by S F Bose
“No shared bank accounts?” I asked.
“We did use one joint checking account for household expenses and purchases,” she admitted.
“Did your husband ever mention how much he made gambling?” I asked.
“No, we never spoke about that.”
“So you had no idea what kind of money he was winning or losing?” I pressed.
“Not specific dollar amounts. However, I could usually tell if he won or lost based on his mood. Sometimes he surprised me with a piece of jewelry and I knew he had won big. Other times he was grumpy and I figured he’d lost.”
“Did he ever tell you where he kept his winnings?” I asked.
Larissa shook her head. “Kept his winnings? I assumed he put his money in the bank, but again we never talked about it.”
“Larissa, your husband spoke to one of his co-workers about a strategy to hide gambling winnings from the IRS,” Sam said.
Larissa’s eyes locked onto Sam. “You’re saying my husband was a tax evader?”
“He told the co-worker he hadn’t paid taxes on some of his gambling winnings,” I replied. “Your husband suggested buying cryptocurrencies. He never mentioned anything to you about hiding his winnings like that?”
“No! Never! I paid taxes on everything I earned and thought Steven did too. Everyone knows you don’t mess with the IRS! They can destroy you!” Larissa exploded. “And he never mentioned cryptocurrencies. I can’t believe he was that stupid.” She slammed a manicured hand on the table for emphasis.
Suddenly, her eyes lit up. “Wait a minute. Steven hid money? I’d be entitled to that money, right? I’m his wife. Where did he hide it?”
“No idea. We only heard this from the co-worker,” Sam replied. He didn’t mention the backpacks of money found in the storage lockers.
“Well can I get the name of the co-worker?” she asked.
“No, the best I can do is ask him if he’d be willing to call you,” Sam replied.
Larissa produced another business card and slid it across the table to Sam. He picked it up. “All of my contact numbers are on there,” she said.
“Okay, good,” he replied
“Larissa, I just want to confirm something. Did your husband have a Will?” I asked.
“No, neither one of us did. At our ages, it seemed like bad luck. But as his wife, I would still inherit any money he had,” Larissa replied more firmly.
I nodded. Newmont had mentioned that Steven and Larissa Meagher didn’t have a Will. However, Sam and I had found Steven Meagher’s original Will, in which he’d left almost everything to his first wife except for bequests to his two children. With his first wife and two children deceased, Larissa would probably inherit any legal casino winnings Meagher had saved.
“Aside from the two children he lost, your husband didn’t have any living children?” I asked.
Larissa blushed. “No, he didn’t have any other children. I wanted to have children, but Steven didn’t.”
“Okay, this is just my opinion. As far as any hidden money goes, you should talk to a lawyer. If your husband won money at one of the local casinos, that would be clean money and you’d likely inherit. Of course, if he didn’t pay taxes, you’d have to settle that debt,” I said. “Any money he won in high-stakes house games would be illegal money.”
“Illegal?” Larissa asked.
Sam nodded in agreement. “Gambling for money outside of a casino is illegal in our state. Authorities don’t often prosecute small players, but high-stakes games are different. If your husband won money through illegal high-stakes poker games, and the police or feds learned about it, they’d hunt for any stashes of money he left behind. If they located illegal cash or suspicious bank accounts, they’d probably file a civil forfeiture lawsuit. If they won, they’d seize all the illegal assets.”
“But I’m his wife and had no idea he was doing anything illegal,” Larissa replied.
“It doesn’t matter. The burden would be on you to prove you owned the assets and that they weren’t the result of activities like illegal gambling. Could you do that?” I asked.
Larissa’s face was a disturbing shade of red. She shook her head. “So I’m screwed?”
“Like Liz said, talk to a good lawyer. I’m sure they’ve dealt with situations like this before,” Sam suggested. “The law can be a funny beast.”
“Okay, I’ll do that,” Larissa agreed.
“Larissa, have you ever heard of a company named “S.M. Trading?” I asked.
She nodded. “Steven started that company many years ago. He thought he wanted to buy and sell collectibles, but he lost interest.”
“We’ve found that your husband had a business account at a bank in Madison for S.M. Trading. He also had a personal checking account there. He deposited a lot of money into the S.M. Trading account each month and then moved some of it to the personal checking account,” I said.
Larissa shook her head. “A lot of money? How much?”
“We’ve learned he deposited five to ten thousand dollars into the business account each month. Then he transferred some of the money to his checking account. At this point, we don’t know how he spent that money. Right now the S.M. Trading account contains two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The personal checking account has around one hundred thousand dollars in it,” I said.
Larissa’s mouth dropped open and she shook her head. “I had no idea Steven had that much money. He never said a word. I would inherit those accounts, right? How do I get the account numbers?”
“Well, again there’s the question of whether it’s legal or illegal money. The money he deposited might have been illegal gambling winnings. It’s another thing to talk to a lawyer about,” Sam replied.
“Okay, I’ll add it to my list for the lawyer,” she agreed. “And the account numbers?”
“Deputy Newmont could help you with that,” Sam replied.
Larissa nodded. She looked even more tired.
Sam cleared his throat. “We did learn something else about your husband.”
“What?” Larissa asked sharply.
“It looks like he was also blackmailing people,” Sam replied.
“What are you talking about?”
“We’ve collected evidence and testimony that he was blackmailing some people in Mystic Grove,” Sam explained.
Larissa looked shocked. “Blackmail? Steven?”
“Yes. He stopped people who were speeding and in some cases under the influence of alcohol. Some of those people agreed to send him money every month to avoid getting an OWI.”
Larissa’s eyes narrowed. “I don't believe it. Steven was no saint but he wouldn't do something like that.”
“He was, Larissa,” I replied. “And that means there are more people who probably wanted him dead.”
Larissa leaned forward and looked back and forth between us. “I have two questions for you. If Steven was making so much money gambling and hiding his winnings from everyone including me, why would he need to blackmail anyone for more money?”
I shrugged. “He might have liked the power of knowing he had something on all those people.”
Larissa made a guttural sound and shook her head. “I don’t believe it. My second question is if he was pulling in all that money why did we lead such an ordinary life?”
“Larissa, your house, cabin, cars, and boat are all paid for,” I pointed out.
“That was thanks to the insurance settlement Steven got for his late wife. He used some of it to pay off the house and to buy the new boat. But he invested the rest of it and over time, it grew. Later, we financed our cars and the cabin to build our credit ratings. He dipped into the insurance account to pay off those purchases later,” Larissa explained.
“Larissa,” I said gently. “Based on our investigator’s research, your husband did use the insurance settlement to pay off your mortgage and to buy the new boat. However, there wasn’t much left after that to invest. He probably used some of his gam
bling winnings for the other purchases.”
“I can’t believe this. First, someone killed my husband. Now, everything I thought I knew about our life was a lie,” she replied and dabbed at her eyes with more tissue.
“Would you like to take a break?” I asked.
“No, let’s get this over with,” she said.
I nodded. “Okay, did you and your husband have life insurance policies?”
Larissa’s eyes met mine. “We did. We each carried a one million dollar policy. Steven had a tough childhood and didn't want me to suffer if he died. I got a policy for a similar reason. I didn’t want him to struggle if I…passed away.” Larissa grimaced. “Of course, all this time I believed I was the main breadwinner. I sell a lot of real estate and make a lot of money. Steven joked that he was a kept man because I made more than he did as a deputy sheriff. Now it looks like that was a lie too.”
“Were the insurance policies paid up? I asked.
“Yes,” Larissa replied.
“Let’s shift gears. Larissa, who were Steven's friends?” I asked.
She hesitated for a moment. “His only friends were his brother, Paulie, and Tommy Vann. I’m pretty sure Paulie introduced him to Tommy. Steven hung out with them on some weekends. They came over for cookouts too.”
“Do you have their telephone numbers in your phone?” I asked.
Larissa checked and read off the two telephone numbers, which I wrote in my notebook. “Now that you mention it, I don’t think I gave the police Tommy’s name,” she said.
“We’ll pass it along,” I assured her. Then I noticed Larissa was tearing up again. She took another tissue from her purse and dabbed at her eyes. “Are you okay?”
Larissa’s head bobbed. “I’m sorry. I just wish Steven had been honest with me.”
“It has to be a shock. I’m sorry you had to hear some of this from us,” I replied. Larissa nodded and dabbed at her tears again.
“Are we almost done?” she asked.
“Just a few more things to cover,” I replied. My thoughts shifted back to the murder. Newmont had said the cabin door was ajar, “Larissa, how many keys are there for your cabin?”
“For the cabin? Just three. Steven had one, I had one, and we had a spare that we gave to contractors who did work on the cabin.”
“That’s the spare key you gave to Deputy Newmont?” Sam asked.
“Yes. He returned it,” Larissa replied.
“Could we see your cabin key?” I asked.
“Sure.” Larissa opened her purse and unzipped a compartment. Then she extracted a golden key on a gold-colored key ring and placed it on the table. The key ring had a spring clip to make it easier to attach or detach keys. A round engraved disk connected the larger ring to a smaller ring. Hanging from the smaller ring by a gold chain was a golden lion's head with red eyes.
“May I?” I asked and she nodded. I picked up the key ring. It was heavier than I expected. “Is this real gold?”
“The rings, center disk, and chain are Italian brass. The lion’s head is 24 karat gold. Well 22 karat really. It's mixed with silver or something to make the gold stronger. The eyes are small rubies. The key is brass. Steven really wanted golden keys too but the jewelry designer talked him out of it.”
I looked more closely at the connecting disk. It showed a finely engraved sun with sun rays highlighted with tiny, inlaid diamonds.
“Diamonds?” I asked, looking up.
She sighed. “Yes.”
“This had to be expensive,” Sam said when I handed the key ring to him.
“I don’t know what Steven spent on the key rings,” Larissa replied. “They’re beautiful but also terribly impractical.”
“A keychain like that could make you a target if the wrong person saw it,” I commented.
“Exactly,” Larissa agreed. “Steven was a complicated man with contradictory impulses. He grew up poor and carried a lot of baggage from his childhood. He always wanted security so he liked owning the house and the cabin. We really did live simply. Maybe that’s why he hid his gambling winnings too. Steven wanted security but he also loved the risk of gambling. And he’d occasionally turn around and buy something absurd like the key rings. He did the same thing when he bought his St. Christopher medal.”
“St. Christopher medal?” I asked.
“He always wore a large, gold St. Christopher medal on a heavy gold chain. It was also very expensive. He had his name engraved on the back. He felt St. Christopher protected him.”
“So your husband always carried the expensive key ring and wore a gold St. Christopher medal?” Sam asked. He slid the key ring across the table to Larissa.
“Always,” Larissa replied, returning the key ring to her purse.
I glanced at Sam. “I’ll ask Newmont if the key ring and medal were among Mr. Meagher’s effects.”
“They’d better be,” Larissa said darkly.
I checked my notes. “I want to revisit one thing you said earlier. You mentioned that Rose O’Ryan wasn’t your husband’s type. Did your husband have relationships with women outside of your marriage?”
Larissa blushed. “No, I’m sure he didn’t. But he tried to make me jealous sometimes.”
“How so?” I asked.
She shrugged. “If we went out to dinner, he’d occasionally point out women he thought were attractive. They were always young and blonde.”
“But he never acted on any of the attractions?” I asked.
“No, not to my knowledge,” Larissa replied. “I think I would have picked up on it.”
“Okay, just a few more things I wanted to cover. Let's see. You were in Chicago with your friend, Tina Malden, the day of the murder, right?”
“Yes. I was with her all day.”
“And you drove to Chicago in Tina's car?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Did she pick you up in Mystic Grove?”
“No, I drove in to Madison to her condo. We figured it would be easier to get to the highway from there,” Larissa replied.
“Which highway?” I asked.
“I-90,” she replied.
“Makes sense,” I agreed. “Where exactly does Tina live?”
“Nolen Shores.”
“And where did you park your car?”
Larissa hesitated. “My car? Oh gosh. In a small street lot.”
“By Nolen Shores?”
“No, I couldn't find a spot by Tina’s building. I ended up about half a mile away. I found a parking spot in a lot near Wilson Street and took a cab to her place.”
“You didn't walk?”
Larissa’s eyes narrowed. “No. It was early and I just didn't feel like walking. Why are you asking me all these questions? Am I a suspect now?”
My eyebrows shot up. “Oh gosh no, Larissa, you're not a suspect at all. You can leave at any time. You have a solid alibi. We're just trying to get a picture of everyone's day. We can never tell what will help us find your husband's killer.”
She took a deep breath. “Okay. Sorry. I’m exhausted,” she replied. “I’ve learned too much today.”
“That’s okay. Larissa, we’d like to talk to you about Dom Fontana. We’re aware of your relationship,” I said.
Larissa’s face turned red again. “What are you…?”
I held my hand up. “The police shared the information with us.”
She deflated like a balloon. “It’s so embarrassing that everyone knows. Dom had nothing to do with the murder,” Larissa said. She looked stricken.
“Not everyone knows,” I assured her. “How did you meet?”
“About three years ago I found a house for him in Black Earth. He lived in Madison but wanted a second place out in the country. We hit it off and were just friends for a while. We met for lunch and talked about all sorts of things. Dom was smart, funny, and easy to be with. We found that we had a lot in common. Eventually, we fell in love.”
“Why didn’t you stay with Dom in Madison the night before
you drove to Chicago with Tina?” I asked.
Larissa’s mouth dropped open. “Because I had to be home with Steven. I couldn’t stay away for a night without a good story. It was easier to spend the night at home and drive into the city the next morning.”
“A good story?” I asked.
“Right. When Dom and I wanted to spend a night or two together, I’d tell Steven that I was spending that time with Tina or other girlfriends. They always covered for me. Even Tina’s husband backed us up because he liked Dom. But I didn’t plan ahead for this trip and couldn’t do that.”
“Why didn't you just get a divorce?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. I…my feelings have been very confused. I love Dom and we’re compatible in every way. He urged me to get a divorce and offered to go with me to talk to my husband. But a part of me still had feelings for Steven. I knew how much a divorce would hurt him. The other reason I dragged my feet was because sometimes Steven scared me. He had a terrible temper and could be verbally abusive. So I was afraid if I ever broached the subject of divorce, he might explode. I also worried that he might hurt Dom.”
“So you planned to stay with your husband, but still see Dom?” I asked.
“Yes, for a while longer.”
“It sounds stressful,” I said.
“It was at times. Dom wanted us to be together all the time. He was tired of the sneaking around. So he pushed the idea of talking to Steven and telling him about our relationship. He felt Steven would agree to a divorce, but he just didn't understand my husband’s temper.”
“You're sure Steven wasn’t aware of your affair?” asked Sam.
“Positive. We were extremely careful,” Larissa replied. “If he had known, Steven would have said or done something. He was incapable of holding something like that in.”
“Okay let's go back to the day you were going to Tina's place. You parked in a lot off of Wilson?”
“Right.”
“Did you talk to Dom that morning?” I asked.
“No. But he did call me later in the day.”
“Any particular reason?”