Chapter 7 - The Evidence Strikes Back
Marcus Vance sat behind a massive mahogany desk in his downtown Des Moines office, reviewing the case files I had brought him. He was a silver-haired man in his late fifties with eyes like an eagle.
“Your uncle thinks he can intimidate you with social media noise and big-city bluster,” Vance said, closing the folder with a heavy thud. “He’s forgetting one crucial thing.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Evidence doesn't care about Facebook posts.” Vance leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “Detective Miller provided us with the digital forensics from your home. Did you know your house has a smart doorbell camera?”
I blinked. “Yes, but Josephine unplugged the main router when I left.”
“She unplugged the Wi-Fi router,” Vance smiled coldly. “But she didn't know the camera had an internal SD card recording local footage on a motion loop.”
My jaw dropped.
Vance clicked a button on his computer monitor and turned it toward me. “Take a look at this.”
The video clip was timestamped two days after I left for Omaha.
It showed my mother standing on our front porch, talking to a local notary. The audio was crystal clear.
“Just stamp the quitclaim deed,” Josephine’s voice rang out on the recording. “My son already agreed to it. His wife is inside, too sick to sign, so I’m signing on her behalf.”
“Ma’am, that’s illegal unless you have power of attorney,” the notary responded nervously.
“Listen to me,” Josephine hissed, dropping her sweet act entirely. “That little bitch isn't going to be around much longer anyway. Just stamp the damn paper, or I’ll tell your supervisor you took a bribe!”
I stared at the screen, stunned. It was a slam-dunk confession of forgery and fraud.
“That’s not all,” Vance continued, swiping to another file. “We subpoenaed the credit card statements for your mother and sister over those three days. While your wife was trapped in that room with a dehydrated baby, Melanie used Grace’s stolen credit card to spend $2,400 at high-end boutiques and spa resorts in West Des Moines.”
A vicious smile spread across my face.
May you like
“What’s our move, Mr. Vance?” I asked.
“Our move,” Vance replied, pulling out a fresh legal pad, “is to release this footage to the district attorney and file a civil lawsuit for ten million dollars for intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, and fraud. Let’s see how much your uncle likes publicity when it’s his sister facing twenty years in federal prison.”
