He’s back for more $
Allison (8:47 p.m.)
Marlow Luckett?? No Fin! 25K was plenty
Finley (8:48 p.m.)
Don’t worry it’s coming out of my half not yours
Allison (8:49 p.m.)
That’s not the point. I don’t care about money. If you keep paying he will NEVER stop. Go to police
Finley (8:50 p.m.)
LOL if I go to cops he shows them the proof
Allison (8:51 p.m.)
What proof? You took his phone. He’s bluffing.
Finley (8:51 p.m.)
He said it’s on his cloud and if he’s not bluffing then I’m fucked not worth the risk
Allison (8:52 p.m.)
Bluff or not this has to stop. If he goes to police I will defend you. You were acting in self-defense.
Finley (8:53 p.m.)
Easy to say from the cheap seats! You won’t be the one going to prison I’ll figure something out
Finley (11:11 p.m.)
I’m truly sorry for all the pain I caused you. I love you and Grayson more than anything.
Bruce looks up from the page. “Wow. So Finley met with Marlow that night.”
“He sure did,” says Louise. “Cutty, you did the license plate cameras.”
“Sure.” Cutty looks over his notes. “Finley Brice’s car left the underground garage at 432 East Erie at 10:37 p.m. We get about a dozen hits on his license plate, tracking him from downtown Chicago along the interstate to Austin, where he gets off and heads south, turns on Roosevelt into Cicero.”
“His cell phone tracks the same route,” Louise adds. “He drove straight from the condo to Marlow Luckett’s house. We think he got there about ten minutes after eleven. That’s when he sent that last text message to Allison, kind of a goodbye of sorts, like he had some inkling of trouble coming his way. ‘Sorry for the pain I caused you, I love you guys.’ ”
“And he stayed there, best estimate, about twenty-five minutes,” says Cutty. “We think that’s when he handed off the money.”
“Okay,” says Bruce. “That’s the fancy bag full of money you found in the woodpile behind his house.”
“Exactly,” says Cutty. “That’s Finley’s bag. He bought it at Neiman Marcus on Michigan Avenue a week earlier. The damn thing cost four hundred and fifty dollars. Can you imagine? For a gym bag?”
“Anyway,” says Louise. “He hands off the money, and Marlow guts him. Maybe there was an argument first, or Finley said this is the last time or something. Probably a struggle. But that’s where Finley met his maker.”
“No murder weapon?”
“No murder weapon. Not entirely sure of the exact crime scene, even. Doesn’t look like it was inside the house. Maybe the backyard?”
“We think the fight happened while the money was being exchanged,” says Cutty. “There was a decent amount of blood spatter inside the leather bag.”
