Morales’s death put things on hold for a while.
The headlines ran that the triggerman in the Greenwich drive-by shooting had been killed. They still didn’t have a connection to DR-17, but the newspaper article found in the truck and the connection to Sunil seemed to tie it up neatly enough.
Steve Chrisafoulis was waiting for Hauck as he came in the next day. “Are we shut down?” the detective asked.
“I don’t know,” Hauck said. “Why?”
Steve tapped together another set of papers. The smile sneaking through his thick mustache suggested he’d found something important. “Just thought I’d show you how I spent the weekend, Ty…”
He followed Hauck into the office and spread out a couple of piles on the conference table across from Hauck’s desk. “This time I went after it a different way. I went back and cross-ran Sanger’s social. I figured you can get credit under any name…” He paged through the first stack. “You see this Amex file…”
“Yeah.”
“Took me all weekend to find it. The damn thing’s made out to a D. Mark Sanger. The sonovabitch had it mailed to the goddamn U.S. attorney’s office in Hartford.”
Hauck paged through the statements. There wasn’t a whole lot of activity on them.
It took maybe a second for Hauck to realize just why.
They were all gambling charges. Online poker sites. Casino cash advances. The whole credit card.
David Sanger had a life he kept secret from his wife and kids.
But that wasn’t what had begun to make Hauck’s temperature rise.
Steve drew his eye to a highlighted item. October 17. Just a few days before Sanger was killed.
A $327.61 charge from the Pequot Woods Resort and Casino.
“Turn the page,” Chrisafoulis said with a slight smile, “there’s more.”
Hauck did, flipping back through statements from September, August, and prior. There were at least eight transactions highlighted. All visits to the Pequot Woods Resort. Some even had corresponding cash advances drawn against the card. Some ran as high as $10,000. Charges for lodging, meals.
It was clear Raines had been lying.
He would have known this. Sanger’s name would have come up. His face would have been well known.
“And that’s not all.” The canny detective flipped a few pages. “I cross-checked the card against Sanger’s bank account at Bank of America that we found up in Hartford. Check it out…” He drew the tip of his pen to a charge. “You see this Amex charge for eight hundred and forty-seven dollars on April fourth?”
Hauck nodded.
“Take a look what happened April fifth. In his bank account.”
Hauck ran his eye down the column.
There was a deposit for $12,500 listed there.
“Here too,” Steve said, pointing. June 10. Sanger had withdrawn $10,000 from his account that night he visited the resort. The next day he put $22,000 back in.
“It’s a whole pattern,” Steve said. “Withdrawals one day and the next day he hits the resort. Then deposits, sometimes spread out over the next few days. We’re talking tens of thousands, Lieutenant. Lucky sonovabitch, wouldn’t you say?”
“Blessed.” Hauck glanced again over the bank statements. It was showing over $400,000. Sanger’s secret life. One he had gone to great lengths to conceal.
Sanger and Kramer clearly had something going on up there together. The two friends, who barely kept up with each other.
Both dead.
“So what’s next, Lieutenant?” Steve Chrisafoulis shut the folder and looked at him. The papers had this thing as solved.
“Maybe it’s time to try my own luck up there,” Hauck replied.