You Can't Catch Me(21)

“There was. The bank pulled it and gave it to the cops. They didn’t care. One of them even said it could’ve been me, dressed up, taking my own money.”

“Why would you do that?” Liam asks.

“That’s what I said. And you know what the cop said? He said, there’s all kinds of criminals in the world. Smart, dumb, and somewhere in between. Apparently, people do this sort of thing to try to get the insurance money. You know, how the bank has coverage on your accounts for fraud?”

“My cop said something similar,” I say. “Plus, I got told I was a low priority.”

“They said that too.”

“She took everything?” Liam asks, keeping us on track.

“Pretty much. I filed for the insurance, but I was denied. I have the house. And I was lucky enough to get a job at the local school, not teaching, but at least it puts food on the table.”

“It’s not what you fantasized about,” I say.

“Not by a long shot.”

“And that gossip, Leanne—she knew about this?”

“Her husband is one of the policemen in town. I guess he told her, because she started saying things about how I could apply for”—she raises a hand and half covers her mouth—“food stamps. I thought what I told the police would be kept confidential.”

“It should have been,” Liam says.

“Thank you for telling us all this,” I say.

“Is it going to help?”

“Maybe. We know something more now, anyway.”

“What do you know?”

Liam summarizes. “That she’s done this more than once. That she targets Jessica Williamses for some reason. That she’s organized, smart, skilled with people. That her ID is good enough to fool a bank. She’s very good at disguises and also a risk taker, confident she won’t get caught. If you still have the pictures of her, then we can add it to the ones we have and see what other points of commonality we can find.”

“What are you going to do with all that information?”

“We have enough to go back to the cops,” Liam says.

Jessie shakes her head vigorously. “No, it’s not going to make a difference with them. This happening to more than one person? It sounds even crazier than my original story. They’ll end up telling Leanne and all them about it, and then there’ll be more stuff in the papers about me. More reasons to treat me like an outcast. I don’t want that. I just want to be anonymous.”

“Don’t you want your money back?” I ask.

“You think I’m going to get my money back if she goes to jail?”

“Depends on how good she is at hiding it.”

“She’s a professional. Isn’t that what you said?”

Jessie’s up and pacing now; I can almost hear her heart beating from here as I watch a pulse throb in her neck.

“Please don’t take this to the police,” she says. “Please.”

“Hey,” Liam says in a soothing voice. “Don’t worry. We won’t do anything you don’t want.”

Jessie looks at me for confirmation.

“We won’t. Besides, I have a different idea, personally.”

“What’s that?”

“Catch her.”





Chapter 9

In the Land of Todd

“This whole menu is screwed up,” I say to Liam an hour later. We’re ensconced in the A&W in town, sitting on the back porch under an awning that blocks out the suddenly hot sun. He ordered the Papa burger. I rebelled and ordered the Teen. “Why does the Grandpa burger have three patties? And the Mama burger doesn’t have lettuce or tomato? Or bacon? I bet a lot of mothers like bacon.”

“Just order what you want.”

“I did. But this menu is pure patriarchy. What if you’re not a mama or a papa? This is a good way to make people feel bad about themselves.”

“I think we’re going to feel bad enough about ourselves if we eat everything we ordered.”

I pat him on the hand. “Poor Papa.”

“Ha. That would be something.”

“You’d make a great dad. I mean, you basically are a dad already.”

“To a bunch of grown-up children?”

“That’s right. You adopted all of us.”

“I’m not your father.”

Something in his tone reminds me that I don’t want him to be. I change topics. “So, what did you think of her? Jessica Three. You certainly were friendly. I think she’s half in love with you already.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Is it so ridiculous?”

“As you very well know, I was being friendly to get her to open up. And it worked.”

“You were holding her hands.”

“I was calming her down.”

I look away. Two large motorcycles roar into the parking lot. Their drivers are all in black leather and have matching long beards.

“She’s a bit strange, though,” Liam says. “And scared of the cops, for some reason.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to be treated like a hysterical woman again. It wasn’t that fun when it happened to me.”