Serrano gave each of the kids one of his cards and told them to call him anytime, day or night. No matter what.
Serrano went back downstairs and found Tally at her desk. He took a seat.
“You know we had to take her in,” she said.
“I know.”
“I’m running background on Rachel Marin,” Tally said, “and it’s very, very strange.”
Serrano rolled his desk chair over to Tally’s cubicle and leaned in.
“Strange how?”
“Look at this,” Tally said. She shifted to her right to allow Serrano access to her computer screen. “I ran Marin’s property records. She bought the house her family currently lives in just over two and a half years ago for 800 grand.”
“All right, so what’s strange?”
“She paid cash. In full. There’s no mortgage attached to it whatsoever.”
“Really . . .”
“Yep. Ms. Marin currently works as an executive assistant to a lawyer named Steve Ruggiero. Glassdoor states that the average exec assistant at that firm gets paid about 55 grand a year.”
“Factor in childcare, and . . .”
“There’s no way 55 grand a year buys you a house for 800K.”
“She might have had money before she moved. She was married before. Alimony? Child support?”
“See, that’s where it gets weirder,” Tally said. “There are no marriage—or divorce—records listed for Rachel Marin. There’s a marriage record for a Rachel Marin who lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but the wedding took place in 1972. She’s currently eighty-four years old. And black. And that’s just the beginning.”
“Go on,” Serrano said.
“The NCIC lists no prior arrests. A few parking tickets, but nothing more serious than that, and nothing prior to her relocation to Ashby. But here’s where it gets really weird. I checked out the birth records for Eric and Megan Marin. Neither record lists their father. The birth certificates are both blank.”
“It’s possible she had them both on her own,” Serrano said. “IUI or IVF via donor. And just lied about having a husband because she didn’t want to get into it.”
“I thought about that,” Tally said. “Here’s the thing: Rachel Marin made enough money to buy an $800,000 house in cash. She could have had a good job prior, saved up a lot, right? But if she was smart and talented enough to have the kind of job before moving to Ashby that allowed her to buy a house for that amount of money, why would she then take a job as an assistant barely making enough to make ends meet?”
“Job market isn’t great,” Serrano said.
“True,” Tally said, “but I called Steve Ruggiero. Her boss. He said when Rachel applied for the job, she was the most overqualified candidate he’d ever interviewed. Said she was smarter than most of the partners at the firm. In fact, he said he was reluctant to hire her because someone with her skills would leave for another job within months. Plus, if she paid cash for the house, and then took a job barely making ends meet, I’m thinking she had a lot more money than that 800 grand stashed away. Enough to make taking a job below her market value manageable. Even preferable. To me, this all sounds like a woman who wanted to stay under the radar.”
“And yet here she is in our holding cell,” Serrano said. “Not quite what I’d call staying under the radar.”
“Yeah,” Tally said, rubbing her cheek. “Still haven’t figured that out yet. But you’ve seen how far she’s been willing to go. The Drummond house escapade. Showing up at Wickersham’s office. Something primal in that woman is overriding her need to lay low. And I’m betting it’s related to money and this missing husband of hers.”
Serrano rubbed the bridge of his nose and exhaled.
“You feel something for her,” Tally said sympathetically.
He replied, “Something terrible happened to that family. She won’t tell me what it is, but there’s this awful cloud hanging over them. You see it in her son. A sadness. An anger. And somehow what happened to that family is connected to everything Marin has done.”
Tally listened.
“I told her about Evan,” he said. Tally sighed.
“Oh, John. Why?”
“After Robles, Aguillar, and Steinman, I wanted her to see that her children were being brought along for this insane ride, whatever it is, against their will. That whatever crusade she was on, she wasn’t on it alone. That I lost a child and it nearly broke me. That there’s a responsibility to protect people who depend on you. Because you can lose them just like that.” He snapped his fingers to accentuate the last word.
“She’ll go free tomorrow,” Tally said. “More than likely they’ll let her off with a fine. But I want Caroline Drummond. I want Albatross. And now I want to know who the hell Rachel Marin is.”
“I’m with you, Leslie.”
“On all of it? Marin included?”
Serrano hesitated, then said, “Yes.”
“Good. Because I have a call in to the broker she used to buy that house. I want to see her application package.”
“If she paid cash, there won’t be bank records since there’s no mortgage.”
“No, but I’ll bet she had a lawyer review the contract. We can start there.”
Serrano nodded. “In the meantime, I have a subpoena in for Caroline Drummond’s phone records for the last five years.”
Lieutenant George approached Serrano and Tally and stopped by their desks. He looked bone tired, no doubt from fielding questions about the Wickersham shooting. His normally clean-and-steamed suit was rumpled, with a soy sauce stain on the tie. On an ordinary day, the fifty-nine-year-old lieutenant looked forty. Today, for the first time Serrano could recall, he looked his age.
“The Marin kids in the Bunk?” he said.
Serrano nodded. “Sergeant Fortunado is keeping an eye on them.”
“Lord, what a clusterfuck,” George said, rubbing his eyes. “Let me ask you both a question. What do you make of this Marin woman? She seems to either have a vendetta or a death wish.”
“Maybe both,” Tally said.
“Something bad is going to happen if she doesn’t get a grip. She’s lucky that Wickersham kid didn’t blow her head off. If she was smart, she’d either stay home or in our holding cell. At least there she can’t endanger herself or those kids.”
“I’ll give her that choice, Lieutenant,” Serrano said.
“Don’t be shocked if she becomes a regular in that cell,” Tally said. “Moths who circle flames always get burned.”
“Hopefully a night in holding will wake her up before someone gets killed,” George said. “Speaking of which, that Wickersham boy is damned lucky to be alive.”
“They think he’ll make it?” Tally said.
“Bullet nearly severed his vocal cords, so he’ll never sing opera, but he’ll live.”
“And probably spend the rest of the decade in prison,” Serrano said. “We have him cold on conspiracy and fraud for the fake Constance Wright affair.”
“So what are you waiting for?” the lieutenant said.