Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries, 1)

by Camilla Chafer

  ~

  Vincent was arrested for six murders, two attempted murders, assault with a deadly weapon, extortion and fraud, which wasn't too bad for a guy who had never even gotten a parking ticket.

  Two weeks later, Lily and I were sitting in my living room. She had run out first thing after the verdict came in, and bought double-pump mochas with extra whip and sprinkles along with the biggest chocolate croissants she could find. I was in heaven. Plus, now the court case was over, and quickly solved given my rock-solid evidence, I could tell her everything.

  "How did that little creep Vincent get involved?" she asked.

  Vincent squealed with barely any prompting. Some I even overheard as we exited the safe house to the waiting paramedics—Maddox’s boss, Matt Miller nodding to me as we limped out—some Maddox filled me in on more in the days after; while I got the rest from the court case.

  With Vincent behind bars, we wouldn't see him again.

  "As company accountant, he had access to all Green Hand's financial records. After Dominic mentioned an irregularity, Vincent noticed other irregularities in the payouts," I explained. "On investigating, he realized the extent of the fraud, piecing together who was part of it from weeks of patient watching and waiting. But instead of turning his evidence over to the police, for their forensic accountants to comb, Vincent got fat dollar signs in his eyes and decided he wanted his slice of the multi-million fraud pie."

  "Whoa," said Lily. "I did not think Vincent had it in him."

  "It's always the quiet ones," I agreed.

  "No, that's not it. It's that people are never what you expect them to be."

  "Can't argue with that."

  "So... he didn't just kill Dean straight off?"

  "Vincent didn't kill Dean at all. Dean was killed by the Finklesteins." I licked the cream from the top of my mocha and snuggled against the couch as I told Lily everything.

  Vincent's first step was to blackmail Martin Dean, but Dean didn't have access to the money. When Vincent threatened to turn Dean in, Dean 'fessed up his connections and bought the tickets to Paris where he intended to flee with Tanya, with or without the cash. He simply couldn't get the money without alerting Harris, Mathis and Ramos, his car-crazed conspirators, and he wasn't going to jail for the fraud without a payoff awaiting him.

  The four never trusted each other much from the start. They decided it was in all of their best interests that none of them could access the cash without the other members present. With more than three million of it already converted to cash, it was the smart thing to do. Not as smart as not committing a crime in the first place, but I didn't like to be picky.

  The cash was stored in a special bank deposit vault in the city. Each conspirator had something that was needed to access it, and none of them could open the box without the others. Dean and Ron Harris each had a key; Chris Mathis had the code for the electronic keypad; and Hector Ramos was the signatory. His thumb print provided the extra security, which was why Vincent hacked it off. It was found in his freezer, between the ice cream and peas.

  "And Dean gave his key to Tanya?"

  I nodded. "Dean knew he was in big trouble. On one side, he had Vincent blackmailing him, on the other side were Harris, Mathis and Ramos who wanted to get more money, and then there was always the potential that the authorities would discover the crime."

  This much was guesswork, given that none of the gang could corroborate the truth. We surmised that faced with the evidence and the threat of the police, Dean stalled for time with Vincent, telling him he could get the money, but to be patient. Vincent knew who was in the gang and since the money couldn’t be moved, he was okay to wait it out.

  Then Dean saw my research for the Gazette and knew that I had put together his connection to the other three members of the gang. He panicked, putting in a call to Ramos. "He gave his key to Tanya to hide as collateral,” I explained as Lily hung on my every word. “If anything happened to him, the others wouldn't be able to access the collated money. He couldn't pay off Vincent without any ready cash, and he knew there was a discoverable connection between the four of them. All he wanted was out. He confided in Ramos all about the problems he had."

  Lily frowned. "So why did the Finklesteins kill Dean?"

  "In his panic, Dean became the weak link so Ramos put out a hit on him. Ramos' wife is Knuckles Finklestein's wife's cousin, so Ramos hired the brothers to take out Dean, get the key and the report, thus reducing the pot. It would have finished off the fraudulent claims, but they could take a cool million each. Importantly, Ramos wanted the evidence between him and the rest of the gang obliterated before pay day."

  "Who knew this kind of stuff went on in Montgomery? Makes you wonder what else is going on under our noses."

  I didn't want to think about it. I'd had enough “fun” for a while.

  "When did the police get involved?" asked Lily. "They knew, right?"

  "They knew there was fraud, but had no clue who was involved. Green Hand is huge, they have hundreds of thousands of active policies and pay out thousands every day. It took them months to narrow it down to Dean's department." Apparently, Dean didn’t know that Maddox was already in the department spying and collecting evidence to implicate the whole gang, until the night he died. “Without his notebook, they didn’t have any place to start looking for the fraudulent policies.”

  "Do you think Dean knew he was going to die?"

  "When the Finklesteins came by that night? Yeah, I think so."

  "Sucky," said Lily.

  To Dean's credit, once he realized he was going to be killed, he didn't give up my name or Tanya’s to the Finklesteins. I don't know whether he thought that would keep us safe or just make things difficult for Ramos, but since he also didn't give up Vincent, it was hard to tell. Perhaps that was his revenge. He knew even if he were dead, Vincent would go after the other three to get the money. In a weird sort of way, Vincent was his insurance policy just as much as Maddox was and he’d seen the whole thing.

  However, what Dean hadn't banked on was Vincent knowing about Tanya, or that he would be desperate enough to kill her, too. I think Tanya was the one person Dean trusted, and probably the one person he really tried to protect. He probably hoped she would take the Paris tickets and flee.

  "And the Finklesteins and Ramos thought you and Vincent were the same person?" prompted Lily.

  I nodded. This much I knew from Vincent's testimony. "Once Dean was dead, Vincent knew he didn't have long to shake down the rest of the gang for the money. The gang knew already from Dean that someone was on their tail, and had discovered a connection. They also knew Dean was being blackmailed. The only problem they had was that they didn't know who the blackmailer was and who had the evidence connecting them. Vincent said Ramos told him they figured it was the same person."

  "People should never jump to conclusions."

  "But they did. Harris, Mathis and Ramos weren't career criminals. They were opportunists." Once Ramos saw my name watermarked on the research, he knew I could connect them.

  Unfortunately for Ramos, Vincent was one step faster and had come up with another plan. He planned to stall any investigation into the fraud as he bumped one gang member off at a time, until he was the only one left with the knowledge of the crimes and access to the money. Earlier on the day Dean died, he overheard Dean telling Ramos about the file on his desk. He couldn’t get to it before the Finklesteins, so he counted on deleting my files as a guarantee to ensure that neither I, nor anyone else, would be able to put the pieces together. He just didn't count on my amazing ability to accidentally delete everything, thus ensuring I always, always, backed up my documents. And he also didn't count on the authorities putting together the task force that put Maddox in the building to spy.

  "I knew there were too many hit-and-run accidents," said Lily. "It was too much of a coincidence."

  "I agree. Vincent got the first key from Ron Harris and, so he claimed, killed him by accident when he was
desperate to get away. After that, everything came easy. Chris Mathis gave up the box number and the bank where the money was stashed in a deposit box, along with the key code, and paid for the information with his life. Vincent couldn't risk leaving anyone alive. After all, he would never be safe while they were after him, determined to get ‘their’ money back. And that left Ramos, the most dangerous one. He was the signatory and Vincent needed his thumbprint. He chopped it off before he killed Ramos."

  "Why didn't Ramos cut a deal with Vincent?"

  "Too greedy. Ramos wasn't too bothered about the deaths of his co-conspirators. He just wanted the money, and like hell would he give it up to a pipsqueak like Vincent, not after they’d put all the effort and money in to pull it off."

  This came out during the investigation too. Ramos had been playing fast and loose with the bank's money and was in debt up to his neck. It was only a matter of time before he was investigated for banking fraud. Even with Vincent threatening him, Ramos couldn't afford to get out, not while his bank was on the verge of collapsing. He would have lost everything, not to mention facing a hefty jail sentence.

  With Dean, Harris and Mathis dead, Ramos could get enough money to wipe his slate clean and start over with millions. Vincent got to Tanya before Ramos could. Vincent forced her into retrieving the key from the safest hiding place she knew, Flames, and he shot her to cover his tracks. Except I picked up the key and it was safely stored in the evidence locker at Montgomery PD ever since.

  "Ramos figured I must have taken it and sicced the Finklesteins on me. Ramos assumed getting rid of me was the last step before claiming their cash.” I don't know what they were supposed to do to me to keep my mouth shut about the file, but given their rap sheets, I was sure it wouldn't have been pretty. “This is where Vincent actually saved the day. He recognized the Finklesteins outside my apartment and shot them both, effectively saving my life.”

  "Hurrah for Vincent?" Lily looked hopeful.

  "Not really. When the Finklesteins showed up dead, Ramos thought I killed them. He was the one who tried to ram us off the road the night we visited Serena. Ramos didn't know Vincent was also following us. When Ramos' car wiped out, Vincent picked him up, jumping him while he was injured. Faking a signature wasn't a problem, but he had to cut off Ramos' thumb to get the print."

  "Gross. Also, did Ramos think you were Ramboette or what?"

  "I know, right? Ridiculous."

  "Far out, Brussels sprout.”

  “What?” I shook my head. “Anyway, Vincent figured I had the key and followed Maddox to the safe house.” The money was nearly his. That one little key has caused a lot of problems for everyone.

  The Green Hand Gang, as the Montgomery Gazette dubbed them, were dead, most of the witnesses were gone and the money was recovered, rendering the fraud aspect of the case cut and dried.

  Vincent's trial, however, generated a lot more interest. The whole thing lasted three solid days. In the end, the only way he was getting out of prison was in a body bag. I figured between Ramos' wife and Finklestein's, it might be sooner rather than later.

  "I'm glad this is all over," said Lily, thoughtfully chewing her last bite of croissant.

  "Me too. How’s your arm?"

  “Better.”

  As for me, well, no serious damage done. Green Hand Insurance's future is currently uncertain, given the scale of the fraud. I didn't even know if I still had a job. I just decided not to go back. So, I was out of a job, plus, I had a small scar on my upper right arm from the bullet. It was a small price to pay for getting to live. As a bonus, I swiped Vincent's concert tickets when I went in to clean out my desk, and Lily and I had an excellent time.

  Solomon disappeared right after Vincent was arrested and I saw him once, briefly, at the trial, but we didn't talk. Although he did stay around long enough to hear my statement. I was told he did his best not to laugh when I burst into tears after telling the court how I had to dye my hair brown. Lily told me she saw him at the hospital, but she was a tad hysterical at the time, after discovering I had been shot. I figured he was checking up on Maddox.

  Maddox, on the other hand, I've seen plenty of. We're dating, and I'm looking forward to finding out where that goes. After undergoing surgery to remove the bullet from his shoulder and some recuperation time, he went back to Montgomery PD to face the wrath of my family. I think he’s hoping he won't have to go undercover again for a while. Unless it's my covers. That sounded fine to both of us.

  "I have to go," said Lily, "But I'm glad you got to tell me what really happened."

  "Me too." She was careful not to squeeze my arm when she hugged me, and I was careful to give her the biggest hug I could.