Identity Crisis

by Debbi Mack

I found a place to turn around and followed him.

  Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN

  ––––––––

  Ash was out of sight. I put my foot to the floor. The wind roared, as the speedometer needle passed eighty, inching toward eighty-five. I was getting every penny’s worth of the work that had gone into fixing my car. The old heap actually had a lot of giddyup. I swore to maintain the thing religiously from then on.

  The silver Lexus gleamed in the distance, moving into the right lane and signaling to get off at the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. I followed, pushing it on the turn, my tires kicking up dust as they hit the dirt shoulder. He had a good lead on me, but parkway traffic was light. I mashed the pedal again.

  Ash got off at the exit for Baltimore-Washington International Airport. I followed him past the hotels and down a side road toward long-term parking. As he entered the lot, I pulled over and watched him park. He got out and hauled a large suitcase and a shoulder bag from the trunk, then strode toward a bus shelter. A shuttle bus circling through the lot stopped at the shelter, and he got on. The bus rolled off toward the terminal. So much, I thought, for that.

  I found a pay phone off the parkway and called the PG police. I was starting to feel like one of their operatives. Derry wasn’t back, so I left a message about Ash. The rest was up to him.

  Maybe Ash planned to leave town all along. Maybe not. One way or the other, I couldn’t do a thing about it.

  φ φ φ

  Barbara answered the door in pajama pants and a cropped white T-shirt. I could hear the TV in the background. One of those morning talk shows where cheating boyfriends and drug-addicted daughters come to confess their sins before an audience clapping like trained seals.

  “What do you want now?” she said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me Greg Knudsen and Tom Garvey were the same person?”

  She smiled. “So what about it?”

  “So it’s quite an oversight.”

  “I don’t have to talk to you.” She started to close the door.

  “It’s either me or the cops.”

  She held up, squinting at me. “Whadda you mean?”

  “They might be interested in hearing about your argument at the gym with Bruce Schaeffer. They might like to know about your financial situation since Knudsen, the prodigal father, came back to town.”

  “Prod-what?”

  “Bruce Schaeffer’s been shot.”

  Her mouth fell open and her face went white.

  “If I go to the police and tell them about your argument, they could get very interested in you.”

  Barbara’s jaw flapped a bit. “So I had an argument with Bruce. That don’t mean I killed him.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. It could mean you were involved in the identity theft scheme with him.”

  “What’re you—”

  “Don’t bother to deny it. The cops found the evidence. And I don’t think you bought your nice new SUV and your nice new TV with what you get milking the workers’ comp office.”

  She didn’t say anything, but I could see the wheels turning in her head. “What do you want?”

  “I want the whole story. I want to know how you got involved and what your part was.”

  She looked resigned, but shoved the door farther open. I took that as a tacit invitation to come in and followed her to the living room. The talk show was blasting through the fancy sound system. A bowl of melting ice cream sat on the coffee table. My eye strayed to Mahogany Jesus on the wall. He seemed particularly forlorn.

  Barbara plunked onto the sofa and muted the TV. Under the cropped top, I could see a little tummy roll. She was a thin woman, but was going to learn the hard way that metabolism slows with age.

  “I wasn’t involved. I swear, I wasn’t.”

  “So how did you come into all this extra money? Or are you overextending your credit to buy all this shit?”

  “I didn’t steal, OK? He owed me.”

  “You’re talking about Knudsen now?”

  She nodded.

  “He would have owed you a bundle in child support after all those years.”

  “Fifteen years.” Her face was livid. “I told him, I’d take him to court. The little shit owed me thousands of dollars.”

  “Tens of thousands, quite likely. More than he could have paid you.”

  “Yeah, well.” She paused, shifting around. “We made a deal.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “To keep it out of court, he cut me in on the scam.”

  “Scam? You mean the identity thefts?”

  “Yeah, whatever. Bruce didn’t like it much, but Greg said too bad. Suddenly, the cocksucker couldn’t do enough for me.” Her voice became a derisive whine. “Goddamn son of a bitch. All those years, he could have sent me some money, just a little. But no. I raised his bastard son single-handed. He couldn’t even be bothered to see him.”

  “Did Melanie figure in this?”

  “Melanie?”

  “Tom’s girlfriend. I mean, Greg’s. You know what I mean.”

  “Oh, her. I don’t think that poor, dumb slut had a clue.”

  “So she wasn’t involved?”

  “Not as far as I know. It was just Greg and Bruce.”

  “What about Connie Ash?”

  “Who’s she?”

  “He. Conrad Ash is the club owner.”

  She shook her head. “Never even heard of her. Him. Whatever.”

  “All right,” I said. “So you blackmailed Greg into paying you part of what they stole. And after he was killed, I guess you had enough on Bruce to keep soaking him.”

  “Well, why not? Hey, I told you. Greg owed me. When he died, he still owed me. If he’d been any sort of man, he’d have married me, made his bastard son legit. Instead, he skulks back to Maryland and takes up with some slut.”

  I peered at her. “Why do you keep calling Melanie a slut?”

  “He was spending money on her that he should have given me. She was living in sin with him.”

  I laughed. “And you had his illegitimate child, Snow White.”

  “If he’d married me fifteen years ago, that wouldn’t be the case.”

  I decided not to delve into the twisted logic that a religious fanatic might use to purify “dirty” premarital sex with a post factum marriage.

  “Even if you don’t believe in abortion, you could have given the child up for adoption.”

  “Damn straight, I don’t believe in abortion. And, yeah, I could have given the kid away, but I didn’t.” She stabbed a finger at her chest. “I did the right thing.”

  Whatever, I thought. “Who do you think killed Gregory Knudsen?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “With Greg out of the picture, maybe you thought you could force Bruce to pay more.”

  Barbara looked shocked. “You’re not saying I killed him, are you? He was the whole reason I was getting a cut to begin with.”

  “But by that time, you knew about the scheme. Maybe you threatened to go to the cops, to put the screws on Bruce.”

  “Why the hell would I kill Greg?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a crime of passion. You hated Greg Knudsen. How many more reasons would you need?”

  She made a sputtering noise between pursed lips. I took it to mean she disagreed with my theory.

  “What about the files in Melanie’s apartment? Did you put them there?”

  “Files?”

  “Files of the various accounts they set up using the stolen identities.”

  “Oh, those. Bruce had the files. I didn’t have nothing to do with them.”

  “So he set her up?”

  “He must’ve. He was nervous about Greg’s body being in his apartment. He moved the shit out before calling the cops, ’cause he figured they’d search the place.”

  “So why’d he hold onto the files?”

  “I wanted to know what they were raking in. Bruce was supposed to destroy them after that.”
/>   “And everything was fine, until Greg was murdered?”

  She paused. “Well ...”

  “Yes?”

  Barbara hesitated again, looking wary. “I don’t know. Not long after I got in on it, Greg told me someone else took the money.”

  “Huh?”

  “He was probably lying. He said it was in some bank account and someone took it out. Now how can that be?”

  I thought about the bank statements I’d seen at Aces High. I remembered the stricken look on Bruce’s face when I mentioned them.

  “So he said he couldn’t pay me so much,” Barbara went on. “I made a big stink about it, but he said it was for real.”

  “Someone stole the money that they stole?”

  “Hey, I’m telling you what he said. I’m not saying I believe it. Greg kept paying me something. After he died, Bruce wouldn’t pay at first, but I got him to change his mind.”

  “By threatening to go the cops? Were you arguing about that at the gym?”

  Her face hardened into a resolute look. “They owed me.”

  I sighed. “Well, it’s over now. Bruce is dead.”

  Barbara slumped. “Great. Fucking great.”

  “Yeah. I’ll let you mourn in peace.” I rose and started for the door, then stopped. “Oh, one more thing. How did you find out that Greg Knudsen was back?”

  Barbara stared straight ahead. “Someone called and told me,” she said in a flat voice.

  “Who?”

  “I dunno. They didn’t give a name.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “Could’ve been either.”

  “You have caller ID?”

  Barbara shut her eyes and took a deep breath. “No-o-o.”

  “Would you have a guess who it was?”

  “No, and I couldn’t care less, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “Actually, I did notice.”

  I walked out, leaving Barbara with her bowl of ice cream soup and her problems.

  Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT

  ––––––––

  The hot afternoon sun had turned the sky to a gray haze stew. In a nearby park, trees undulated and bowed restlessly in the fitful breeze, the silky shoosh of their leaves sounding like distant applause from an outdoor amphitheater. As I waited at a red light, I could almost smell the rain on the verge of dropping from the clouds.

  Who would have ratted Knudsen out? And why?

  You can run from the past, but it always catches up with you. Had someone from Knudsen’s past caught up with him? Ryan Bledsoe might know, but he was in Ocean City by now.

  I could think of people I hated in high school—if I really gave it some thought. I could hardly remember most of them now. If someone from Knudsen’s past had it in for him, he must have done something dreadful—something a person would remember fifteen or twenty years later.

  The light changed. Instead of going straight to I-95, however, I asked the first passerby I saw the way to Dundalk High School.

  I pulled into the school’s lot and parked next to the low, flat building. Strolling the quiet, locker-lined halls, I flashed back to a time when a place like this was my universe—a place where cliques ruled and some scowling academic was either threatening to fail you or put a black mark on your permanent record.

  I got good grades and never had a smudge, as far as I knew, on that much-storied record, but the high school experience was a far from satisfactory one for me. My memory was of social circles—jocks, scholars, nerds, freaks. Then there was that special group—the ruling elite. The ones who ran for student council or edited the yearbook. The ones who always had the right clothes or just seemed to have a special aura. I was at the other end of the social spectrum—one of the kids so far out of the loop, we didn’t merit a special category. I wondered where they were now, those kids who peaked in high school. Probably fat, alcoholic, and either unhappily married or miserably alone—at least, I wanted to think so.

  No one was behind the counter in the administrative office. A desk on the other side had a nameplate reading, Ida Wilkie, but Ida herself was not present. Then a petite, middle-aged woman appeared with several files on one arm. The woman had a broad, florid face, pert nose, and short hair, just a trifle too dark and monochromatic to be her real color. She beamed at me, as if glad for the interruption.

  “Can I help you?” she said, setting the files on her desk.

  “I hope so. My name’s Sam McRae. I’m an attorney, representing someone in a case involving two guys who were students here. I don’t know if you would know them. It was over fifteen years ago.”

  “I was here.”

  “The names are Gregory Knudsen and Bruce Schaeffer.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes widened and the shadow of some emotion I couldn’t identify crossed her face.

  “You recognize the names?”

  “Yes, I do. And you’re a lawyer, you said? What did you say this was about?”

  “Gregory Knudsen was murdered a few weeks ago. Just this morning, Bruce Schaeffer was also found dead.”

  She looked grim. “Murdered?”

  “It looks like suicide, but I have my doubts.”

  “Who are you representing?”

  “The person accused of Knudsen’s murder.”

  Ida didn’t say anything. She didn’t look quite as happy to talk to me.

  “My client is innocent. I have a witness who can establish that. She was set up, possibly by someone those guys knew in high school. That person may have killed both of them.”

  “Why would it be another student from this school?”

  “I’m not sure. I know that Greg Knudsen left Maryland about fifteen years ago and came back recently. And from what I understand, Knudsen and Schaeffer were troublemakers in high school.”

  Ida lifted an eyebrow. “I can’t talk about their disciplinary records, you know.”

  “I’m not as interested in that as in finding out who their enemies were.”

  “Oh, they had plenty.”

  “Can you remember who? It’s been a long time, and I realize you probably aren’t that close to the students.”

  “You’d be surprised.” She gave me a wry smile. “They talk to me sometimes. Especially the troubled ones, who end up in there.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder, toward what I assumed was the principal’s office. “Seems like we’re getting more of those.”

  “You’d remember stuff from fifteen years ago?”

  She tapped her temple with an index finger. “I remember everything. My friends say I have total recall. I don’t know. But I remember lots of things, and I’ve been here thirty-five years. Can you believe it?”

  I peered at her. I realized she must be quite a bit older than she looked, maybe her late sixties. “Well, no, actually. You don’t look a day over forty—forty-five —tops.”

  She burst out laughing. “You’re so sweet.” She gave the word so that nasal Baltimore sound—sohww.

  “Can you remember anyone in particular? An enemy or even a friend they might have double-crossed or something?”

  One side of Ida’s mouth quirked up, forming a parentheses mark on her cheek. “They were quite a pair. Frequent visitors here. Like I said, plenty of people had reason to dislike them.”

  “I spoke to someone who attended school around the same time. Ryan Bledsoe.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “He told me they were expelled after a chemistry lab fire.”

  “I can’t talk—”

  “I know you can’t talk about their records. Can you confirm a rumor? Was someone killed in that fire?”

  She looked at me.

  “Ryan Bledsoe told me they were expelled, and said there was a rumor that someone died in the fire. Is this true?”

  She continued to look at me, her expression thoughtful. “No. But you’re on the right track.”

  It took a moment for me to realize what she was saying. “Someone was hurt?”

  She nodded.

  “
Badly?”

  She nodded again.

  “A student?”

  More nodding. It felt like a game of twenty questions.

  “What happened to the student?”

  “She dropped out of school. Don’t know what happened after that.”

  A girl, I thought. “I don’t suppose you’d remember her name?”

  Ida smiled. “I figured you might get around to that.”

  “Do you remember?”

  “The mother sued the school. The case settled. The school board wanted to keep it quiet. Legally, I don’t think anything prevents me from talking about it, but I’ve been, um, encouraged not to, in the interests of this person’s privacy.”

  Or the school board’s interest in sweeping the matter under the rug, I thought. “So you can’t reveal the name?”

  “I’d prefer not to.”

  “Even if this injured student might have killed two people?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  I tried another tack. “This fire—it happened when Knudsen and Schaeffer were juniors?”

  “Yes,” she said, throwing aside all bureaucratic pretense of not discussing the matter.

  “The student—also a junior?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I was wondering—do you have copies of the yearbooks for that time?”

  Ida smiled. “Yes, in the library. I can get them for you.” She fished a key ring from a drawer.

  I tried to calculate which years I’d want. “I’d be interested in—”

  “I think I know which ones.” She left the office. She returned a few minutes later with two yearbooks, which she set on a round table in the corner. One would have been from the guys’ junior year, the other from the year after.

  I sat at the table. If my theory didn’t pan out, this could take a while, and it would be tedious. I could check the junior class pictures in the earlier yearbook against the senior photos in the later yearbook and narrow the suspects down to a manageable set of names.

  But I already had a theory about who it was. A girl with a Baltimore accent.

  “Thanks,” I said to Ida. I opened the book and went right to the J’s in the junior class photos.

  Ida stood and watched. Finally, she said, “You might try the Ts,” and walked away.