Chapter 9: The Fall
The DA's office opened a formal inquiry six weeks later.
Claire Odom flew in from Portland on a Tuesday.
She was thirty-four, with steady hands and a way of speaking that made it clear she had rehearsed none of it — she simply remembered everything exactly as it had happened.
She sat across from the investigator and described the LLC structure, the property transfer, the document she had signed without understanding paragraph nine, and the visit from Lorraine Mercer three days after she had first consulted an attorney.
"She told me my employer would receive an anonymous tip about a discrepancy in a client account I'd managed," Claire said.
"There was no discrepancy.
But an investigation, even a false one, would have ended my career."
"And you believed she would follow through?" the investigator asked.
"She said it the way people say things when they've done them before," Claire said.
The third woman's name was Diane Forsythe.
She had been twenty-six when it happened, five years earlier.
She had signed three documents and lost a property in Asheville.
She had not consulted an attorney because Lorraine had arrived before she thought to.
She provided a written statement.
She did not want to appear in person.
Rebecca filed it anyway.
Richard Hale's attorney contacted Rebecca's office on the same day Claire's testimony was recorded.
Hale was willing to cooperate.
He confirmed the LLC structure had been used in all three cases.
He confirmed the supplemental agreement was designed to be invisible to a non-attorney reading the documents quickly.
He confirmed Lorraine had directed the strategy and that Owen had been a willing participant in Mara's case and aware in Claire's.
In exchange for cooperation, Hale's attorney was asking for reduced exposure.
"He's giving them Owen and Lorraine," Rebecca told me.
"Will the DA take it?"
"They already have.
Hale's deal was signed this morning."
Owen was charged on a Friday.
Fraud.
Conspiracy to commit fraud.
The charges named all three women.
I read the filing on my laptop at my kitchen table — my own kitchen table, in my own apartment, the one I had moved back into two months earlier.
My client drawings were spread across one end.
A half-finished cup of tea sat near my elbow.
Patterson called Rebecca that afternoon.
"His client would like to speak with Mara directly," Patterson said.
"He believes a personal conversation might—"
"No," Rebecca said.
"He feels there are things he'd like her to understand—"
"She understands everything she needs to," Rebecca said.
"If he has something to say, he can say it in court."
Lorraine was charged the following Monday.
Conspiracy.
Witness intimidation — the call to Claire's employer had been traced.
The intimidation charge carried more weight than the fraud.
Her attorney released a statement saying she intended to fight every charge vigorously.
Marcus sent me a text that afternoon.
*Just saw the news.
How are you?*
I thought about it for a moment.
*Tired*, I wrote back.
*But okay.*
*For what it's worth*, he wrote, *I think Claire feels the same way.
She texted me this morning.
She said she finally feels like it's over.*
I set the phone down.
May you like
Outside my window, the city was doing what it always did — moving, indifferent, continuous.
I picked up my pencil and went back to my client drawings.
