He made his way through the rows of desks and stopped at Detective Silver’s. “Yeah, yeah, I hear you, Lieutenant. I’ll get right on that,” Silver said with the phone between his shoulder and his ear. He motioned for Garrett to sit down. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying, Lieutenant?”
Garrett took a seat in the chair next to the desk and waited as detective Silver took the tongue lashing his lieutenant was dishing out. After talking with Scott Daniels and Pascal Larrieux, he was anxious to see what information Silver had on this new identity they had uncovered for Abril Arrington.
“That one. I understand now,” Silver said into the receiver once more before slamming it back into its cradle.
“Stevenson?” Garrett asked.
“That’s Lieutenant Stevenson, and yes, that was him, and before you ask, yes, he is still an asshole. Now what can I do for you, Mason?”
“Abril Arrington.”
“She’s dead. What about her?”
“Then you don’t know. I mean, I thought you guys would have been way ahead of us on this one.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Abril Arrington was using an alias.”
“Alias? What alias?”
“She was going by the name Adina Banks.”
Silver sat back in his chair looked at Garrett and then stood up. “Let’s talk outside,” he said and headed quickly out of the building with Garrett one step behind him. Once they were outside in the parking lot, Silver stopped and leaned against a car. “Too many ears inside.”
“So I guess you knew about this?”
“Not exactly, Mason. I suspected something wasn’t quite right about her. Due to the background check I ran, I figured Abril Arrington wasn’t her real name. But the fact was she was still dead no matter who she was. Lieutenant told me to follow up on it, but I caught another case, and to be honest, I never followed up.”
“Damn, Silver, that’s fucked up,” Garrett said. He understood the pressure to clear cases, so he could understand Silver not going the extra mile on a case that he’d already closed. Garrett considered the possibility that Silver could have purposely overlooked information because it would damage his case in some way. That possibility made him optimistic that they were on th
e right track.
“I know. That’s why we’re talking out here.” Silver had known Garrett for a long time, trusted him, but he wasn’t taking the chance of anyone over hearing their conversation.
“You gotta make this right, man. I’m not gonna go into the whole, a woman’s freedom thing with you, but damn, didn’t you think that who the woman really was, was important to the case?”
“At the time, no I didn’t. Like I said, the fact that Abril Arrington wasn’t her real name didn’t change anything. The fact was she was still dead, and the Daniels woman killed her,” Silver said in his defense. “But I guess you’re here to tell me why I should have.”
“Well for starters, over the last six months Abril Arrington a.k.a. Adina Banks was involved with Daniels and at least four other guys we know of.”
“How did you get this?”
“My operative, through her own sources, was able to obtain copies of Abril Arrington's cell phone records.”
“Her own sources?”
“Naturally we’ve got a subpoena for them now.”
“Go on,” Silver said. Since this was all information that he should have known before he arrested Panthea Daniels, he would have to play catch up now. He understood that his neck was on the line. He paid close attention as Garrett told him everything that they’d learned. “Anything tie these people together?”
“The one thing they all had in common, other than Abril Arrington was money. Scott Daniels was in construction, one guy was an investment banker. She had a movie producer on the hook and a couple of local chumps. One of them operated three Subway franchises; which is why she stopped fucking with him. His money wasn’t long enough for her.”
“So you’re saying this broad was some kind of gold digger?” Silver asked, a little embarrassed that he had missed all of this.
“No, she was better than that. She set up a phony business, I say phony because she never goes to her Dunwoody office, but anyway,” Garrett continued. “She got these guys to fall in love with her, and then she would get them to invest in a fake start up business.”
“What about the husband? She scam him?”