Downes and the two men, in addition to Don Crystal and Jason Musgrove, have all been indicted for multiple counts of murder and a whole bunch of fraud charges. Federal charges will follow, and I imagine they will supersede most of the local indictments. But the system will handle it, and one way or the other, Crystal and the others are going away for a long time.
According to what I was able to get from the Feds, coupled with what I already knew, the conspiracy was remarkable in its scope and planning. Yet it was also simple in its concept: they created virtual people and then killed them off to collect the insurance. They also created virtual beneficiaries, who were them under different aliases.
Their reach was amazing. Simply by infiltrating and manipulating the cyber world, they gave these fictional people full lives. Some of them were even receiving and cashing Social Security checks. In every respect, they were alive in the cyber world, and the line between that cyber world and the real world has blurred to the point where it doesn’t really exist.
Other people like Lisa Yates and Jana Mitchell, working at other companies that are in the same business as Ardmore, were also part of the conspiracy. They were at least partially duped, and while they knew what they were doing was wrong, they didn’t realize the scope of what was going on. And they certainly never signed on for murder.
It’s been a wild forty-eight hours for me. In addition to answering questions from the FBI and local police, I had to go to court with Andy and do a mea culpa to Judge Wallace. I think down deep he understood my position, but he seemed to think it was his judgely duty to reprimand me and threaten me with contempt of court, before pulling back.
I’ve also done a lot of media, making the rounds of local stations and cable news outlets. The press has done a lot of digging, and there are estimates that the conspiracy was aiming to bilk a vast array of insurance companies out of between $150 million and $200 million.
Part of the reason that it has become such a big story and will get bigger as more information comes out is that Crystal and his people are showing, to the horror of a nation, that people don’t actually have to exist to exist.
Starting tomorrow, Dani, Simon, and I are going to go into relaxation mode. Tonight is the traditional party Andy throws after winning a case. It’s at Charlie’s, a sports bar that Andy frequents regularly. He says he used to frequent it nightly before he got married.
Andy’s whole team is here, and I give a brief toast, thanking them all for their effort, and for my freedom. The entire K Team is here as well, meaning Marcus, Laurie, and Simon. And Dani is here and smiling a lot; she has been through a hell of a lot, just putting up with me.
We have the private upstairs room at Charlie’s, and they have agreed to let Simon and Tara attend. Laurie says that Sebastian has chosen to sleep this one out.
We haven’t had a chance to talk much, so Laurie and I each grab a beer and sit at a corner table to compare notes. “Leaving the scene when Marcus killed Gardener is still bothering me,” she says.
I nod. “I know. But the world is better off with him not in it, and you are better off not having your throat slashed. Marcus did the only thing he could; and you both did the right thing by leaving.”
I know she doesn’t fully believe that, but maybe she will over time. Andy comes over, his own beer in hand, to join us at the table.
“You’re looking pretty serious considering we’re at a party,” he says.
Laurie nods. “We’ll get over it.”
“You guys saved my life,” I say. “I can’t thank—”
Andy cuts me off. “I believe we’ve beaten this subject to death.”
Laurie smiles. “Andy doesn’t do well with thank-yous. So on behalf of both of us, you’re welcome, Corey. It truly turned out to be our pleasure. Now, I’ve got some questions for both of you. To start, why did they kill Lisa Yates?”
Andy says, “She must have found out what was going on. She was complicit to a point; Kline recruited her and got her to input information outside the normal procedures. But once she understood the real nature of it, Kline probably threatened her and told her what they were capable of. So she got scared; maybe she was going to go to the authorities; I don’t know. But she never got the chance.”
“How did you figure it out?” Laurie asks me.
“It was obvious that we were being manipulated; sent in different directions that led to nowhere. And it was all online; they were actually watching Sam trying to watch them. But a key was realizing that the email from Lisa to Doris Landry was faked. There was no Rico; in fact, there was no Doris Landry. Once we found that out, it was just more evidence of their reach and ability to send us into cyber oblivion.” I take a sip of my beer before continuing.
“But Steven Landry and his nonexistent mother was the clincher. When she had no emails in her account, and when Sam couldn’t connect her to anyone at Somers Point, it was clear she was fabricated. Yet Steven collected on her insurance policy. If they could do it with her, why not on a broad scale?”
“Add to all that the obituary coming out the day before the date on the death certificate. It was a mistake that they made, probably the only one,” Andy says.
“And Richard Mahler? Where did he fit in?” Laurie asks.
“Mahler was
