Cooper Maul

Hey, how are you?

Nice to meet you.

Nice to finally meet you, yes.

Come on, Theo.

Costas wasn't kidding.

When I walked into his house, there on the kitchen counter were two brown accordion folders bursting at the seams.

We started at the beginning.

I wanted to know the specifics of the request from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the TBI.

But this time, this wasn't just about asking questions and taking the family's word for them.

Costas wanted harder proof, to see if Margo was really calling or writing.

But the FBI had hit a wall, and Margo had been declared dead.

I had some questions about that.

If this woman was declared dead and did not seem to be actively committing crimes, why was she worth his time?

When someone on the run is declared dead, that usually brings the whole case to a stop.

You can't prosecute a dead person, so the criminal case just ends.

But it turns out, Costas wasn't entirely sold on the idea Margot was dead, because when the family made it official, it was just a probate court ruling to settle her grandmother's will.

They wanted to distribute the money evenly between the people who were still around, and Margot wasn't.

Her death was a bureaucratic judgment, not one based in fact.

There wasn't a coroner involved or anything like that, which meant there was still a chance she could be out there.

I had another nagging question for Costas.