“Bringing in the foster kids whose credit had been ruined years ago, when they were minors and couldn’t have possibly prevented it, also worked. I’m glad that the interviews Joe and I did with Antonio Vargas and Henry Workman gave you so much to work with. You used their stories brilliantly.

“Which brings me to something I just heard on the news on the way over here.”

“Whatever it is, tell me it isn’t going to interfere in my series.”

Ted bit down on his lower lip. “It could, Maggie, but not by tomorrow morning.”

Maggie poked around on her desk to see if there was possibly a cookie or something under the piles of papers—anything edible she might have missed. “You going to make me pull it out of you or what? Why do you guys always have to rain on my parade?”

“Trust me, it’s not intentional. What we heard is three brothers right here in our very own nation’s capital bilked thousands and thousands of people, as well as some very large corporations and charitable foundations, out of huge amounts of money. Apparently, these brothers have been running a Ponzi scheme to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. That’s billions with a b. All three brothers are considered A-list. What you have going on with the identity theft is small-time compared to that trio. Politicians, movie stars, union pension funds, university endowments—they showed no mercy. Small investors, big investors, they duped them all.”

“Oh, God, I feel a headache coming on. You two want to run with this, is that it?”

“Yeah, we do. There’s nothing more we can do with the others for now, we’ve pretty much come to a dead end on finding out who helped the dynamic duo with the foster-kid scams, but if something comes up, just squeal and we’re there. You might want to…alert…the others. This is something they could really sink their teeth into if they have a mind to go into action.”

“Who is it? Give me names.” Maggie’s mind started to race. She could do a dual headline, split the top page. This just might be the time to go with color. Red, like in a bloodbath.

Ted laughed. “The brothers Grimm. Adolpho, Vincenzi, and Eduardo. The Big Three of the financial world. The news is calling them The Munchkins. Last name originally Grimaldi but changed to Grimm twenty-five years ago so they wouldn’t be confused with the Mafia Grimaldis. Can you chew on that one for a while?”

“Chew? Did you say chew? If this turns out to be what I think it might, then forget the chewing part. Let’s just gobble those bastards up whole. Go!”