“Okay, Lena, it’s our lucky day. We’ve got thirteen statements. The woman calling herself Jennifer McBride opened a checking account thirteen months ago with ten thousand dollars in cash. For the first month there was no activity. The money just sat there. When we get to month two, her address changes and money’s moving in and out.”
Lena checked the address printed on the first two statements. Although the town and zip code bordered Santa Monica and Venice, the block number at Lincoln and Ocean Park wasn’t residential. It was a major intersection in a part of town she had driven through many times. When she remembered that a Mail Boxes Etc was located on the same block, it made perfect sense. Jane Doe was in the process of stealing an identity and becoming Jennifer McBride. She needed a mailing address to get started-a safe address where she could receive mail until she rented the apartment within walking distance over on Navy Street.
Avadar pointed at the statements. “I’ve gone through the checks she wrote and nothing stands out,” he said. “Rent and utilities, cable TV, telephone bills for the house and a cell-it’s all routine stuff. Same with her credit card. Just gas, groceries, and restaurants. Did you guys recover her checkbook?”
Lena shook her head and gave him an overview of what they thought had been in the victim’s purse at the time of her murder.
Avadar thought it over. “So maybe she kept an address book or memo pad with her. Maybe she wrote down her password.”
“I think she wrote down a lot of things. She was living two lives and juggling the details for an entire year. She couldn’t trust it to memory. She was too smart.”
“But not smart enough to not get killed.”
A moment passed as Avadar’s words settled into the room. Then he cleared his throat and continued in a quieter voice.
“Whoever’s using the ATM card knew the password from the very beginning, Lena. On the first withdrawal, there were no mistakes. No second or third tries. They inserted the card, punched in the magic number, and, took the cash.”
“Let’s get to the deposits,” Lena said.
“Do you know what she did for a living?”
Lena hesitated a moment, deciding not to answer the question unless it became necessary. “Why?” she asked.
“I’m just curious. She’s not depositing a payroll check. Look at the third statement. Six deposits. Four or five hundred bucks each. All of it’s cash.”
“How does this add up to fifty thousand dollars?”
“It doesn’t. Every statement here is exactly the same. Small cash deposits amounting to about twenty-five hundred dollars a month. Just enough to pay her bills. The fifty grand came in last Friday, six days before she was murdered. The deposit won’t appear on her statement until next month. It came in as a single chunk.”
“Cash?”
Avadar shook his head. “We would have noticed that,” he said. “It was a check from Western Union. I’m gonna make a wild guess that whoever sent it didn’t want to leave a paper trail.”
“And that the fifty thousand started out as cash.”
“All they needed to do was show an ID and fill out a form, Lena.”
“Then Western Union cuts a check at this end and the victim deposits it into her account.”
“Right,” he said. “Let me see how they’re making out with the video.”
Lena watched him exit the room and sat down in the chair. This was what she had hoped to find, what she thought she would find, but had held back from Rhodes last night on the phone because she wasn’t sure. This was the only thing that made sense and explained why a Beverly Hills doctor like Joseph Fontaine could be involved. Why he knew the victim and lied about it to detectives investigating a murder case.
She turned back to the bank statements, reviewing the small cash deposits made at the end of each week.
The best Lena could figure, Jane Doe would have had three good reasons to steal McBride’s identity. First, she grew up in Los Angeles and wanted to hide the fact that she was placing sex ads in a city paper and had become a prostitute. Second, she really could have been a phantom-someone who lights up a stolen identity and moves on after the candle has burned out. The fact that everything in her apartment was downsized and portable seemed to support this. And then the jackpot: the possibility that both were true and she was blackmailing Fontaine. Threatening to expose the Beverly Hills pediatrician with their relationship unless he paid up. Rather than risk losing his career as a doctor who worked with children, Fontaine probably bought time with a small first payment before deciding to lash out. Either he paid someone to murder the woman or he killed her himself.
Avadar walked into the room holding four unlabeled DVDs. “I’ve got them,” he said. “I’ll burn you a single disc after we take a look.”
He copied the video files from each disc onto the computer’s hard drive. When he finished, Lena moved around the desk for a better look. The four files were on the monitor, each labeled by the date of the withdrawal. Avadar highlighted the group and hit play, running the clips back-to-back without interruption. Although the images were degraded, it was obvious that the same person had accessed the ATMs and stolen the cash at five hundred dollars a shot.
But Lena wasn’t really thinking about the money anymore.
She was playing back her telephone conversation with Lieutenant Barrera in her head. The one she’d had after leaving Fontaine’s office last night. The one that included a brief description of the messenger who walked into Parker Center with the package from the witness. The kid in the leather jacket wearing a Dodger cap, who didn’t ask the cops at the front desk to sign a log book and didn’t bother to leave a receipt.
She studied the monitor, watching their witness work the keyboard and rip off the cash. His head was lowered, his face partially concealed by the bill of his cap. He knew where the camera was, and he knew that he was committing a crime. Still, she could see enough of his mouth and chin to know that he was young. Eighteen or nineteen with long dark hair. She could see enough to know that it was him.
16
Nathan G. Cava strode down the long row of cars in his suit and tie, worrying that maybe Vinny Bing the Cadillac King had been the wrong choice in a dealership. He could feel a punk salesman tagging along, nipping at his ankles like a stray dog. And something was going on in the main showroom. He hadn’t been inside yet, but he could see some sort of commotion through the glass and sensed that there was a problem.
He glanced back at the salesman-the mealymouthed man jabbering away on autopilot-and regretted giving the idiot his name.
He had chosen Vinny Bing’s dealership because it was on the south side of town. Poor people lived here, and he hoped that he might get a better deal. He already knew which car he wanted. An SRX Crossover. Not as big as his beloved Hummer, but enough car to feel at home in. He particularly liked the size of the sunroof. The retractable glass extended from front to back, taking up most of the roof of the car. Cava thought it might come in handy for surveillance work. Still, he would be sorry to see the Hummer go. It was almost new, and he liked the way it drove. The fact that people got out of his way and left him an open road. Even those creeps in their BMWs.
Cava continued his march down the aisle, ignoring the salesman. He knew the car he wanted, but couldn’t decide on the color. In the best of all worlds he would have chosen black. But for someone in his line of work, he thought that it might be safer to go with something less stark. Something that would blend a little better in the neighborhood. He had narrowed his choice down to two, and as he continued walking, he spotted them parked side by side.