The Girlfriends S5/E2: The Busted Nut

Novel Last time on the Girlfriends Trust me babe.

Hi, Wendy. You don't know me, but my name's Cindy and we both dated Derek.

Wendy gets a surprise phone call and I was like, I was so excited to talk to her. After weeks of DIY investigations, Wendy had finally given up on finding out the truth about who Derek alread slash all Dread really was. But now standing on the busy shopping strip of Front Street Leahina, the Pacific Ocean stretching out by her side, she might finally be on the cusp of real answers.

I remember ducking around kind of an alleyway so I could try to hear her a little better. I'm passing all these people. I'm sure I looked a little crazy.

The woman on the other end of the line introduces herself as Cindy.

She was a little bit frantic.

She was in the middle of finding out how much money he had stolen from her.

Derek really was a con artist.

He took her computer and looked up all of her finances, changed the passwords, ordered credit cards in his name. So he's taking her out to dinner and paying for it, and she had no idea it.

Was actually on her account. He stole a lot of money.

Unlike Derek, Cindy has an actual successful career. When they meet in twenty thirteen, she's working in tech in San Francisco, but he spins her a good yarn too. He tells her he's a luxury hotel developer, and over the course of about a month not quite two, she alleges that he stole one hundred and seventy eight dollars, spent twenty six thousand on her credit card, and stole six hundred

The flowers Sherry's berries and the candy and the giant Teddy.

Bear dinners drinks, four thousand dollar earrings, prescription glasses, all the stuff Derek had been buying for Wendy.

I saw all the evidence that he was using her credit card to do that.

And that's not all. Remember the video Derek sent to Wendy to prove where he lived.

He was in her house.

And Maxwell, Derek's beloved dog sadly taken from this world too soon.

The dog was not his. He took a picture of her dog and took a picture of that dog's bed, and that dog had not died.

Once she discovers the truth, Cindy goes straight to the police.

They just wanted to brush it off, like, oh, it's just a domestic squabble.

Wendy believes the police didn't investigate the claim seriously because Cindy couldn't prove that she didn't authorize the card herself.

She's finding out this guy is a serious common artist, and nobody is listening to me.

The police don't seem to be prioritizing Cindy's case, so she's hoping Wendy can help.

I had a file, Derek Aldred.

Wendy was writing a book. Of course, she's kept her research.

I had printed out some of the emails that were crazy, all in this filefolder. I was so happy I had kept so much of this information. She asked if I would please call this Fan Francisco detective that was assigned to her case, and I did.

I called multiple times.

As far as we can tell, Cindy's hopes that the San Francisco police would do their job would ultimately go nowhere. Even with Wendy in her corner.

It was very apparent they were not taking any of it seriously.

She felt very alone, and.

While the San Francisco police are twiddling their thumbs, Derek just disappears. But Cindy doesn't plan to fade quietly into submission.

She was relentless. He is not going to get away with this.

I Am going to find him and bring him to justice.

And before long, Cindy will learn that it wasn't just her or Wendy that Derek fucked over, because it turns out who's been wrecking women's lives all over the United States. And soon he'll be thousands of miles away in the land of ten thousand Blakes, Minnesota, reeling in his latest target.

Something's off a but this whole thing, something's fishy.

I'm Anna Sinfield and from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts. You're listening to the Girlfriends Trust Me.

Babe, episode two, The Busted Nut.

You in a huge stadium in downtown Saint Paul. The Minnesota Wild hockey team are gliding into an ice rink lit up by neon lights.

I believe we're playing Chicago.

It's October twenty fifteen. The energy is high in the stadium. I can't be certain, but I just like know in my bones that let's get it started. By the Black Eyed Peas was playing, Commentators crooning are we ready? As the two teams squeak their skates onto the rink, the lights, the sounds. They're loud and rowdy, and so are the fans. Among them, sitting in the upper levels is Lisa.

You know it's dangerous to be around me when we're a plane.

Lisa a die hard Minnesota Wild fan. She's a divorced mum of two and a nurse at a children's hospital. Sitting next to Lisa at the hockey game are two of her closest friends, Tammy and Michelle. We just speak girls that love hockey, yelling, having fun. But all through the game, Lisa's phone is buzzing texts from her boyfriend. They've only been dating for a short time and they've

You don't have time for me, you know, why are you with them?

This evening? He's being a little controlling, but Lisa's having none of it.

I love hockey and I wanted to be with my friends.

Game finishes, Minnesota beat Chicago five to four, but the girls aren't done.

Let's go to McGovern's. We'd get popcorn and wind down the night.

That's Michelle Lisa's besty. They're talking about a local bar they sometimes go to.

Mcgoverns is more of an older, deep rich wood bar with great home cooking food, big outdoor patio in the back.

As Lisa moves through the crowd to grab a drink, she stops in her tracks.

I'll say, look at the bar, and he's sitting at the bar, and I was like, WHOA.

Lisa's boyfriend has made a surprise appearance.

One friend goes, oh, that's kind of creepy. So I kind of go up to me. He's like, oh, babe, I just wanted to surprise you.

Lisa's friends have heard a lot about her boyfriend. His name is Steele Aldridge. He's kind outdoorsy, very family orientated. He told Lisa about his sister who's married to a pilot, and also about his twin brother who's a bit wayward. He's got his own business, running a surf shop, Steel Finn's in Hawaii. He's studying at the local university. He even volunteers at a homeless shelter.

Knowing that someone's taking turn out to do that just really made me feel, you know, just like God, this guy is.

Great despite his behavior during the game. Steele and Lisa have been getting on great, but now he's turned up at the bar out for Blue.

He was kind of a thinner, smaller guy than I pictured.

It surprised me that that's what he looked like. Lisa's bestI, Michelle watches from afar. This is the first time she's Matt Steele in person.

He was carrying up backpack, a pretty full backpack, and I just thought that was so.

Weird, as I wouldn't be caught dead in a pub without a well packed, ready to hike backpack. But that's by the bye.

He just looked dishoveled.

As far as first impressions go, it's not a great start.

I got a bad vibe about him. I don't like him.

Michelle and Tammy approach the bar where Steele and Lisa are talking, and so commences that best friend write of passage the classic first meet interrogation.

He was kind of like, well, what do you want to know? Tammy started right in right away, so what do you do for work? Where do you live? Kind of thing.

She was starting to grill him.

Lisa is standing a few paces away, watching her friends and her boyfriend go head to.

Head questions I want to see your ladies, I want to see this, and then he's like, why would I have to show you it? Like, being very defensive with her.

Everything that Lisa told us, he told us almost forward. It was almost like a rehearsed line. I'm going to use the word weasily. He just seemed weasley to me. There was just something bad about him, just being around the guy and looking at his manurisms. I couldn't even stand even talking to him. I had to walk away.

Michelle retreats to a table, keeping an eye on things. She's known Lisa since they were teens, and she's very protective of her best friend. Michelle can see Lisa and Steele are having a tense conversation.

He was drinking and he was just getting kind of really weird. He came up to me and says, I'm going to go home with you.

Stele is annoyed about being grilled and he wants to leave.

It's the first time I ever can say I got scared of him. He just had this look in his eyes. His demeanor was creepy.

Lisa doesn't want to go home with Steel, so he stalks off alone. Soon after they all call it a night.

I get to my car, you know, it's raining out, and I'm driving away and my friends you know, following me out, and we pull the parking lot and he's across the street and the point rain, just staring at me, like, oh my god, Like this is just not good.

Arriving home from that night, Lisa's phone is blowing up again.

It's him texting me. Then his sister's texting me, you know, then his friend's texting. They're saying, oh no, please forgive him.

He has an excuse for the poor form.

He claimed he took a pain pill and that he was drinking too much with a pain pill and he was just not him and to forgive him.

She doesn't know what to think. Lisa was really falling for Steele. Their first day had been magical.

I just felt at peace when I said, and.

Their relationship had progressed quickly. Lisa was recently divorced, she had two kids, she was a busy nurse. She wasn't really looking to get married again, but she did want real companionship.

He made you feel so at ease, He made you feel so comfortable.

And in a few weeks they had been dating that even developed a routine together.

He would come over to my townehouse, we'd make dinner. I'd sit down and love see if he'd sit down the chair. Periodically, his formwd ringer would be his sister or his daughter, and I'd listen to him talk to them.

But it's not all being perfect. Steele's got a habit of going a wall, and when Lisa asked him, panicked, where he is if he's okay, his reactions escalate fast.

He would text me like, Lisa, you need to calm down, or I'm going to get my lawyers after you for harassing. You know, I'd be like, what the hell.

Lawyers is crazy? And the ridiculousness of it all was so confusing, so up and down. Then instead of making Lisa run, she starts to feel like maybe she's the one losing it. And besides, he always has an excuse.

He would apologize like, I'm sorry. You know, I shouldn't have done that. You know, was stressed at school, stressed about the business. He always made me feel bad. I, you know, misunderstood things or I took things out of context. He would always bring me something that anyway. I loved purple roses, he'd bring me a purple roses. He'd bring me back to chocolates.

After that night at the bar meeting Lisa's friends, it's just the same. She's angry about Steele's creepy behavior. I didn't talk to him for a day or two, but then sympathy begins to creep its way in. She feels bad.

I guess the sad thing about me, or I think, like healthcare people in general. Sometimes you have such a big heart that you believe people, and you're very forgiving and very caring. I would listen to my gut. I listened to my heart. So you forgive them.

Lisa's friends, though they aren't convinced, in the couple of weeks that pass after that disastrous performance at McGovern's, Steele is making every effort to prove that he is someone Lisa can rely on. One evening, they're sitting in Lisa's townhouse straight back in the same cozy routine they had before the McGovern's incident. When Steele reveals a secret he's been keeping.

He says, well, I don't like telling women i'm dating or scene that I have a lot of money, because I want them to like me for who I am. He said he had won a lottery and he'd invested really well, it was like two million dollars. I think at least it was like a stock page. This guy's got this kind of money. He's down to earth, he's sweet, he's got a stuff together.

And not only that, he wants to show her in a real way that he has committed to her. He tells Lisa he wants to spend his astronomical wealth on setting up a home in Saint Paul, somewhere they can one day live together, somewhere their families can become one.

It was going to be ours, but he was going to pay for it.

She even attends some of the viewings and then they find the perfect one.

It was three levels. It was just beautiful. He walked in. In The kitchen was just of steel, appliances, cherrywood inside for other cabinets, It had a two car garage. You know, this could be your son's room, this could be your daughter's room, this could be our room.

You know.

He's like, oh, I could put my books here for school. It was beautiful. I mean it was just that colors are gorgeous. It was very elegant. I remember they had a candle in there. I think it was like a vanilla flavor. It was just beautifully staged.

Walking around the property, the realtor makes him a sigh to Lisa.

Oh, your husband's, you know, really less, and like, no, he's my boyfriend. He's looking at bit for us. It's not me, it's just him.

Steele starts filling out the paperwork there and then he couldn't be more ready to commit.

I really at that point felt like I was fine for him, and I just thought, wow, I really hit the checkpat down this guy.

Because Steele had another surprise in store for Lisa. Once she can't wait to tell her friends about. Less than two weeks after the McGovern's disaster, the girls are back. No hockey this time.

We are eating at a little police in Hastings called the Busted Nut.

That's Michelle. Lisa is there too, and so's Tammy.

It is a little bar in a little old fashioned town. Old pictures, tin ceilings.

There are photos on the wall from that era. Horses carriages hooked up to posts outside old brick buildings.

They have a barrel full of nuts, these roasted peanuts that you can scoop out and bring them back to your table, and you just crack them and drop them on the floor.

We're having a good.

Time, eventually bolstered by a few handfuls of pre COVID communal barrel peanuts. Lisa says she has some news.

She was back dating Steel.

After that disastrous first meeting. Lisa had stopped mentioning Steel to her friends.

Because wasn't talking about him. We thought that she wasn't seeing him anymore, but she was.

And Steele's made a big romantic gesture that Lisa wants to tell her friends about, not the house, something else.

He wanted to take me on a trip to Hawaii. What do you guys think about that?

It turns out Steele needs to go check in on his surf business, and he knows Lisa's always wanted to go to Hawaii, so he's brought the two of them flights on him for a romantic holiday.

She's like, peck your bags, babe, We're going. I am so excited, but she.

Knows she can't fly so far without asking the advice of her friends.

We said, Lisa, what are you doing.

They're still reeling from the news that Lisa and Steele are even together, and now they're going on holiday.

The group said no, oh, and she looked at me and I thought, oh, my gosh. But I thought, you know, maybe there's something about him that I don't know that she knows that she really likes about him.

It's hard when you're outside the bubble of someone's relationship looking in to ever really see what they see.

You know, give it a shot. It's a vacation. You know, it's Hawaii. She was, I think going through a lot of stress and she kind of did need a break, and I thought, you know, just go, let.

Us know how it goes.

Check out this business that he says he has over in Hawaii.

Lisa's friends weren't going to wave her off without first putting in place some safety checks.

You need to let your friends know where you're staying, what kind of car you do. We asked her to take a picture of the car, the license plate, just to make sure everything was on the up and up.

With her friend's cautious blessing, Lisa touches down in Hawaii and it's just like she imagined.

We drove around the island a little bit. You can see the ocean. I was in awe, like, oh my god, I can see why he loves this place. It's beautiful, and I'm like, I can see why he loves to come out here now multiple times a year.

They hire a jeep which Lisa drives through the streets of Maui to their hotel.

The pool was gorgeous, palm cheese and just the beautiful, you know, Hawaiian flowers. I remember taking pictures of us. I send in her to my friends and they're like, oh my god, I'm so jealous.

Un beknows to Lisa. Back home, her friends are actually feeling a little concerned, especially Michelle.

He was getting a little angry about like why does she keep calling you? Like why does she keep bothering us? And doesn't she know your vacation, and like she's just checking in and she's not asking if I'm having fun.

While Lisa is blissfully gallivanting around Maui and a jeep. Another friend, Steph, is on shift at the children's hospital back in Saint Paul. Stephan Lisa work together. They car pool together.

We leave for work every day at six point twenty.

They're good colleagues, but even better friends.

Dinner, winery tours, girls' trips. We have had some really fun times on some of these girls trips.

Sometimes Steele is in the back of Lisa's car in the morning, getting a lift to the homeless shelter he volunteers at. So Steph's met him a few times, and just like Michelle, she's got a bad vibe about him. She's been searching his name online, but it's showing up nothing and it's starting to gnaw at her. Looking around at her now sing colleagues propping up the nurses station, Steph pipes up.

You guys, I'm worried about Lisa. She's in Hawaii with this guy who I don't even know who he is.

And then one of her colleagues interjects, Oh.

My god, the same thing happened to my friend. It sounds so familiar. She kept saying she had a friend that she met online. He took her to Hawaii too, and he was scamming her.

This friend had met a man who sounded exactly like Lisa's current boyfriend, and he it turned out to be a total con man.

And I said, can you text her and see if you can get a picture of him?

And she did.

She texted her friend right away.

An answer comes back before the shift is done.

She brought her phone over to me and showed me the picture of the person, and I remember vividly his image. My heart sunk. Oh my god, this is the same man. I remember saying, I knew it. I knew it. That's him. I knew it.

All steps fruitless googling makes sense now. The reason she can't find anything about Steel Aldridge is because that's not his real name. His real name was Derek Aldred.

He was on probation for this scam of the Saint Paul Hotel.

Now they have Derek's real name, the details of who this guy really is are easy to find. Just the year before, Derek Aldred had attempted to swindle the Saint Paul Hotel, a swanky, historic hotel right in the heart of the city, just a couple of blocks down the road from the hospital he falsely claim to be a doctor, skipped out on an almost one thousand dollar bill and the woman he was with once the police caught up

I'm sure I wasn't very productive at work the rest of the day.

A group of hockey loving nurses.

Of course, we need to get our friend home safe.

Back in Hawaii, things are going swimmingly. Lisa and Steele slash Derek Aldridge slash or Red Slash Aldred are blissfully unaware of the storm brewing back home in Minnesota. After two nights at the first hotel, they moved to a different resort. Their room is on the top floor with ocean views, but Steele's bank card seems to be on the fritz. He tries to book them a sunset cruise,

So he's like writing down how much he owes me, like on a piece of paper, like, don't worry, babe, I'll pay you back.

I got everything written down reassuringly. She hears him on the phone with Wells Fargo arguing about his card.

He shows me on his phone like I'm calling Rose hardgirl gives him my name, my data Birsea. He's like, see, I told you i'd pay you and kind of got a little snatty with me, like how dare you question me? So I'm thinking fine.

In that new hotel, there is not one, but two pools with bars to get pool side cocktails with umbrellas in them, so it's kind of easy not to worry too much.

He would always go up and get him, so then he'd bring him to me, and I remember being down at the pool, and then I also remember waking up and I'm in the kind of room. I'm like, how the hell did I get here? Like I don't remember going from the pool all way up, and he's like, oh, you're fine. Maybe you just had one too many to drink. And I thought, well, maybe I had more than I thought. I was outside in the sun.

Li is now a blacked out like that before, but I trusted him.

I didn't think nothing of.

I would check her Facebook endlessly to see if she have any postings on there.

Meanwhile, back in Minnesota, Lisa's friends are worried. They want Lisa to send them details they can use to track her exact location, but they need to do it subtly.

He posted a picture versit by the pool on her Facebook page and we thought, oh, he knows her passcord on her phone and he has access to her phone.

They can't risk tipping Steels Slash Derek off to the fact that they're onto him.

I kept it very social, like I was doing things like how's Hawaii? I see you really ten, where are you staying?

But none of the messages they're getting back from Lisa, are helping them pin down a precise location.

We're going, and said, what's that cruise? Tonay, we rented a convertible.

We kept on saying, oh, take a picture of the car, take a picture of the license plate, and she wasn't doing it.

Lisa's been gone five days now. Her girlfriends know she's coming back soon because she's got a shift coming up. But when is her flight? What time will she be landing? None of them seem to know.

She didn't see what the urgency was.

Lisa has no idea what her friends have just discovered. Steph has been away for days, searching Derek Aaldred online endlessly. She tries contacting the police. She contacts a probation officer she knows.

I was advised by them to just keep in touch with her and try to find out what flight she was coming back then, So.

At one point I called her just to see what was going on.

Michelle's name flashes across Lisa's phone.

I said, we're steel, and she says, always right next to me. I couldn't see anything to him that would lead him to know that we knew stuff was going on behind the scenes.

None of the friends know what Steel is capable of what he might do if he realizes people back in Minnesota are onto him. Michelle has to think fast.

And he said, well, I got some really good news. She said, you got engaged. I can't tell you. She says, oh, you know, I gotta know, but I got to know when you're coming home. Lisa, When are you going to come home? Because I got something to show you.

This is an ingenious move, but it doesn't work. Not because Lisa is evading her. It's because Lisa doesn't know when her flight home is because he kept on changing it. Steele is supposed to have organized their return flights.

But she me a flight that I looked up which didn't exist.

He claims. They keep getting canceled because of a storm in Colorado.

You'll need to find a fricking way for us to get home. I need to be hump.

She was supposed to be at work the next morning. I'm like, Lisa, are you coming to work tomorrow?

After the storm, the delays to the non existent flight. Eventually, Lisa finally boards a real plane. A few hours later. She wakes up to an announcement.

Welcome to lax it's five a and I'm like, coy crep.

Five am in La.

It's seven o'clock in Minnesota. I'm like, I'm supposed to be at work.

Lisa was so relieved to finally be on a flight that she hadn't done the maths on what time they'd be landing. By the time she finally lands in Minnesota, she'll get to work hours late, well past the time her shift was supposed to start. Hustling into the lax arrivals, Stele marches off to the airline desk to see if he can get them onto an earlier flight, and while he does that, Lisa sits by the gate and calls her friend and colleague, Steph, who'll be waiting for her on the ward by now.

Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I can't make any work today, I said, but I can work evening shift and like I can come in out will be homer time. She goes to, No, if that works out, that's fine. She's like, well, we're steel. She goes, is he with you right now? I said no, he's up at the desk.

This is the first time Lisa's been alone pretty much all holiday.

She goes, how are you I said, oh, I'm fine. She goes, are you O kiss? I'm good. I'm just upset. You know, I don't want to miss work.

I took care of her not being at work.

She goes, Yep, don't worry about it. We got your shift covered. Everything's good.

At that point I stopped worrying about him. Seeing what I was saying.

She says, do me two things before you get on the plane. I said, why. She goes, send me your flight information and where you're sitting. Because she goes, I just want to make sure you're home safe.

When Steel returns from the ticket desk with newer sooner flights, Lisa takes them with her into the bathroom. She snaps a picture and sends it to Steph.

And that's what I gave to the authorities.

Steph follows up with one quick, almost stern text.

You need to text me when you land. I don't think I said much more than that.

It's Saturday. When Lisa finally finally touches down in Minneapolis, it's not the same airport they took off from, so home is still a shuttle bus and then a car drive away. But they've made it and both of them are in for a surprise.

They're still have PTSD when I walk down that kind of course because of what happened.

As Lisa and Steel disembark the plane, they're stopped in their tracks by two cops riding in hot on segways. One of the cops looks them up and down before reaching for his walkie talkie.

I have them, What the hell is going on? He's going on like they have them, and the one guy goes, are you Lisa? I goes yes, and the other cop goes, are you Derek Aldridge? And I look at him like what the hell and he goes yes.

Coming up next on the Girlfriends Trust Me Babe.

She's like, I need to talk to you. I'll be at your townhouse once you get home after work, And.

I said, oh, hell no, Lisa fights back. The Girlfriends Trust Me Babe is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio. The series is hosted by me Annasinfield is produced by Leona Hamid. Our assistant producer is Valeria Rocker. Our editor is Joe Wheeler. Production management from Sharie Houston, Joe Savage and Charlotte Wolfe. Fact checking by Dania Suleman, sound design, mixing and scoring