Maybe it’s true. Maybe they are just that dumb, that they didn’t realize how it would look to be writing checks to someone you hired to solicit a murder. I mean, why would they pay for the murder in checks easily traceable to the business? Maybe they said to themselves “well, if the police ask, we can just say this was to get Katie’s kids health insurance.”. Maybe they thought the police would accept that and not think Katie was involved in the murder? Without those checks, there’s nothing linking Donna to Katie. Maybe they thought they had an explanation for the checks, so the police wouldn’t suspect them? Maybe the checks really were because Katie needed insurance. But they led the police to investigate further, because of course any payments to Katie would be suspect. The A’s didn’t figure on that. They weren’t looking at the big picture. Because, seriously, who pays for a murder with checks?
BUT- if that were the case, the defense would probably make it part of their case, I stead of arguing that the checks were part of an extortion plot. So maybe the checks were for the murder? It’s all so confusing. Maybe it was both. The checks were for health insurance, but they agreed to do it because Katie knew about the murder and they wanted to keep her happy.