Love You More (Tessa Leoni, #1)(71)

“Setting up her new life,” D.D. said immediately. “If she ends up under investigation for killing her husband, joint assets might be frozen. So she got out the big money first, squirreled it away. Now, how much do you want to bet that if we find that fifty grand, there will be another quarter million sitting with it?”

Phil was intrigued, so Bobby related the state police’s current investigation into embezzled funds. Best lead—the account had been closed out by a female wearing a red baseball cap and dark sunglasses.

“They needed the money,” Phil stated. “Did a little more digging, and while Brian Darby and Tessa Leoni look good on paper, you won’t believe the credit card debt six-year-old Sophie has run up.”

“What?” D.D. asked.

“Exactly. It would appear Brian Darby opened half a dozen credit cards in Sophie’s name, using a separate PO box. I found over forty-two grand in consumer debt, run up over the past nine months. Some evidence of lump sum payments, but inevitably followed by significant cash advances, most of which were at Foxwoods.”

“So Brian Darby does have a gambling problem. Putz.”

Phil grinned. “Just to amuse myself, I correlated the dates of the cash advances with Brian’s work schedule, and sure enough, Sophie only withdrew large sums of money when Brian was in port. So yeah, I’m guessing Brian Darby was gambling away his stepdaughter’s future.”

“Last transaction?” Bobby asked.

“Six days ago. He made a payment before that—maybe the first time the fifty grand was taken out of savings. He paid off the credit cards, then he returned to the tables and either won big, or borrowed big, because he was able to replace the entire fifty grand to savings in six days. Wait a minute …” Phil frowned.

“No,” the detective corrected himself. “He borrowed big, because the latest credit card statements show significant cash advances, meaning in the past six days, Brian went deeper into debt, yet was able to replace fifty grand to his savings. Gotta be he took out a personal loan. Maybe to cover his tracks with his wife.”

Bobby looked at D.D. “You know, if Darby was into it big with loan sharks, it’s possible an enforcer might have been sent to the house.”

D.D. shrugged. She filled the taskforce in on Trooper Lyons’s revised statement—that Tessa Leoni had called him Sunday morning, claiming a mysterious hit man had kidnapped her child and killed her husband. She was to take the blame in order to get her child back. Shane Lyons had then agreed to assist her efforts by beating her to a pulp.

When she finished, most of her fellow investigators wore similar frowns.

“Wait a minute,” Neil spoke up. “She called Lyons on Sunday? But Brian was dead at least twenty-four hours before then.”

“Something she neglected to tell him, and yet more evidence she’s a compulsive liar.”

“I traced Darby’s Friday night call,” Detective Jake Owens spoke up. “Unfortunately, it went to a prepaid cellphone. No way to determine the caller, though a prepaid cellphone suggests someone who doesn’t want his calls monitored—such as a loan shark.”

“And it turns out Brian suffered two recent ‘accidents,’ ” Neil offered. “In August, he received treatment for multiple contusions to his face, which he attributed to a hiking mishap. Let’s see …” Neil flipped through his notes. “Worked with Phil on this one—yep, Brian shipped out September through October. Returned November three and November sixteen was in the ER again, this time with cracked ribs, which he said he received after falling from a ladder while patching a leak on his roof.”

“For the record,” Phil spoke up, “Sophie Leoni’s credit cards were all maxed out in November, meaning if Brian had accrued debt, he couldn’t use her lines of credit to pay it off.”

“Any withdrawals from the personal accounts?” D.D. asked.

“I found a major one in July—forty-two grand. But that money was replaced right before Brian shipped out in September, and after that, I don’t see any more significant lump sum transactions until the past two weeks.”

“The intervention,” Bobby commented. “Six months ago, Tessa and Shane confronted Brian about his gambling, which Tessa had figured out due to the sudden loss of thirty grand. He replaced the money—”

“Winning big, or borrowing large?” D.D. muttered.

Bobby shrugged. “Then he moved his habit underground, using a bunch of phony credit cards, with the statements mailed to a separate PO box, so Tessa would never see them. Until two weeks ago, when apparently Brian Darby fell off the wagon, this time withdrawing fifty grand. Which maybe Tessa found out about, which would explain its rapid replacement six days later.”

“And why she might have withdrawn it Saturday morning,” Phil pointed out. “Forget starting a new life; seems to me Tessa Leoni was working pretty hard to save the old one.”

“All the more reason to kill her spouse,” D.D. declared. She moved to the whiteboard. “All right. Who thinks Brian Darby had a gambling problem?”

Her entire taskforce raised their hands. She agreed, added the detail to their murder board.

“Okay. Brian Darby gambled. Apparently, not successfully. He was in deep enough to run up debt, commit credit card fraud, and perhaps receive some poundings from the local goons. Then what?”