on. Luckily, he made the correct choice, stormed off and drove away with his tires squealing.
“I need to go in with her, because you know he’s going to call her. Send Trulo in when he arrives?”
“I will.”
“As soon as she’s set, I’m going home to see my wife. I’ll make up the time later.”
“Don’t worry about it. Thanks for not getting killed.”
He shot a grin over his shoulder. “I do what I can for the people.”
It was nearly three thirty by the time Sam got back to HQ, with Valerie still along for the ride. After she stashed Valerie in one of the observation rooms, she went straight to the interrogation rooms to take care of Realtor Barbie and Ken McLeod. She started with Ken, bursting into the room and taking him and his young, pale-faced attorney by surprise.
“It’s about freaking time,” Ken said. “I have rights, you know. I didn’t kill my wife, and I didn’t know about her scheme.”
“You want to know what everyone I’ve talked to, even your own children, has said about you?”
The mention of his children seemed to take some of the starch out of him. “What?”
“How could he not know?”
“I didn’t know! I had nothing to do with it!”
“Where did you think the money was coming from?”
“Ginny was a very successful businesswoman long before this. There was always money. I didn’t notice any difference.”
“You didn’t notice when millions started rolling in?”
“Ginny handled our finances. She always did.”
“You didn’t think anything of her asking everyone you knew, everyone your children knew, to invest in her latest venture?”
“I didn’t know about that either.”
“Mr. McLeod, you’ll have to pardon me for pointing out that no one is as clueless as you’re trying to make me believe you are.”
“Ginny and I did our own thing. She had her work. I had mine. We didn’t talk a lot about what we were doing. She was always into big things, working her deals, bringing people together to invest in projects, and she’d had huge successes.”
“So then why did she suddenly decide to start ripping off her family and friends?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Even after the shit hit the fan with multiple federal investigations, you never said, ‘Hey, honey, what’s up with you taking money from people we know and then ghosting them when they ask about their investments?’”
“I never called her honey.”
“You know what I’m asking. Answer the question.”
“I asked her what caused the Feds to get involved, and she said it was a misunderstanding that she was working on rectifying.”
“And that was it? You just took her word for it and went back to your clueless little world while she stashed millions of dollars that belonged to your family and friends in offshore accounts?”
“She said it was a misunderstanding, and she was working it out. What was I supposed to do? Force her to tell me every detail?”
Sam leaned in closer to him across the table. “Let me tell you what I would’ve done if I found out my husband took money from family and close personal friends and then seemingly took off with it. I’d have found the fucking money and given it back. Did you even try to find it, or try to get her to tell you where it is?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I stayed out of her business, and she stayed out of mine.”
“Even after the FBI and IRS came calling? Even then you were hands-off?”
“She told me she was handling it. What was I supposed to do?”
“Something. You were supposed to do something.”
“Is there a point to this interrogation?” the lawyer asked.
Sam wanted to throat-punch him. “The point is, Mr. McLeod, no one believes you when you said you didn’t know anything.”
“Well, too bad. That’s the truth, and I passed a polygraph. The polygraph believed me.”
“Polygraphs can be faulty. That’s why they aren’t admissible in court. You’d have to be almost willfully ignorant to what she was doing to miss what was happening in your own home. Were you purposely avoiding what she was up to so you could play dumb later?”
“I’m not playing dumb.”
“So you’re just dumb, then? Because you’d have to be to not realize she was scamming the people closest to you.” Sam picked up a printout listing the victims and their relationships to the McLeods. “Your own brother, sister-in-law, closest friends, neighbors, coworkers… What was the end game? How did Ginny plan to explain to these people what became of their investments?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where were the two of you planning to go? Because