by Lisa Lutz
“I thought you could use some culture.”
“You are such a snob!” I said, looking for something to throw.
I couldn’t find anything that wouldn’t cause personal injury, so I kicked some magazines off of his coffee table.
“Really mature.”
“That was just an accident,” I replied. I walked into his office and emptied the trash on the floor. “But that was not.”
“This is ridiculous,” Henry said. While he was restoring the garbage to its place, I returned to the living room and began realphabetizing the books on his shelf. 1
I managed to relocate at least ten books before Henry intervened. He grabbed War and Peace out of my hands and stuck it back on the shelf.
“You wouldn’t like that one. It’s really long.”
“Ouch. That hurt,” I replied, backing Henry into a corner.
“Now what are you going to do?” Henry asked. “Rearrange my furniture?”
I kissed him. That’s what I did. He didn’t have anywhere to go and I was pretty close to him. He’s taller than me so I had to stand on my toes. I thought for sure I felt an arm slide around my back and I know at first I felt the kiss returned, but then he stopped and pulled away. He looked confused and sad, sort of, and he didn’t make eye contact. I didn’t utter a word because it looked like Henry had something to say.
“No,” he whispered.
I took a few steps back.
“What?” I asked.
“No,” he said more clearly.
“Okay,” I replied.
“It’s not that I don’t feel anything—”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, backing away some more.
“I can’t wait for you,” Henry said.
I was almost at the door, but then I had to ask.
“You can’t wait for what?”
He sighed and cleared his throat and fought his own brand of discomfort.
“I’m forty-five years old, Isabel. I can’t wait for you to grow up.”
What is there to say to that? I had nothing. Nothing. I turned around and walked out the door.
I spent the entire evening on David’s couch, watching TV and eating an assortment of candy from god knows where. My brother didn’t ask me about my troubles; he just sat there, keeping me company. He even let me drink the good stuff.
CASE #001
CHAPTER 12
I t might seem like the case of Ernie’s maybe-suspicious wife was far from my thoughts, but the truth was, I believed the case was the answer to everything. If I could figure out Linda Truesdale’s secret, then maybe all sorts of other things would become clear. My last investigation—the Case of John Brown 1 —had me convinced that my instincts were off and maybe I was in the wrong line of work. I had to solve the Truesdale case or I had to quit. You might find my logic arbitrary, but it seems to me that someone should have at least a minor talent for his or her career choice. Setting out a shingle for the Lousy Detective Agency wasn’t an option. I could never be like Harkey.
Never.
Ernie phoned me the next morning as I was sleeping off the whiskey I drank in my brother’s living room the previous evening. Ernie said that his wife was meeting Sharon for lunch again. He wasn’t sure where, so I’d have to start the tail from their place. She would be departing in less than forty-five minutes. Depending on traffic, I needed at least a half hour to get there, since my car was parked at my parents’ house.
I dressed in my clothes from the night before and knocked on David’s door. No answer. I took his spare key and entered his house. I shouted his name; I called his cell phone. Nothing. I saw his car key by the front door. I took it and I took his car.
There was an accident on the freeway. I made it to the Black residence just as Linda was pulling out of the driveway. I followed her back onto 101 North and continued the tail as she took 280 and exited at Nineteenth Avenue. Linda stayed on Nineteenth for over five miles. At first I thought she would head across the Golden Gate Bridge, but instead she made a right turn on Clement Street and began searching for a parking space. After parking, she entered, surprisingly, a casual dining establishment called Good Luck Dim Sum.
I was hungry and, for once, dressed appropriately for their restaurant of choice. Since Sharon and Linda had never laid eyes on me, I saw no harm in keeping a short leash on this surveillance and grabbing a bite. I waited five minutes and entered the restaurant.
I saw the women in the window by the street. I asked for a table along the wall. It would provide a clear view of both subjects as they dined.
I ordered hot and sour soup, a pot of tea, and some pot stickers. The women ordered off the cart, although body language indicated that Linda was in her element and was making all the ordering decisions. I could overhear snippets of conversation, Linda offering descriptions of the delicacies. I hadn’t observed the women up close for this long. The observation that struck me most was how uncomfortable they seemed with one another. Before, I had witnessed Linda’s discomfort in her friend’s austere, pricey environments. But this time Sharon, dressed in a hugely inappropriate Chanel suit, looked positively silly trying to eat with chopsticks. And unlike my dad, she wouldn’t use a fork and knife.
What broke the awkward lunch was even more awkward: Sharon took a small gift box out of her enormous handbag and handed it to Linda. The redhead opened the box and smiled appreciatively. I think it was jewelry, but Linda didn’t display the gift. She put the box in her own more modest handbag and poured herself another cup of jasmine tea. A sadness—at least that’s how I translated it from twenty feet away—appeared to wash over Linda’s face, but then a moment later it seemed to disappear.
I assumed after lunch that the women would be returning to their respective homes, so I lingered and made sure that I got the caffeine equivalent of four strong cups of coffee from the less efficiently caffeinated tea. I finished my soup and departed about twenty minutes after the subjects did.
When I pulled out of my parking space, I realized I was being tailed yet again.
This time I tried to evade my pursuer, who was driving a black Ford Explorer. I should remind you that I was in my brother’s shiny new Prius—an excellent vehicle, but not exactly a muscle car. I turned south down Nineteenth Avenue, thinking the freeway might be my only option of escape. When I merged onto 280 South, I immediately cut across three lanes and continued along by the center divider. I switched lanes only to pass other vehicles. I was speeding, but safely. The Ford was a few cars back and one lane to my left. I cut across three lanes to my right, consecutively, and exited the freeway. When I checked my rearview mirror, I had lost the Ford Explorer. On the other hand, I had gained a squad car.
“License and registration, please,” the officer said. I didn’t catch his name, because I was trying to find the paperwork in David’s glove compartment.
I showed the officer my license and the paperwork from David’s recent purchase. There were no license plates on the car, but I didn’t see a problem.
“You’re not David,” the officer said.
“No, I’m his sister, Isabel. See, we have the same last name.”
“Please remove your sunglasses,” the officer asked.
I complied.
“I’ll be right back,” he said. “Wait here.”
I waited about five minutes and the officer returned.
“Ma’am, please step out of the vehicle.”
&
nbsp; “Is there a problem, officer?”
“Ma’am, step out of the vehicle.”
I exited David’s car and the officer put my hands behind my back and cuffed them.
“Ma’am, I’m going to have to take you down to the station.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because this car has been reported as stolen.”
Arrest Number…Whatever
If you’ve read the previous document, you may be thinking that my parents might let me stew in a holding cell all afternoon, but that was not the case. My father arrived with Rae just an hour or so after I was booked. Dad explained the situation and had the arresting officer speak to David on the phone. I was immediately released. I suspect my sister came purely for the entertainment value.
When my personal effects were returned and I met my father and sister in the waiting room, Rae said, “Talk about irony.”
“I swear, I’m going to kill you,” I repeated once again within the walls of a police station.
“If I am ever murdered,” Rae snapped, “you should leave the country right away, because you will be suspect number one.”
My dad then told us both to shut up.
Because the car was registered under David’s name, he had to pick it up from the impound lot. When he arrived at the police station, I unloaded some hearty apologies.
David shook his head in bafflement. “All you had to do was write a note.”
CASE CLOSED
L ater that night, I solved the case. Well, most of it. As I looked through my file on Linda and Sharon, I noticed that November fifteenth was Sharon’s birthday. The day of my arrest was November sixteenth. Why would Sharon give a gift to her friend one day after her own birthday and yet the friend came to the lunch empty-handed? They were also eating at an establishment that clearly catered more to Linda’s whims. I checked Linda’s birthday, just to be sure it wasn’t closing in. She was born on May eighteenth. I had a hunch; maybe it’s the same hunch you have.
I e-mailed burbmom28 once again and attached two JPEG pictures. I asked burbmom28 which picture most resembled the Sharon who attended Benjamin Franklin High. Two and a half very long hours later, I received my reply. Burbmom28 identified the photo of Linda as that of Sharon Meade.
Some other investigator might have tipped off Ernie at this point, but I just had one fact down; there was no meaning behind it. I had to understand what I’d learned before I revealed anything to my client.
The next morning, I jogged 1 over to my parents’ house and checked under my car for one of Harkey’s tracking devices. I found it and showed it to my dad.
“I have to go,” I said. “What should I do with this?”
Dad smiled wickedly and took it from me. “I’ll figure something out,” he said.
I headed out on Van Ness, merged onto 101 South, checked my rearview mirror, and knew that for the time being no one was following me.
Thirty-five minutes later
I parked outside Ernie’s muffler shop. I could see Linda answering phones through the window. I waited three hours until she exited the building and walked three blocks to a coffee shop. I followed her inside.
As Linda was about to pay for her coffee, I approached the cash register.
“Linda, is that you?! I can’t believe it,” I said.
Naturally, Linda looked baffled. I insisted on paying for her coffee and ushered her over to a table. (Yes, I’m that persuasive.)
“You don’t remember me, do you?” I said.
Linda smiled a friendly smile and admitted that she didn’t.
“I’ve had some work done,” I whispered. “Sit down. I’ll tell you all about it.”
Most people can’t resist dirt, even if it’s on someone they suspect to be a stranger. Linda sat down. I dropped my act and pulled out a picture of Sharon.
“I need to ask you about this woman. Please don’t get up and leave. I just want some answers.”
Linda grew pale. Her eyes searched the room for assistance or an explanation or something I couldn’t define at the moment.
“You don’t need to be afraid of me,” I said. “But there are some people out there that you do need to worry about.”
Linda continued to stare at me without uttering a single word.
“Would it help if I told you what I know?”
She nodded her head.
And so I told her. I had to rat out Ernie, but I defended him as best I could. I told her that I knew she and Ernie weren’t legally married; I knew that Sharon Bancroft had given her lavish gifts and some money over the years; I told her that I knew she was being followed; I told her how I was offered a bribe to keep silent when I knew nothing at all. And then I told her that I knew that she was the real Sharon Meade and I told her how I figured it out. I also told her that I knew that Sharon was born as Linda Truesdale. But that’s when things got confusing and I told her the last thing I knew for sure.
“When I figured out that you were Sharon, I couldn’t make sense of it at first. Why would you take on the identity of someone with a criminal record, someone with a past she would want to forget? What didn’t make sense was why you would make such a big sacrifice, losing your own identity, for a friend. And then it seemed obvious. She’s not your friend, is she?”
“No,” the current Linda replied.
“She’s your sister,” I said.
Linda nodded her head. She almost seemed relieved to have someone figure it out. “How could you know that?”
“Because it’s the kind of sacrifice you can only make for family,” I said. “What happened?”
This is the real story: The current Sharon was born Linda Truesdale, three years before her sister, Sharon—now Linda, the woman sitting with me in the café. Their mother was a drug addict. When the older sister was seven and the younger sister was four, they were placed in the foster care system.
Within a few months, an older couple named Meade adopted the younger sister and raised her. They were kind, attentive, and made sure that she had a proper education. The older sibling, on the other hand, drifted from one foster family to the next until she landed in an orphanage. She got into some trouble with the law in her teenage years, and when she was in her early twenties, she was convicted for check fraud and spent four months in a minimum-security prison. With a record, she found it almost impossible to get a job once she was released. The sisters stayed in touch, but their relationship at the time was strained. Their lives had become so different. And the older sibling found herself harboring some resentment.
After two years of college, the adoptive parents of Sharon Meade (now Linda Black, Ernie’s wife, remember) died in a car accident. She was left their modest savings, and after handling their affairs, she decided to go to Europe for a year.
In her absence, the older sister applied for a catering job—a job she really wanted but had a feeling she wouldn’t get because of her record. On a whim, she filled out her application as Sharon Meade, using all of her sister’s personal information. Her sister had a clean record. Linda Truesdale, under the assumed name Sharon Meade, got the job.
A few months later, “Sharon” met Charles Bancroft at a party she was catering in Detroit. He was going to law school in California at the time, but they began a long-distance relationship. The older sister waited for a time to tell Charles, but she never did. When the younger sister returned from Europe and the older sister kn
ew her sibling would be looking for employment, that’s when she told her the truth.
“That’s quite a sacrifice to make,” I said. “My sister would never do that for me.”
Linda Black refused to portray herself as a generous soul. She explained that for years she didn’t speak to her sister when she realized how complicated her life had become in sustaining this deceit. But she also felt guilty about how differently their lives played out, and eventually she found some peace in being Linda Truesdale. Now, it seemed, most of the guilt rested on Sharon’s shoulders—hence the lavish gifts. Linda’s only regret was that she and Ernie were not legally married. She never filed the license because it would be a forged document.
I had hours’ worth of questions, but I ultimately had learned what was necessary for my client’s case. Besides, Linda had a few questions of her own.
“So, Ernie hired you? Why?”
“He thought there might be another man. He was afraid of losing you.”
Linda then laughed. It wasn’t a mean laugh of mockery but more along the lines of How could he be so foolish?
“This explains a few things,” she said. “I thought he was having an affair when he started doing housework all of a sudden.”
“You should tell him. Tell Ernie everything. He can handle it,” I said, and I believed she would.
“The question is, are you going to tell anyone?” she asked.
“No,” I replied. “That’s not part of the job. It’s unlikely you’ll see me again. I don’t want any trouble.”
“Neither do I,” Linda said.
That was the last time I saw her.
I could have told Linda about the mess of investigations surrounding her and Sharon’s relationship, but I decided against it, hoping that I could put the problem to rest and maybe they would never know. If you think about it, all the interested parties would want to keep silent. The only loose cannon was Harkey. There was no telling what he would do if he discovered the truth.
