Free Fatal Flaw by William Lashner Page A

set?”
    “I don’t know. There’s money in the account, there’s Hailey’s life insurance, there’s the house. It’s worth a mil or so.”
    “Whose house?” I said while still looking away.
    “Mine. Leila’s. Our house.”
    “That’s not your house,” I said.
    As soon as I said it, Guy understood. We sat side by side in Property Law, I cribbed off of his notes for my outline. In Pennsylvania, when any real estate is owned by a married couple, neither spouse has any individual property interest, it is owned by the couple itself, and any disposition of the property must be agreed to by both spouses.
    “Will Leila agree to put it up for bail?” asked Beth.
    “Yes, of course. To get me out of jail, of course. Let me talk to her.”
    “Do you think she’d put up your children’s house to give you a chance to run and leave them homeless?” I said without looking at him so he couldn’t see the expression twisting my features. “Do you really think her father would let her?”
    “Talk to her, Victor. You can get her to sign.”
    “I’m not that persuasive.”
    “Talk to her for me.”
    “All right.”
    “And tell her I want to see the kids. I need to see the kids.”
    Before I could respond, Beth continued. “You mentioned an account. What kind of account?”
    “A brokerage account.”
    “In whose name?”
    “In my name. And Hailey’s.”
    I turned suddenly and stared at him, his pleading eyes, his mouth, jerked now and then by a twitch that had never marred his features before his arrest. Not so handsome anymore. “How much?”
    “I don’t know exactly,” he said. “Depending on the markets, maybe half a million.”
    “Where the hell did you get half a million dollars?”
    “Hailey had a big case before we got together. Medical malpractice. The settlement was huge.”
    “If it was Hailey’s money, why was your name on the accounts?”
    “Because we were in love. We were going to be married, so we put all our money together. I added some, too. Part of it was mine.”
    I stared at him, suddenly even angrier than before, and then turned away in disgust.
    “Do you know where the account is?” said Beth.
    “Schwab. Hailey did some trading online. I let her keep track of everything. I didn’t even know the password.”
    “That’s okay, Guy. We’ll find out exactly what’s in there.” She reached into her file and pulled out a piece of paper. “We’d like you to sign this power of attorney. It will allow us to access information about your financial accounts. It doesn’t provide us the power towithdraw funds, but it will let us learn what we need to make bail or to convince the judge to set something reasonable later on.”
    I watched out of the corner of my eye as Guy reviewed the document. He had said the fee would be no problem, I wanted to make sure. I watched until he signed and handed it back to Beth, and then my disgust forced me to turn away again.
    “And you said there was insurance?” asked Beth.
    “Life insurance. I already had a policy where I switched my secondary beneficiary to her. She took a policy on herself and named me the beneficiary.”
    “Where are the policies?”
    “I don’t know. Hailey had them, maybe in her office or something.”
    “Okay,” said Beth. “We’ll find them, too. After the arraignment they’re going to take you back to the county lockup, so we won’t be able to talk right away. We’ll set something up as soon as possible. What we need to know right now is if you have any idea who might have done this, if you have any leads you think we ought to investigate?”
    I swiveled my head slowly until I was staring straight at him once again. This time he looked at me as if he were pleading for some answers. I had none, at least none he would like.
    “I don’t know,” he said. “Everyone loved her. She was great. No one wanted to hurt her.”
    “Had there been anything unusual? Did you notice anything out of the ordinary in the past