Every Kind of Wicked (A Gardiner and Renner Novel Book 6)

Monday, 4:20 p. m.

“Let me get this straight,” Patty Wildwind said to Jack. “We have a murdered detective and you want to do an undercover sting op to catch a phone scam ring?”

“Yes.”

She looked tired, Maggie thought, and not remotely triumphant, not the way she should look with a cop-killer in custody and tied up with a bow for the prosecution. Not at all. Neither did Riley, who stood next to her in the hallway outside the homicide unit.

Then Maggie thought, I probably don’t look so daisy-fresh myself—not much sleep the past couple nights, haven’t eaten since breakfast, black powder on my nose . . .

Riley said, “Crazy as it sounds, the phone scam girl’s boyfriend died from exactly the same kind of wound as Rick and Jennifer Toner. There’s got to be a connection, though I’ll be damned if I know what it is.”

Jack said, “And you have a suspect in custody for Gardiner.”

Patty flicked him a glance that said he wasn’t fooling her. No one standing on that worn linoleum thought Marlon Toner had killed his sister and Rick, but not one of them wanted to say so, either. “A suspect who’s a long way from convicted.”

Riley said, “He won’t admit it, but also won’t give an alibi for Friday. He can’t stop crying about his sister but won’t give up his drug connection, Castleman. Won’t tell us where his office is, when he last saw him, whether the guy knew Jennifer existed. Marlon’s all pathetically devastated until we start asking about the good doc. Then he gets this cagey look in his eyes and shuts the hell up.”

“Addict,” Patty added, as if that explained everything. And it did. Marlon Toner felt an overwhelming body blow at the death of his sister, but he needed his pills—now, he would tell himself, more than ever.

“So what are you going to do with him?” Jack asked.

“Let him stew for a while, hope his public defender can talk some sense into him,” Patty said.

Riley held up a plastic bag labeled INMATE PROPERTY. “We have his most current prescription from good old Dr. Castleman right here. He’s already burned through half of the bottle.”

Jack glanced at the other items in the bag, besides the orange pill bottle. “What’s that?”

Riley said, “That is the stub for a reimbursement check that our Marlon cashed this morning, to the tune of thirty-five thousand dollars.”

Maggie said, “Sheesh, what’d he supposed to have had done? A heart replacement?”

“Doesn’t say. Even more interesting is what’s behind the stub—three receipts for money orders, sent out for deposit in the amount of nine thousand dollars each.”

“Staying under the federal reporting rules,” Maggie noted.

“Care to guess where he purchased these orders?”

“A to Z Check Cashing?”

“Bing! The lady wins a prize.”

Jack said, “Time to have another chat with Ralph. You should come,” he added to Maggie. “He likes you.”

“Oh hell,” she said.

Monday, 4:47 p. m.

And Ralph was, indeed, happy to see her. The two cops, not so much. After presenting themselves inside the front lobby and then walking around to the entry door on the other street, he made them wait on his step until Maggie’s teeth threatened to chatter.

When he finally opened the door he greeted them with: “What you want? I already told you, I don’t know who killed Evan. It’s worst for me, I am making myself sick here trying to fill in for missing employee myself. I keep interviewing, no one seems right. Everyone who comes is either stupid or shifty. I can’t let anyone shifty in here, no matter how much I watch them.” He threw a dark look at the opening to the counter area, where a boy with shaggy blond hair had draped his entire upper torso along its surface while he texted.

“Tell us about this,” Riley said, holding up the money order receipt.

Ralph recoiled as if Riley had swung a mace, but then recovered. He spared one quick glance for the slip of paper in its clear folder. “It’s a receipt. So what?”

“From this morning.”

Ralph leaned in, peered more sharply. “Yes. So what?”

Riley ticked off his points with erect fingers. “One, we’d like to have Maggie here download the video from this exchange. Two, we’d like to know where this money went. Three, we’d like to see the check he cashed to get it.”

Ralph blinked, and began to shake his head no.

“Let’s start with the video,” Riley said, his tone kindly. “That will help jog your memory about this interaction.”

“Not me. Let me see the time—eight-thirty, no, you need to talk to Curtis—”

“No, man.” The kid, obviously sharper than he appeared, spoke without even turning to look at them. “I clocked in at nine. I always clock in at nine.”

Three sets of eyes swiveled back to Ralph. “Uh, yes . . . okay. Our video system . . .” His voice trailed off as he wandered toward his desk, no doubt remembering that they were already familiar with his video system. Once again he ushered Maggie into his chair and hovered while she searched the stored video to locate Marlon Toner entering the A to Z Check Cashing store. No one else had been in the lobby. They watched Ralph take a check that Toner slid under the plexiglass barrier. The two men clearly spoke, but the conversation appeared desultory to Maggie. Neither man seemed agitated or conflicted. Marlon Toner waited patiently, signed the papers Ralph handed him, and left as soon as he had secured his thirty-five hundred dollars. Maggie guessed he had done that before, more than once, and had no more questions about the process.

“Okay,” Riley concluded as Maggie saved the video to her USB drive. “So he cashed a check.”

“That’s what we do here.” Ralph couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“He’s a regular customer of yours?”

Ralph shrugged. “Probably. I have a lot of repeat customers.”

“Looked like he knew exactly what to do.”

Ralph didn’t bother to respond.

“Let’s see the check he cashed.”

Real worry sprang into the older man’s face. “Why? No. I don’t think I can show you that. It’s confidential financial information.” Whenever agitated, his slight accent grew stronger, which Jack had never been able to place. Middle Eastern? South American? Atlantic Islands? Who knew, and right now Jack certainly didn’t care.

“We already have the stub. We want to see its other half.”

That argument made no sense at all, but Ralph began to sway. Maggie figured he had to be weighing how much of a fuss he should make. The cops should have a warrant, right? Wouldn’t a cashed check be the same as someone’s bank account or medical file?

“My clients expect security here—”

“And money orders are capped at one thousand dollars.”

“It’s not a money order. It’s a wire transfer. Not capped.”

“True. But if it’s over ten thousand, you have to fill out a currency transaction report. Breaking them into nine thousand apiece doesn’t change that. So why are you bending the rules for a homeless addict?”

This argument had more validity. Check cashing places were meant to provide convenient services to people looking to cash their paychecks or send money back to friends or families, amounts usually written with three digits, sometimes four. But in unscrupulous hands the stores could be easily converted to money laundries, and across the country arrests had been made. Obviously that was what went on here, though even Ralph didn’t know from whom and to whom the money got laundered.

Sweat pricked out of the pores covering the man’s nose, and Curtis peeked at them from the front desk, finally finding the cops’ visit more interesting than his apps.

Ralph said, “The funds came from a government check, so, secured. It’s not my business who gave who what money. You can’t just look at my books—”

“You’re right. We’ll need a warrant.”

A silence fell, during which Maggie watched Ralph weigh his options. He could capitulate and risk the ire of clients who cashed five-figure checks. He could demand a warrant, but that might easily wind up exposing other frequent customers. He could demand a warrant and then torch any documents necessary before they returned with it, but would almost certainly land him in front of a jury, charged with obstruction and money laundering.

“You need to see his check?” Ralph reiterated.

“Sure,” Riley said, ignoring his earlier inquiry about the wire transfer deposits. One step at a time.

“What has all this got to do with Evan getting killed?” Ralph demanded.

“We’re hoping this information will help us with that.”

“It won’t.”

“Really? How do you know?” Riley asked, and a guilty look crossed the man’s face.

Then Ralph noticed Maggie watching from the desk, straightened, and said: “Well, if it will help you catch who killed that poor boy, then okay.” He even put his hand over his heart, and seemed a little disappointed when the two detectives didn’t respond with murmurs of great empathy and human feeling. They only waited.

He went over to an unlabeled cardboard box, fished around, pulled out a simple blue-colored check and handed it to Riley, who asked if the cardboard box represented the extent of Ralph’s filing system.

“Checks gotta be sent back to the issuing institution. I let them pile up and then take care of that at the end of the day. There may be more than one going to the same place.”

Maggie got up and joined their huddle. Indeed, a simple check, issued by the United States Social Security department of Medicare, made out to Marlon Toner in the amount of thirty-five thousand and some odd dollars, dated the previous week. About the only interesting item on the piece of paper was a long number written on the memo line.

“See?” Ralph said, his tone a bit petulant. “I told you. A check. Perfectly good. Why would I cash bad checks? I’d be the one who loses.”

“I never said it was bad,” Riley said. “Do you know what this reimbursement was for?”

“No! Of course not.”

Jack thought aloud, “Toner’s only about thirty-five. How is he getting Medicare?”

Maggie said, “He could be on disability.”

Riley said, “Nah. Unless he was diabetic, he’d have to be on disability for two years before being eligible for Medicare, and his sister said his plunge down the rabbit hole only began four months ago or so. What? So I look ahead . . . I’m not going to be a bug on the windshield of my future.”

“Quite admirable,” Jack said. “Did he mention diabetes during his interview?”

“Not a word. I think we have to assume these hefty checks are all a scheme cooked up between him and Dr. Castleman.”

Maggie heard a tiny but sharp intake of breath, and Ralph’s fingers tapped a staccato beat on one meaty thigh. “You know Dr. Castleman?” she demanded.

“What? No. Uh-uh.” His face had smoothed. Sweat glistened over his upper lip and nose, but then he did keep the office heated to near-saunalike temps.

Riley had Maggie take a picture of the check and then handed it back to Ralph with sweet thank-yous before he moved on. “Now, the transfers Mr. Toner sent—”

“You can’t get it back. That money’s gone.”

“We don’t want it back. We want to know where it went.”

“I can’t tell you that. It’s a security thing,” Ralph added, as unconvincing as a toddler found in possession of his sister’s toy.

“Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense,” Riley said. “But that’s okay, we don’t need you to tell us, because we’ve got these.” He pulled out the receipts for the money orders. “Toner came in here with thirty-five thousand dollars and left with thirty-five hundred. Mr. Bank Deposit got twenty-seven thousand. Forty-five hundred never left this place—I’m guessing that was your cut.”

Jack said, “You know what that’s called? That’s called money laundering.”

“No,” Ralph said firmly. “That’s transaction fee. Is standard.”

Riley went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “No, we don’t need access to Mr. Bank Deposit’s account or account numbers or anything. We only need to know his name.”

“You sent this money order.”

“Is not money order!” Ralph exploded, exasperated with this inaccuracy. “It’s a wire transfer. It’s different.”

“Right, no pesky cap. So where did this transfer go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s start with something easier, then. Where is this bank? Is it local? If it is, we can go bother them.”

“I don’t know—there’s only the account—”

“Panama,” Maggie said.

All three men stared at her.

“The bank’s in Panama. See?” She pointed to the eight characters written on the line next to the words Swift Code. “The first four letters are the bank, the second two are the country. ‘PA.’ Remember, that’s where our mortgage broker hid all her money a few months ago.”

“No,” Riley said, “but I’ll take your word for it. So, not local. Then let’s at least have the name. It will be in the record of your transaction.”

“I don’t think I—”

“We’ve got a murdered cop in this city,” Riley pointed out, leaning harder than Maggie had ever seen him lean, and without even raising his voice. “I think you can.”

“Cop? What cop? Evan no cop.” Panic suffused his face. “Was he?”

“Account name.”

Ralph twisted his lips, darted his gaze around the shop in a futile search for rescue, and sweated. Finally he said, “Let me check.”

“Great idea!”

Riley’s bonhomie seemed to frighten the shop owner more than Jack’s glowering bulk. For the rest of the visit he ignored Jack, but kept Riley in sight as if he were an unexploded bomb. Ralph returned to his desk, took the laptop from its surface, placed it on his lap, and pointedly pivoted so that they could not see the screen. He tapped keys. He tapped more keys.

“Not that it will matter much,” Jack muttered to Riley. “It will be some shell company that one guy traveled to Panama to create with invented names and structure. As soon as the cash transfers to it, it will be shifted right out again to other shell companies with other invented names and no one in Panama or Cyprus or Lichtenstein or wherever will ‘violate client confidentiality’ to tell us who’s behind it.”

“The banks won’t even know themselves,” Riley agreed.

Maggie shifted her weight on tired feet, torn between anticipation that this money trail might finally unlock this inexplicable group of deaths, and doubt that some international kingpin’s laundered money would have anything to do with Rick’s murder. She itched to get back to the lab and identify those animal hairs. She was sure she’d seen the distinctive roots before, in one of her texts….

Ralph’s shoulders loosened, and some of the wrinkles flattened out. Before he even opened his mouth, she predicted that he honestly couldn’t find what they needed, or he could and for some reason didn’t mind telling them.

“Wayne Hawk Therapeutics.”

Apparently, the latter.

Jack and Riley both stirred at this. They turned to each other and then back to the little man in the desk chair.

“Hawk?” Riley said.

“Wayne?” Jack said.

Ralph appeared considerably less happy at having told them something actually useful, and Maggie felt a quick thrill. This meant something.

“There’s the connection,” Riley muttered.

“We need to revisit that office.”

“Both of them. You think it’s—”

“Possibly any one of them. Maggie,” Jack said suddenly. “Those animal hairs. On Rick’s coat?”

“Um . . . yeah?”

“Could they be from a sugar glider?”

She turned to Ralph but he couldn’t help, as confused by this change in topics as she. “What the hell is a sugar glider?”

“I think it’s a kind of flying squirrel.”

“Squirrel . . . oh yes, that could . . . the scale pattern . . . I’ll need to find the reference sample in my cabinet. . . .”

“Let’s go,” Jack said to Riley.