A Two Thousand Dollar Nebraska Land Purchase Leads to a Federal Fraud Case

“This is a bank draft for Katie’s fall semester,” he said, pointing to a cashier’s check for nine thousand dollars. “It is fully cleared. All you have to do is sign the standard release form underneath it.” I pulled my hands back, my fingers brushing against my silver belt buckle. I did not touch the…

At two o’clock, I sat in the high-backed chair in Frank’s private office on the fourth floor of the law building. A large blue paper rested in the center of his mahogany desk, next to a fresh stack of bank statements. It was a certified bank draft for thirty-five hundred dollars, drawn from a secondary…

Patrick scrambled down the steep clay bank before I could stop him, his sneakers sliding on the loose gravel and dry weeds. “Patrick, slow down,” I called out, my voice sounding thin against the wide space of the fields. He was already standing at the mouth of the concrete pipe, his hand pressed against the…

“You look like you just spent eight hours shoveling wet concrete, Arthur,” Edwin said, his voice gravelly and slow. “Rebecca Marsh says the trust is the only way to keep the cabin out of Cornelius’s hands,” I said. “And what does she want for the paperwork?” “Five thousand dollars,” I said. “Expedited.” Edwin took the…

“On a Tuesday morning,” I said, remembering the day of my surgery. “Exactly,” Brandon said. “While you were still in the recovery room.” I rubbed my left wrist, the skin there feeling cold. “We need to let her go to Aspen,” I said. “Vance agrees,” Brandon said. “He wants to see if she meets anyone…

The county courthouse in Craig was a two-story red brick building with high arched windows that rattled in the morning wind. It was eleven o’clock on January twenty-one when we walked through the heavy oak doors, our boots leaving wet tracks on the worn marble floor. The heating system in the lobby hissed like a…