“Of course, do you think I would ever try to pull something like this off on my own?”
Something about Elena Martinez’s brazen attitude was giving Jessie pause. She didn’t give off the energy of a woman who was trying to spread the blame around for multiple brutal murders. It was almost as if she was having an entirely different conversation from the one Sam was engaged in. Jessie knew it could make things worse but she had to speak up.
“Elena, I know you’re upset with me right now, but I have to ask, without giving up names yet, what conspiracy are you specifically referencing?”
Martinez’s face had immediately turned sour when Jessie spoke, but then the expression changed to something closer to condescension. She smiled nastily before returning her attention to Sam.
“I’ll talk slow so your idiot partner can understand,” she said. “For the right price, I’m willing to give up the names of everyone who was involved in the scam.”
“The scam,” Jessie repeated, keeping the emotion out of her voice as best she could.
“Yeah,” Martinez said, now addressing her directly. “You think I could have created this entire bogus non-profit on my own? I’m just a cog, you stupid skank.”
Jessie ignored the insult, turning to Sam. He looked genuinely confounded, so she returned her attention to Martinez.
“To be clear,” she said carefully, “you ran from us because you thought we were going to pin the whole non-profit scam on you at the expense of the others involved. That’s why you climbed down the side of an apartment building?”
“Yeah,” Martinez said, now perplexed herself. “Why else?”
Jessie chose not to answer that question as she tried to wrap her head around what they were being told. When she replied, she was very careful with her words.
“I think that if you explain the scam and provide us with names, that could go a long way,” she said. “If your information helps with prosecutions of the others involved, I can assure you that we’d be willing to make a recommendation of leniency to the district attorney. But you’d need to be totally forthright. You can’t hold anything back.”
Martinez eyed her warily before looking over at Sam. “Do you both promise?”
His mouth was still open in shock about the whole scam thing but he managed to nod. Jessie spoke up instead, pointing at the mirror.
“Everything we’re saying is being recorded,” she said, “so there will be a record of our agreement.”
"All right," Martinez said, "here's the thing: the entire IILA is bogus. I mean, it's a real non-profit organization, and it does some good work, but that wasn't the original goal when it was created."
Jessie bit her tongue. This wasn’t what she was hoping for at all. If Martinez was being honest, her escape attempt was because of a con and unrelated to any murders. She still listened but on the inside, the disappointment was overwhelming.
“On the surface,” Martinez continued, “the idea was to establish a group that helped immigrant women assimilate into the Los Angeles community. But when it was created, the real plan was to target the immigrant wives of wealthy men for donations. Many leapt at the chance to give back. We did include some legitimate elements: support groups, outreach efforts, training sessions in the English language and even American culture. But all of that cost a fraction of what we were bringing in through donations.”
“How much was that?” Jessie asked.
“In the last fiscal year, IILA brought in $8 million in donations. But operating costs, including overhead for headquarters, all the programs I mentioned, and two major fundraising banquets each year, came to less than a quarter of that.”
“So you and your co-conspirators pocketed the other $6 million?” Jessie asked.
“I wish,” Martinez said. “Half of that was left in the coffers as a precaution against prying eyes. But the people in charge split most of the remaining $3 million. My take came to about $250,000. That’s why I started siphoning off other cash on the side. And it was that last bit that got me busted.”
“And yet you kept quiet?” Sam noted.
“That’s right,” she said. “For the last three months I’ve kept my mouth shut because the others—all already filthy rich—saidthey would make me whole when this all quieted down. But to date, they haven’t given me a penny and I was starting to doubt they ever would. Then you came to the apartment and I thought that not only was I not going to get paid, but I was about to be charged with a whole bunch of new stuff. So I panicked and went over the side. It wasn’t the smartest move, I admit. But I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Jessie was curious about who the others were, but that wasn’t her priority right now. She knew she was probably wasting her time, but she had to pursue the next line of questioning anyway.
“Have you watched the news lately?” she asked.
“Are you kidding?” Martinez said dismissively. “My life is depressing enough without that. I don’t need to hear my name being dragged through the mud. I do three things these days: meet with my lawyer, rock climb, and stream movies. It’s the only way to maintain my sanity.”
Sam picked up on the line of questioning, though his tone suggested he was no more hopeful than Jessie that it would bear fruit. “Do you know Maria Cain, Yuki Tanaka, or Anastasia Williamson?
“Of course,” Martinez said, her voice full of bile, “Those bitches all voted to fire me.”
“Were any of them in on the scam?” Jessie asked.
