Chapter Twenty-Two #2
“I’m going to be honest with you, Ken,” Sam said.
“If I find out that you knew anything that could’ve helped us figure out who killed Ginny or make restitution to her victims, I’ll throw the book at you so hard, it’ll give you a skull fracture.
I’ll charge you with multiple felonies and do everything in my power to make your life a living hell. Do you understand me?”
“My life is already a living hell. My wife was murdered. My children, family and friends don’t speak to me. There’s nothing you can do that’s worse than the hell I’m already living in.”
“Don’t be so sure about that.”
“Is he free to go?” the lawyer asked.
“For now.” Disgusted with him and his client, Sam got up to leave the room and nearly ran smack into Avery Hill in the hallway.
“Oh damn. I knew I was forgetting something I was supposed to do today.”
“I’m hurt.”
Sam laughed. “No, you’re not. I’ve got one more thing to do, and then I’ll find you in my conference room.”
“Sounds good.”
“To you, maybe.”
He walked away, laughing.
Sam collected herself, took a deep breath and went into the room where Realtor Barbie and her middle-aged male attorney were waiting.
Cheri looked quite a bit worse for wear after a night in jail.
Her mascara was smudged under her eyes, her hair had gotten greasy, and the glow of the orange jumpsuit made her skin look washed out.
“It’s about time,” the attorney said.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I inconvenience you during my homicide investigation?”
“You have no good reason to retain my client.”
“Sure I do.”
“Are you going to tell us what that reason is?”
Sam took a seat across from them, noting Cheri looked terrified. Good. “I believe Cheri knew exactly what Ginny was up to and aided and abetted her crimes.”
Cheri gasped. “I didn’t!”
“Right at this moment, one of my very best detectives is tearing your life apart. He’s looking at everything, lifting every rock and peeking behind every door.
If there’s anything there, he’ll find it.
Like, for instance, if you got a kickback for your fake-ass ‘showings,’ Detective Green will find that.
If your influx of cash doesn’t match up with your commissions, he’ll notice that.
If you’ve got money hidden somewhere, he’ll find it.
He’s one of the best I’ve ever worked with, and nothing gets by him. ”
Sam never blinked as she stared down Cheri and watched her wilt before her eyes. “Do you have children, Cheri?”
She sat up straighter. “Three. Why?”
“How old are they?”
“Seventeen, nineteen and twenty-one.”
“So two in college. Is that right?”
She glanced at the lawyer before offering a tentative nod.
“Where do they go?”
“Um, one goes to George Mason, and the other goes to Virginia Tech.”
“Good schools. Tuition is expensive, isn’t it? Especially with two in college at the same time, which you’ll have for a while with your younger one coming up, am I right?”
“Y-yes.”
“What are you getting at, Lieutenant?” the lawyer asked.
“Detective Green will be ripping their lives apart, too. If they paid for college without loans, he’ll want to know where that money came from.
If they’re driving nice cars, he’ll find out how they paid for them.
If they’ve got anything to hide, Green will find it.
He’s like a bloodhound. He makes the IRS agents that investigated you during the federal investigation look like Cub Scouts.
I bet they never thought to investigate your kids, did they? Is there anything for him to find?”
Cheri shifted in her seat, her shoulders slumping. If body language was any indication, Sam had scored a direct hit by mentioning her kids.
“You don’t have to answer that, Cheri,” the lawyer said.
“You’re right. She doesn’t have to answer anything.
But I’ll take great pleasure in charging her with impeding a homicide investigation.
It’s one of my favorite things to charge people with.
It leads to lots of ugly press about people who get in the way of me catching murdering scumbags.
Real estate is a reputational business, isn’t it, Cheri?
I imagine yours has taken a bit of a hit since the Feds came swooping in on Ginny and uncovered your role in her scheme. ”
“My client wasn’t charged with anything.”
“Yet,” Sam said. “She hasn’t been charged yet.” She slapped her hand on the table, startling Cheri. “The jig is up, Cheri. Tell me what you did with the kickbacks from Ginny!”
Cheri broke down into sobs that echoed through the tiny room. “I wanted to help my kids,” she said haltingly.
“Shut up, Cheri,” the lawyer growled.
“No, I can’t do this anymore, Al. I can’t do it.
” She smeared mascara across her face when she wiped away tears.
“Ginny swore to me that there was nothing illegal about what she was doing. I told her I couldn’t endanger my license under any circumstances, because that’s how I supported my family after my divorce.
My kids were heading to college, so when Ginny came to me with an ‘opportunity,’ I took it. ”
“How did you know her?”
“We played tennis together at a racquet club in Gaithersburg. We had friends in common. They introduced me to her, and she seemed thrilled to hear I was a Realtor. That first day, she told me she’d been looking for a good Realtor in our area to work on some deals she had going.
We exchanged cards, she called me the next day, and we began working together shortly after. ”
“What did working with her entail?”
“She’d identify a property and ask me to show it to groups of people.”
“How did you get paid?”
“By the showing. She paid me five hundred per.”
Sam let out a low whistle. “Five hundred bucks to do a showing? And you never thought there was anything odd about her showing properties that never sold?”
“Ginny said she was putting together a group to purchase the buildings, and that was going to take some time. She asked me to show the properties. I showed them.”
“How many showings did you do for her?”
“A couple thousand over three years.”
“How many thousand? Two, three, four?”
“Maybe two.”
“Two times five. I’m no math whiz, but that’s, like, a million dollars. Am I right?”
Cheri squirmed in her seat. “Something like that.”
“That’s a lot of money to do showings. Did you follow a script that Ginny wrote?”
“I told people about the properties, their potential, the comps in the area. That kind of thing. Basically, I made it seem like an attractive investment.”
“When you knew it was all part of a scam.”
“No! I didn’t know that! Not until the Feds arrested Ginny. I had no idea.”
“How’d you find out that you’d been part of a scam?”
“When the Feds came to my office and told me. I honestly didn’t know. I’d take a polygraph if you wanted me to.”
“Stop talking, Cheri,” the lawyer said.
“I would! I didn’t know what she was doing!”
“Fair enough,” Sam said, “but you had to suspect there was something hinky about it.”
“I didn’t. She asked me to do showings. I did showings. I’m a Realtor. That’s what I do.”
“Not once, ever, did you ask yourself what Ginny might be up to?”
“No.”
“Well, I suppose if I was making that kind of easy money, I might not ask questions about it either. Or wait, maybe I would because I’d want to know why I was making the easy money and how it might come back to bite me in the ass, but that’s me. I’m skeptical that way.”
“Is there anything else you need to ask my client, or is she free to go?”
Sam eyed the woman for a full minute before she said, “Where were you on Sunday afternoon?”
“What? Why?”
“Because I’m wondering where you were when someone took a garden tool to Ginny’s neck. So… Where were you?”
“I didn’t kill her,” she said, sending a frantic look toward the attorney, who patted her arm reassuringly.
“She knows you didn’t kill her, Cheri,” the lawyer said in a condescending tone that infuriated Sam.
“Is that right?” Sam asked him. “And why do you say that?”
“Because you would’ve led with that if you suspected her,” he said smugly, as if he was some sort of expert in interrogation techniques.
“Actually, that’s not true. I tend to save the big questions for last, when the person thinks I’m done with them. Like now. Cheri thought we were done, but, oh wait, not so fast.”
The lawyer scowled at her. “She didn’t kill Ginny.”
Ignoring him, Sam focused on Cheri, who shriveled slightly as Sam glared at her. “Where were you on Sunday afternoon?”
“I had two open houses, one from twelve to two and another from three to five.”
“And where were you from two to three?”
“In the car, driving from one to the other.”
Sam slid her notebook across the table. “I need addresses for each open house.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to check. So make sure you tell me the truth, unless you want to end up right back here again. And I’ve got to say, orange isn’t your color.”
Cheri’s hand shook as she wrote down the addresses and pushed the pad back to Sam, who scanned what she’d written.
“How long did it take you to get from Bethesda to Germantown?”
“About… half… half an hour.”
Why was she stammering? “You had an hour, and the drive only accounted for half of it, so what did you do with the other half?”
“There was a lot of traffic, so it took longer.”
“But you said it took half an hour.”
“I meant that’s how long it should have taken.”
“Are you trying to get arrested for murder, Cheri?”
“No! I didn’t kill her!”
“By my reckoning, you have thirty unaccounted minutes right around the time someone was bashing Ginny with a garden tool.”
“I was driving!” Cheri directed a wild-eyed look at her attorney. “Tell her to listen to me.”
“Lieutenant, my client didn’t kill Ginny, and this interview is over.” He stood, gathered his belongings and lifted his chin to tell Cheri to get up and follow his lead.
Sam sat back and waited to see if he’d try to walk out of the room. Wisely, he stopped short of that.
“Is my client free to go?”
“For now.”
“What does that mean?” Cheri asked in the shrill tone that was beginning to grate on Sam’s nerves. “For now?”
“Just what I said. I reserve the right to speak to you again if I need to, and if I find out you used those thirty minutes to kill Ginny, I’ll be coming for you.”
“I didn’t kill her!”
“Did you spend all the money she gave you?” Sam asked.
“Most of it. I paid off my house, paid my kids’ tuition.”
“And you understand there’re people out there who’re in danger of losing their homes because of the money they lost, right?”
“That’s not my fault! I didn’t take their money. Ginny did.”
“So you said, but if I find out you lied to me in here, I’ll make you very sorry.”
“I didn’t lie,” she said, her voice wavering and her eyes filling. “I wish I’d never met Ginny.”
“But I bet you’re awfully glad that mortgage is paid off, am I right?”
“We’re through here,” the lawyer said.
Sam looked at Cheri with utter disgust, got up and left the room. These people were so fucked up. How could Cheri not question the reason she was showing those buildings, or why Ginny would pay her five hundred bucks to do showings? How could she never ask why?
The more she found out about Ginny and her scheme, the more she felt for the people who’d been taken in by her. Maybe they’d been stupid or greedy or whatever you wanted to call it, but they hadn’t deserved to lose everything.