Travis Walker picked up the office phone and pressed the “0” key.
“Courtney honey, why don’t you go on home for the day? I’ll take it from here.”
He set the phone down, burying his hands in his face.
“Let’s start over shall we,” I said. “I’ll go first.”
I sat back down. “My name is Sloane Monroe. I am a private investigator hired to look into the murder of Charlotte Halliwell.”
His eyes widened. “Figures.”
“Now you go,” I said.
“Straight to prison.”
“What prison?”
“You’re here, which means you know already.”
I didn’t, but I was glad he thought I did.
“Why don’t you indulge me for a moment?” I said.
“You women never let up.”
“Tell me how you know Vicki.”
He scratched behind the side of his ear. “What do you want to know about first, business or personal?”
“I’ll take business for a thousand,” I said.
“About six months ago Vicki contacted me. She’d heard good things about the work I’d done in the past, and she wanted me to do a couple appraisals for her. If I did a good job, she promised to start using me on a regular basis. I did two or three jobs and they went well.”
“And then?” I said.
“She asked me on a date. Didn’t know if I had a wife, and didn’t care.”
“So you went out with her?”
“I told her I was married, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Worst mistake of my life.”
He grabbed a bottle of water off the side of his desk, twisted the cap off, and downed the entire thing in less time than it took me to put my lipstick on.
“If Vicki coerced you into doing something, maybe I can help.”
“No one can. It’s too late. I’ve lost my wife, my daughter, and my business. You don’t understand. I wanted to get out…I told her I wouldn’t do it anymore.”
“What did she say?” I said.
“She said I needed to keep my mouth shut if I didn’t want to be taken down with her. She threatened to tell my wife, but then I realized my wife already knew.”
“Mr. Walker, do you know who murdered Charlotte?”
Sweat formed in the creases of his forehead. “I don’t know. I mean, I have my suspicions, but I didn’t do it, I swear.”
On the corner of the desk was a photo in a frame. I presumed it was his family. I picked it up and looked at it for a moment. They looked so happy, like most people do when they pose for a family portrait. Smile for the camera, and we’ll all pretend not to see the cracks. I wondered about his life before Vicki entered the picture and destroyed it. I tried not to care. I knew whatever he did he brought on himself. But as I sat across from him I felt compassion, not so much for him, but for his wife and daughter.
“You have a lovely family. It’s a shame, what happened.”
I placed the framed picture in front of him on the desk. “Don’t you owe it to your family to come clean?”
He thought about it for a moment, and I let him.
“I shouldn’t have allowed it to go this far. I thought if I kept my mouth shut, this would all go away. I could have my life back, like before Vicki barged in and destroyed it. She played me, used me like some worthless piece of garbage, and all for what, so she could have a few more dollars in her hand? It makes me sick.”
“Tell me what she did, and I’ll make sure she pays for it,” I said.
“What could you do for me now?”
“Connect you to the right people. If you help me I can promise you one thing: I will make sure Vicki goes away for a long time. And I will also speak on your behalf.”
He clenched his hands together, staring down at them.
“Agreed?” I said.
He nodded.
“One night Vicki told me she had a great business proposition for me. She said if I wanted in, there would be money in it for me. She had an investor who would buy any home she offered him. All we needed to do was flip it and make a profit. I wrote the appraisals, and she took care of the rest.”
“Sounds legitimate,” I said. “I don’t see the problem.”
“The appraisals were fraudulent.”
“In what way?” I said.
“Vicki would find an investment property, usually a short sale or a foreclosed home.”
“Or someone desperate enough to sell,” I said.
He nodded.
“Vicki’s investor fronted the money, and then once she closed the deal, we waited about four months, and she relisted it.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “You relisted it for a significantly higher amount.”
“We hired someone to come in and clean, maybe slap on some paint and make a few changes, but in the listing, we fudged the truth.”
“How so?”
“Vicki had a way to make a hundred dollars of work look like several thousand.”
“When in fact, most of the changes and upgrades never took place?”
“It depended on what shape the house was in. She would hire guys on the cheap to make a few fixes to certain items that were easily noticed and then she would lie about other items that weren’t visible in a walkthrough. I chose comps in the area of higher-end homes so Vicki could market the listing at an inflated price, making the purchaser think they were getting a good deal. And because I signed off, there was never any question about the validity.”
“And the money?” I said.
“Vicki gave me a cut and kept the rest for herself.”
“Was the investor in on it too?”
“That’s the interesting part. A couple months ago, she admitted there was no investor. The money came from a trust fund she received when her parents died. She’d blown through most of it, and this scheme of hers was a way for her to maintain the lifestyle shed grown accustomed to.”
“How did she manage to pull the deal off without anyone there to sign?” I said.
“Most homes in Park City sell to people who live out of the area, so she forged the signatures, and at closing, she produced a document granting her attorney-in-fact privileges on behalf of the investor.”
“Wouldn’t the title company realize she used the same method at every closing?”
“Vicki used a different company every time, and if they ever needed to call and speak to the investor, when they dialed the number Vicki gave them, it rang through to me.”
“And Charlotte’s role in all of this?”
“She didn’t have one. Charlotte and Vicki had their own listings and only worked as a team on listings that were priced over the million-dollar mark. Vicki made sure the homes she purchased were less, so it never raised any suspicions.”
“But Charlotte found out, didn’t she?” I said.
He nodded.
For the first time in weeks, my thought process was clear. The phone call Audrey received from her sister saying she needed to talk to her about something had nothing to do with Parker and everything to do with Vicki. From what I knew about Charlotte, she would never stand by while fraud was being committed whether Vicki and she were friends or partners or not.
“I need to get something else off my chest.”
“Go on,” I said.
“Charlotte came to see me. She knew what we’d been doing and said it needed to stop. She said she wanted to give me the opportunity to turn myself in before she did it herself.”
“And did you?”
He shook his head.
“I was going to; I told Vicki I couldn’t go through with it anymore.”
“Did you tell her Charlotte had been to see you?” I said.
He lowered his head.
“You’ve got to believe me; I didn’t know anything would happen to Charlotte at the time or I never would have said a word about it.”
“When did you tell Vicki?”
Some time passed before answered. “The night before Charlotte died.”