“Apparently, it’s Swedish,” Engvaldson said. “I grew up thinking I was Norwegian until my wife did that Ancestry.com thing. Big mistake. Turns out my ancestors are from Sweden.”
“Like that commercial,” Faz said.
“Exactly.”
“Me? I don’t want to know about any of that,” Del said. “I’m liable to find out things I don’t want to know.”
“Like maybe you aren’t human?” Faz said.
Engvaldson led them into an office typical for a government employee, small and utilitarian, but serviceable. When he sat, he looked too tall for his desk. He opened a file and handed Faz an eight-by-ten copy of a photograph of Lynn Hoff’s—aka Andrea Strickland’s—driver’s license. “She preapplied for her license—”
“Preapplied?” Del asked. “What does that mean?”
“Filled out her application online, then came in to finish it. It saves time.”
“Good to know,” Del said.
“What did she use for ID?” Faz asked.
“Certified birth certificate,” Engvaldson said, reviewing the file.
“So a legitimate person then,” Faz said.
“Maybe. Maybe not. Our clerks have access to the forms used by each state, but unfortunately detecting a forgery is not so simple. The feds have been working on a standardized document, but back in 1992 each state used its own form.”
“So what, she could have forged the certificate and faked the name?” Del asked.
“She could have,” Engvaldson said.
“This your busiest office?” Faz asked.
“It is,” Engvaldson said, clearly knowing where Faz was going with the question. “And with the federal government requiring everyone to now have an enhanced driver’s license, we’re busier than ever lately.”
Which is likely why Strickland chose to come here, Faz thought; the busier the clerk, the less time she had to spend on something like this, especially if the certificate looked like it passed muster.
“She provide a Social Security number?” Faz asked.
Engvaldson handed Faz another document.
Faz compared the number with the number he had obtained from the Social Security Administration for Lynn Cora Hoff. It matched. “So it’s an active number,” Faz said, sounding surprised.
“What does ‘active’ mean, that she’s alive?” Del asked.
“Not necessarily,” Faz said. “Back in the old days, before computers, the con would go to the cemetery and find a tombstone of a child who’d died but would have been about the same age as the con. He takes that kid’s name and date of birth and gets a Social Security number. With computers, the SSA now links its data to the database of deaths.”
“Right, so we’d know if she’s dead,” Del said. “So how did she get a living person’s number?”
Faz said, “Drive to Chinatown with a couple thousand dollars in your pocket and you can get just about anything you want. It could also be that the person, Lynn Cora Hoff, was indigent, had no criminal record, and had no relatives or anyone to identify her body. If that was the case, her death would have never been reported to SSA. She just ceased to exist.”
“I’m surmising that takes a lot of research by somebody,” Del said.
“Yes, it does,” Faz agreed. “Which is why I’m surprised it’s active.”
“So this isn’t like when my son spent twenty bucks to get a fake ID so he could buy beer,” Del said.
“No, it’s not,” Engvaldson said. “It’s much more elaborate.”
“At least we know how she did it.” Faz stood and extended a hand. “Thanks for your help.”
“No problem.” Engvaldson unfolded from his chair like the stalk in the children’s fairy tale.
“How do you fly?” Del said, looking up.
Engvaldson thrust out his arms in a Superman pose. “Usually like this.” He laughed. “I get that question quite a bit. I ask for the bulkhead or the emergency row. The airlines have to accommodate me.”
“Yeah? Do they have to accommodate fat guys like us?” Del asked.
“That, I don’t know. I’ll let you out.”
The main room had cleared out. Engvaldson unlocked the glass door and pulled it open. They thanked him again for his time and walked to the elevator.
“So if she gets a driver’s license, can we assume she intended to live in the state?” Del asked.
“Maybe. Could be why she was also getting her looks changed, but not necessarily,” Faz said. “She might have obtained the Social Security number so she could get the driver’s license to make it easier to get a passport and take off. And you need a license to open a bank account. Think about it. What was she going to do with her trust? If you’re going overseas you’re not going to be flying with a bunch of cash in your suitcase, and she couldn’t use her real name. She would have needed a license to get the money into an account in the name Lynn Hoff, or some shell corporation. Then she begins to wire it out of the country. From there, you move it a couple more times to places that provide confidentiality. Eventually, it disappears.”
“She must have been pretty desperate,” Del said.
“It’s called pseudocide,” Faz said. “The person fakes their death, usually to collect insurance money or escape creditors, then resurfaces as somebody else.” Faz looked at his watch. “Banks will be closed.”
“Yes, but Salumi is open and I’m hungry,” Del said.
When Tracy and Kins arrived back at Police Headquarters they had a surprise waiting on their desks—sandwiches wrapped in white butcher paper. The sticky note said it all.
Don’t say I never gave you nothing.
“Isn’t that like a triple negative?” Kins said.
“I love him anyway.” Tracy ripped open the wrapping. “I’m starving and I’m betting these are from Salumi.”
“If you’re starving, why didn’t you order something to eat at the restaurant?”
“I lost my appetite when Fields started talking.”
Kins’s forehead furrowed. “I didn’t think he was that bad.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Sounds like something my wife says when I’m in trouble and don’t know why. What’d he do?”
“You mean besides undressing the waitress with his eyes every time she came to the table? How much cheese can you put on linguini and clams?”
“Really?” Kins said.
“You didn’t notice?”
“I noticed the waitress.”
She rolled her eyes. “Pig.”
“Actually, mine’s lamb,” Kins said, holding up half his sandwich. “Did you get the pork shoulder?”
“Idiot.”
Kins laughed while rummaging in his desk drawer for a couple bucks. “I’m going to grab a soda. You want one?”
“I’m good,” she said.
Tracy took a bite of her sandwich. Faz had bought her the pork shoulder. Not that she was going to tell Kins.
“Crosswhite.”
Tracy cringed at the sound of Nolasco’s nasal whine. She set down the sandwich.
“Where’s Kins?” Nolasco said, entering their cubicle.
“Getting a soda,” she said, finishing her bite.
“What the hell is going on with the woman in the trap?” Nolasco said. “The media is calling, saying she’s the same woman presumed dead on Mount Rainier last month. Is it true?”
“Appears to be,” Tracy said, upset that the media had the information, which meant it was likely the husband had it as well.
“Did you tell them?”
She scoffed. “Of course not. Why would I tell them?”
“Well, somebody did.”
“Well, it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Kins. I can tell you that.”
“Wasn’t me what?” Kins reentered the bull pen with a Diet Coke.
“The media knows about Andrea Strickland,” Tracy said.
“How?”
“It aired all over the six o’clock news,” Nolasco said.
<
br /> “Manpelt?” Kins said.
“Among others,” Nolasco said. “Phones are ringing off the hook, the brass is calling, and I don’t know shit.”
“We learned about it last night and took a drive out to Rainier and Tacoma,” Kins said. “Just getting back now.”
Nolasco looked at Tracy, disbelieving. “You have no idea how the media found out?”
Ordinarily, Nolasco would have been Tracy’s first choice as the leak. The department was a sieve, the brass often giving up information to cull favors with the media. She couldn’t tell if Nolasco was being sincere or just looking to redirect blame. “None,” she said. “We were hoping to talk to the husband before the story broke.”
“You can forget about that. He was prominently featured.”
“What did he have to say?” Tracy said.
“Exactly what you’d expect him to say. He was both profoundly shocked and saddened and had no idea what would have compelled his wife to fake her own death or who would have wanted to kill her.”
“Sounds scripted and well rehearsed,” Tracy said.
“Of course it was,” Kins said.
Nolasco eyed Tracy. “You didn’t say anything, to anyone?”
Tracy suspected Nolasco was setting her up. “Why would I?”
“That’s a good question. Here’s another one—why would a woman in Renton who manages a motel tell a reporter that the victim lived at the motel for almost a month and that two homicide detectives had been there asking questions?”
“That’s true,” Kins said. “We were there and we did ask questions, but we didn’t say anything about the victim.”
Nolasco looked between the two of them. “I want a written statement before you leave tonight that I can take to the brass. They want Lee to put something out,” he said, referring to Bennett Lee, the department’s public information officer.
“We don’t have any DNA. It’s premature,” Tracy said.
“Not when motel owners have figured it out, it isn’t,” Nolasco said.
“Fine, Lee can tell them she wasn’t a prostitute, a druggie, or homeless,” Tracy said.
Nolasco glared at her. “Anything useful?”
Kins stepped in. “We spoke to the ranger on Mount Rainier and got a copy of his report and we talked to the Pierce County detective. We’ll put something together but couch everything to be part of an ongoing investigation.”
“I want to be kept fully apprised going forward,” Nolasco said, directing his comment and lingering glare at Tracy. “Is that understood?”
“Absolutely,” Tracy said.
Nolasco walked from the cubicle, but stopped and came back to Tracy. “And you can tell your boyfriend’s friend who works for the Angels he doesn’t know shit. Trout hit a home run and drove in four runs the other night.”
Tracy struggled not to break into a grin. “Wow. Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
Nolasco left. Kins stared at her.
“Mike Trout? The baseball player?”
She shrugged and smiled. “Heard he had a bad hamstring.”
“You don’t even like baseball.”
“I also don’t like it when Nolasco ignores me.”
Kins shook his head. “You just can’t help sticking your hands in the lion’s cage, can you?”
“It worked, didn’t it? Piss him off enough and he usually leaves.”
They ate their Salumi sandwiches while discussing what to put in the statement to the brass and media that would sound like they were providing information but not actually doing so.
“Let’s watch the news,” Kins suggested. They taped the broadcasts. “We can find out what’s already been reported and just regurgitate it.” He crumpled his butcher paper into a ball, and spun and shot it at the Nerf basketball hoop hanging off the back of Del’s cubicle. It went through the net and landed in the garbage can.
“That’s it,” Kins said. “I’m buying a lottery ticket on the drive home. Are we still taking the drive to Portland tomorrow?”
She nodded. “The husband’s always a suspect.”
CHAPTER 12
At just after 11:00 p.m. Sunday night, the Porsche’s engine purred outside. I set down my book and went to the window, creating a separation in the blinds to peer down at the street. Graham had left the loft after hitting me, and he had not been back for two days. I watched him drive the Porsche into the garage. He was not going to be happy. I’d decided to park my car in my parking space beneath my building.
Minutes later, the Porsche reappeared and parked on the street beneath a streetlamp. When Graham got out, the first thing I noticed was he was not wearing the same clothes he’d left in. He wore skinny jeans, topsiders, and a brown suede jacket. I was fairly certain he had not come home to change, though I had left the loft Saturday afternoon for my doctor’s appointment. No doubt he’d put the clothes on his credit card, though it had to be close to maxed out.
I watched him walk around to the passenger side and open the door. He bent and reached inside, retrieving something, likely a peace offering. His routine had become predictable—except he’d never hit me before. He’d crossed a line, and I wasn’t willing to give him the opportunity to cross it again.
I went back to the couch, grabbed my novel, and curled up in the corner with a blanket over my legs. I’d made myself a cup of mint tea, which the doctor said might help my nausea. When the door opened, I turned the page in my novel and continued reading.
“Hey,” he said, keys hitting the entry table with a dull thud.
I glanced at him but said nothing. As I’d predicted, he’d come bearing gifts—a stuffed bear holding a book, The Girl on the Train. Next would come the apology.
I went back to reading my novel.
I heard him approach the back of the couch but I didn’t turn to look. “I am so, so very sorry,” he said, “and ashamed for what I did.” He sounded sincere, but then, Graham always sounded sincere. I’d come to learn that was one of his skills. “Can you at least look at me?”
It was so pathetic. He looked like a little boy who’d dropped his ice cream cone on the sidewalk. I set my novel in my lap, but kept it fanned open to the page I’d been reading.
Graham came around the end of the couch to sit, but hesitated when I didn’t immediately move to accommodate him. I made him wait a moment before sliding back my legs.
He sat facing me. “I would never, ever hit a woman,” he said.
“Except you did,” I said, nearly dumbstruck by the idiocy of his statement. “You hit me.”
He shook his head. “I know, and I’m so sorry.”
“You said that,” I said.
“It’s just . . . everything came crashing down on me the other night, Andrea. You just can’t believe the weight I felt at that moment, like an anvil had fallen on my chest. I couldn’t breathe. It felt like I was suffocating. There is a very real possibility I could go to prison.”
I didn’t respond. I also wasn’t sympathetic. This was also his MO. Excuses for his behavior so he wouldn’t have to accept what he’d done.
“Look, I don’t even know who that person was,” he continued.
I do, I thought. It’s the man I married.
“It scared me,” he said.
Scared him?
“That’s why I left. I had to leave because I just couldn’t face what I’d done.”
I didn’t bother to ask him where he’d gone or where he’d spent the night. I didn’t really care anymore. I’d thought maybe he’d run to the associate at his old law firm, the one he’d admitted to sleeping with after we’d married, but I’d done some additional fact gathering and learned she too had since married, which meant Graham had no place to go. In other words, he needed me. More to the point, he needed my loft and he needed my trust funds. I suspected that was the real reason he’d come back. He was going to be prosecuted for fraud if he didn’t find a way to make things right.
“I’m going to do better,” he said
, reaching out and taking my hand. “I’m really going to work to do better. I’ll even go to counseling . . . if you want. I want to make this work, Andrea. I really want to make this work.”
Translated, that meant, I really don’t want to go to jail or work as a lawyer, but I really want to continue to drive my Porsche, screw around on the side, and live off your trust until I come up with the next great business idea. Where else was he going to get such a sweet deal?
“I don’t know what I want,” I said. I did know, but I couldn’t articulate it, not to Graham. At the moment I was as stuck as he was, though I’d had all weekend to consider my situation and was figuring a few things out on my own.
“I know. I know,” he said, rushing his words as if to silence me before I could ask him to leave. His eyes were wide and animated. “And I don’t blame you. What I did was inexcusable. It was unforgivable. But I’m asking you to give me a second chance. Look, I’ve been thinking about this. You’re right—we can start over. I can get a job practicing law. I realize now my mistake with Genesis.”
“What was that?”
“I was out of my field of expertise,” he said, as if he had come up with that all on his own. “I didn’t know what I was doing. Good idea but poor execution. I have a much better plan this time.”
I was almost afraid to ask. “Which is what?”
“Opening my own law firm,” he said. I thought for sure he was going to add, “Ta-da!” Thankfully, he refrained.
I realized Graham was delusional, and based on my Internet research, likely manic-depressive. I didn’t bring up the fact that he could be going to jail, that we were facing bankruptcy, and that those two things would pretty much make it impossible to get a bank loan to pay the start-up costs of running his own law practice. In fact, there was a very real possibility he could lose his law license entirely. Graham wasn’t stupid; he knew that. He was begging because he was going to try to hit me up for the start-up funds from the trust, which, if my attorney couldn’t keep the bank lawyers from getting their hands on it, wouldn’t even exist. This, I realized, would be a never-ending cycle that I could no longer allow to continue.
“You don’t even have to go back to the insurance company,” he said. “Unless you want to. I’ll support us.”
The Trapped Girl (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 4) Page 11
