“Are you thinking that he’s somehow involved?” Lucy knew there were bad cops—she’d faced them. So had Nate. But they were few and far between, and her mind didn’t naturally migrate in that direction. She never wanted to believe that one of her colleagues was corrupt.
“I’m not saying anything. Just that we keep our theory to ourselves—until we can either prove or disprove that Ricky Albright is hiding out in Mexico.”
* * *
Detective Douglas kept Nate and Lucy waiting for more than thirty minutes, and by the time he called them into a conference room Nate was about to walk out.
Nate didn’t wait for Douglas to close the door before he said, “This is fucking bullshit, Detective.”
Douglas glared at him, heated. “I have other cases, all of which take precedent over a three-year-old homicide.”
“Multiple homicide,” Nate said. “We came here to talk to you yesterday and you were out. You assured us that you would be here at eleven this morning and yet wait until nearly noon to talk to us?”
Lucy decided to let Nate run without her interference. She was interested in how Douglas would respond. He was in his forties, a twenty-year veteran of the sheriff’s department. Maybe he didn’t like the FBI. Maybe he was just a jerk. Maybe he really had another important case.
Maybe he had screwed up the initial investigation and was trying to cover it up.
Or maybe he is corrupt.
Douglas clearly wanted to get in Nate’s face but bit back whatever he wanted to say and motioned for them to take a seat. “You have my undivided attention for ten minutes.”
Nate didn’t sit. He slapped the file folder down that had the information about the Albrights’ Escalade being dismantled in Mexico. “A private investigator found information about the Albrights’ vehicle, abandoned just over the border, chopped for parts. Did you follow up? This information wasn’t in the file you gave us yesterday.”
“Your tone is disrespectful, Agent Dunning.”
At first, Lucy thought Douglas was going to concede, but now he had his hackles up.
“Detective,” she said, being the mediator, “we all want the same thing: to find out what happened to the Albright family. Did you follow up on the investigator’s report and, if so, what did you learn?”
“Of course I followed up on the claim. The investigator’s report was mostly accurate. I also talked to a witness that said a man who fit Mr. Albright’s description traded the Escalade for another vehicle. We did due diligence, Agent Dunning. We have no authority to pursue suspects across the border. The FBI had the same information and far more resources to track criminals in Mexico, so why you’re putting all this at my feet I can only imagine is because your people dropped the ball.”
“Where’s the witness statement?” Nate asked.
“It should have been in the file. If it wasn’t, it was an honest mistake.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll find it and send it to you, though what good is it going to do three years later?”
Lucy said, “In light of the fact that the bodies were found in Kerr County, and that they have been dead for three years, we don’t think they actually went to Mexico.”
Douglas shook his head. “You’re making this far more complicated than it needs to be. My theory has always been based on the evidence we had. They left the country. Now that their bodies were found, it’s clear they returned for some unknown reason. Maybe they didn’t have all the money Denise Albright stole and needed to come back for it. Or maybe she felt guilty and wanted to make amends. Maybe they had new identities and were trying to re-assimilate. Hell if I know. But they left, I had the Border Control photo, and I had the witness.”
“The photo is bullshit,” Nate said. “That driver could have been any white male.”
Lucy jumped in before Douglas kicked them out. “If Denise wanted to make amends, who killed her? It’s a valid question. Say your theory is correct and they returned for an unknown reason, was she working with someone? That’s the only explanation. If so, they might have a reason to kill her—a partner in crime.” Killing Denise is one thing, but her children? Still, what else made sense?
“Exactly,” Douglas said, as if she had come around to his way of thinking.
Lucy had … in a sense. She just didn’t believe they’d left the country. Her partner likely took the money, killed them, and fled. Someone with the technical skill to push the three million through multiple entities until he became virtually untraceable.
“Then we need to find her partner,” Lucy said calmly. “When you investigated the original embezzlement and missing persons case, did a name come up? Someone who may have been working with her to steal the funds?”
He didn’t say anything for a second. “Well, no. She was a sole proprietor, didn’t even have a secretary. It was our impression from the beginning that she worked alone, stole the Kiefer money, and when Kiefer said he was going to audit the account she panicked and left the country. It fits the timeline to a T.”
“Then she didn’t have a business partner. So who would kill her?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” he said with a half smile.
Nate said in a low voice, “We don’t have to guess. We have to investigate.”
“You’re talking about a three-year-old case. The woman had many clients. Maybe she stole from someone else. Ask your people in the FBI, they have all her client records. Maybe one of them discovered she’d embezzled from them and killed her. They would then have no reason to come forward. Why are you giving me shit on this when your people took the case three years ago?”
Lucy said, “You are the detective of record and you talked to Denise’s friends, family, neighbors. The files were … well, incomplete.”
“Because when we learned they left the country there was no reason to continue beating a dead horse. Their credit cards didn’t pop, they didn’t call friends or family, we had no reason to believe that they’d returned.”
“So it was a closed case,” Nate said.
“Inactive,” Douglas corrected. “Now active again.” He looked at Lucy, who she figured he felt was more reasonable. “So what do you think happened to their son? His body wasn’t found with the others. Are you buying the PI’s theory that someone in the family called the grandparents in Arizona the Christmas after they disappeared?”
He certainly remembered the case—or had read up on his files when he knew they were coming in.
“This is just conjecture,” she said, “but logically, he was killed at the same time as his family but for some unknown reason was buried elsewhere. We have cadaver dogs out looking at an expanded grid. I hope we find him so we can lay him to rest with his family.”
“Me too,” the detective said, showing compassion for the first time. But was it an act? She couldn’t be sure. Maybe she’d adopted Nate’s theory that the cops were incompetent—which she fully believed—or corrupt, which she didn’t want to believe.
She didn’t like Douglas. His investigation was mediocre at best, and he was being an ass to her and Nate. She didn’t think he was guilty of anything but incompetence, except that one question seemed off. Calculated. He wanted to know what they knew about Ricky Albright.