by Marie Force
“So you were visiting Tina alone?”
“Yes.”
“Are you romantically involved with her, Mr. Townsend?”
“You have to understand what we’ve been through…”
Sam had to bite back the urge to scream. “Are you involved with her?”
“Yes! I’m involved with her! I’m in love with her. Are you happy? Does that help you figure out who killed Ginny?”
“No, it doesn’t, but it helps us to understand who might’ve had motive to kill her.”
“Tina didn’t kill her.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I was with her Sunday night when we found out she’d been killed, and Tina was genuinely shocked. And dismayed, because we all know that with Ginny gone, it becomes that much more difficult to recover any of our money. We’ll have to deal with her estate and all that. I doubt any of us will live long enough to see this tangled, twisted mess resolved. No one knows where the money is. Not even Ken, or so he says.”
“Do you think he knew what she was doing?”
“Not at the beginning, but later on… I can’t see how he didn’t know. How would she explain the sudden windfall?” He glanced at Sam, seeming hesitant and uncertain. “Are you going to have to make my relationship with Tina public?”
“Not unless one of you had a hand in killing her or knows who did.”
“We didn’t.”
“So you say. But we’ve had people with rock-solid alibis turn out to be murderers. Just happened recently, in fact. So you’ll pardon us for remaining skeptical of everyone who had the kind of motive you did.”
“Investigate me to your heart’s content,” he said with a shrug. “You won’t find me anywhere but here, with Tina and then at home on Sunday. All I do is work, and the only pleasure in my life is with Tina. My marriage is basically over because I made the huge mistake of investing with Ginny. I’d give anything to be able to have that decision to do over again. Anything at all.”
Sam handed him a card. “If you think of anything else that might be relevant, or have any thoughts about who might’ve been angry enough to kill her, call me. My cell number is on there.”
“The list of people angry enough to kill her is long.”
“We’re aware of that. Thank you for your time. Don’t tell Tina we’re coming.”
“Why not?”
“Because I told you not to. We’ll see ourselves out.” On the way to the parking lot, Sam said to Freddie, “For fuck’s sake. What part of ‘don’t tell her we’re coming’ does he not get?”
“The part where he has to do what you tell him.”
She huffed out a laugh. “Men hate being told what to do by women.”
“Just for the record, I don’t mind it.”
“That’s because women rule your life at home and at work.”
“And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“You were good in there with the receptionist. I like to see your assertive side coming out.”
“Thanks. I think…”
When they were back in the car, Sam took a call from Malone. “What’s up?”
“Lawyers for the husband and Realtor are here.”
“All right. We’ll be back soon.”
“The Realtor’s lawyer is making a huge stink about unlawful arrests and the usual nonsense.”
“Nothing unlawful about us detaining a material witness in a homicide investigation.”
“You know that, and I know that…”
“No worries. I’ll take care of her when I get back.”
“Where are you?”
“Bethesda.”
“Oh damn. I’ll let them know it’s going to be a while.”
“I’ve got one more stop to make, and then we’ll be in.”
“Got it.”
Sam closed the phone and started the car, heading for the parking lot exit. “You got me an address for Tina yet?”
Freddie shot her a scathing look. “Of course I do.”
“I had no doubt.”
His GPS directed them to Rockville.
“Thank you for taking care of this before we go back into town.”
“There was no way I was driving way the hell out here again if I could avoid it.” And then she recalled the meeting she had scheduled with Hill. That was going to mess up her entire day.
Tina lived in a modest two-story home in a well-established neighborhood. The house was white with black shutters and mature landscaping.
“When I was a kid, I used to think it would be so cool to live in a place like this,” Freddie said of the tree-lined streets with sidewalks and well-cared-for homes. “I thought people who lived in neighborhoods like these didn’t have any problems.”
“Now you know better. Everyone has problems.”
“Right, and sometimes people with bigger houses have bigger problems. Take this lady, for instance. She had her life figured out. A long marriage with a man she probably still loved until they were taken in by a con, and it all went to crap. Now he’s dead, she’s financially devastated, and inside the beautiful house is a life in ruins.”
“That’s very profound, young Freddie. And sadly true.”
“It’s so sad. She thought she had it all until an unscrupulous con artist took it from her.” He sighed. “I’d much rather be investigating Calvin Worthington’s murder than Ginny McLeod’s. He’s the kind of innocent victim I wanted to seek justice for when I became a detective.”
“Me too, but we have to remember that nothing is justification for murder, not even the most despicable acts.”
“Keep reminding me.”
“Will do.” Sam pressed the doorbell and listened to it chime inside the house. “Another scary-ass doorbell.”
“You love them almost as much as you love receptionists.”
“I love them even more.” She peered through the beveled glass beside the front door and rang the bell again. “Here she comes.”
On the other side of the door, a woman said, “Who is it?”
Wary after the gun incident with Clarissa Haverson, Sam called out to her. “Lieutenant Holland, Detective Cruz, MPD.”
They raised their badges to the window next to the door.
A series of locks disengaged before the door swung open to reveal a middle-aged woman with fading blonde hair, lines around her eyes and her mouth set in a tight, uncompromising expression. “What can I do for you?”
“We’d like to speak with you about the murder of Ginny McLeod,” Sam said.
“I have nothing to say about her.”
“I understand what you’ve been through—”
“No, you don’t. Your young, handsome husband is very much alive. Your life hasn’t been ruined by someone you thought was a friend. You have no idea what I’ve been through.”
“I’m sorry, I only meant that I understand why you feel the way you do about Ginny, but our job is to figure out who killed her.”
“It’s a waste of taxpayer dollars. Whoever killed her did this world a huge favor. Now she can’t ruin anyone else’s life the way she ruined mine and my husband’s and so many other people’s.”
“While we understand your dislike for her—”
“I don’t dislike her. I hate her. I hate what she did to me and Jack and other people who worked their whole lives for what they had only to have it taken from them—by a supposed friend. I hate her.”
“We’re still required to investigate her murder. We can talk here or at our place. Your choice.”
Glaring at Sam, she stepped back to let them into her house.
Chapter Nineteen
Sam rolled her eyes at Freddie and followed Tina into the house that was as nice on the inside as it was on the outside. They were shown into a cozy living room where Sam and Freddie sat together on a love seat. She’d have to make a joke about that later.
“What do you want to know?” Tina asked.
“How did you know Ginny?”
&n
bsp; “We went to college together.”
“How did you and your husband decide to invest with her?”
“She made us an offer we thought would be stupid to refuse. She had all the answers, testimonials, financials. You name it, she had it. We were bowled over the same way everyone else was by a no-lose proposition. It was supposed to take twelve to eighteen months, and then we’d see a big return.” She paused and glanced directly at Sam. “I know you have to be thinking how stupid we all are, but if you’d heard what we heard, you would’ve done the same thing.”
No, I wouldn’t have, Sam thought, but she kept that to herself. Her father, the cynical cop, had always told her and her sisters that if something seemed too good to be true, it almost always was. Usually he was referring to boys, but the lesson applied universally.
“When did you realize the investment was a scam?”
“When the twelfth month came and went without a word from her. She went completely silent on us, and later we found out she’d done the same to the other investors.”
“What did you do when you couldn’t get in touch with her?”
“At first, we panicked. She had most of our savings and wasn’t returning our calls? How could that be? So we went to her house, and Ken said she wasn’t home. He didn’t know where she was or when she’d be back.” Tina swallowed hard and seemed to fight tears. “I had to keep Jack from storming into the house. He was convinced she was in there, and Ken was covering for her.”
“What did you do then?”
“We went to the Rockville Police Department, filed a report, met with detectives and were told they were going to look into it.”
“Did they?”
“They said they did, but they weren’t able to locate Ginny either. We asked them to get a warrant to search their house, and they said they’d try, but that never happened. So we started calling the FBI every day until we got through to an agent who took our report and promised to look into it. We never heard from him again.”
Sam hated the way law enforcement had failed these people. “I’m sorry you had that experience.”
“I am too, because in all the time that was wasted, Ginny had the chance to hide the money in places we’ll probably never locate. We’ll never get back all those months that could’ve been spent stopping her before one of the other victims finally got someone to take this seriously.”
“Where were you on Sunday?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“We’re asking everyone who had motive where they were when she was killed.”
“I didn’t kill her. Believe me, I wanted her alive so she could tell us what the hell she did with all that money. The IRS and the FBI went through everything and couldn’t find where she spent more than a million of the twenty-two million she stole. So where’s the other twenty-one million? Only she knew that, and now…” She shrugged with a helplessness that sparked sympathy in Sam. She could only imagine how frustrated and heartbroken Tina had to feel. She’d lost a lot more than her life savings to Ginny. “I was at my tennis club from eleven to two on Sunday. My club membership is the one thing I managed to hang on to after we lost the money.”
“Is there someone who can confirm that?”
“My friend Celeste was with me the whole time.”
“Can we please have her number?”
Glaring at Sam, Tina found the number on her phone and recited it.
Sam wrote it down, tore the page out of her pad and handed it to Freddie, who got up to go outside to make the call.
“Tell me about the day your husband died.”
“Do I have to?”
“I’d appreciate it if you would.”
Tina sagged into the corner of her sofa, arms crossed as she fixated on a spot behind Sam. “He’d been so upset. So, so upset. I suggested he play golf with some friends while I visited our daughter. She’d had a baby three weeks earlier, so I’d been spending a lot of time helping her. I think about that now and just wonder if I’d been around more, I might’ve known what he was planning. But I had no idea. I knew he was devastated over what Ginny did, but it never occurred to me that he would… I just didn’t think…”
She blinked furiously and then swiped at tears. “How could he leave me to deal with this alone?” Shaking her head, she wiped more tears.
Sam made an effort to be patient and not rush her.
“I came home and couldn’t find him. I checked upstairs and in the garage before going out to his woodshop when I noticed the door was open. He hadn’t been out there in months, since before we realized Ginny had stolen our money, so I took it as a good sign. I vividly remember walking out there, feeling hopeful that maybe we were going to get back on track, that we would be okay.”
Tina dropped her head. “But when I went in there, he… He was hanging from the rafters. I screamed and went to him and tried to get him down, but he was gone. Later, I found out he’d been there more than three hours by the time I found him. He waited until he knew I’d be gone awhile.” Wiping away more tears, she looked up at Sam. “That’s what she did to us, Lieutenant. She took our money, stole my husband’s will to live, denied our daughter and grandson their father and grandfather. She took everything we had, and I blame myself. She was my friend, and I was excited to invest in her business. I talked Jack into it, and now he’s dead.”
“Do you know of anyone who might’ve specifically threatened her or said they wanted her dead?”
“Everyone involved joked about wanting to have her killed. No one meant it, of course. It was a coping mechanism.”
“Did anyone seem to take it more seriously?”
She thought about that for a second. “Not that I ever saw. It was all talk that came from devastation and despair. If there’s any silver lining to this nightmare, it’s that I’ve made a lot of new friends.”
“Including Mark Townsend?” Sam felt like a complete asshole for kicking Tina when she was already down, but she had to know if there was anything more to their association than two people seeking comfort from each other.
She blinked several times, clearly shocked. “What about him?”
“I understand the two of you are romantically involved.”
“We… I… He’s been a very good friend to me since Jack died.”
“I’m going to be honest with you, Tina. We’ve already talked to him. We know it’s more than just friends.”
“He… He told you that?”
“He did, because he understands we’re running a homicide investigation here, and the details matter. I’m honestly not looking to make anything worse for you. I promise. I just want to understand your relationship with Mark and figure out if it has any relevance to the murder of Ginny McLeod.”
“It doesn’t. We had nothing to do with that, but neither of us was sorry to hear she was dead. When you treat people the way Ginny did…”
“No one deserves to be murdered, Tina. Not even Ginny.”
“Some people do,” she said, her eyes flashing with fury. “Some people don’t deserve to walk among the rest of us because they’re so indecent, so morally bankrupt that the world is a better place without them.”
“Maybe so, but murder is still illegal, and as such, it’s our job to figure out who killed her. Tell me the details of how you became involved with Mark Townsend.”
“I don’t see how it’s relevant.”
“You don’t have to. It’s relevant to me, thus you have to answer the question.”
“And if I don’t?”
“We’ll arrest you, take you downtown to be processed and hold you overnight to be arraigned.”
She blanched. “On what charges?”
“Obstructing a homicide investigation.”
“Because I don’t want to answer personal questions that have nothing to do with Ginny McLeod?”
“Your relationship with Mark Townsend does have to do with her. Without her, you never would’ve met him. And as of right now, you’re officially
wasting my time, which is a secondary offense. So what’s it going to be? Are we going to talk here or downtown?”
While Tina visibly fumed for a full minute, Sam counted down in her mind, giving her ten more seconds before she was going to be taken into custody.
“Fine. I’ll tell you, but for the record, I still say it’s none of your business.”
“Noted.”
Freddie came back in, handed Sam the paper she’d given him with the tennis partner’s phone number that now had a big checkmark on it. He sat next to her.
“Tina is going to tell us about her relationship with Mark Townsend,” Sam said.
“Ah, gotcha,” Freddie said.
Tina glared at both of them as the words came out through a clenched jaw and tight lips. “Jack and I met Mark around the time we figured out Ginny had scammed us. We commiserated, spent time with Mark and his wife until she basically stopped speaking to him because she was so angry about him insisting they invest with Ginny.”
Sam took notes as Tina spoke. She was now interested in speaking to Mark’s wife, whereas she hadn’t been before. This was why she forced people to talk about things they’d prefer not to discuss, because you never knew what additional tidbit would surface in the retelling from a different individual.
“Mark would talk to Jack and me about it, how it felt unfair to him that she was fully on board until it became clear they’d been scammed, and then it was all his fault. He said they had epic, screaming fights for weeks, until she finally quit talking to him altogether. That, he said, was a huge relief. He would come over, have a beer with Jack, commiserate on the latest with the investigation. The three of us became close friends. Like comrades in a war, of sorts. Our war against Ginny.
“And then, when Jack died, Mark helped me with everything—funeral arrangements, estate stuff, lawyers, all of it. He was just so there for me in a way my daughter and friends couldn’t be because they were so devastated. I was so devastated. I found myself turning to Mark for comfort as well as support. And after a while, I realized I had genuine feelings for him. I was widowed, and he was basically estranged from his wife… There’s nothing illicit about our relationship. We’re two lonely, wounded people finding comfort in each other.”