Exponential
Page 17
Chapter 9
“Bedford Police, Dell Taylor here?” he said after picking up the ringing phone.
“Hello, this is Mara Chandler returning your call…”
“Oh, hi Ms. Chandler! Thanks for calling back. I wonder if I could talk to you about your missing Brother? I have a few more questions.”
“Sure. When would you like to get together?” she replied.
“Well, I’m free this afternoon, but I don’t know what your work schedule is. Could you get out of work? Perhaps we could meet after lunch sometime?” he asked.
“Actually, I’m calling from home. I don’t know if you have all the details I gave to the other officer, but I have another problem and I was really hoping I could just come over there instead. Actually, if it would be OK with you, I wanted to come over right now.”
He wondered what kind of a paranoid loon this was. Couldn’t she wait? One of those ‘my case is more important’ than anyone else’s types? Oh well. He sighed then replied, “Sure, whenever you can make it, I’ll be here all morning.”
As she hung up the phone, she had the feeling that he wasn’t too happy about her interrupting his planned schedule. Hopefully, after she explained herself, he would understand. She had a small desk in the spare bedroom of her apartment where she found her extra set of car keys and some checks which were intended to refill her checkbook, but would now have to serve as proof of her account. She grabbed a recent bank statement as well. She would need to stop by the bank and get some cash since her wallet was in her purse. Unfortunately, so was her checkbook, so she considered the fact that she would probably need to close out her account as well.
She had a couple of ‘retired’ purses stored on the shelf in her bedroom closet, so she retrieved one and supplied it with the usual items one would find in a girl’s purse. Too bad about the wallet and her ID and such. She did a search of her desk and came up with one credit card that she didn’t use because of the high interest rates but was still within the expiration date and tossed it in with the rest of the items.
The trip to the bank was quite an ordeal. She never realized what a nuisance it would be to close out an account and open another. Even though she had checks to refill her checkbook, a bank statement and a credit card to prove her identity they didn’t want to believe that she was really Mara Chandler. She couldn’t understand. After all, what was a person supposed to do when they lost a purse? Obviously all her ‘normal’ forms of identification would be in it.
Their argument was that anyone could have found someone’s check refills and assumed Mara Chandler’s identity and is now attempting to steal all of the real Mara Chandler’s money.
After disputing the issue for 20 minutes, they finally gave in and believed her. The main office was able to send a sample of her signature to the branch office where Mara was waiting. Since Mara’s signature on the check she just filled out was a close match, they couldn’t refuse.
She arrived at the police station much later than she intended. She hoped that detective Taylor wouldn’t be too upset since she indicated that she was coming ‘right over’. As she went through the front doors, she thought, what is this the third time since Friday? This was becoming quite a habit. Again, she felt self-conscious of her appearance. While she had on a set of clean, dry clothes, she noted the scratches on her hands and caught her reflection in the door. Her makeup didn’t quite cover the bruise along her jaw or the still slightly swollen lip from her ordeal the previous night.
She approached the counter and asked for Detective Taylor.