Scared Money (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 13)

by Jenna Bennett

  And then I thought of something. “If Devon stole the money, who shot Devon? Magnolia Houston?” To cover up what he’d done, and the fact that she’d made him do it?

  “I guess you and Tammy will find out,” Rafe said.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Tamara Grimaldi knocked on the door bright and early the next morning. So bright and early, in fact, that I was still in bed and Rafe was just getting out of the shower, naked and wet and with a towel hanging low on his hips.

  “If you go downstairs like that,” I warned him, “you’ll probably give her a heart attack.”

  He grinned. “She’s better’n that, don’t you think?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said, “but I don’t want to find out.” I liked Grimaldi, and if she drooled over my husband, I’d be forced to take measures. “Just get rid of the towel. Please.”

  He got rid of the towel. My eyes bulged, and my tongue got stuck to the roof of my mouth.

  “You know that wasn’t what I meant,” I managed when I could speak again.

  “I know. But it was worth it.” He tucked himself away behind the zipper of a pair of faded jeans.

  “Commando?”

  “It’ll give you something to think about today.” He winked.

  “I’d probably be thinking about it... I mean, you—anyway.”

  He laughed as he headed out the door, tugging a T-shirt over his head. “You better get up. She’s gonna want you ready to go soon.”

  She would. I sighed and dragged my pregnant self out of bed and into the shower.

  By the time I got downstairs, Rafe had made coffee and was sitting at the kitchen table across from Grimaldi. Updating her on the specific details of yesterday’s excitement, it sounded like. When I walked through the door, they both turned to me, and Grimaldi gave me a careful up-and-down inspection. “You look good.”

  She sounded faintly accusatory.

  “I got a good night’s sleep,” I said innocently, at the same time as Rafe said, “Good sex.”

  I flushed. He chuckled, and Grimaldi rolled her eyes. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

  “I’m fine. She didn’t hurt me. Just shoved me and threatened to shoot me.”

  “And handcuffed you to the car and tried to poison you with carbon monoxide,” Rafe reminded me.

  “Right. But that didn’t hurt. Darcy was much worse off.”

  Grimaldi nodded. “I understand she’s doing all right.”

  “I’m sure she is. She was released from the hospital yesterday evening.” And then I realized what she’d said. “Have you spoken to Dix?”

  “He called to update me,” Grimaldi said.

  Good. I was glad they were still talking. “He’s fine. He wasn’t in the garage until he came to let us out. Denise Seaver never even knew he was there.”

  “That’s what he said.” She hesitated. “He said your mother showed up at the hospital last night.”

  “Drunk and maudlin,” I nodded. “She apologized for kicking me out of the house on Monday. The sheriff took her home. She isn’t ready to deal with Audrey yet, but if nothing else, I think she realizes that none of what happened was Darcy’s fault.”

  Grimaldi nodded.

  “Rafe told me we’re going to the bank to find out whose account the money went into.”

  “If you feel up for it. I’m not going to make you go if you don’t.”

  I shook my head. “I feel fine. Really. The hospital checked me out yesterday, and they said I’m fine. No ill effects from the carbon monoxide. And the baby wasn’t hurt when Denise Seaver shoved me. I’d like to come, if you don’t mind.”

  Grimaldi pushed back the chair. “Then let’s go. We have lots to do today.”

  “Rafe said we might be arresting someone?”

  “I might be arresting someone. You’ll be watching.”

  “That’s what I meant,” I said. “I have to eat something before we go. You remember what happens if I don’t?”

  She made a face. “Yes. Make it quick, please.”

  “I can take it in the car.” I opened a container of yogurt, dumped some granola in on top, and stirred. Rafe handed me a to-go cup full of orange juice, and I told Grimaldi I was ready.

  “Let’s go.” She strode down the hall toward the front door.

  “Take care of my baby,” Rafe told me as I followed.

  I nodded. “After yesterday, this will be easy.” Nobody was likely to shoot at me today. Or do anything else dangerous. And if anything happened, Grimaldi was armed and would take care of the threat. Nothing at all against Darcy—I hadn’t expected Denise Seaver to knock her out, either—but Grimaldi wouldn’t have fallen for that one.

  “Call me if anything happens,” Rafe said, following me to the front door.

  I said I would. “You’re not doing anything dangerous today, are you?”

  “Nothing worse than some hand-to-hand with the boys. Unless one of’em gets the drop on me, I shouldn’t come home with any new bruises.”

  “I doubt they’re good enough for that yet,” I told him, and headed out the door. Rafe closed and locked it behind me, to go get ready for work—hopefully he’d put on a pair of underwear before he headed in—and I went down the stairs to Grimaldi’s burgundy sedan. “Where’s the bank?”

  “Melrose,” Grimaldi said, putting the car in gear and rolling off down the driveway.

  “Rafe told me the email to DeWitts had been sent from Devon’s computer.”

  She nodded.

  “Work computer?”

  “Home computer,” Grimaldi said. “Devon doesn’t have a day job anymore.”

  Really? “Brittany didn’t say anything about that. I asked her about Devon’s day job, and she didn’t mention that he didn’t have one.”

  “It’s a new thing,” Grimaldi said. “He quit a month ago. Gave his notice, said he’d gotten a band gig and needed to focus on that. I spoke to his former boss yesterday. They were sad to see him go, because he was good at his job, but they were happy that he had a chance to pursue his dream.”

  That was all very nice, but— “If Rafe had quit his job a month ago, I think I would have heard about it by now.”

  Grimaldi shrugged. We were on our way down Potsdam Street, coming up on the corner of Dresden and the Milton House Retirement Home across the street. “Maybe she didn’t think it was any of your business.”

  Maybe not. “It’s strange, though. I mean, it’s not like it’s a secret. Not if he goes on stage every weekend, and performs in Magnolia Houston’s music videos. Those have millions of views.”

  “But chances are no one’s looking at the guys in the back,” Grimaldi said.

  “That’s true. But it’s still strange. Unless she didn’t know about it. But how can you plan to marry someone, yet you haven’t told them you’re not working at the same place anymore, and haven’t for a month?”

  “Don’t know,” Grimaldi said. “Maybe it’s because, as Hanse Neyman put it, Devon was banging Magnolia Houston, and he didn’t want his girlfriend to know about it.”

  Maybe. But Han had also said that Devon wasn’t marrying Brittany, and she’d been absolutely definite that he was. They even had plane tickets and hotel reservations in Curacao. So clearly Han was wrong about that. Maybe he was wrong about the whole affair. Maybe Magnolia had decided to give Devon a music gig because he’d promised to reroute her money so she wouldn’t have to spend anything to buy the house, and they weren’t sleeping together at all.

  “Anything’s possible,” Grimaldi said, when I laid it out that way.

  “Have you spoken to Magnolia?”

  She nodded. “Yesterday, while you were having your adventures in Sweetwater.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She denied having had anything to do with the missing money,” Grimaldi said, pulling the car onto the entrance ramp for the interstate. “But she confirmed that she and Devon did indeed have a romantic relationship. When I asked her if she knew he had plans to fly t
o Curacao with his girlfriend tomorrow—today, now—she said he hadn’t mentioned it to her. He was excited about playing at the Ryman on Saturday, she said. She didn’t think he would have missed it.”

  “Weird.”

  Grimaldi nodded and stepped on the gas.

  * * *

  THE BANK where the five hundred thousand had ended up was literally just up the street from Brittany’s and Devon’s building. I could see the top of their roof from the bank’s parking lot. Inside, Grimaldi waved her badge and subpoena. “We’re interested in a wire transfer that came into your bank a week ago. Last Friday. The proceeds from a real estate transaction. Five hundred thousand dollars.”

  The branch manager, an older woman a few years younger than my mother, waved her hand in front of her face. It was either a hot flash or nerves. “Is there a problem?”

  “The money didn’t end up where it was supposed to,” Grimaldi said. “The wiring instructions were changed at the last minute, and the money ended up in someone else’s account.”

  “Dear me. It wasn’t an accident, I suppose?”

  Grimaldi shook her head. “We’re talking grand larceny here. What can you tell us about it?”

  “Dear me!” The manager’s hands fluttered. “You’d better come back to my office. I’ll take a look at the account.”

  She lead the way across the floor and into a glassed-in office by the wall. “Have a seat.”

  I maneuvered into one of the chairs in front of the desk. Grimaldi took the other, while the manager—her name plate said her name was Glenda Tulis—made herself comfortable behind the desk. “Can you give me the number of the account?”

  Grimaldi read it off, while Glenda Tulis typed it into the computer. “Yes, here we are. And you said you have a subpoena?”

  Grimaldi produced it. Glenda looked it over and determined it looked all right. “The account belongs to a customer by the name of Devon Knight. He...”

  I must have made a movement, because she turned to me. “Something wrong?”

  “No,” I said. Grimaldi, of course, hadn’t moved a muscle. She’d been expecting it, I’m sure. I should have, too.

  “Can you give me the details of the transfer?”

  “It came in by wire,” Glenda Tulis said, peering at the computer, “late Friday afternoon, just before closing. The sender was DeWitts Title and Escrow.”

  She looked up. I nodded. Grimaldi did, too.

  Glenda Tulis went back to the records. “The money spent the weekend in the account. On Monday morning, it was withdrawn via personal check.”

  “May we have a copy of the check?” Grimaldi asked politely.

  Glenda Tulis hesitated. Her gaze brushed over the subpoena lying on her desk, and she nodded. “I’ll print out a copy for you. I’ll be right back.”

  She pushed a button on the computer and walked out of the room.

  “Community printer,” I said. “We have one at the office, too. If I’m there and need to print something, I send the document there and go pick it up.”

  Grimaldi nodded.

  “Did you know it was going to be Devon’s account?”

  “I thought it might be,” Grimaldi said. “Once I found out where the bank was. And that the email came from his computer.”

  “So Devon wired the money to himself. Why would he do that, if he was stealing it—or stealing it back—for Magnolia?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t,” Grimaldi said, as Glenda Tulis walked back into the office, her sensible heels clicking on the marble floor.

  “Here you are.” She handed Grimaldi a piece of copy paper. I leaned closer and stretched my neck as far as it would go to get a look.

  Grimaldi obligingly tilted the sheet so I could see.

  Yes, indeed. It was a personal check. It had Devon’s name and address in the upper left corner, and Sunday’s date written on the date line, and it was made out to cash for five hundred thousand dollars.

  “Cash?” I said. I’m sure I sounded incredulous. Five hundred thousand dollars is a lot of cash to be hauling around. I’d seen what fifty thousand looked like just yesterday, and five hundred thousand would be a lot more. I’d definitely need a suitcase for that.

  Glenda Tulis developed a tiny wrinkle between her brows, sort of like my mother does when something in my behavior bothers her.

  “Is this Mr. Knight’s signature?” Grimaldi asked, pointing to it.

  The wrinkle between Glenda’s brows became more pronounced. Maybe I wasn’t the only one she disapproved of. “The teller would have made sure of it.”

  “How was the money taken out?” Grimaldi asked. “Five hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. And you’re a small branch. Did you have that much cash sitting around ready to go? Was it prearranged?”

  “It was turned into a cashier’s check,” Glenda Tulis said stiffly. “And to answer your question: no. We do not keep half a million dollars sitting around ready to go. That would be our entire operating budget for the day. If we give it all away to one customer, we might as well close up the bank for the day. Any kind of cash withdrawal in that amount would have to be prearranged. There would also be a lot of paperwork involved. Including the notice to the Internal Revenue Service and Homeland Security about large cash transactions.”

  I nodded. I knew about that. So, obviously, did Grimaldi.

  “So a cashier’s check. Can we see a copy of that, as well?”

  Glenda Tulis began to push buttons on her keyboard. While she did, I asked, “Was it Devon himself who brought the check to the bank? Or someone else?”

  “You’d have to ask the teller who handled the transaction,” Glenda said, leaning back on her chair. It squeaked.

  “We’d like to do that,” Grimaldi said firmly. “Along with the copy of the cashier’s check, if you don’t mind.”

  Glenda was starting to look mutinous. Grimaldi must have noticed the same thing, because she said, “I should mention, Ms. Tulis, that your customer, Mr. Knight, is dead. Gunned down in his parking garage two nights ago. Anything he did in the days leading up to his death could be important. Especially if it involves five hundred thousand dollars.”

  Glenda Tulis had turned pale. “Dear me,” she said weakly. “We heard about the shooting, of course. There was crime scene tape across the garage entrance, and some of our employees noticed as much. But we had no idea it involved one of our customers.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Grimaldi said. “So I’m sure you understand why we’re here, asking all these questions.”

  “Of course.” Glenda nodded rapidly many times as she bounded to her feet. “Of course. Anything we can do. I’ll go get you the copy of that check, and bring Ellen in to speak to you. It might take a few moments. I can see she’s busy with a customer.”

  “Take your time,” Grimaldi said genially. “We aren’t going anywhere.”

  Glenda made a grimace, but didn’t have anything to say to that. She just hustled out the door and over to the printer.

  “That was a little mean of you,” I said.

  She shrugged. “Sometimes people need a little incentive.”

  I guess so. “So Devon sent the email and had DeWitts send the money to his own account. Then, before Tim even knew the money had gone astray, Devon wrote out a check for the whole amount and had it turned into a cashier’s check.”

  “So it appears,” Grimaldi said, examining the printout of the check.

  I leaned in. “Something wrong? She said the teller would have made sure the signature was his.”

  “I’m not worried about the signature,” Grimaldi said. “I’ve seen Devon’s driver’s license, and this is his signature. If someone forged it, they did an outstanding job. But there’s no reason to think anyone did.”

  I nodded. “What are you looking at, then?”

  She handed me the sheet. “Does anything strike you about it?”

  I peered at it. Closely. Again, it was a copy of a personal check from Devon’s account. It had his name and ad
dress on it. No one else’s. Grimaldi said the signature was legit. The bank must have determined the same thing, and with half a million dollars on the line, it stood to reason that they would have made sure. The date was right. The amount...

  “Does the word ‘thousand’ look a little cramped to you?” Grimaldi asked.

  I looked at it. And tilted my head and looked at it from a different angle. “Maybe. A little. I mean... yes. It does. But no more than what happens sometimes. He has big, sort of loopy handwriting. He might just have gotten going on the ‘five hundred’ and then realized he was going to run out of space and squeezed the ‘thousand’ together before he ran out of space.”

  Grimaldi didn’t answer.

  “The line across the t is a little long, though. Almost as if the word ‘thousand’ was an afterthought. As if he wrote ‘Five hundred—’ and considered himself done.”

  Grimaldi nodded.

  “But that might still just be a mistake.”

  “Might,” Grimaldi said. “Might not.”

  “So...” I thought about it. “What you’re saying is that Devon wrote out a check for five hundred dollars, and someone else added the thousand?”

  Grimaldi opened her mouth, but there was no time for her to answer. Glenda came back through the door towing a young woman with mousy hair in a bun. “This is Ellen,” she told us. “Ellen, this is the police.”

  I wasn’t the police, of course, but I didn’t bother to mention it. If Detective Grimaldi didn’t see the need, why would I?

  Grimaldi smiled at the young woman. She can look more or less frightening when she smiles, but this was one of the nice smiles. She must have noticed, as had I, that the girl was shaking. “Hi, Ellen. I’m Detective Grimaldi. We’d like to talk to you about a transaction you were involved in on Monday morning. A cashier’s check for five hundred thousand dollars.”

  Ellen nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Grimaldi grimaced. She doesn’t like to be called ma’am. I already knew that about her. “Do you remember it?”

  Ellen nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Can you tell us about it?”

  Ellen hesitated.