“Shit,” Bruce blurted out. Perhaps she could get a reduced sentence.
“I can’t tell you any more than that until I consult the justice department in Washington,” Trent said as he stood.
Chapter 47
Two days later, Margo had been allowed to shower and change into the clothes Deidre had brought for her. She had also brought Margo some makeup. They were meeting with Trent Michaels at the FBI offices to work out a deal. US Marshalls handcuffed her wrists for transport.
When they had arrived, Deidre’s paralegal, Owen Jessup, was already there waiting on them. Deidre had wanted a witness that was on their side present during the meeting. They walked the hall to a room that had a large table and seven chairs. There was a large glass window in the room. Margo knew that people were on the other side of it, watching her.
Deidre, Margo, and Owen waited for five minutes in silence before Trent Michaels walked in with FBI agents she was familiar with — Vic, Tommy, Troy, friends of Bruce and Alec’s. Vic was carrying a large recording device.
“Good afternoon,” Trent greeted as he placed his black briefcase on the table. He sat down in a chair across from them.
“Good afternoon,” Deidre said back. “This is my paralegal, Owen Jessup. He is here to take minutes on what we discuss and agree to.”
Margo remained silent. Owen pulled out a small recording device and sat it next to his yellow legal pad.
“I see you’re ready to get down to business.” Trent opened his briefcase and pulled out papers that were stapled together.
Owen turned on his recorder.
“I have a pre-approved deal here that will give your client immunity from federal prosecution of any federal crime that she knows about and has partaken in per our discussion yesterday,” Trent announced and slid the paperwork to Deidre.
Deidre picked up the papers and examined them carefully.
Margo couldn’t look up at any of them. To Bruce’s co-workers and friends, she was the scarlet woman who thieved on the side.
After a few minutes, Deidre spoke. “Everything is in order. Margo, you can sign.”
“Of course it is,” Trent said lazily as he bore a hole into Deidre.
“Can’t blame an attorney for making sure,” Deidre said back.
Do they know each other? Shaking the question out of her mind, she signed where Deidre indicated.
“Now that we got that out of the way,” Trent began. “Start with how you met your partners in crime, Ms. St John.”
Vic turned on his recording device.
Margo took a deep breath and began to spill all of her secrets.
****
Blanchette, Alec, and Bruce were standing in the room adjacent to the interrogation room, watching them through the glass and listening from the speaker box. Margo had on a sleeveless black top where the collar covered up her neck, matching black slacks, and black flats. She had on light red eyeshadow. Her hair was clipped behind her neck, letting the strands rest down her back. Margo looked classy and ladylike even in cuffs.
Bruce held his breath as he watched her sign the deal. He watched her intently as she started telling her story.
“Five years ago, I was approached by Aaron. He had introduced himself as a scout for a technology company. I really was an independent contractor then. He was checking me out for a job with the organization. After we met a few times to discuss my skills, he had revealed himself as a . . . thief, and he was trying to find out if I had hacking skills, which of course I did. At first, I didn’t want anything to do with what he was up to, and I walked away.”
“How did he change your mind?” Vic asked.
“Not him. My dwindling savings account. Business was slow, and I was struggling to pay Frank’s, my second ex-husband’s, legal bills. We were divorced by then, but when we racked up the legal fees, we were married, so I was still legally liable. Considering my situation, I took a chance, thinking it would only be once; just enough to get me out of the financial hole I was in. I contacted Aaron. He had given me his number just in case I changed my mind.”
“Then what happened?” Tommy asked.
“I met him at dock twenty at the Tampa Bay Marina. There was a small sitting area there. I was shocked to see that Aaron had two other people with him. I thought it was a setup, but he explained that he brought us all together for a reason. That he had been scouting people for six months to create a heist team.” She swallowed and then continued. “Aaron had heard about Anthony through word of mouth when he was in the city jail for a separate crime. Aaron located Anthony when he had finished serving his community service and watched him for a while and learned more things about Anthony in the streets. Then he had set up a gun and fake ID buy with Anthony as a test run. He liked the way Anthony did business, so he approached him with an opportunity. Aaron had met Bobbi — well, she was still technically a he at the time, but she dressed like a woman. Anyway, he had met her at a nightclub. Since Bobbi still had an Adam’s apple, he knew she was a man, but he chatted her up anyway. During their talk, Aaron found out that Bobbi was a bank manager at a bank here in Tampa, and she had fifteen years of banking experience. Aaron had kept buying her drinks until she revealed that she needed extra money for the final three surgeries she needed to transition.”
“What did you discuss at the first meet-up?” Troy asked.
“Aaron said that he had scouted a small bank in Madison, Georgia, that seemed ripe for theft, but he needed someone who could get in on the inside to case the place without the staff getting suspicious. That’s where Bobbi came in. She got a job there as a financial advisor. She had worked there for three months under an alias that Anthony created for her. Bobbi was able to figure out the security system and determine that the most valuable spot in the bank was the safety deposit boxes. I was able to find that the bank’s security system was three years out of date, so it took nothing to break it. Bobbi put in her notice stating she had to quit because of health problems. Two weeks after she quit, we hit the bank.”
“What was the name of the bank?” Tommy asked as he folded his arms across his chest.
“Cloverleaf Trust,” Margo answered.
“We need every detail of the robbery,” Trent said.
“I was in a hotel room in Madison with a laptop. I hacked the security system and shut off the alarm, buying them all the time they needed to break into the door and the safety deposit boxes. We were able to pull eighty thousand dollars in cash and ten thousand dollars in jewelry from that heist.”
Bruce’s head was reeling from what he learned about Margo’s illegal profession. Now, what they knew of as BAAM, hit up to four banks a year. When they were flush, they had decided to scale back to two banks a year, hitting bigger banks for larger payouts with every job. In some cases, Margo was able to just hack the systems and take the money without the team having to break into the banks at night. When they had to go on the ground, they would either rob the safety deposit boxes or break into the vaults when they had the BRINKS truck schedule down. The amounts that they had gotten away with were staggering in some cases. They had always hit banks in different states until the SunBeam robbery.
“Why did you guys change your minds about hitting SunBeam?” Tommy asked.
“Aaron had made contact with a guy named Earl Churchill who worked for the independent contractor who had installed the mainframe at the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas. Earl wanted a million dollars cash for the blueprints of the control room and the plans of the mainframe setup.”
Everyone in the room looked at each other.
“So the SunBeam robbery is connected to the Federal Reserve robbery?” Trent asked with furrowed brows.
“Yes. The reason we changed our minds about hitting SunBeam was because we needed the money to pay Earl. We needed those plans. None of us had a million dollars in cash lying around to give him,” Margo confessed. Then she explained how they robbed SunBeam. Her story lined up with Morris Mandel’s.
Bruce had spent the night at Margo’s on Thanksgiving. He had fallen asleep, but he had barely remembered when. She had to have sneaked out after he had fallen asleep. He had a hangover when he had woken up the next day, and he didn’t remember drinking that much the night before. Was it possible that she had drugged him? Would she be that sneaky?
“Before you go on, we need a description of Earl Churchill,” Troy said.
“He had slick white and gray hair. He had a beer gut and smelled like cheese,” she said with a twisted mouth. “Earl was about five-foot-five, maybe six.”
“Where did he go after you and Aaron met with him?” Vic asked.
“He said he was leaving the country, but he did not say where. However, he did say that he took an early retirement from the company.”
“That’s okay,” Vic said. “We can run his name through the system and get some stats on him.”
“Okay, so you guys hit SunBeam, paid Earl, made a small profit for yourselves, and now you have the plans. What did you guys do next?” Trent asked.
Margo explained how they planned and set things in place to go to Dallas to insert the virus she created into the reserve system. Then she detailed how they had gotten into the reserve and planted the virus that had infected the entire system at all twelve locations. The FBI had seen the surveillance footage that night. The security director of the Dallas Federal Reserve was fired and under investigation because of what they did that night. BAAM was able to work around the tight security at the Federal Reserve. What was worse is that Bruce’s suspicions were founded about Margo drugging him on Thanksgiving night to make sure he didn’t wake up while she was gone. His face felt hot as the realization washed over him. Margo could have killed him with whatever concoction that thug Anthony had given her. At the very least, she could have gotten him in serious trouble with the bureau if his judgment had come into question during the SunBeam investigation and he was made to take a drug test.
Then she finally got to the meat and potatoes of the testimony. Margo told every detail about how they stole two hundred million dollars from the Federal Reserve. She explained how and when they burned down the factory, confirming Bruce’s theory on what happened that night when the SUV side swiped him and Vic. Then she explained how BAAM had left the country and ended up in Cancun.
Bruce’s insides twinged when Margo had explained how she ended up being separated from the rest of the group. Anthony had every intention of killing her, and when Bobbi came into the picture, he had tried to convince her to do it.
Bruce thought all of his questions would be answered if he watched the testimony, but he was wrong. He wasn’t done with Margo St. John.
Chapter 48
A feeling washed over Margo when she was done. It was relief. Not just because she had avoided prosecution, but it felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders. Margo hadn’t realized how keeping her criminal life under wraps had weighed her down until now.
She had laid out her secrets for the federal government to examine and mull over. But she was no fool. She had left out the Largo Jewelry store heist BAAM had pulled during the early days. Of course, she told Deidre about it, but she had advised Margo to leave it out and not to tell her any details about it. Robbing a jewelry store was not a federal offense. The store was in California, and the owner could still press charges against her for the theft.
With the exception of that one thing, Margo had revealed all, including Bobbi’s two alternate aliases. Margo had learned them when she transferred Aaron’s cut of the money out of his account and Aaron’s aliases that they were under. As soon as Bobbi used one of the fake IDs, the FBI would nail her. They had both of Margo’s aliases and froze those accounts after she was arrested. She had also told them about her Switzerland accounts. When they caught Anthony, they would have his money, so the reserve would have their money back, plus a little extra from her Swiss accounts.
Margo wondered if Bruce was behind the glass. If he was, he had heard everything. He wasn’t stupid. He had to have figured out that she had pulled off two crimes right under his nose. Bruce might have even realized that she had put a mickey in his drink Thanksgiving night. Was he furious? Disappointed? Sad? Heartbroken? Margo hadn’t seen Bruce since her few moments of consciousness at the waterfall in Playa del Carmen.
“If all this checks out,” Trent began. “She’s a free woman. But, for the time being, she will be placed in protective custody until Anthony Mandel is caught and tried. Ms. St. John is expected to testify at Anthony’s and Bobbi’s trials.”
“Understood,” Deidre said.
They kept her waiting for two hours before two federal agents she didn’t know escorted her to a house outside of the city limits. The female agent’s name was Brenda Palomino and the male agent’s name was George Novak.
“Welcome to your new home for the next several months,” George said.
It was a four-bedroom house with plain and bland furnishings and decorations. However, it was ten times better than a cell. “Thank you,” she mumbled as she continued to hold the black plastic bag in her hand. Brenda had given it to her before they had left the FBI building. It had a fresh night shirt, a short robe, a comb, a toothbrush, the clothes she had worn when she was caught in Playa del Carmen, and deodorant in it.
“You must be exhausted,” Brenda stated.
“Yeah, I am little tired,” Margo said.
“Before you hit the hay, make a list of things you’ll need for your stay like clothes, including your size, certain shampoo and conditioner, etc.,” Brenda said. “You’re allowed some comforts like magazines, books, favorite foods for the fridge, but nothing extravagant like cracked crab or snail . . . stuff like that.”
“I understand.”
“The master bedroom has its own bathroom,” George said. “You’re welcome to it since you’re the one that will be staying here full-time.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, and we have cable here. You can even order pay-per-view,” George added.
After writing down her requested items for Brenda to pick up in the morning, she took a shower. There was a half-bottle of Head and Shoulders Shampoo and Conditioner in the bathroom along with three bars of unopened soap.
When her head hit the pillow, she immediately drifted off to sleep.
****
Margo let out a squeak when she was jarred awake by a brown polyester carry-on bag that had been dropped on her stomach. She snapped her head to look at the rude bastard who had given her the wake-up call.
“Good morning, Mrs. St. John,” Bruce greeted with a half growl in his tone. His cheeks were like stone. What looked like three-day stubble gleamed his jaw.
“Special Agent Styles,” she said hoarsely.
“Get dressed and meet me in the kitchen in twenty minutes,” he ordered and turned his back to walk out. Then he stopped and looked over his shoulder “And if you’re even a minute late, I will come back up here and drag you down the stairs.” He slammed the door on his way out.
Well, that answers my question. He’s furious.
Margo sat up and looked at the clock. It was nine-thirty. She noticed the suitcase in the floor that matched the carry-on that rested on her body. Guessing the luggage contained the items and clothes she had requested, she opened them. After she put on a pair of white jeans and a white T-shirt with a small orange butterfly on the chest area, she ran a comb through her hair before going downstairs for an overdue discussion.
She didn’t dare doddle because she knew Bruce meant what he had said. As she made her way down the stairs, she noticed Alec sitting in the living room reading the newspaper. He glanced up at her. “Morning,” he said nonchalantly.
“Hi. Where’s George and Brenda?”
“They gotta take a break sometime,” Alec said and then looked back down at his paper. “You better get in there. His patience is thin this morning.”
Taking heed to the advice, she stepped down the last two steps and wa
lked to the kitchen. Bruce was sitting at the wooden, four-chair table – staring at her like she was evil incarnate. She blew out and made her way to the counter. There was no coffee in the coffee maker. In the spirit of lightening the mood, she said lightheartedly, “What? No coffee?”
Bruce’s eyes turned into such a sneer that it was a wonder she didn’t burst into flames. “Sit,” he demanded as he pointed downward.
He said it so sternly that she almost sat on the floor. Resisting the urge to do so, she walked over to the table and sat down across from him.
“I am going to ask you questions,” he said slowly and darkly. “You will answer. And you better tell the truth.”
Margo nodded. She had seen him mad before, but not like this.
“First question. Did you go out with me to see if I knew anything that would be useful to your criminal activity?
“No. What I wrote in that letter was the truth. I decided to go out with you because I thought if I did, you would lose interest and leave me alone.”
“Second question. When we bumped into each other at Club Prana, were you there with Anthony and Morris plotting a robbery?”
“No. We went there with the intention of hanging out. However, when Morris wasn’t around, we did talk about the Federal Reserve heist. Bobbi had already applied for the job in Dallas, and we were hoping she would get it.”
He tilted his head, studying her. “They’re not your usual type to hang out with. You’re champagne and caviar. Those guys are forty ounces and Frito’s.”
“They were still my friends. I’m not a snob.”
“I don’t know what or who you are, Mrs. St. John.”
Not only was he referring to her by her last name, he put the Mrs. on it like she was still married to Frank. “So you just liked hanging out with them. Partying with them.”
“Yes, once in a while.”
“Did you do drugs with them?”
Love, Money, and Lies Page 23