“What defense could she possibly have had?”
“The oldest in the world — she claimed that someone else was using her name.”
“But with the evidence that you had—!”
“As I said, I was overconfident.” He rubbed his jaw in embarrassment. “She agreed that the signatures on the checks looked like hers, and that the photo of the woman on the ID card looked like her. But she said that the thumbprint on the application wasn’t hers — and it wasn’t.”
I whistled.
“Yes, I know,” he said uncomfortably. “Why didn’t I check it before we went to court? Because I was so sure...” His voice trailed away. “And she’d always been a lone wolf. It never occurred to me that she’d have an accomplice, someone whose thumbprint she could use on the application. The jury took about fifteen seconds to find her not guilty.”
“Did you try to run a make on the accomplice’s print?”
“Of course. We sent copies to the FBI in Washington and to the California Identification Bureau in Sacramento. Those are the only single-print files that amount to anything, but they couldn’t match up a thing.”
“So what do you want from me?”
“She’ll try something else, and when she does, I want you gumshoeing so close that you can smell her perfume. I’ll pay five thousand for evidence that’ll put her away. And I’d put another thousand on the barrelhead if I knew how she conned us this time.”
I picked up the woman’s photo again. She certainly did look casual against the background of the other lightly dressed shoppers. “Judging by the way everyone is dressed, this ID snap must have been taken in one of the stores near the beach,” I said. “Are you still holding checks of hers not covered by the first indictment? Ones that you could still charge her with?”
“Have I ever! But she’d only use the same strategy.”
I held out the photo for him to see. “The store was crowded when she made out the application. Even with her looks, no one would pay any particular attention to her. The cashier probably handed her a stamp pad and told her where to put her thumbprint. All she had to do was step behind one of the canned-goods displays.”
“Step behind—?”
“She didn’t have an accomplice,” I said. “She worked it herself. Pick her up and run her through the mill again.”
“Listen, you’re—”
“And when she demands a fingerprint expert at her next trial, have him check her toeprints too. You can’t see her feet in this photo, but you can bet she wasn’t wearing combat boots.”
I studied Burk Larson’s astonished face. “And be sure you spell my name right on that six-thousand-dollar check.”
The Last One To Know
by William Bankier
If Cory didn’t try May’s plan he’d wonder for the rest of his life...
He almost failed to recognize her. She looked different in grey light on Wimbledon Broadway from the way she had looked on BBC color television last night. But it was definitely May Stanstead, thinner in the face, the famous blonde perm abandoned now for a stylishly severe, mannish cut. Could she have lost this much weight overnight? No, obviously the panel show had been videotaped weeks or even months ago.
Their eyes met. A habitual winner with older women, Corey Keith smiled and the famous actress gave him her trademark grin. He took a chance and spoke to her. “You were the best last night,” he said.
“Oh, well. Thank you.”
She was shorter than he had imagined, neat as a girl, chin tipped up at about his chest level, the collar of her suede jacket raised to frame her face, a wisp of black nylon scarf knotted at her throat. “Those comedians,” he went on, “fighting to get in their ad-libs, they were O.K. But you came across with sweet intelligence.”
Something happened in her eyes. She had been smiling professionally but now she focused on him for the first time, identifying what was confronting her. “That’s very nice of you,” she said. “Really it is.” A gloved hand rested lightly on his arm.
Corey said, “I’m not drunk or anything — confronting you on the street like this. I have a reason.”
“You don’t need one.”
“I mean, you don’t know me but, in a way, I have a connection with you. I’m a member of the Hartfield Dramatic Society.”
“Then you know my mother.” Mrs. Jessica Stanstead was an honorary life member of the Hartfield Society. May was forever encountering locals who thus claimed a nodding acquaintance — but never one as potentially useful as this young man. Just how he might be useful May could not have said because, after weeks of discontent, the idea in her mind was still only half formed. “I’m afraid I haven’t been to a Hartfield show lately, so I won’t have seen you.”
“You wouldn’t anyway,” Corey said. “I’m backstage painting flats, helping sling the lights — anything that doesn’t inflict my Canadian accent on the poor audience.”
“Canadian. I didn’t think you were quite American.”
“I’m not sure what I am. People in pubs here think I’m from Belfast.” They were stuck here on this busy pavement. Heads kept turning in the flow around them. Corey took a stab. “Speaking of pubs, how about a drink? Have you got time?”
“I have, in fact.” They began walking toward The Prince of Wales. “I was going to suggest the same thing.”
She drank medium sherry. Corey lifted his pint of lager, conscious of the dried paint embedded around his fingernails. He could change into a good suit when he wasn’t working but it took serious scrubbing with turps and a brush to eradicate the telltale brand of the house painter. Women didn’t usually seem to care but this one might be different. If she showed enough interest, Corey suspected he would be willing to dunk his fingers in acid to meet her standards.
She let him get her another drink. With it, her idea began to develop. It had to do with Jason, of course. As long as tedious, dependable, work-addicted Jason continued his annoying habit of waking up every day, there would be no room in May’s life for Tony Bhajwa. May had spent one afternoon with Tony and it was enough to prove that making love could be an original experience. But if Jason found out, that would be that. No marriage, no money, not even the career assistance that came with having an influential husband at the BBC.
“I don’t relax much any more,” May said. “All I seem to do is work — read a new script every Wednesday, rehearse the next four days, then tape the episode on Monday. Tuesday off and we start again.”
“That’s what you get for having a successful series,” Corey said. Actually, he thought her situation comedy, Partners Sublime, was a load of rubbish. It was in its third season on BBC1 and was beginning to struggle. Evidence of panic among the script writers was the fact that they had added a new character, a Pakistani waiter who justified the laugh-track by delivering boring lines in a stereotyped sing-song.
“Thanks,” she said. “But it becomes very tiring. I did the panel show you saw last night to give myself some new exposure. What I’d really like is a good serious drama.”
Corey drank deep, looking across the glass at her knitted brow, the sexy mouth distorted by stubborn thoughts. “Well,” he said, “we’ve all got problems. How’d you like to paint other people’s rooms for a living?” He showed her his mottled fingertips. “Look at that. My mother raised me for better things.”
“I’m sure she did.” She took hold of his hand and put one finger between her teeth and out again so quickly that nobody in the pub noticed. But Corey would never forget the audacity of it. The message was on the table and now it was up to him.