds done that too?

  “Who killed your mother?”

  “Why does it matter? Didn’t she deserve it?”

  “That’s not for me to decide. My job is to find out who killed her. Whether or not she deserved what she got is for a higher power to determine.” Sam leaned in. “Who killed her?”

  Mandi shook her head as tears streamed down her face and sobs echoed through the room.

  “Who did it, Mandi?”

  “My brother! He did it. He went to the house to beg her to do the right thing and give back the money, but she told him there was no way that was happening. They got into a fight in the garage, and when she told him to stop being a whiny baby, he grabbed the closest thing and just swung it at her. He didn’t mean to kill her.”

  “How did you hear about it?”

  “He called me, hysterical. Told me to come quickly. He needed my help.”

  “What did he need you to do?”

  “He couldn’t find anything with bleach in the house, so he asked me to get some and disposable rags and garbage bags.”

  Sam took notes as Mandi ran through the list. “What did you need the garbage bags for?”

  “I think he was going to try to get her out of there, but there was just so much blood.”

  “Did he tell you what he did before he sent you to the store?”

  “No, but I could tell it was something horrible, because I’d never heard him sound so freaked out.”

  “When he asked for bleach and garbage bags, you still didn’t suspect murder?”

  “No, I figured he’d dropped a bottle of merlot on one of my mother’s Turkish carpets or something like that.”

  “What did you think when you got to the house and saw what’d happened to your mother?”

  “I freaked out. Completely lost it. I hated her for what she did to our lives, but I didn’t want her to die. Not like that. And my brother… He was just out of his mind. He’s not a murderer, Lieutenant. He’s a really good guy. You have to understand what she did to us, what she did to everyone.”

  “I’m having a hard time feeling sorry for you, Mandi, when you knew all along who killed her and where the money was and didn’t tell anyone.”

  “She said she’d kill me!”

  “And you actually believed your own mother would kill you if you did the right thing and told the authorities where she hid all that money? Or, I should say, where you hid it for her.”

  “I didn’t know that’s what I was doing.”

  “So you say.”

  “It’s the truth!”

  “Even when the shit hit the fan with the Feds, it never occurred to you to say, ‘Oh, by the way, I know where the money is stashed’?”

  “Not if I valued my life. My mother was very clear about what would happen to me if I told anyone what I knew. She said if I ever breathed a word of any of this, even if she was gone, I’d pay.”

  “Whose idea was it to go to the Bahamas?”

  “Mine. I wanted to get my brother out of the country.”

  “Why there and not the Caymans, where the money is?”

  “Just because I helped her make the deposits doesn’t mean I have access to the money. Only she had that.”

  Sam pushed a yellow legal pad across the table to her. “Write it all down. I want every detail of the runs you did for your mother to the Caymans, what happened Sunday, how you and your brother decided to cover up his involvement, your plans to flee to the Bahamas. All of it. Detective Dominguez will stay with you while you do.”

  “Are you going to tell my brother what I told you?”

  Sam looked at her, wondering if she was for real. “Yes, I’m going to tell him.”

  “You can’t! He’ll hate me.”

  “What did you think I’d do with that info?”

  “Get him to tell you what happened without implicating me. Please? Isn’t it enough that our lives were ruined by our mother? Don’t take him from me too. Please.”

  Sam didn’t want to be moved by her, but she was nonetheless. “I’ll see what I can do, but if he’s not willing to admit his involvement, I’ll tell him I already know what happened. Either way, he’s going to be charged, and you will be too.”

  “For what?”

  “Lying to us, obstructing our investigation, possible money laundering, embezzlement. That kind of thing.”

  Mandi put her head down on her crossed arms and wailed.

  Sam walked out of the room, pissed off and annoyed.

  Captain Malone was waiting for her.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Did you catch that?” Sam asked the captain.

  “The highlights.”

  “I’ve hated this case from the outset, and I hate it even more now.”

  “I can’t believe we might’ve found the money and the Feds didn’t,” Malone said. “I kinda like that.”

  “I figured you might. This department could use a big win like that, and it’s all
thanks to Green. He’s a star.”

  “Yes, he is. Cruz reported back from the hardware store—the same things Mandi said she bought.”

  “I’m glad it matches up. That’s another box checked.”

  “You believe her when she says it was the brother.”

  “It fits our theory that the murder was heat of the moment, that the murderer grabbed the first thing they could reach, and it went down from there.”

  “So the charge will be manslaughter?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. I don’t believe he went there that day intending to kill her.” Sam checked her watch. “I have just enough time to talk to him before Gonzo’s meeting.”

  “I’ll let you get to it.”

  “You want to come in with me?”

  He blinked, seeming surprised. “Oh, um, sure.”

  “Are you? You still remember how, right?”

  “Don’t be a smartass.”

  “That’s like telling me not to breathe, Cap.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  Sam led the way into interview two, where Ken McLeod Jr. was pacing like a nervous cat. If his sister were to be believed, he had good reason to be nervous. “Have you been advised of your rights regarding counsel?”

  “I have. I waived my right to counsel.”

  Sam turned on the recorder. “Interview with Kenneth McLeod Jr., Lieutenant Holland and Captain Malone present. Subject has waived his right to an attorney. Have a seat, Mr. McLeod.”

  “I’d prefer to stand.”

  “Have a seat, Mr. McLeod.”

  He sat, hands on the table, posture wary and distrustful. “I don’t know why I’m here.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  “Let me tell you something they taught us in Law Enforcement 101. Innocent people don’t run.”

  “We weren’t running. We were going on vacation for Thanksgiving.”

  “And when did you decide to take this vacation?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Right after your mother was murdered. Odd timing.”

  “She wasn’t in our lives. Her murder had no impact on us.”

  “None at all? Your mother was whacked in the neck with a yard tool and bled out on the floor of her garage. That didn’t affect you at all?”

  “Not the way you think it would. She hurt a lot of people with what she did, including my sister and me. It’s no wonder someone killed her.”