Identity Crisis (Sam McRae Mystery 1)

“Bruce Schaeffer’s been shot.”

Her mouth fell open and her face went white.

“If I go to the police and tell them about your argument, they could get very interested in you.”

Barbara’s jaw flapped a bit. “So I had an argument with Bruce. That don’t mean I killed him.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. It could mean you were involved in the identity theft scheme with him.”

“What’re you—”

“Don’t bother to deny it. The cops found the evidence. And I don’t think you bought your nice new SUV and your nice new TV with what you get milking the workers’ comp office.”

She didn’t say anything, but I could see the wheels turning in her head. “What do you want?”

“I want the whole story. I want to know how you got involved and what your part was.”

She looked resigned, but shoved the door farther open. I took that as a tacit invitation to come in and followed her to the living room. The talk show was blasting through the fancy sound system. A bowl of melting ice cream sat on the coffee table. My eye strayed to Mahogany Jesus on the wall. He seemed particularly forlorn.

Barbara plunked onto the sofa and muted the TV. Under the cropped top, I could see a little tummy roll. She was a thin woman, but was going to learn the hard way that metabolism slows with age.

“I wasn’t involved. I swear, I wasn’t.”

“So how did you come into all this extra money? Or are you overextending your credit to buy all this shit?”

“I didn’t steal, OK? He owed me.”

“You’re talking about Knudsen now?”

She nodded.

“He would have owed you a bundle in child support after all those years.”

“Fifteen years.” Her face was livid. “I told him, I’d take him to court. The little shit owed me thousands of dollars.”

“Tens of thousands, quite likely. More than he could have paid you.”

“Yeah, well.” She paused, shifting around. “We made a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

“To keep it out of court, he cut me in on the scam.”

“Scam? You mean the identity thefts?”

“Yeah, whatever. Bruce didn’t like it much, but Greg said too bad. Suddenly, the cocksucker couldn’t do enough for me.” Her voice became a derisive whine. “Goddamn son of a bitch. All those years, he could have sent me some money, just a little. But no. I raised his bastard son single-handed. He couldn’t even be bothered to see him.”

“Did Melanie figure in this?”

“Melanie?”

“Tom’s girlfriend. I mean, Greg’s. You know what I mean.”

“Oh, her. I don’t think that poor, dumb slut had a clue.”

“So she wasn’t involved?”

“Not as far as I know. It was just Greg and Bruce.”