Chapter 524: The Guilty Auntie

Chapter 524: Chapter 524: The Guilty Auntie

Heath Hale walked up to the reception room door and knocked, drawing the attention of everyone inside.

The officers, who had been trying to placate the crowd, looked at Heath Hale with expressions pleading for help. "Coach Hale!"

"Who’s that? Your boss?" a woman, who was tearfully clutching a young officer’s arm, noticed the surprise in their voices. Her eyes darted around as she asked.

The officer nodded, then shook his head and explained, "Coach Hale was sent by the higher-ups to help with the case. So, I guess you could say he’s our boss."

’Sent by the higher-ups?’

’Does that mean he’s more important than the local police, that he has more authority?’

’Does that mean we might actually get our money back?’

"Sir! Sir, you have to help us! It’s so hard for ordinary people like us to save a little money, and it was all taken in one fell swoop! How are we supposed to go on living?"

"If you police won’t help us, how can we possibly survive!" The woman let go of the young officer’s arm and turned to Heath Hale, her words carrying a manipulative edge.

Heath Hale’s brow furrowed slightly as he watched the woman push through the crowd from the other side, trying to grab his arm as well.

’This feels... strange.’

’But this isn’t the time to think about that. The priority right now is to reassure the innocent victims in this room.’

"Everyone, please rest assured that we will get to the bottom of this. We will do everything we can to get your money back."

"Make sure to hold on to your deposit slips. I’ll have someone come by shortly to photograph them for our records." Heath Hale didn’t respond directly to the woman tugging on his arm, instead addressing the entire room.

The idea of photographing the documents had just occurred to him.

Although everyone in the reception room was ostensibly a victim of Cameron and his crew, there was no guarantee someone hadn’t used the chaos to slip in and assess the situation.

According to Cameron’s confession, the person who came to check the books at the same time every night was very likely a local resident.

If so, today’s arrests might have already tipped them off.

That was why Heath had just suggested photographing everyone. If Zoe Sawyer found something amiss later with her retrospection, they might be able to use the photos to quickly identify a suspect.

An elderly woman sitting in a chair, her expression panicked, looked up anxiously when she heard Heath Hale’s words. "Really? You’ll really get it back?"

"My husband and I’s life savings are in there. If it’s really gone... I don’t want to live anymore."

Zoe Sawyer and Sean Hughes, who had followed Heath Hale in, heard the elderly woman’s words and hurried over. They knelt on either side of her and tried to comfort her. "Ma’am, please don’t be so distraught. We’ll make sure those people give the money back."

Immediately after the arrests, Evan Keller had identified the various accounts Cameron and his associates used for transfers and had the corresponding banks freeze them, cutting off the flow of funds.

This secured the victims’ money to the greatest extent possible.

However, any money that had already been moved could only be recovered and returned after the ringleader was caught.

The elderly woman wiped away her tears as she poured out her fears.

It was then that Zoe Sawyer and Sean Hughes learned the woman’s story. Fifteen years ago, her son and daughter-in-law had died in an accident, leaving behind a seven-year-old granddaughter.

The elderly couple had raised their granddaughter on the money they earned selling vegetables and working as sanitation workers, even managing to put her through college.

Now that their granddaughter had finally graduated, the couple had planned to use the compensation money from the accident and their savings from all these years to buy her a small house nearby, to give her a safety net for the future.

But when they went to withdraw the money today, they found the place shuttered. After asking the crowd that had gathered, they learned it wasn’t a legitimate bank at all, but a front for a scam.

They also learned that the police had just arrested everyone involved after discovering something was amiss.

The elderly woman, believing her money was gone for good, had felt her legs go weak and nearly collapsed on the spot.

A quick-thinking bystander had caught her, preventing a nasty fall. Later, when she heard the other depositors were heading to the police station for answers, she had hurried to join them.

"Please, rest assured. We won’t let those scammers get away with this. We will get your money back," Zoe Sawyer said, trying to soothe her.

Thanks to his height advantage, Heath Hale noticed the eyes of the woman clinging to his arm dart around a few times before quickly glancing in a specific direction.

Heath Hale followed the woman’s gaze and it settled on a man huddled in a corner. He was impassively observing the entire room and hadn’t said a single word.

His face showed no sign of the panic of someone who’d lost money, nor any hatred toward the suspects.

The other victims in the room were shouting passionately, cursing the scammers for ruining their families. Their voices were loud and their language was fierce, cursing the swindlers and their ancestors for eighteen generations.

Just then, Heath Hale caught the faint smile that played on the man’s lips. As he listened to the accusations, the smile became more pronounced, and his fingers even tapped a few times against his pant leg.

But when the man heard the curses directed at their ancestors, his expression instantly turned ugly, and he shot a vicious glare at the person who had just spoken.

Heath looked away a second before the man could notice, pretending he hadn’t seen anything. But he mentally filed away the jarring behavior.

Just as the woman clutching Heath Hale’s arm was about to speak again, Heath spoke first, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. "Alright, everyone. First, please cooperate with the police to have your documents photographed for our records. After you’re done, you can go home and wait for news. If you don’t feel comfortable leaving, you may also stay at the station."

"However, if you stay, you’ll have to remain here in this room."

Heath Hale noticed that several people in the group of victims were in a similar situation to the elderly woman.

They would likely choose to stay and wait for a resolution, which was why he had said it.

The moment Heath Hale finished speaking, two officers who had been waiting by the door entered with a notebook and a camera. As instructed, they began asking the victims to hold up their deposit slips or any other proof of deposit to be photographed.

When it was the woman beside Heath Hale’s turn, she sheepishly let go of his arm and mumbled, "I don’t have mine with me. You can skip me for now and get the others."

"That’s alright. If you don’t have a paper copy, a digital record will work too. As long as it’s proof of deposit, it’s fine," the officer in charge of photography explained patiently.

The woman gave an awkward laugh.

"My husband is usually the one who handles this, so I don’t have the digital records on me right now."

"But it’s not like anyone would lie about something like this, right?"