Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries)

by Camilla Chafer

  I took over the mouse and glided the page up until the not-so-innocent photo embedded in my report filled the screen. "This is Martin Dean at his car club. He was a member for years. They restore vintage cars and drive them, put on races, stuff like that. Look who he's with." Tara Henderson had even mentioned how cool her sister thought Dean's car was. I pointed to the man next to Dean. "That's Ron Harris. He's an award winning insurance broker. Green Hand underwrites his insurance deals. I think he wrote the fake insurance certificates, set up fake addresses, and got the fake policies into the system. All they had to do was wait it out, then make their claims and get paid. He was killed recently, a hit-and-run. But look who else is in the picture."

  Simultaneously, Maddox and Solomon leaned forward. "That's the mayor, Chris Mathis," said Maddox and I nodded.

  "Right. Old money, you think? Town gossip says the family money was running out. They can barely keep the estate afloat." Town gossip was actually my mom, but I didn’t think that lent a lot of credibility to my claim.

  "How was Mathis part of it?" asked Maddox.

  "He was the money man. Well, what little he had left of it. He helped create the fake policies too and funded them until it was time to claim. He was killed in a hit-and-run too. Kind of a coincidence, right? Three men in this picture are dead." I pointed to the fourth man. "Ten points if you guess who he is."

  "Tell me," said Maddox.

  I smiled. "He's Hector Ramos, president of Montgomery First Bank."

  "Another money man," said Solomon.

  "That's right, but Ramos doesn't just fund the policies. I checked a bunch of accounts that paid out recently, all paid through his bank, all fake accounts, I’ll bet. I’ve been thinking. He could manage the expenses to fund the policies and then re-gather it when it got paid back, maybe transferring it to another account or offshore. This is how they remained unconnected, how no one could put the gang together. You were looking for people who knew each other, but on paper, they didn't. They didn't go to school with each other, or college. They didn't particularly socialize with one another either. All they had in common was their car club and it's not member-based. There's no register. It's just a loose, informal, thing for a bunch of guys who love old cars. This picture is only around because someone snapped it randomly and it made its way into an old edition of the Gazette, which is where I found it."

  "We know what happened to Harris and Mathis. You're right, that it's too much of a coincidence they were killed. My money is on Ramos getting rid of the other three," said Maddox.

  I had come to the same conclusion, but now I wasn't so sure. "You think Ramos planned to take the money and run, cutting the other three out of the deal?" I asked.

  "No, I think Dean got cold feet when he saw your report and realized they were connected. I bet he called his buddies and said he wanted out. He probably knew we were onto him, but not how or when we would strike. I suspect he wanted to take his money and split, pulling the plug on the whole operation."

  "But they didn't want to." I sighed. Money made people do such stupid things.

  Maddox shook his head. "No. Maybe the other three got greedy. We'll run their financials. Maybe it was Mathis' mounting debts. Maybe they just wanted a little more. Or maybe they knew the scam couldn't last much longer. They were cashing in more and more policies. They would want as much as they could get. With Dean out of the picture, maybe they thought they could keep going and split it three ways instead of four."

  "There's just one thing I don't get," I said. "With Dean dead, they could keep going for a while, maybe even get someone else in Green Hand to funnel the fake claims through. But someone killed Harris and Mathis. I can understand wanting to eliminate Dean, but the other two? And Tanya? And who is after me?"

  "That still points to Ramos," pointed out Maddox. He placed a call, giving instructions to have Hector Ramos picked up.

  "If you thought Ramos had it in him, you would have said that straight off, right?" pressed Solomon. He had a little knowing smile on his face, one that told me he had reached the same conclusion.

  "Yep. I think there's someone else."

  "Who?" asked Maddox.

  I threw my hands in the air, the flat photograph of the four men smiling proudly back at me. "That's the problem, I don't know."

  We went through the details over and over and nothing emerged. If anything, I just felt more frustrated. When Maddox's cell phone rang, he answered on the second ring, listening briefly then hanging up. "Ramos' wife reported him missing two days ago," he told us, sliding the phone back into his pocket.

  "That's not good," I said.

  "Ramos could be the killer. Maybe he ran?" persisted Maddox. "He could be out of the country by now."

  I shook my head. "Mathis, Harris and Dean are all dead. Unless Ramos really hated his wife, I think he's dead too," I said. "Plus, he wouldn't go missing without the money and I don't think they've got it yet. He's worked too hard for it. That’s why someone came after me. Whatever Tanya Henderson had, they think I now have.” It hit me. “They can’t get the money.”

  We all stared hard at the photograph, but I shook my head. There were a couple of faces visible in the background where a cluster of people stood. "I don't know anyone else in this picture," I said.

  "I'll send it to the team. They can run facial recognition." Maddox took over the keyboard, his hands flying across it. "Done. Let's see if they get any hits."

  "What now?"

  "Now, we wait," said Maddox. “I need to stretch my legs.”

  I hated waiting.

  When Solomon and Maddox went out of the house to talk together about secret stuff, or their weekend plans—who knew?—I went into the living room and pulled out my notepad and the sheet of notes I'd made in the office. Keeping my finger on the first address Lily had checked, I flipped through the notebook. On the third page, I struck gold. The first set of numbers before the slash matched an account number on my list. After that first slash, the numbers were still a mystery. I suspected that the digits were made up of a partial encryption, with the first part simply an account number. But what could the second, third and fourth parts mean?

  I ran my finger down the list and found a policy opening date near to the first one that I matched. The account number matched another one on the list. The month read March. I penciled “March” on a sticky and added it to the notebook page as I flicked back to the beginning. Every few pages, there was a blank, and the same pattern continued until I counted twelve sections. I wrote the months on sticky notes and added a note to each section. Now that I had a way of differentiating the numbers, I quickly found seventy-six of the accounts on my list written in the notebook, each with a corresponding six-digit policy opening date. All I had to do was work out what the last two parts of Dean's notes meant; but I folded it away when Maddox and Solomon came back. I would share when I had the whole thing worked out.

  There was one thing I was sure of. This innocent looking notebook was the master list for every fraud the gang had committed. The question was, did whoever was after me want this piece of the puzzle too? Was this what they needed? Not the key Tanya Henderson held?

  Solomon took off after an hour to who knew where—I’m not even sure Maddox knew all the time where he went—leaving us alone again, a shared pizza between us. Both of us were on edge, knowing how close we were to breaking the case. I paced the floor, munching a slice, waiting while Maddox filed his report. Every so often, he would look up and ask me a question, his forehead furrowed with lines, then duck back down, typing quickly as I gave him my answers.

  Try as I might, however many questions he asked, I couldn't imagine who the fifth person could be.

  "I don't think the fifth person is connected to the group at all," I said finally, coming to a standstill in front of him, my hands on my hips. "Five even sounds too many for a group. It's another person they trust to keep quiet, another person to split the proceeds with. Maybe we shouldn't look for a connection to the
gang. Just like they weren't really close, this fifth person isn't close to them either."

  "What does your gut tell you?"

  "Blackmail. I think someone found out and wanted a piece of the pie."

  "But they didn't get it?" Maddox leaned back and stretched.

  "No, because Dean was killed. But it would make sense how the others started dying, or disappearing. The fifth person was chasing the money. Not just a little bit of it, all of it, and I don't think he can get it. Maybe each of them had part of the puzzle to recover the money," I mused. I was thinking about the object Martin Dean's girlfriend had died to retrieve, the keys I'd pried from her hands. It had to have been something small and something the water wouldn't damage. "It was probably the fifth person who killed Tanya.” Another thought occurred to me. “None of them seemed extra wealthy at their time of death, right?"

  "We combed Dean's records and there was nothing, which was why we were spying. When Dean’s name kept coming up in the investigation that was when I got put into his department. I was trying to find out who exactly in Green Hand was part of it, as well as how it was going down. My team is pulling Mathis’, Harris’ and Ramos' financials now. We can comb them, but I think we'll find the same thing. Nothing.” Maddox sounded exasperated. “They probably have it stashed somewhere?"

  "In a bank account? Ramos would be able to move and collect the money. If he turned it into cash, it could be in storage or in the vault. Somewhere safe where they could collect it when the time came, when and if, any suspicion was gone."

  "So, if none of them trusted each other to keep the money, and they all had something that enabled them to collect it together, all the fifth person had to do was find all four pieces of the puzzle and wait it out." Maddox folded his arms behind his head.

  "Except the heat is on," I noted. "If that person connected the dots, they must know we can too. They need to get the money and fast."

  "This mystery person is going to go for the money and disappear," said Maddox with a sigh. "Then he’s gone."

  "Unless we get there first." If we cracked the case, I could go home, back to my own bed, and, more importantly, my own life. I took a deep breath and put a dent in my plan. "The only thing is, Adam, the fifth person knows who I am, but I don't know who he is."

  "The Finklesteins?”

  "If they weren’t dead,” I replied. I paced the floor while Maddox watched me. “But some of those creepy messages came after they were shot. It has to be the person who shot Tanya. They knew we were following her that night. Maybe they think I'm after the money too, that I know all the fraudsters are dead except Ramos. They just think I know who they are," I surmised.

  "It's not enough to keep you safe. You figured out the rest of it. Until we stop that person, you're still in danger."

  Shit.

  "I believe Dean's girlfriend's key is one of the items he needs," I said. "It's still the only thing I can think of that could have been hidden in the toilet tank. It wouldn't have gotten damaged like a map or a code, and was easy to move. No one else knew Dean went there, so it would be a safe place to hide it. We need to look at lockers. The bus station? Ramos’ vault for sure."

  "None of her effects have been released so we have the key at the precinct. Maybe she was after the money too?"

  "I don't know, maybe. Maybe Dean told her to hide it, and she never knew what it was for. She might have been threatened and told to get it, or maybe she thought she was getting a share once she handed over the key."

  "But she was killed anyway."

  "Yeah."

  “The key wasn’t a high priority item.” Maddox took out his cell phone and placed a call, instructing someone to pull the keys and find out what they fitted. And fast.

  I yanked my notes and the book out of my purse, settling in the corner of the sofa adjacent to Maddox. I started with the first number I'd identified and checked my notes on the corresponding page. I sighed and ticked off a four-digit number. It was so obvious, it hadn't even occurred to me to check. The first set was the policy number, the second the policy date. The third set of numbers, which varied between three and six figures, was the claim amount; in this case eight thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars.

  "What's the sigh for?"

  I held up my hand, my eyes focused on the sheet. "Do you have an account at Montgomery Bank?" I asked.

  "No. Why?"

  "Do you know if the account numbers have any pattern?"

  "I can find out, if you tell me why."

  "I'm not sure yet, but I think I found something. Hang on." I moved to the next number on my list. The claim amount fitted there too. Just to be sure, I checked the next three. All matched up. I moved over to Maddox, snuggling on the sofa next to him.

  "Don't get mad," I said, "but I found something that belonged to Dean. I wasn't sure what it was at first. It just seemed like a random list of numbers." I flipped to the first page and pointed to the numbers. "They're all like this. A series of numbers then a slash, a shorter series, another slash, then another series of numbers.” I explained the significance of the numbers. “I don’t what the final set of numbers mean, but I think it's probably the fake bank account." I moved my list to the front. "And see here? Most of these claims say Boston Test Group or BTG. The test group Scott in the call center told me about is really a front for the fraud op. It was a way for Dean and the others to bypass the claims inspectors and make sure they got their money. It's no wonder it looked like it was all streamlined. It was all fake."

  "Where did you find this?"

  "Um... at Dean's," I said vaguely.

  "His office?"

  "Not exactly."

  "His house?" Maddox pressed.

  "Well..."

  "Please tell me you didn't tamper with a crime scene."

  "I didn't tamper with a crime scene," I said solemnly, and with the exception of removing two important clues, I hadn't. Besides, the police had already been through Dean's house before me, so really, I was in the clear. "Anyway… Dean is hardly going to come back from the dead and say, ‘Hey, that was in my house’."

  "I didn't hear that." Maddox studied the list, cross-referencing it against my notes. "You know what you've got here, right?"

  "Yes," I said, a smile spreading over my face. "The master list of the whole scam."

  "I can’t believe we missed it. I have to take this to my boss. It's key evidence."

  "But, there isn't going to be a trial unless Ramos turns up."

  "And when he does, we have enough to put him behind bars for years."

  "Awesome." Since no one else was going to say it, I would. I was good at this. Really good.

  Maddox placed a call to Solomon, but evidently, he didn't answer. Maddox said, "I have to take this in right away. You'll be okay here by yourself. I'll lock up. Just stay away from the windows and don't answer the door."

  Panic gripped me. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes."

  "Isn't it safer if I go with you?"

  "No. I don't want you seen. Plus, your family is ready to lynch me."

  "Seriously?"

  "I told Garrett you were in my custody until this was all over, and he threatened to do scary things to my nuts."

  I warmed with pride. My brothers always took it upon themselves to gang up on my boyfriends when I was younger. I found solace in that the older two ended up with no-nonsense women, and if Jord got his head around it, he'd complete the set with Lily, who wouldn't put up with any macho shit either. None of us had any choice about Ted, so I was pretty sure my brothers wanted to make sure that I got someone better. Their concern ran side-by-side with interference and self-preservation. My future husband would have to a pretty awesome guy to pass their roadblocks. Clearly, Maddox hadn't been warmed to yet.

  I wondered what they would think of Solomon. Solomon could probably take all three of them without breaking a sweat.

  "Fine. But hurry please, because if anything happens to me, they'll never find your body." I wa
s pretty sure this was true.

  "Point taken."

  Maddox walked the house, inside and out, before showing me how to operate the controls for the cameras on his laptop, and finally locking up. He left me with a key, but gave firm instructions not to go anywhere, which he repeated four times, just in case I didn’t get it. He was gone a total of forty-three minutes, not that I was clock-watching, and returned just as my mind started to taunt me with every strange creak and groan in the house.

  I pounced on him as soon as I opened the door. "What did your boss say?" I asked.

  "Matt's happy that we have the list. He's passed it onto our tech guys to crunch the numbers. We should know exactly how much the scam is worth inside a day, plus, we'll be able to build a paper trail of every account, who opened it at the bank, what addresses were used. Maybe find a digital trail too. The techies are thrilled. They had too much information to wade through before, hundreds of thousands of policies. You blew the case wide open." Maddox hugged me, the clinch lasting a little too long to be friendly, but just as I thought about standing on tiptoes and kissing him, his pants started to vibrate, which, I have to say, wasn't an altogether bad feeling, but there was the possibility I'd been indoors too long.

  "Solomon," said Maddox, suddenly attentive. When he hung up, the news wasn't good. “Hector Ramos' body was found in a dumpster this morning, and only just identified. To make matters worse, his thumb was cut off.”

  “He was tortured?”

  Maddox nodded. “The coroner thinks it was pre-mortem.”

  "That's all four of the gang dead," I said, my heart sinking. "Five if we add Dean's girlfriend." Seven, if I added Twinkles and Knuckles to the list.