Chapter 4 - The Financial Autopsy
The next morning, I stood in the harsh, fluorescent light of the local police precinct, laying a thick manila folder on Detective Thorne’s desk. Thorne was a no-nonsense investigator handling Elena’s assault charges.
“You need to upgrade the charges to attempted murder,” I said, sliding the VA hospital’s toxicology report across the metal desk.
Thorne read the report, his jaw tightening. “We searched your house last night after the arrest. We found three bottles of liquid benzodiazepines hidden under the sink in the master bathroom. Prescribed to Elena’s mother, Martha. They were grinding it up and slipping it into your mother’s tea.”
I closed my eyes, a cold, calculated fury taking over. “I need a forensic accountant, Thorne. If they were drugging her to fake incompetence, it was for the money.”
Over the next forty-eight hours, the military JAG office and civilian authorities tore through Elena’s financial records. The truth was worse than I could have imagined.
Elena had used my mother’s drugged, confused state to force her to sign a general Power of Attorney. With that document, Elena had liquidated my mother’s pension, drained my father’s life insurance policy, and emptied my military deployment pay accounts. She had stolen nearly $400,000 in six months.
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She used it to buy her parents a luxury RV, paid off their massive credit card debts, and purchased thousands of dollars in designer clothes—all while locking the woman who funded it in a freezing garage.
“We have the wire transfers,” Thorne told me over the phone. “We’re sending federal marshals to arrest Richard and Martha right now. They’re accessories to massive wire fraud and elder exploitation.”
