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“Special Agent Michael Harris, FBI,” Michael said.
“FBI,” Will repeated. “Well, Kara, I was surprised to get your call. I meant to call you, but—”
She interrupted. “You’re avoiding me, and I don’t know why. But two things you need to know. First, Craig Dyson is dead.”
“I heard. It’s awful.”
“Yeah. I was there.”
Will reached out, his hesitation gone. “Oh, God, Kara, I’m so sorry.”
“Which brings me to the second thing. Craig’s dying words. He told me to find Violet.” Not in so many words, but Kara was clear on the meaning. “Then he said to talk to you. Why?”
Kara watched Will. He seemed confused, but she wasn’t positive he wasn’t acting. Then, he paled, as if just now realizing the scope of the situation. “I don’t know—”
“Yes you do,” Kara cut him off. “You know damn well what’s going on. And I think it has to do with Violet Halliday.”
“How do you know Violet?” he asked. Stalling.
“Craig wanted me to meet her because of something about my investigation into Chen and information she had. He said she was a whistleblower. I was irritated because I sensed that Craig was going to cut a deal with Chen. I remembered the name, and that she was bringing him a file but was locked out because of the shooting. Then, I heard from LAPD that she’s a person of interest.”
“She did not—” He abruptly stopped talking.
“You know what’s going on and it revolves around this girl. Who is she, what does she know, did she kill Chen and why?”
“She didn’t kill Chen. Dammit.” He looked around, then said, “This isn’t a good place to talk. People are watching me because they think I’ll lead them to Violet. I don’t know where she is. I wish I did. She’s in danger, but I don’t know what information she had for Craig. I told her to be careful. Look, I have people I trust searching for her, and when I find her, I’ll call you.”
She didn’t know if what he said was the truth or mostly lies.
“The police are looking for her,” she said.
“You can’t trust anyone. There’s so much money involved, I don’t know who’s dirty or who’s clean.”
“Money involved in what?” Michael asked.
“What did Craig tell you?”
“You’re hedging,” Michael said.
“Because I don’t know you,” Will said, defiant.
“You know me,” Kara said. “Colton was my partner and your friend. If anything, you should come clean because of that.”
He stared at her oddly. His mouth opened, closed. Then he nodded. “Yeah. You’re right.”
She waited, and Will finally started talking.
“Craig was about to impanel a grand jury to look into how the city and county allocates housing grants for the homeless,” he said. “I have been fighting the city for years and getting nowhere, but after you took down Chen, some new information came to light about how grant money is distributed and spent. The volume of corruption—the nonprofits within nonprofits with everyone getting a cut until less than 10 percent gets to the people who need it. We are talking billions—with a B. Billions of dollars.
“The thing is—nothing about the structure is illegal. It’s immoral and unethical, but the way the grants are written, there’s nothing illegal about it. I’ve tried to get the media to expose the waste, but they’re not interested. Craig found something to hang his hat on—employee economic interest reporting violations. He was going to use that to segue into a larger investigation into how the grant money is spent under an old public fraud law he uncovered that has rarely been used. If he could prove that money was steered to the friends and family of those making financial decisions, then he had a case to open a full audit. But he needed the grand jury to do it.”
Kara’s head was spinning. “So you think that someone killed Craig because he was going to impanel a grand jury that may have issued an indictment against some politician?”
“More than one,” he said. “And some of these people had ties to Chen, a known human trafficker. Some of these politicians profited from Chen’s business.”
“Are you suggesting that someone killed Craig to protect a damn politician?”
Will nodded. “And Chen.”
