Luka glanced at his phone, scrolling through the financial summaries Krichek had collated. “Did you know that the fund had been cashed out?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s all gone.” He held his phone out for Hansen to see. Hansen shook his head in disbelief. “We’re trying to trace it—some of the money was transferred to overseas accounts, but a significant percentage was used to buy gold.”
“Gold? Like physical gold?” Hansen’s gaze turned cold and calculating—so unlike the overwrought emotional performance he’d exhibited yesterday at the death scene. “How much?”
Luka didn’t answer, instead retrieving his phone as Harper texted that she was waiting in the hall. She knew he’d be in the middle of interviews and wouldn’t have interrupted unless it was important.
“Excuse me a moment,” he told Hansen, then stepped out into the hall, closing the door between them. “What have you got?” he asked Harper.
“I’m headed back to the station; I’ve got a suspect in the Lily Nolan case. But Dr. Tierney called. He ran some tests after not finding any signs of cancer during the Standish autopsy,” she said in a breathless voice. “The lab confirmed it. Standish never had any cancer treatment and has no signs of cancer now.” She paused. “I guess I’m not too surprised. The guy’s a conman, lied about everything; of course he’d manufacture a fake illness to gain sympathy from his victims.”
“You’re right.” Luka thought for a moment. “But follow that thought. Who told us he had cancer?”
Harper shifted her feet, then her eyes went wide. “The widow.”
“Exactly. She told us that, despite knowing there’d be an autopsy and we’d find out if she was lying.” He remembered Tassi’s initial confusion yesterday when they’d found Spencer’s body at the house. She’d said something about how he was meant to be somewhere else… the river.
At first, he’d assumed it was the natural product of shock and grief. But then, given that there were millions of dollars missing, he wondered exactly how much Tassi knew about Spencer’s death. Had they planned to repeat another faked death, which had somehow gone terribly awry? If Spencer had vanished in the river, as Tassi had initially seemed to think he had, there would be no body, which meant no autopsy, so Tassi’s story about Spencer’s cancer leading to his suicide would have held up.
Although, if they had meant to fake his death to escape the Zapatas, then how had he ended up dead in their garage instead?
“But why? Once Tassi knew that Spencer had died for real, why would she have told us about the cancer unless she believed it was the truth?” Harper argued, echoing Luka’s own thoughts.
“Maybe she actually believed he was sick? Maybe he was lying to her?”
“Because he intended to kill himself for real?” She shook her head. “And someone just happened to murder him before he could? No. Too coincidental.”
“Back in Denver, Spencer gave Tassi all the money in their divorce before he supposedly died. It was a good plan—with her not claiming any life insurance or having anything to do with declaring him dead, no one could go after her for the money. But what if, this time, she wasn’t in on it? What if Spencer was conning her the same as everyone else?”
“You mean, if she didn’t know the cancer was a lie, then what else didn’t she know about? So he was setting her up, but instead of faking his death like they’d done before and then returning to her, this time he was taking off for good?”
“Or he’d conned her into thinking he was going to commit suicide and leave her all the money. He might have faked the cancer so she’d believe him and not come looking.”
“Either way, it leaves her holding the bag as far as the Zapata family and his other victims are concerned. If she figured out what he was up to, that he was planning to leave her behind—” Harper made a small sound of satisfaction. “Sounds like the widow has a perfect motive for murder.”
Thirty
Leah escorted Tassi into the CIC’s adult interview room. The subdued, intimate area held two loveseats facing each other with a coffee table between them. Leah settled Tassi onto the loveseat facing the two-way mirror, but instead of taking her customary seat across the table, she sat down beside Tassi and slid the box of tissues closer to the other woman.
It was always a difficult transition when she did forensic interviews for the police. She had to first make clear to the parties involved that she wasn’t acting as their physician and that there was no patient-doctor confidentiality, how the recording worked and the fact that the police would be able to view the proceedings. But she also tried to use trauma-based interview techniques that would be somewhat therapeutic—her goal was to help the victim or witness she interviewed as much as she helped the police investigating their case.
This time everything felt different. Despite the fact that Leah understood Tassi’s grief, she didn’t understand the other woman’s actions. Luka had implied that her melodrama was born of subterfuge, but Leah felt as if it might also be a way of masking her underlying emotions.
“How long have you and your husband been married?” Leah started out. She’d discovered that often simple questions helped people open up, making painful topics less difficult to broach, and she wanted Tassi to relax.
“A few years.” Tassi sniffed. She leaned forward to take a tissue and dabbed her eyes. “This time.” She turned abruptly in her seat, glancing at the door. “I can’t bear thinking of him. Down there, all alone, what they’re doing to him—”
“How did you meet?” Leah guided her back to more pleasant memories.
“I literally fell into his arms.” A ghost of a smile crossed Tassi’s face. “I was hiking on
