Chapter 13 - The Station Interview and the Missing Ledger
The Rapid City Police Department smelled of old coffee, floor wax, and dry paper. Detective Harris greeted me at the front desk and led me down a narrow, fluorescent-lit corridor into a small, windowless interview room. The table was made of gray laminate, scratched and scarred from years of holding suspects and witnesses alike.
"Thanks for coming in on such short notice, Mr. Miller," Detective Harris said, pulling out a plastic chair and sitting opposite me. He opened a thick manila folder labeled *State v. Miller & Courtney*.
"No problem," I said, leaning back comfortably. "How is the investigation going?"
"Better than expected," Harris admitted, a slight smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. "We seized three laptops, a commercial-grade heat-stamping machine, and over two hundred blank authentication certificates from a secondary storage unit off Park Creek Road. Your brother claims he had no idea what his wife was doing, but the financial paper trail tells a very different story. Kevin's business accounts were heavily subsidized by the proceeds from Courtney's online sales."
"Kevin always liked living above his means," I murmured, watching the detective flip through a series of printed bank statements.
"Indeed. Which brings us to the reason I asked you to come in today," Detective Harris said, looking up over the rim of his glasses. "When federal agents searched the master bedroom at your brother's house, they found a hidden safe behind a wall mirror. Inside that safe, they found bank deposit slips, overseas wire transfers, and a secondary ledger. But the first ten pages of that ledger—the ones detailing the initial suppliers and counterfeit purchases dating back three years—were missing."
I frowned, leaning forward slightly. "Missing? You think someone took them?"
"We know someone took them," Harris said bluntly. "The binding was freshly torn. Based on our timeline, someone cleared out those specific pages within twenty-four hours of the small claims court dismissal. We believe those pages contain the names of higher-level distributors—people operating outside of South Dakota."
A cold realization settled in my stomach. The night before, when my mother had shown up at my house in hysterics, she hadn't just come to beg for mercy. She had spent nearly twenty minutes sitting in my foyer, pacing back and forth, claiming she was freezing cold while waiting for me to comfort her.
*She was buying time,* I thought instantly. *Or she was casing the house to see if I had left my files out.*
"My mother," I said aloud.
Detective Harris narrowed his eyes. "What about her?"
"She came to my house last night crying about the federal raid," I explained quickly. "She was alone in my entryway for a long time. If those missing pages were in Kevin's safe, and my mother knew about them, she might have gone back to her house or a neutral location to retrieve them before the feds swept the property."
Detective Harris immediately pulled out his radio, calling for a dispatch unit to check my mother's residence on Pinecrest Drive. "Mr. Miller, if your mother is actively concealing evidence in a federal fraud investigation, she could face obstruction charges."
"I know," I said, a heavy sigh escaping my chest. "Just... give me a chance to talk to her first. Let me see if I can get her to hand them over before you send an armed tactical team to an elderly woman's doorstep."
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The detective stared at me for a long, calculating moment before tapping his pen against the table. "You have two hours, Mr. Miller. If those pages aren't on my desk by noon, we execute the search warrant."
***
