by J. R. Rain
“Sure. Can we skip the side of bullets this time?”
He laughs. “Good plan.”
We wind up grabbing Chinese takeout. No one interrupts our break with unexpected gunfire, and afterward, we strike out at three more properties where no one’s home. Since it feels like we’re doing the wild goose chase bit two days in a row, I head back to the office. I could pull every HUD application processed in this area over the past three years, but that would take weeks. My best bet is to wait for that warrant and get the list of phone numbers calling in to Marty’s forwarding line, then compare those to our system.
At 4:03 p.m., I’m back at my desk after a quick meeting with Nico to ask him to expedite that warrant request. He’s intrigued by Naida’s reaction to my interview, not to mention the matching handwriting on fourteen sets of paperwork. Perhaps adding that tidbit will help the warrant along.
Well computer, I think, staring at my sign-on screen, do you have any ideas?
Out of boredom, I decide to keep auditing. Let’s see what’s going on with Mark Beckwith and Naida Herrera’s finances. I’m not expecting to find much in the way of undeclared income, but who knows? Maybe neither one of them are as clean as they look. A quick skim of Herrera’s bank history finds nothing alarming like anomalous large cash deposits. There are routine direct deposits from her husband’s job, which lines up with the paperwork, as well as mortgage and car payments that stand out as the larger transactions.
Damn.
I pull up Beckwith’s account, and he doesn’t have any mysterious large sums of money moving around. Just a monthly mortgage―wait a minute… he’s got a free ride. His military disability entitled him to a full subsidy of the housing cost, but every month he’s got a $300 payment noted as ‘house.’ I pull up the scanned image of a returned check, and notice he’s made it out to MBM Inc. Every month, the same check to the same place.
That’s not right.
After going back to Herrera’s account, I click on the largest outgoing payment last month, and it turns out to be a check to MBM Inc. I shuffle through her paperwork and find her financials. The property’s mortgage payment is $1,856 a month, of which HUD is covering thirty-three percent or $612.48 They should be making payments of $1,243.52, but her checks to MBM are $1,400 on the nose.
A light clicks on in my head. This isn’t about drugs. That gang has nothing at all to do with it. ‘Marty’ is scamming people and using HUD to do it! My theory is confirmed after I check both mortgage histories with the financing banks, and see that they are receiving payments that match the amount on my documentation here. The extra is disappearing between MBM and the bank.
Being the true professional I am, I let out a squeal of delight.
“None of that in the office,” says Chad. “At least go to the restroom.”
“Very funny. I have a much different squeak for that. Not quite as high pitched and about three times as long. You should hear me when I’m with Danny.”
Michelle, who sits to my right on the other side of a tall cubicle wall, giggles. Anders coughs on whatever he’s drinking―probably coffee.
Chad slides back in his char to give me the flat eyebrows. I never get tired of the stunned expressions guys put on when a woman throws crudeness right back in their face. “TMI.”
“I got something,” I say, ignoring him.
“What?” Chad hops out of his chair and hovers over my shoulder while I point out the bank statements.
Rosa’s bank account also matches the pattern. She’s writing one check a month to MBM Inc. for $150 more than the amount her mortgage ought to be. I check another tenant from the matching-handwriting group, Jessica North, and she’s paying $200 over her official mortgage. The next three tenants are all paying from $100 to $250 too much.
“Someone’s skimming these people.” I slap the folders down on the desk. Now I’m pissed off. “Beckwith’s fully subsidized due to his military disability status. He shouldn’t have a mortgage payment at all, but look. $300 a month to MBM.”
Chad drags his chair across the aisle and sits next to me. “What can we find on this MBM outfit?”
My search turns up that MBM Incorporated is registered as a small home contractor. I can’t find a website or any reference to it other than a federal tax ID and a bank account. The address listed for the business is the same as the home address on the VOIP account, the home where Kondapalli doesn’t live. My gut tells me Angie isn’t involved, though it’s probably worth at least a follow-up visit to gauge her reaction to what I’ve discovered.
Chad whistles. “Wow… Sam, I think you just uncovered one of the biggest HUD scams ever.”
“Moon?” asks Nico, his voice coming down the aisle toward us.
“Yeah?” I lean back.
Our boss leans around the opening and hands me a lovely blue folder. “Merry Christmas.”
The warrant for the numbers! “Awesome. Hey, Nico…”
He’s half a step away, but backs up to peer at me. “What?”
“Look at this.” I point at the screens, and explain my theory of someone skimming payments. “He’s squeezing our tenants for a couple hundred a month.”
Nico leans one hand on Chad’s chair, one on mine, and squints at the monitors. “Sweet shit… how extensive is this?”
I thwap the warrant against my left hand. “I’m not sure yet, but this should help me answer that.”
“Good work. Keep me apprised.”
“You got it.” I salute him with the warrant. “Be right back. I need to fax this to a man named Corey.”
I grab the Post-it note with the fax number for Newvox and jog down the aisle to the copy room to feed the warrant to a machine. Within fifteen minutes, I’ve got an email from Corey with an Excel sheet attached. Over 14,000 lines of phone numbers. Ugh. I’m about to wail in agony before it dawns on me that there are probably many duplicates. Each line represents a call. They’re not all unique phone numbers.
Upon filtering it down to a list of unique values, I’m left with 194 numbers. Time for database crap. Ugh. I haven’t hand-typed a database instruction since college. After creating a new table with the 194 numbers, it takes me about twenty minutes to cobble together a crosscheck query. Let’s just say there’s a ton of copy/pasting and a lot of leafing through my SQL manual to remember the commands. (There’s also a copious amount of foul language the first nine times I try to run the query and it gives me an error over a damn apostrophe being out of place.) Finally, I strike gold.
Eighty-two phone numbers from the Newvox export match the phone number of record for HUD tenants. I cut the list in half, and email one section to Chad.
“Chad?”
“Yo?” he yells, not looking around his cube wall.
“Emailed you something. Can you pull and print the app docs for those accounts? That’s half of ‘em.”
“You got it.”
Over an hour of mind-numbing clicking later, I’ve got a pile of printed HUD applications, all of which appear to have been written by the same person. About twenty percent are no longer active, due to death, incarceration, default, or other various circumstance. Still, they’re evidence against whoever this Marty turns out to be.
I dig back into some of the financing banks, and discover that they are receiving payments purportedly through an agent holding a power-of-attorney for the tenants―named Haresh Kondapalli. Looks like Chad and I might be flying to Seattle soon.
Okay. That little more info I wanted before leaning on Naida Herrera? I think I found it.
My turn to roll into Chad’s cube. “Come on. We’re taking a ride.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Pressure Point
Excitement makes it difficult to drive like a normal person. I’m so tempted to hit the lights and haul ass, but no sense risking a reprimand. This isn’t a serious emergency, merely a case of nerves. It’s still too early for her husband to be home, not quite even three yet, but that doesn’t matter with my new information.
&nbs
p; Grr. Red lights suck.
“Hey, you’re coming next week, right?” asks Chad.
“Depends on how on point Danny is.”
“Huh? He usually likes MMA.”
I smirk at him. “Swing and a miss, Helling.”
“Huh?” His confused, gaping mouth widens. “Oh… right. Geez. I still can’t get used to you making sex jokes.”
“It’s not only men with drive.” I wink at him as the light goes green for us. “So, another match?”
“Yeah. I’ve got one coming up next Thursday night. I mentioned it the other day, but I guess you were zoned.”
Well yeah. “Given that I don’t remember it, probably. This case has been keeping me up at night.”
“I get it. Anyway, I’ve got my first official bout coming up.”
A lane change is necessary to go around a slowpoke. “But I went to one of your fights already.”
“It wasn’t ranked. This one’s official. I was hoping you and Danny would be up to going and help support me.”
“It’s not the best place to bring small children.” I lean into a left turn. “If my sister’s willing to watch them, I’ll ask Danny if he wants to go.”
“Cool. And it’s like wrestling. Kids love wrestling. Lee brings his son all the time.”
I shake my head while keeping my gaze fixed on the road ahead. “I don’t want to expose my kids to violence like that. They’re going to grow up to be well-adjusted adults, not thinking all problems can be solved with violence. And by the way, wrestling is staged. MMA, you guys really knock each other around.”
“Aww, you can’t shield your kids from real life forever.” Chad winks. “But maybe they are a little young to watch MMA.”
“Ya think?” I hang a right onto Naida’s street. “And I’m gonna do everything I can to shield them as long as possible. Even if it kills me.”
“Supermom.”
“Damn straight.” I grin. Wow. Figuring this case out has put me in a great mood. I might even get home on time today.
Naida looks less than pleased to see us back so soon, but my big smile must’ve put her off balance, because she doesn’t say a word after opening the door for us.
“I have new information.” I pat the manila folder under my arm.
“All right.” She backs up, letting us in. “Please be quiet. Luisa’s down for a nap.”
“Sure,” I say in a low voice. “Believe me, I know what that’s like.”
Chad creeps in behind me and eases the door shut. We gather around her kitchen table, where I lay out the documents regarding her account, as well as a printout of one of her checks, and another showing the deposit amount with the mortgage bank.
“Originally, I thought you might’ve been involved in some narcotics activity and this Marty person was a contact point. However, I now believe you’re the victim of fraud.”
She bites her lip again, grabbing the front edge of her chair on either side of her knees. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re making your mortgage payments written out to MBM Inc.” I point at the check. “The amount you’re paying is $156.48 a month too high.”
Chad slides the bank printout over to her. “This shows your payment arriving at the finance bank. They’re receiving $1,243.52, but you’re paying MBM $1,400 even. Someone is stealing from you.”
“And doing it to multiple other people who all have housing assistance through HUD,” I add. “I don’t mean to scare you, Naida, but if you help conceal this person’s activities, we may have to consider you complicit in defrauding the government.”
“MBM does not appear to be a legitimate company,” says Chad. “I’m with Agent Moon on this. I think you’re being taken advantage of, and we’d rather not have you on the hook for conspiracy.”
Naida bursts into tears, wrapping her arms around herself and shaking. “Please don’t deport me. I’m a citizen! I grew up in Oildale. I’m not from Mexico.”
“Hey, hey…” I put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right. Please calm down. I know you’re a citizen. We’ve already verified that. No one’s deporting anyone.”
“But… but… he said you would lie and say my birth certificate was fake.” Naida looks up at me with such a pitiful, terrified face that she’s tripping my mom instincts. I’d have only been nine when she was born, but she’s so small.
“That’s not going to happen, Naida. Please… tell us what happened.” I smile as reassuringly as I can.
“But.” She looks down. “He said the government would do that if I got caught.”
“Caught?” asks Chad. “Caught doing what?”
She opens her mouth, but closes it without a word, trembling harder. I take her hand and we stare into each other’s eyes for a moment. Evidently, I’m reassuring enough. She breathes in and out a few times while nodding. “All right. My husband and I… we got this house through a realtor. A man from Fernando’s work told him about this guy who can get super low mortgage payments for poor people. The realtor said the government doesn’t like the deal he’s got, especially for groups they’re itching to deport. He told us never to talk about him with any police or government people because they’re angry.”
“Angry?” asks Chad.
Naida nods. “Yes. Because he has a way to make our mortgages low, the banks don’t make as much money, so they are bribing the government to look for any little thing to kick us out and sell the house to rich people.”
“Ugh.” I rub the bridge of my nose. “You’ve been lied to, Naida. Do you know what HUD is?”
“That thing like on a military jet, so the pilot can see stuff?”
Chad laughs.
“Well, yeah, technically…” I spend a few minutes explaining how this property has more than half its mortgage paid by the federal government. “You didn’t even realize that, did you?”
“No.” She lifts her head hesitantly, peers at me for an instant, and averts her gaze.
“I bet most of these people don’t know. If they did, they’d go to HUD directly and avoid being ripped off.” Chad grumbles. “Naida, do you know who this guy is? What realtor?”
She nods. “Yes. His name is Martin Brauerman.”
“The MB in MBM.” Chad grins.
“Where can we find him?” I ask.
Naida scoots back in her chair and stands. “I have his address. He’s in LA.” She pads across the kitchen to a drawer, rummaging it for a moment before returning to the table with a small address book. “Here.” She slides the book to me, open to a page with a number and address. “You’re really not going to arrest me?”
“The evidence I have makes me think you’re a victim here. Am I going to find anything else that might make me change my mind?”
“No.” She’s still trembling, but she holds eye contact.
My smile seems to relax her. “Perfect. You should stop making your payments to MBM. This paperwork here”―I pat it twice―“has the correct information and amount. There’s a small possibility that after we’re done prosecuting this guy, you might recover some of the money that you’ve been overpaying, but that’s largely dependent on what Martin did with it. If it’s nowhere the government can seize, it might be a painfully long process and involve you filing a civil suit.”
She nods.
“Here’s my card. If you have any questions about the paperwork, the process, or anything else about your home, please feel free to call.”
“We’ll be making contact with all affected homeowners,” says Chad. “There’s a good possibility you may be called upon to testify at some point during the investigation.”
“All right.” Naida’s almost stopped quivering. She probably won’t fully believe we’re not going to cart her away in handcuffs until long after we leave.
“Do you have any questions?” I ask, still trying to sound reassuring.
Naida looks over the papers for a minute or two. “Did my husband and I do something illegal? How is this fraud to the government?”
“Technically, your application was in order and you got approved. The fraud here really isn’t being committed against the government. You are the victim… and everyone else Brauerman has conned. He’s taking advantage of people who are barely getting by. That makes it worse to me.”
A little warmth shows in her expression at that. “Thank you. We might call after I explain all this to Fernando.”
“You’re welcome.” I stand. “Please don’t call Marty and scream at him. If he knows he’s busted, he might flee.”
Naida narrows her eyes. “I cannot believe he lied to us with such a friendly smile. He made it sound like he was doing us this great favor. We had no idea how he made the mortgage payment so affordable to us.”
“I or my partner will be in contact with you regarding any potential need for you to testify.” I stand. “Please call us if you need anything.”
Naida smiles, nods, and walks us to the door. “I hope you can make him pay us back.”
“That maintenance thing,” asks Chad. “Did he actually show up to fix things?”
“Yes. He said he was like a landlord. If the house had a problem, we should call him. Not appliances though.”
I frown. “You thought you were renting.”
She nods. “We signed some documents at his office, and some weeks later, he showed us this house.”
Luisa stirs and makes noise. Naida looks back over her shoulder.
“Your daughter’s calling. We need to go anyway.” I shake her hand and head back to the car.
“Nice little scam,” mutters Chad after getting in. “Figure with around eighty victims, he’s pulling in upwards of twelve grand a month.”
“Good point. I wonder if he’s reporting all that income. Should we send a feeler over to the IRS?”
“Oh, you’re evil.” Chad laughs.
I put on my most innocent smile. “Not evil. Just thorough.”
“You speak of invoking the IRS.” He shudders. “That’s evil.”
Laughing, I start the car. The rest of the day is going to be fun.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lorelei Duke