CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
C HAPTER S EVENTEEN
In the conference room, Bree updated the whiteboard with the details about the license plate, Like New Auto Body Repair, and Calvin Wakefield. Stepping back and studying the board, she felt like she was running flat out on a treadmill, expending a ton of energy but not getting very far.
Matt dropped into a chair, opened a laptop, and started typing.
Someone rapped on the door, and it opened. Juarez poked his head in the gap. “Ma’am?”
“Come in,” she said.
Juarez all but vibrated. “You’ll never guess what I found.”
“Close the door, please.” Bree didn’t want Claire to overhear. She was at the other end of the hall, but Bree would take no chances the girl was on her way to the restroom or something while they discussed her parents’ murders.
Juarez obeyed, then spun around. His face shone with excitement. She sincerely hoped he did not play poker. He was incapable of playing it cool. Whatever he’d found, it was big.
Bree felt her brows creep up her forehead. She and Matt exchanged a look and a glimmer of hope.
Juarez didn’t make them wait. “The Masons were not lawyers, at least not according to the New York State Bar Association.”
It took Bree a minute to process the news. “What do you mean they weren’t lawyers?”
“They weren’t licensed lawyers,” he said. “Neither one of them took the bar exam. Neither was a member of the New York State Bar Association. I found no record of either of them attending law school in New York, Pennsylvania, or New Jersey. I also checked the bar associations in those states, but nope.”
“Fake lawyers?” Bree leaned a hip on the conference table. “I did not see that coming.”
“Me either.” Matt spun his chair to face the murder board. He studied the victims’ photos with crossed arms. “How long have they been pretending to be attorneys?”
Juarez raised both hands. “Looks like a long time. We found seven years of tax returns. All reported income under the business code for other professional, scientific, and technical services instead of legal services.”
“How did you learn this?” Bree asked.
“You said you wanted me to be thorough,” Juarez said.
“I’m impressed.” Bree shook her head.
Juarez flushed with pleasure.
“With Juarez or the Masons’ fraudulent law firm?” Matt asked.
“Both,” Bree said. “Nice work.”
Matt turned to the board. “I’ve heard of people pretending to be doctors and performing surgery, but I have to admit, the thought of them getting away with this for years is still unbelievable.”
Ballsy too.
“I found other information, if you’re interested,” Juarez said.
“Please.” Bree rolled a hand in the air.
Juarez consulted his notes. “They bought their house twelve years ago. They have no mortgage. Real estate taxes are paid up. Before moving to Grey’s Hollow, they lived in Stifleton, New York.”
“That’s about four hours from here,” Bree said. “Any record of employment for either of them?”
Juarez shook his head. “Not that I’ve found. According to their birth certificates, Josh Mason was born in Rochester. Shelly Mason’s maiden name was Franco. She was born in Pittsburgh.”
The door opened again, and Todd walked in, a laptop under his arm. He glanced at Juarez and raised a brow. Bree motioned for the young deputy to fill in his chief deputy. Juarez had made the discovery. He deserved the credit.
Afterward, Todd ran a hand over his short hair. “That makes total sense, given what I discovered.”
“What now?” Bree asked.
“I’ve been reviewing the Masons’ phone and financial records.” Todd paused. “They were running an email scam, a fake charity.”
Bree slid into a chair. “Seriously?”
“Oh, yeah. They were raking in the money, funneling it all into their partnership account.”
“What kind of charity?” she asked.
“They called it the Dreams Foundation and claimed to help homeless kids go to college.” Todd set down the laptop and opened it. “They have a nice website.” He stepped away so Bree and Matt could look at the screen.
Bree looked over Matt’s shoulder. He scrolled through a home page filled with smiling teenagers and young adults. Testimonials praised the foundation for saving futures, giving hope, and fulfilling dreams of a better life.
“I have access to their email accounts as well,” Todd said. “From what I could discern, they only did a small amount of very simple legal work, for which they charged hefty fees.”
Bree thought of the interview with the angry real estate agent. “That’s why Peter Vitale threatened to report them to the bar.” She turned back to the board. “This changes everything. Instead of two lawyer victims, now we have two criminal victims.”
“Did they take anyone for a significant amount of money?” Matt asked.
“So far, I found a ton of small transactions. Many of their donors seem to be senior citizens. Those small amounts add up, though. It was a nice source of income for them.”
“Small amounts are less likely to be questioned.” Bree tapped the dry-erase marker on her palm.
“Did someone discover their scam?” Matt asked. “Did they engage in other criminal activity?”
“Did the Masons’ phone records indicate any personal relationships?” Bree asked.
“Hard to say.” Todd took a seat and pulled his laptop toward him. “They primarily used email for business communication for the legal firm and the fake charity. The Masons weren’t big texters. Plus, their cell service provider only keeps the content of text messages for ten days. In that period, they had very few texts, most of which were exchanged with each other and Claire. Normal messages about pickup times and grocery store stops. There were some delivery notifications and a dentist appointment reminder. Phone calls are also mundane so far. In fact, the most suspicious aspect is their nonuse of their cells.”
“Given they were criminals, it wouldn’t surprise me if they used burner phones,” Matt said.
Bree’s phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen. “An update came in from forensics. Trace evidence hasn’t been analyzed yet, but nothing stands out so far.” They’d found animal fur, carpet fibers, human hair, dust, et cetera, all of which would take time to evaluate. “This is interesting. There were traces of pine shavings on the bedroom carpet.”
“Pine shavings?” Matt asked.
Todd typed on his computer. “Commonly used for landscaping, gardening, crafting, and as animal bedding.”
“The Masons’ back garden was very well kept,” Matt said. “But I don’t remember seeing bags of pine shavings anywhere.”
Todd scrolled. “None in the garage.”
Matt wrote pine shavings on the murder board. “Other evidence?”
“We have a general evidence log.” Bree opened it and began scanning the list of items taken from the crime scene. It took several minutes to find what she was looking for. “There it is. A burner phone still in its sealed package was found in the glove compartment of the Audi Q7. No bag or receipt.”
Matt stroked his beard. “If people go to the trouble of buying a burner phone when they already have a regular phone, they usually pay cash so that no one can track the phone to them.”
“Otherwise, why not use your regular phone?” Bree agreed. “Anything else in the financials yet?”
“I’m still digging,” Todd said. “Other loose ends ... The judge signed the warrant to test Vitale’s handgun.”
“We need to pick that up,” Bree said.
Todd continued to scroll. “Ballistics rushed the test on the bullets shot at Deputy Zucco. They were fired from the same gun as the one used to kill the Masons.”
“OK.” Bree picked up the tattoo drawing. She offered it to Juarez. “Make copies of this and distribute them among the deputies and update our description of the suspect.”
He took the paper and left the room.
“I’ll query NCIC and ViCAP,” Todd volunteered.
The National Crime Information Center was a national clearinghouse for crime information. ViCAP was the FBI’s violent crime database. Both systems allowed law enforcement to search for suspects, similar crimes, stolen property, missing persons, et cetera.
“I have to talk to Claire again.” But first Bree needed a minute to gather her thoughts. She faced the Masons’ photos. They didn’t look like scam artists. They looked like normal professionals. “I don’t want to upset her, but she might have information.”
How much does she know?
Matt got up and stood beside her. “I doubt they told her they were frauds, but she might have other information she doesn’t even realize she knows.”
Side by side, they stared at the board.
“I can’t put it off any longer.” Bree pushed away from the table. “I’ll question Claire again. Then we can pick up Vitale’s gun and finish the neighborhood canvass.” Bree was going to want some air to ease her guilt after the questions she needed to ask Claire.
“Want help?” Matt asked.
Bree considered the delicate nature of her questions. “I’m going to take Zucco in with me. She seems to have developed a rapport with Claire.”
Bree stopped in the restroom to splash cold water on her face. Then she collected Zucco, and they went into the interview room. Claire was scrolling on her phone. She lowered it as they came in. Her gaze searched Bree’s. Fear expanded the whites of her eyes.
Zucco sat next to her. “The sheriff has a few follow-up questions for you. Are you OK to answer them?”
“Sure.” Claire set down her phone. “Is it about the tattoo?”
“No.” Bree took the chair on the other side of the table, letting the girl have a bit of personal space. “You did a great job there. Claire, how much do you remember from your young childhood?”
“Are you talking about my life before the Masons adopted me?” Claire asked.
Bree exhaled in relief. Claire knows she’s adopted. “Yes.”
Claire shrugged. “Not much.” She closed her eyes. “I don’t see much. Maybe a flash of a face or a house if I think about it.” Her eyes opened. “Nothing concrete. Nothing in detail.”
Bree phrased her next question carefully. “Do you know how you came to be adopted?”
Claire nodded. “My biological parents died in an accident.”
“Do you know their names?”
“No.”
“How about where they lived?”
“No,” Claire said. “I don’t know anything about them. My parents—the Masons—didn’t want to talk about it. Mom tried to have a baby but couldn’t. She was sensitive about it.”
“That’s understandable,” Bree said. “Do you know where either of your adoptive parents went to college or law school?”
Claire shook her head. “They didn’t talk about college much, but they both went to law school at Syracuse.”
“How about their families?”
Claire tilted her head. “They always said they didn’t have any.”
“Both of them?” Bree asked.
“Yes,” Claire confirmed.
“You never met a grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin? Did you get holiday cards? Go to any weddings?” Bree double-checked Claire’s previous interview. Her answers were all consistent.
Claire shook her head.
“What do you know about your parents’ histories?”
“I know Mom was from Pittsburgh, and Dad grew up in Rochester.”
Which matched their birth certificates.
“They’ve been married twenty-one years.” Claire looked to the ceiling as she recalled facts. “They met in law school, got married in Vegas, then had their honeymoon in Mexico.”
“You said they went to law school in Syracuse?”
“Yes.” Claire looked confused. “Is something wrong?”
Bree was silent for a minute, deciding whether to tell Claire her parents weren’t lawyers. But until she had more information, she wasn’t going to destroy Claire’s memory of her parents. What if Juarez was wrong? “We can’t find some of their records.”
“Oh.” Claire shrugged. “I don’t know where to tell you to look.”
“That’s OK,” Bree assured her. “I’m going to get your things this afternoon.”
“I made the list like you asked.” Claire held up her phone. “Can I text it to you?”
“Sure.” Bree read off her cell number.
“Do you know where I’ll go tonight?”
“Not yet, but I will call for an update.”
“Thank you,” Claire said in a sad voice.
Marge poked her head into the conference room. “Sheriff? You have a call. It’s Madeline Jager. She says she knows you’re here. Do you want me to put her off?”
Madeline Jager was on the board of supervisors, and she was a nightmare, so much like a Disney villain that Matt had dubbed her “Cruella.” Every time Bree left her phone unsupervised, he programmed the ringer to Cruella’s song or changed Jager’s contact name to “Cruella de Vil.”
“No. I’ll talk to her.” Give me strength. Bree smoothed her face. “Excuse me, Claire.”
Bree stopped to relay Claire’s recollections to Juarez so he could investigate. As soon as she finished with Jager, she would also fill in the social worker. Maybe the Masons did have family somewhere, and they’d simply lied. Then Bree returned to her office and picked up the landline. “Sheriff Taggert.”
“Sheriff,” Madeline greeted, her tone stiff and formal as always. “I need to report something very strange.”
“Go ahead.”
“I saw an alligator in my backyard.” Madeline huffed. “An alligator! And I heard you had a previous report on this monster and you did nothing! Why has the public not been informed?”
Bree rubbed her forehead. Why? Why was this happening? “Where do you live?”
“Grey Lake.”
“A fisherman did report seeing an alligator, but he’d been drinking,” Bree said. “His sighting seemed unlikely to be true. Are you sure it wasn’t a hellbender, a snake, or a log?”
“I know what I saw,” Jager insisted. “It was sunning itself on the bank, mouth open and all. I’m texting you the picture.”
Bree’s cell phone buzzed. She opened it—and found herself looking at a fucking alligator.
“Now do you believe me?” Jager snapped.
Bree remembered the previous winter and an encounter with illegally traded venomous snakes. Another thought occurred to her. “How big was it?”
“At least three feet long.”
“A pet alligator would become unmanageable at three feet long. Maybe somebody dumped one.” Bree had certainly experienced stranger things in her law enforcement career. And she’d arrested that illegal exotic reptile trader the previous winter. They’d confiscated baby alligators as well as the snakes, but how many alligators had he sold before they caught him? “I will look into that.”
“You’d better find it before a child gets bitten or someone’s Yorkshire terrier gets eaten. If that showed up on the news ...”
Tourism and bad press were always first concerns of county politicians. A knee-jerk response hovered on Bree’s lips, but she thought better of it. She took a single breath and let it out slowly. “I’ll check it out.”
“Personally?” Jager asked.
Bree had planned to send an animal control officer, but of course, Jager would want her issue to be handled by the sheriff. Politics would give Bree an ulcer. “Yes, I’ll see to it personally.”
Because why not toss an alligator at her while she was in the middle of investigating two murders?