Chapter 9 The Mortgage Scam

Sherry leaned over to wrap her arm around my shoulder as I cried. "How could he do this to me, Sher?"

"I don't know," she whispered, rubbing her hand up and down my back in a soothing gesture.

I heard Chris's phone ring and he cursed under his breath and stepped out of the room to answer it.He came back several minutes later, as I was drying my tears.I was so fucking tired of crying.

"That was Det. Horton. They would like permission to search David's office at your house. He's also getting a search warrant for his office at work. He said they've found more evidence and need to expand and expedite the investigation."

"What the hell does that mean? What have they found?"

"He wouldn't elaborate over the phone, and believe me, I pushed." He sighed heavily. "I did ask if you could be present at the house while it was searched, and he agreed, so that's good at least."

"Why?" I asked, not sure why my being there mattered one way or another.

"It means they don't suspect you of any wrongdoing in any of this mess, hon. Suspects aren't typically allowed inside the premises while a search is being conducted."

"So, no more side-eye or snide remarks from him about insurance payouts?" Sherry asked, clearly still salty over that particular line of questioning.

"No, my love, so you can calm down. No need to go all Mama Bear to protect Lila from the mean police detective," he said, shaking his head fondly at his wife. "So, Lila, are you OK with them searching the home office?"

"They can search whatever the hell they want at this point."

"Good, I figured that's what you would say, but I told him I would need to check with you. Let me text him and see what time he wants us there."

"Did you mention the discrepancies we found last night on the real estate bank account?" I asked him, as he was typing out his text to the detective.

He nodded and finished typing, then slid his phone in his back pocket. "I mentioned it but told him we could go over it in more detail when we meet."

I told them both about the bracelet that Vanessa had been wearing in the photo.

"Holy shit, are you kidding me?Are you sure it's the same one?" Sherry asked, horrified.

"No, but if it isn't the exact same bracelet, then he bought two identical ones to give to us," I said in disgust. "That probably makes gift giving easier, when you can buy your wife and your mistress the same damn thing, doesn't it?"

"Especially if you're using your wife's money to buy them," Sherry added with a roll of her eyes. "You drove yourself crazy looking for that thing, and he gave you such a guilt trip for losing it!"

"I know, and I think that may piss me off more than anything."

"Have you looked at all of your accounts yet?" Chris asked.

"Everything except the joint checking and savings accounts.I'm kind of afraid to, since he obviously had full access to both of those, but I guess I need to do that."I sighed, before getting up to walk into the dining room where I'd left my laptop the night before.Chris and Sherry followed me in there, and we all took our seats around the table. His phone buzzed as he sat down, and he pulled it out of his pocket.

"Horton wants us to meet him at your house at 10:00."

"That's fine.I'll check this quickly, then get ready." I tapped the screen to wake up my system, then typed in my password.

"Did David have your password?" Chris asked.

"Yeah, he did. We both used the desktop computer for our online bill paying and that sort of thing. I use the same password for my laptop and the desktop."

"Please tell me you don't use the same password for all of your banking and financial accounts," he said.

"No, they're all different for each account."

He nodded. "OK, I'm just trying to figure out how he accessed the real estate account. Do you have to log in with your password every time, or did you save it to your system?"

"I have to log in every time." I pulled up our bank's online banking portal and logged into the joint savings account first.It showed very few withdrawals, and nothing out of the ordinary jumped out at me. I did notice that I was the only one contributing to the account lately. Normally, we both put a percentage of our salaries directly into savings.

"On the desktop too?Do you ever open up the accounts from your phone, or ever use David's laptop for that?"

"I don't log in from my phone to anything except our joint checking account, and I never used David's laptop for anything since it was his work-issued one.But, I would need to double check the desktop system to make sure I'm not permanently logged in on it."

Chris shook his head. "No, we'll let Horton know and he can check it.You won't be able to touch anything that they may want to secure as evidence.You will be able to look, but not touch."

"You mentioned that they are getting a search warrant for his office at the firm.Randall didn't agree to let them search?" I asked, remembering his earlier comment.

"He may not have asked, if he's concerned that something hinky was going on there."

"Hinky? Is that a legal term, counselor?" Sherry asked with a grin.

Chris chuckled. "Yes, smartass, as a matter-of-fact 'hinky' is a universally accepted term in the legal community."

I smiled at their snarky banter as I switched over to the joint checking account. There was a lot of activity there, as expected, since it was used for our daily living expenses. It would take forever to go through each one, and I sighed. I decided to set a transaction search parameter of $2.000.00 minimum to see what popped up. There were a lot, going back over two years.

"I think I'm just going to meet with my accountant on this one.There's no way I will be able to verify all of these transactions.Who knows how long it's been going on?"

"Have you heard anything back from anyone regarding the audits?" Sherry asked.

"No, but I haven't checked my email since I first got up. I'd better do that, then get changed to meet Detective Horton." I pulled up my email account and saw an email from Melissa which had come in about ten minutes earlier.

"Lila,

I checked on all of the properties in the LLC portfolio, as well as the condo as we discussed. You didn't specify them but given your concerns, I took the liberty of also checking on your house here and the villa in Maui.

The deeds are all in place for the LLC properties, and there are no loans aside from the original mortgages you took out when you purchased the apartment building and the two office buildings.The rental houses have no mortgage since you purchased them outright.

The condo, your house here and the Maui villa all have mortgages in place under both of your names. It looks like all three properties were mortgaged for 80% of their total value. The condo was mortgaged for $592,000 shortly after the deed was transferred in July, and the house was mortgaged back in January for $1.6 million. The mortgage for the Maui property was $1.2 million. It was taken out three years ago, shortly after your mother transferred the deed to you both. The mortgage payments for all three are current are current, as are the property taxes. The mortgage documents are attached in case you need them for your records.

I am concerned after our phone call yesterday, so if any of this conflicts with the information that you have, please call me right away. I'll be out of the office this afternoon, but you have my cell number if you need to reach me.

Take care,

Melissa"

The rage that swept through me was overwhelming. "That fucking rat-bastard!" I snarled, turning my laptop toward Chris. "He took out mortgages on our house and the goddamned condo, plus my mom's villa in Maui that she signed over to us as a wedding gift. Almost $3.4 million in loans!"

I stood up and started pacing the room as Chris read Melissa's email. After he finished cursing my late husband, he had me forward the email to him so that he could send it to Det. Horton.

Sherry spoke up, after sitting in stunned silence during my tirade. "So let me get this straight. You both jointly owned your house and the place in Maui, plus the condo since he pulled some kind of scam to get his name on that deed. All three properties were owned free and clear, then he managed to take out mortgages for over three million dollars"

"Yeah, that pretty much sums it up," I said bitterly.

"And that doesn't even take into consideration the discrepancies in the real estate bank account, or anything from their joint checking account," Chris added with a disgusted shake of his head.

"I don't understand how he managed to do all of that. I mean, I would think banks would be pretty damned thorough about approving mortgages - especially for those amounts - so how did he manage to scam them three different times ?" She asked incredulously, her voice rising to a higher pitch with each word until she was almost screeching.

Chris looked at me with a dawning realization in his eyes, before turning to look at his wife. "Scott is a mortgage broker," he reminded her. "I'm guessing that's what the payoff was for."