Detective Carl Chavez was of average build, in his late forties, with dark hair just beginning to both gray and recede.
He was clearly unhappy that the FBI had taken lead on the Albright case. He slapped a folder in front of them. “There’s everything we have.”
Lucy glanced around at the uniformed officers all watching the exchange. The hostility was palpable, and Nate—who already looked and walked like the soldier he’d been—looked ready to pounce.
“Is there a place we can talk in private?” she asked.
“I really don’t know what I can tell you that’s not in the files.”
“Is Detective Douglas here?”
He shook his head. “He had a case he couldn’t drop.”
Nate spoke up for the first time. “When will he be back?”
“Don’t know. It’s an important case, this is three years old—what’s another day or two?”
“We have some questions about the case file,” she said. “You were involved in the investigation three years ago, correct? Your name is on several of the reports.”
“Yeah— It was Garrett’s case, but I assisted.”
When he realized that Lucy wasn’t going to budge on the conversation, he motioned for them to follow him down the hall and to a small conference room. He sat down, leaned back in the chair. “What can I help you with?”
Lucy sat across from him; Nate continued to stand. She could feel the anger rolling off him, but if Chavez sensed it, he didn’t react.
“Is this all you have?”
“Everything’s there. We sent your people what we had at the time.”
“I was hoping in your follow-up that you might have additional information.”
“Once we learned the Albrights went to Mexico, we moved it to inactive. And since it was a federal embezzlement case, it really wasn’t on our radar.”
Chavez was very relaxed. Maybe it was the town—small county, not a lot of crime. They averaged less than one murder a year, maybe they just didn’t know how to proceed with such violent deaths.
Lucy asked, “Can you walk us through the time frame? From when you were called in, who you talked to?”
He motioned to the files. “It’s all in there.”
“I read the files.”
“So I don’t see what the problem is. What else do you want to know?”
“The report says the first call was from the high school principal—Glen and his daughters didn’t show up at school. Was that when you caught the case?”
He nodded, rocked back and forth on the two back legs of the chair. “We went to the house on a welfare check late Monday morning, September 24. Determined that the Escalade, registered to Denise Albright, was gone. The cars registered to the husband and the daughter were both there. No one was home, house locked tight. No neighbors close by—the house is in the middle of a couple of acres. We talked to one neighbor that was listed as an emergency contact for the kids at school, a young couple with a baby, but they hadn’t seen the Albrights on Friday or over the weekend. Didn’t find it odd, because like I said, the houses are remote.”
Lucy was skimming the reports as Chavez spoke. Most of it she’d seen before, in the copy sent to the FBI. She didn’t see how they made a leap from seeing the Albrights were not home to checking the border and was about to ask, but Chavez continued.
“We went to Mrs. Albright’s employer next,” he said. “They were very concerned because she was supposed to be in a meeting Monday and hadn’t called in. So we put a BOLO out for the Escalade and the family—we initially thought they’d been in an accident, maybe went away for the weekend and got into trouble. Something like that. Talked to Mr. Albright’s sister in Dallas, she was worried because she’d tried to call on Sunday and he didn’t answer or return her call, which according to her was unlike him. She said she’d call around to friends and other family members. But it wasn’t until Wednesday—maybe Thursday—when Mrs. Albright’s employer came to us and accused her of stealing over three million dollars from a trust: money for a federal project.”
“And you then notified the FBI.”
“Not right away. First we searched their house—they hadn’t been seen in five or six days, we had cause. Saw evidence that they’d left in a hurry. Worked with the DA, he contacted the US Attorney, and I guess it was then that someone in the FBI got involved; I wasn’t really involved since Garrett was the lead detective. At that point, once we got the surveillance photos from Border Control, we figured they’d left the country with the money.” He shrugged. “Like I said, it wasn’t really our case anymore.”
“Where’s the report from Border Control?” Nate asked.
“In there.”
It took Lucy several minutes to find it because the file wasn’t well organized. She stared at it, then handed it to Nate. It was clearly the Albrights’ vehicle—the license plate was scanned and printed on the photo—but there was no clear shot of the driver or passenger. There appeared to be four people in the car, but they were indistinct. “In hindsight,” she asked, “what do you think happened?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Obviously they came back to the States. Maybe ran out of money or had a guilty conscience, don’t know.”
Don’t care, either, do you, Detective?
“You can’t tell if the driver is Glen Albright,” Nate said, slapping the photo back down on the table. “This is a copy, not the original.”
Chavez finally took note of Nate’s thinly controlled anger and straightened his chair—and his spine. “That’s what they sent us.”
“They didn’t send you a digital copy?”
“I don’t know, this is the image in the file.”
“But Detective Douglas would know,” Nate snapped.
“Yes, he would.”
It was really frustrating not to have Douglas here, when Chavez clearly didn’t have much information about the case and didn’t seem inclined to help.
Lucy spoke before Nate said something that would get them kicked out of the headquarters. “Would you please ask Detective Douglas to email me all the digital files and photos? We can have our crime lab enhance them.” If there was enough data to enhance.
“Not a problem. If that’s it?”
“One more thing—you interviewed the Young family. Why?”
“The youngest Albright kid was friends with the Young kid. When we started looking for the family, before we knew they’d fled the country, we learned that Ricky Albright went home on Friday with Joe Young and his sister. We thought the family might know where they were going, if Ricky said anything to them about a camping trip or vacation or whatever. He didn’t.”
Lucy tapped the report. “He left the Young house at about six o’clock Friday night, according to Mrs. Young. How far is it from the Albrights’?”
“He left on his bike. Probably ten, fifteen minutes.”
“But the Border Control time stamp is nine thirteen p.m.,” Nate said. “Even driving like a bat out of hell, you can’t get to Brownsville in three hours.”
Chavez shrugged, which irritated Lucy, and Nate was on the verge of losing all semblance of diplomacy. “He could have left earlier,” Chavez said. “If he left closer to five thirty, for example, and the family was waiting for him, they could easily get there. Like I said, they left in a hurry.”
Maybe, Lucy thought. Maybe. But it seemed off. She made a note to talk to the Youngs.
“Where are the photos of the house?” Lucy asked.
“They should be in there.”
“They’re not.”
“You sure?”
Lucy didn’t respond to the question. “Have Detective Douglas send me all crime scene photos from the Albright property, as well as any other digital photos he might have.”
“Sure. You know, you should talk to the owner of the construction company. Henry Kiefer. His contact information is right there on the inside of the first folder. He’s bitter and angry about the whole thing, but sharp as a tack. Figured out exactly how she’d stolen the money, but he lost everything in the process.”
Which could be motive for murder.
“We will,” she said. “When will Detective Douglas be back?”
“Whenever he’s done with his case. Look, I have work to do. We might not be as busy as San Antonio or the FBI, but we don’t have the resources that y’all do, so I do double duty here. So if that’s it?”
“For now.” Lucy gathered up the file and walked out.
Carl Chavez followed the feds to the door. There was no reason Kerr couldn’t run with this case, and he was not going to just roll over and let them do whatever the hell they wanted.
Garrett walked in a minute later. “Those the two feds?”
“Yep. Pricks.”
“Even the looker?”
“Ball-breaker,” Carl said.
Garrett shook his head. “I tried to get back in time.”
“I told them you had an important case, but what do they care?”
“So they’re really taking it over.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know that they’re going to learn anything we didn’t.”
“They have the bodies. Forensics.”
“Skeletons. I left a copy of the forensics report on your desk, there’s nothing there. They just want to flex their muscle and pretend they know more than we do.”
“Not going to go over well here. It would have benefited them to let us handle it.” Garrett walked over to his desk. Carl followed him, sat down, and looked at his partner while Garrett glanced at the forensics report. “So what did they say they’re going to do?”
“Not in so many words, but it looks like they’re going to retrace our steps. Do everything we did—and learn everything we learned.”
“Fucking waste of time.”
“Their time to waste.”
“Still … the family has been dead for three years. Except for the kid.”
“Kid’s probably dead, too. They just haven’t found his body.”
Garrett frowned.
“Call them,” Carl said. “They want to talk to you anyway. Said the file is incomplete or some such thing.”
“Pricks,” Garrett mumbled. “They can stew for today, I’ll call them in the morning. It’s not like I don’t have a hundred other things to do more important than jumping through federal hoops.”
“Don’t I know it,” Carl said. “I have to go follow up on that robbery at the school. Back in a few.”
On the way to Henry Kiefer’s business, Lucy fielded an irate call from Ash.
“The fucking sheriff’s office never called the family!”
Lucy had never, in the two years she’d known Ash, heard him swear.
“When we were done at the gravesite, I called Denise Albright’s parents because they’ve been paying the mortgage. They co-signed for the family twenty years ago and were still on the deed. I just talked to them as if they knew what was going on … and they didn’t. No one called them. I feel like shit.”
“I’m so sorry, Ash. If I’d known, I would have called—”
“The sheriff’s department promised me they were on top of it. Hours ago. This is what happens when you have a multi-jurisdictional clusterfuck.”
“How did they take it?”
“I didn’t tell them. The ME’s office is going to call them—probably talking to them now. I backtracked, said we had a lead and were investigating the family’s disappearance and wanted access to the grounds. They were more than happy, said we could go in the house as well, that they’ll call the tenants.”
“They’re renting out the place?”
“Yeah, though I doubt there’s any need to go inside. All the belongings are in storage. Personal property paid for by the family, Kerr County has papers, books, computers, that stuff, in their evidence locker. But here’s the thing: The parents—Betty and Martin Graham—said they never believed that their daughter fled the country.”
“Parents sometimes have a hard time believing ill of their children.”
“They didn’t comment on the embezzlement charges, just that they wouldn’t have taken their kids to Mexico. None of them spoke Spanish. They don’t have property or friends who live down there, and they never even vacationed there. The only reason they had passports is because they went to England for a cousin’s wedding a couple years before they disappeared.”
“And now that we know they are buried close to home, you think they never left at all.” Like Nate, Lucy thought.
“It makes no sense that they’d leave and return a week or two later.”
“Unless they left, felt guilty, and returned so Denise could turn herself in. But someone stopped her. A partner, maybe.”
“Yeah, that’s definitely possible, you’re a good cop, you’ll find the truth,” Ash said. “Anyway, the detective here told me he would call the parents, and he didn’t, and I’m frickin’ mad about it. These folks are incompetent. They saw only what they were supposed to see and nothing more. They were manipulated by the killer, and finding justice for this family is going to be an uphill battle three years later. I gotta go, unless you need something?”
“No. Call if you find anything.”
She ended the call.
“He’s heated,” Nate said.
“He’s taking it personally.” She’d reach out to him after work, listen to his frustrations. She understood how he felt—she often took cases personally. Sometimes, she couldn’t avoid it. But she recognized that the more personal, the more likely one could make mistakes—that tunnel vision could cloud judgment or how one viewed evidence.
Nate continued, “While you were talking to Ash, I tracked down Henry Kiefer. He’s now the general manager for a quarry in Bandera. Used to run a multi-million-dollar construction company, now makes mid–five figures working for someone else.”
“Because of the embezzlement?”
“I skimmed a couple news articles, but I don’t think they explain the whole picture. In essence, he took a contract from the federal government for a major public works project. He’d already ordered supplies and paid for permits and fees and a bunch of stuff, hired additional staff, and started work. When the bills came due, there was no money to pay for them—I don’t know if that was why he hired the auditor, or if that was just standard practice and it spooked Albright.”
“And he kills her whole family?”
“Don’t know, but we’ve both seen worse.”
Nate was right about that.
They decided not to call ahead. While on the surface it didn’t seem plausible that Kiefer would kill an entire family out of rage over stolen money—and not get the money back—they couldn’t discount that he might be violent. It was sometimes better to get a first reaction.
It was less than thirty minutes to Henry Kiefer’s workplace. They arrived just after eleven that morning and showed their badges. Kiefer was out in the quarry, and it took a good ten minutes before he arrived in the crowded, but functional, office.
“FBI?” he said, and shook their hands. “Henry Kiefer. What can I do for you?”
“Is there a place we can sit and talk?” Lucy asked.
He glanced around. “I have a desk in that room, but it’s tight. This would be better.” He leaned against a table piled high with papers, then he suddenly stood straight, his face ashen. “Did something happen to my girl?”
“No, sir,” Nate said. He nodded toward a family photo on the wall with Kiefer and a young woman in a Marine uniform. “Your daughter is a Marine?”
“Yes, twelve years now, went through ROTC at Texas Tech with a double major in computer science and mathematics. She’s a smart girl, now a major. Major Paulina Kiefer. I didn’t think when they said FBI—”
“We’re not here about your daughter, I’m sure she’s fine,” Nate said. “Is she deployed?”
“She’s not in the country, that’s all I know. She doesn’t tell me where she goes. She tells me she can’t, so sometimes I worry. She sends emails every week, but doesn’t talk about her job. All I know is that she uses her degree, so I figure something like computer maintenance or maybe coding, something along those lines. At least, thinking that way makes me more comfortable.” He smiled nervously.
“We’re here about Denise Albright,” Lucy said.
He blinked, then frowned. “You found her. It’s about time.”
“We found her remains. She and her family were killed three years ago—at about the same time that she was suspected of leaving the country.”
He stared at her as if he didn’t believe her.
“She’s dead? Glen? Her kids?”
“You may have heard about the bones uncovered after the flood. Yesterday we learned that they belong to the Albright family. They were murdered and buried in a remote area of Kerr County, near the Kendall County line. They may have been there since the day they disappeared.”
Lucy was watching Kiefer closely—she didn’t know what to expect from his reaction, but he seemed mostly confused.
“You’re telling me that Denise has been dead for three years.”
“Yes.”
“And her family.”
Lucy nodded. She kept the information about Ricky Albright to herself, mostly to see how he would react.
“But how?”
“They were killed late September three years ago. We’re scrambling now that we have the bodies identified, and unfortunately, we don’t know much about the missing money or how you came to accuse Albright of embezzling funds.”
Kiefer took a moment to regroup. “I—well, I went over this with the DA here in Kerr County, and again with the FBI a month or two later. I never imagined that Denise would have stolen from me. That week, I told her that I was bringing in an outside auditor. It’s not unheard of, and I do it every couple of years. With all the tax regulations changing constantly, I wanted to make sure everything was accounted for, especially since this was such a big federal project. Well, big for me. The new contract we’d received—it was one of the largest we’d had, and it would have brought hundreds of jobs to the area. Not just my company, but supporting companies, small businesses in the area. The three million she stole was only the initial funding—it would have been a thirty-five-million-dollar project for us.”
“So her work had been audited before.”
“Yes—at least twice since she’s been working for me. So when she didn’t show up to the meeting with the auditor on Monday, I thought she’d forgotten. He went to her office and grabbed the files—they were right where they were supposed to be.”
“When did she leave Friday?”
“She didn’t work in my office full-time, and I don’t think she was in at all on Friday. She was a CPA, had several clients. She worked out of her house to keep expenses down, though she had a small office with me because she spent so much time on my books and it was convenient for both of us. She was there at least one day a week, but because of this project she’d been spending more time in the office.”
News to Lucy. Why hadn’t Chavez given them that information? Why wasn’t it in the files she had?
“I tried calling her that morning, she didn’t answer, didn’t return my calls. I didn’t really think much about it until Wednesday morning—I think it was Wednesday—when the independent auditor said that the trust account was empty.”
“How did you come to suspect that Denise took the funds?”
“I—well, she was the only one with access to the trust account other than me. It was wired to another account in her name, and then wired to another account in a business name, and then wired to another account and closed. The FBI said they haven’t been able to trace it since. But it was her log-in and password. And she changed the protocols with the bank so there didn’t need to be a dual signature—the bank said that I signed off on it, but I didn’t. Either she tricked me and said I was signing something different than I was, or she forged my signature. I don’t see how else she could have done it.”
He paced the small, crowded trailer. “I lost everything. I couldn’t keep staff, I couldn’t fulfill my obligations to the federal government—it was a federal contract. I was lucky that the AUSA and the FBI agent who worked the case were able to prove I didn’t steal the money, otherwise I would have lost more than my business. I used my own money to pay off my creditors. That meant I had to shut down. But I shut down without debt. Still lost everything.”
He sounded bitter and angry, but then he looked at the picture of his daughter and his expression softened. “I knew Denise for years—I just can’t picture this…” He cleared his throat. “So what happened? I don’t understand why she was killed. Was she killed for the money?”
“We don’t know yet,” Lucy said. “We just got this case this morning when the bodies were identified. I want to go back to something you said—I was under the impression that Denise Albright was your employee.”
“No. She worked for me, yes, but I was one of at least a dozen clients. Mostly small to medium-sized businesses, it was her specialty. She worked for me for eight years—eight years! I trusted her. And then this. I’d wanted to leave a legacy, a solid business for my grandchildren. Now, I’ll be working here until I retire because I don’t have the heart or energy to start another business from scratch, not now. I’m not complaining—I have a job, a good job. Good, honest work. But it’s not my company, my people. And I’ll never forgive her for stealing that from me. My reputation and my legacy mean more to me than the money.”