Identity Thief (19 page)

I almost blurted out that no one was prettier than my Sabrina but kept my emotions in check, piling on the thanks some more before leaving. “Thank you again. You’ve been a lot of help.” As I thought about it, Luanna had done me some good. The flirty girl might well have been Sabrina, and the guy claiming to be me would’ve been exactly Sabrina’s type. A nothing.

All I had to do was find out who this guy was and probably my own daughter could tell me at least something about him, if not everything. When you’re a parent
and
a shrink, it doesn’t take much to add two and two. My daughter had a crush on my identity thief. There was an obvious down side, but the upside was she could lead him right into Papa’s hand.

I made sure I met with Sabrina without Esther around to tell me to go easy on our precious baby. She had an art studio in an old factory district, so I met her there that very same day.

The studio was creaky and messy, as I imagined most artist studios were. It was near an elevated freeway exit, and there was a constant roar of cars in the background, which I would have found distracting. Still, it was quite spacious, with high ceilings. Jeremy, my ex-bulldog, lay restfully on a dog cushion in the corner. He barked a little when I came in and quickly fell asleep. He didn’t seem to remember me. Or maybe he didn’t care.

Sabrina was high atop a ladder and endearingly attired in overalls, which, like her face, featured messy dots of paint. She protected her hair by stuffing it inside a baseball cap. Sabrina was working on this enormous, wall-sized canvas that reminded me of why I had so little feeling for art. The canvas had a solid black background with these splatters of white on top. Climbing down the ladder, she explained to me that she would keep splattering on the white until the painting was fifty/fifty black and white. It would be given the ingenious title,
Composition #11
. For my benefit, she slid out several earlier wall-sized pieces, all of which looked the same to me.

As if reading my mind, she said, “They’re not all the same, you know. The splatter patterns vary. That’s the whole point. Nothing is ever the same as something else, even when you think it is.”

I thought about how much I disagreed with this. As far as I was concerned, everyone and everything was one great big blah. Okay, with a few exceptions, but that was the general idea. I supposed that was what art was for—to try to make everything seem nicer or more interesting than it was. Assuming you could relate to it.

“Huh. I never thought of it that way before, princess.” I stood back and squinted in mock fascination for the piece. “Is this what your sabbatical is for?” Lord help the patrons of her university if it was.

“Sort of.” She critically studied a tiny section of the painting and splattered more white on it. “It’s hard to explain.” She quickly added, “If you don’t know much about art.” She climbed back up her ladder, paintbrush in hand.

“Sabrina, I’m here to talk about that bank robbery.”

“Uh,huh. I’m listening.”

“It doesn’t seem to upset you anymore.”

“When I’m painting, Dad, nothing upsets me.” Deftly balanced on the ladder, she dunked her brush into her can of paint and struck it at the canvas with a firm determination in her wrist, as one might swat a fly.

“I remember you mentioned some guy. You thought he was handsome.” I hoped to go to my grave without ever saying the word “cute.”

“Did I?”

“
Yes
. Even though you were scared out of your mind, you said you noticed some guy.”

She set her paintbrush in the can of paint. “Yes, I think I’m remembering now. The thing is, I’ve blotted out a lot that happened.”

“Sabrina, are you involved with this young man?”

She looked down at me, grinning; there was a spot of white paint on her nose. “Dad, I don’t get it. What if I was? I’m not. But what if I was? Do I have to tell you about every guy I date? Really, your Sabrina is all grown up now. Daddy’s little girl has known a number of men in the good old-fashioned Biblical sense, and it didn’t exactly start happening the day before yesterday.”

“Believe it or not, young lady, at your age I did not spend my evenings eating cookies and milk, though, of course, the dinosaurs made for some bad times. I
know
that people have sex. I was a shrink, remember? When you said that Cole Colton person was the love of your life, I didn’t think you were doing pinkie hugs.”

It made me quite uncomfortable to think that my daughter fucked around like a whore. If I’d had a patient who was a virgin—if anyone over eighteen
was
still a virgin—I would tell her to go out and get laid. Hell, I might’ve even done her myself. But I could barely stomach the thought of my daughter having sex, let alone casual sex. I wanted to beat up any man who so much as touched her. If she got married and wanted a kid, I’d encourage her to consider artificial insemination.

“‘Cole Colton?’ You don’t even remember his name. It was Colton Cole.”

“I know that.” I said quickly. “I was making light of it all. You know, as if I’d said, ‘Doe, John.’”

“There was nothing funny about our relationship. Colton called me the other day. He wanted to get back together. It took everything I had to tell him no. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do.”

Something in me had changed because I had to resist the urge to reply,
Yes, I can tell you’re devastated.
Or maybe,
How the fuck was I supposed to know how
you felt about anything when you never say what’s
happening to you?

“Do you want to talk about it, Princess?” I properly furrowed my brow in concern.

“No, I’m fine now.” She made rapid brush strokes with her white paint.

“Anyway, I
know
you’re all grown up, sweetheart. That’s why I don’t pay your bills anymore. I want to know about that one guy from the bank.”

She climbed down the ladder. “Why? Is he really my long lost brother?”

“That’s not funny.”

“When you’re adopted, you wonder about these things. I saw this old movie once where this guy was jealous of his twin sister’s boyfriend, and then it turned out that they were both adopted, and—”

“I hate it when you talk about being adopted. Don’t you know your mother and I never think of you that way?”

She sat herself on the ladder and cupped her hand to her chin. “A friend of mine in college said that I was lucky. Because non-adopted kids wish they
were
adopted. That there’s these nicer, real parents waiting for them someplace. The same friend used to say she was raised by nuns in a French orphanage. Instead, she was from Milton, Ohio. I remember her father collected hubcaps.”

“Look, stop changing the subject. Do you know the man you saw at the bank robbery or not?”

She made a point of staring at me dead-on. There was not even the slightest flicker in her eyes. “No. I never saw him again.”

“You’re acting like you have something to hide.”

“So are you, Dad. Why do you care about this guy? You even asked me about him when I came to visit that time.” She leaned toward me. “Don’t worry, I know I’m covered in paint. I won’t touch you. But really, Dad. Whatever it is, I can handle it.”

I thought for a moment, took a deep breath, and told Sabrina about the identity thief. At one point I got carried away and touched her shoulders, getting some paint on my hands. “Promise me,” I concluded, “that you won’t tell anyone I was here.” I washed my hands in her industrial sink.

“Not even Mom?”

I reached for a paper towel to dry my hands. “Especially not Mom. All she’ll do is worry that you’re worried.”

“It must be awful. Knowing that some total stranger is stealing who you are. If it was at least someone you knew, they might have a reason for doing it. You know, like if they hated you.” She stood back to observe her painting, her hands on her hips.

“I want my money back.”

She walked to the other side of the studio to study the painting from a different angle. I couldn’t imagine what could be right or wrong with it from any angle. “Really, Dad, he was a guy kind of guy. He wore a blue suit, if that’s any help. He had a bank check, and the bank robbers wanted cash. In fact, they shot him. He might be dead, for all I know.”

Gee, that definitely narrowed it down. If I went through the clothes closet of every thirty-something man in the city, I could eliminate the ones who didn’t own a blue suit. “I doubt that he’s dead, unless people can keep stealing from the grave. I wish the bank robbers killed him.”

“I know you don’t really mean that. It’s only money. A human life is worth much more.”

I wondered where she learned such bullshit. Probably her mother. I certainly never thought for one second that I would rather this guy be alive than dead. Unless his death made it more complicated for me to get my money back. Still, if he was shot, there probably were hospital records.

“I should get going. Good luck with your painting.”

She laughed. “
Good luck
? It’s not like it’s a NASA rocket.”

“Oh really? That’s what I thought it was. But I guess I was looking at it from the wrong angle. It’s really a bullfrog.”

She sighed with mock exasperation. “Good-bye, Dad.”

“If that Colton Cole whatever calls you again, tell him to fuck off.”

Sabrina laughed. “I already did.”

“That’s Daddy’s good little girl.”

Her cell phone was beeping, and she took it out of one of her overall pockets to shut it off. She scurried over to the industrial sink and started to open a cupboard door. Then she stopped and looked over at me. “I thought you were leaving.”

“I was. I mean, I am. Sabrina, honey, are you all right?”

“
Yes
. I’m getting a glass of water, if it’s okay with you.” She opened the cupboard door to show that it was full of glasses. “I don’t like feeling spied on.”

I could relate to that myself but thought it best not to admit it. “Okay, okay, I’m going.”

I knew from past experience which hospital emergency patients were taken to. Driving over there, though, I couldn’t escape the fear that this fucked-up thief was involved with my beautiful daughter. Was he corrupting her? Was he using her to get closer to my money?

The hospital indeed confirmed that a Dr. Jesse Falcon was admitted for gunshot wounds on the day of the bank robbery. I saw his signature on some triplicate copy of a form, and it looked chillingly like my own.

For the first time, it occurred to me that the person I was dealing with was a highly skilled and experienced criminal. Which, of course, meant I might be in danger if I did find him. I didn’t care. I’d rather get shot to death if I at least knew who he was.

I talked to a doctor and a couple of nurses. They revealed little more capacity for observation than Luanna from the bank. He was nice, he was thirty-something.

I was still on my meds for stress, and to please Esther, I was trying not to drink at all. But I thought I’d earned the right to a scotch—and make it a double, if you please. I don’t like chi-chi bars, so I stopped inside the first dimly lit, liquor-smelling tavern I found. Midway through my drink, my cell phone rang. I almost didn’t bother to answer the unfamiliar number but figured I had nothing to lose.

“Yeah, what’s up?” I figured that was how a good PI would answer the phone.

“That depends,” said the female voice. “Is this Randall Van Sant, Private Investigator?”

“Speaking.”

“I need to see you about an urgent matter. How soon could I stop by your office?”

Office? What office? “How did you find out about me?”

“I looked you up on the motherfucking computer,” she replied, which made me sort of like her in advance. “You were the last private eye alphabetically; I figured I’d start with you.”

“Do you mind meeting in a bar? That’s where I am now.”

“I suppose I could use some liquid refreshment.”

I told her the name of the pub, and before I gave her the address, she said she remembered it as a dump she used to go to with her college friends to try to be sleazy.

I was on my second double when this blonde walked in. I felt like I was in an old movie. She wasn’t pretty exactly, but she gave off a constant aroma of sex, as if she were ready, willing, and able to fuck 24/7. But she wasn’t hard-edged. Not that she seemed soft, either. She was like some pleasant, forgettable, one-night stand who probably wondered why she didn’t do better with men than she did.

“Call me Betsy.” She extended her hand, which I shook.

“I’m having a double scotch,” I told her.

“In that case, I’ll have a triple.” Betsy smiled at me.

As she coyly sipped her large drink through a cocktail straw, Betsy told me her story. “The love of my life is gone. He disappeared, the day we were supposed to move in together. His name was Biff. Maybe you heard about him in the news?”

“Maybe,” I answered in an uncommitted tone. I didn’t want to tell her that I’d only recently moved back to the area. “Do you have a picture of him?”

“Do I ever,” she replied, as though I needed a great deal of convincing that this Biff person even existed. She handed me a photo of a man in bathing trunks, smiling as he had his arm around Betsy, who wore a skimpy bikini. A pair of tall drinks stood on a table beside them. I saw a swimming pool in the background, but since no one else was in the picture, I imagined it was someone’s house and not a resort.

“Oh, this is the guy that’s been murdered,” I said. “No wonder you can’t find him. Just this morning, I think, I heard that some local mob guy and his hit man finally were arrested.”

Betsy shrugged haughtily. “No body. Big deal. They’re building some circumstantial case to pin something on a gangster. His own attorney said so.”

I could scarcely believe what a dingbat she was. “Of course his attorney said so. Did you think he’d say, ‘My client is guilty?’ There’ve been many murder convictions without the body ever being found.”

“I’m telling you, Biff is alive. His parents
always
paid his gambling debts. Or for abortions and whatnot. They can’t say it, but it’s true. Biff never would’ve hooked up with mobsters. He didn’t
have
to.”