“Terry and Laurel Laws did a lot of business with us,” he said. “They have two savings accounts, two checking accounts and a first mortgage with us. They have a stock portfolio offered through this bank, two IRAs and a Keogh. They have a line of credit and two credit cards issued through us. What do you want to know?”
He gave Hood the savings and checking account balances-and Hood saw that they were all in line with the earnings of a sheriff’s deputy and a part-time equestrian center employee.
He saw, too, that the stock portfolio had been opened a year ago for fifty thousand dollars and was now worth fifty-one thousand, and that the retirement accounts had been rolled over and were in line with earnings. The line of credit was untouched and neither credit card had ever carried a balance.
“They are…I mean, he was a very scrupulous client,” said Grimm. “They watched their money closely.”
“Why two savings accounts? Why two checking accounts?”
“That’s not uncommon, Deputy Hood. Autonomy. Independence. The accounts were held jointly, so either one could get balances, make transfers, write checks.”
“Did any of those accounts apply to an investment property, or a business?”
“No. They are personal accounts.”
Hood asked for the balance on the home mortgage and Grimm clicked away on the keyboard. It took a while. When he said three hundred thousand dollars, Hood was intrigued.
“Mrs. Laws told me they bought their place for nine hundred thousand dollars,” he said. “So they came up with six hundred thousand dollars down.”
Grimm tapped again, found the loan history, and nodded. “Six hundred and fifteen thousand.”
“On a combined income of under a hundred grand a year.”
“Yes.”
“Did they close an account to get that money?”
“Not one of ours.”
“Sell a property?”
He tapped and tapped more. He apologized for the slow computer. He stared at the screen.
“Yes. Mrs. Laws sold a town home in Studio City. She realized two hundred thousand dollars from the sale, it says here on the loan apps.”
“Leaving four hundred fifteen thousand to go for the down.”
“Correct.”
“Did Terry sell a property also?”
“No. He was renting.”
Grimm frowned at the screen as if it were misleading him. “There’s a photocopy of the down payment check. It’s drawn on the Pearblossom Credit Union, and signed by Terry Laws. Maybe there was an inheritance involved, or some other instrument.”
“Is there a copy of Terry’s ten-forty with the loan application?”
“Yes. I’m sorry I can’t show it to you or divulge any information from it. Federal, you know.”
“If I were to see it, would it explain to me where he got four hundred and fifteen thousand dollars?”
“If you were to see it, it would explain nothing of the kind. But you will not see it here in my office.”
“Thank you,” said Hood.
The Pearblossom Credit Union was new, small and neat. The vice president was a slender brunette named Carla Vise. Framed pictures of a cat faced out from her desk. Through her office window Hood could see a vacant lot filled with twisted Joshua trees and Spanish dagger. Hundreds of plastic shopping bags flapped and pressed against the windward side of a chain-link fence. The day was cool and bright.
Carla offered Hood jelly beans from a plastic bowl and he took a few to be polite. She eyed him over a pair of reading glasses as he asked her what she knew about Mr. Laws’s down payment on his home. She told Hood that Terry Laws was one of her favorite customers, and that she couldn’t believe that he had been murdered, right here in Lancaster. She excused herself, then came back a moment later with a thick green file folder. She dabbed an eye with a wadded pink tissue.
“Yes, he wrote the down payment check on his personal account here,” said Carla. She opened the folder and started fanning through the pages. “High Country Escrow.”
“Do you know where he got the six hundred and fifteen thousand dollars?”
She was already nodding. “Two hundred thousand dollars is what they made when they sold Laurel’s place in Studio City. And the balance came from Mr. Laws’s trust.”
Hood’s nerves stirred. “This is the first I’ve heard about a trust.”
“Oh really? Build a Dream? He started it in the summer of 2007, a charitable trust. It raises money for Southern California children living below the poverty line. Terry raised a lot of that money from the Sheriff’s Department-rank-and-file donations. You law enforcement people are generous. I think it’s because you see so much poverty and crime. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it.”
“So you handle this trust?”
“We have the trust account. I opened it for him. And Mr. Laws transferred four hundred thousand dollars from his charitable trust to his checking account the day before he made the down payment on his home. He got a good deal on the place, I might add. I was actually the one who told him about it. We had foreclosed and we sold low, as lenders sometimes do.”
Hood was impressed that Terry Laws had raised at least four hundred grand for poor children in less than a year and a half. It was about six times his annual salary as a deputy.
“Isn’t it unusual for someone to withdraw a large amount of money from a trust, then deposit it in a personal account?”
“He drew it as salary, according to the terms of the trust.”
“He paid himself.”
“As sole trustee he could do whatever he wanted. But to be honest-yes. It was unusual. I told him it was unusual. He was sitting right there in the same chair that you are. In uniform. And he told me that he was raising money much faster than he thought he would. Most of it was done online, he said, but the deputies were also setting up tables in front of supermarkets, giving out information and taking donations. The trust was just really taking off. But he needed a home-he was throwing away his rent money. Terry said the four-hundred-plus thousand dollars wouldn’t take much time to replenish. And he said that he and Mrs. Laws had already arranged a charitable remaindered trust that would deed their home to Build a Dream upon their deaths. And of course, by then it would be many times more valuable than four hundred thousand. He was good to his word about replenishing Build a Dream. The very next week…”
She went to her computer now and tapped away at the keyboard. “Yes. He deposited $7,720 back into Build a Dream. And the week after that, another $7,200. And so on. Always a Monday, unless we were closed. The trust stood at one hundred and forty thousand dollars the day that Mr. Laws died. He made a deposit the day before.”
Hood did the math and figured the trust should have been up to $180,000. He wondered if forty of it might have found its way into the Laws’s never-ending remodel.
“Always cash?”
“Yes.”
“Did you report the deposits?”
“No, sir. The legal limit is ten thousand-we must report anything higher. Below that is perfectly legal.”
She tried to muster a frank look for Hood, but then she dropped her gaze to the desktop for a long moment. “And to be honest, yes, I wondered at the amounts, their size and frequency, and the fact that they were never over ten thousand. I wondered if something…not right was going on. But I didn’t wonder long. Terry was the law. And I very much wanted to believe in the children’s trust, established by a cop, and supported by law enforcement throughout California. When I looked at Deputy Laws, it was easy to believe. His…Well, everything about him said honesty and goodness. I saw him in the paper with the elf cap on at Christmas. And I thought, well, if he overpays himself with funds he’s raised, okay. It’s temporary. He’s earned it. He deserves a nice home and it will go into the trust someday. He’s upholding the law and bringing in money for the poor. Now he’s dead.”