Page 52 of Broken Wolf

“Thank you, Your Honor.” I accepted and went inside, standing until he offered me a seat.

Hell, he even offered me a bottle of water from his fridge after he took off his robes. I accepted, not seeing a reason not to.

“I want to be clear that I’m not implicating you in any way,” I said bluntly. “From everything I’ve found, you run an efficient, clean court that doesn’t allow bull. That is being used or someone else has slipped in a back door for a problem.”

“It happens,” he accepted, holding out his hand for what I had.

“Given you will probably retire in fifteen years and pride yourself on the efficiency of your court when so many are less focused, I didn’t want a case that has the potential to snowball into something massive blindside you.”

His lips twitched as he took the files. He was probably going to retire in five or less. I was being kind to say fifteen.

Hey, men didn’t like to be called on their age any more than women did. I was smart enough to know that.

He flipped through several pages and his eyes flashed shock before he went back a few pages. “I’d ask if you’re sure, but you close too many cases and have your praises sung by your superiors too often to not check your facts.”

“We’re sure,” I told him anyways. “The owner of the trailer park doesn’t exist. Social is fake. All of it is fake, so he got through a lot of everything with fake papers that shouldn’t have gotten through. Buying the trailer park. Filing deeds. Filing evictions through your court. Transferring those houses into his name—all of it through your court, and that was missed?”

“You think one of the court or county clerks,” he muttered, continuing on through the file.

“Yes, because we’ve already identified two dirty cops so one clerk is nothing. There is something more to this. DeKalb isn’t big enough to have one trailer park of fifty and this wasn’t blown up fast. This is tied into Chicago where people get lost all of the time. DeKalb is smaller but not so small where people notice everything.”

“So what do you think is happening exactly?” he hedged.

“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “We’re only a week into the investigation and I’m working backwards. Carefully. Very carefully given there are dirty cops covering reports and more. What I do know is the report I’ve gotten from one victim in that second file which makes this a much bigger case. So that’s why I’m coming to you early.”

He nodded and opened it, reading for a bit before disgust filled the entire office.

Yeah, I felt the same.

Aimee Kenney was a sweet woman who gave too much of herself to people and her own son screwed her over because of it. He was an absolute loser who thought he was better than everyone else and expected the world, wanted everything to be easy in life, and when it wasn’t, took what didn’t belong to him.

She tried her best to help him, and after his last attempt to take what didn’t belong to him, even let him move back home in his thirties to get back on his feet.

Instead, he took over her house, had her deemed mentally unfit and was named her guardian, and tossed her out to that trailer park to rot.

“This is horrible,” the judge muttered.

“Yes, but I want to know how an idiot low-level criminal who gets caught in everything he’s attempted before and barely passed high school pulled that off,” I purred. “That seems rather suspicious. We both know getting named someone’s guardian isn’t easy. She had a full-time job. She wasn’t missing payments or even missing work.

“There was no pattern of anything to show she was in cognitive decline. Fine, I could see some sort of squatter’s rights fight to get him kicked out if he wouldn’t leave, but she didn’t even get to that. He completely pulled a flawless fraud triathlon on a smart woman in her fifties with a great credit score and nice retirement savings.”

“Yes, you make a very good point there,” he muttered. “This happened too fast and seamlessly. This had a lot of moving parts, and—he had to have someone coaching him and at least a medical professional to help him.”

“At least,” I agreed. “But according to Aimee Kenney, she didn’t see anyone besides her primary care physician for her regular physicals and one extra checkup for a blood pressure scare when this all started. So how the hell did this all go down, and what happened with her insurance?”

“You have quite the puzzle to put together I’d say, Chief Thomas.”

“That I do, which is why I wanted to loop you in early,” I told him with a smirk. “I thought you’d want to know especially if you’re working with someone who’s dirty and using your efficient court and get them out.”

“That I do. That I do,” he agreed, closing the files. “Thank you. Most wouldn’t have included me, especially after how I acted. Thank you.”

I nodded and handed him over the warrants I wanted him to sign.

He did and gave me a curious look. “Not going to ask why I behaved that way?”

“I don’t care why you don’t like me, Your Honor. I know who I am and I’m proud of the person I am. I’ve come a long way, and I’ve got a lot of work to do. I know that.” I accepted the folder back from him and stared at it for a moment. “I just wished the other day that I could be healed enough to accept my husband’s love and understand how he expresses his love for me.

“So I know I’m not perfect. I know I have faults and I make mistakes. But I’m a good person, and I work harder than most everyone I’ve ever met. I care more than most.” I gave him a moment with that. “What I’m trying to say as nicely as possible is you don’t have enough standing with me, Your Honor, for me to value your opinion enough for me to care.”

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