Beverly Connor - Dead Secret

“Your mother is a natural-born citizen of this country?”

“Back for ten generations,” said Diane.

“Twelve generations,” said Susan.

“Then they can’t do that. If they arrested her, they have to give her a speedy trial.”

“Even with the Homeland Security laws?” asked Susan.

“Even then.”

“Well, that’s what they did. She was sent directly to prison.”

“Then there must be something else going on.”

“The family lawyer,” said Susan, “that is, the lawyer who handles their finances, thinks that she was witness to a bank robbery and is being held as a material witness as part of this Homeland Security thing.”

Reynolds nodded, then spoke directly to Diane. “Is that what you think?”

“No.” She explained in detail what she believed may have happened, including the possibility that a hacker could have been involved.

When Diane finished, Reynolds turned to Susan. “With due respect to the family attorney, I think identity theft is more likely. She didn’t get a trial because the authorities believe she’s already had her day in court. My guess would be she was picked up on a fugitive warrant.”

Susan looked deflated. “Our mother, a fugitive? This is all so embarrassing. I was supposed to have an interview with Garden Grace’s Kindergarten today. I had to cancel, and now I’m afraid that Christopher will never get in. There’s such a long waiting list, you know.”

“Kindergarten?” said Diane.

“The right kindergarten is important,” said Susan. “It gets the child off to the best start right away. I don’t know what they’ll make of this.”

“Why don’t you send him to Switzerland? They have excellent schools and a stiff language requirement. That’ll be important when he joins Dad and Gerald’s firm,” said Diane, deadpan. She immediately wished she had just bitten her tongue. This wasn’t the place to make fun of Susan.

However, Susan looked at Diane as if she were serious. “I really don’t want him that far away from home.”

Diane turned back to the attorney. “Mr. Reynolds, our mother is very much like my sister, and she is in Tombsberg Prison for Women.”

“I understand,” he said. “I’ll get on it right away. I just need to get some information from you.”

Susan seemed to be more optimistic when they left Daniel Reynolds’s office. Diane noticed that the lines between her sister’s eyes were smoothed out and she didn’t look so tired. His easygoing, competent nature most likely won her over. Diane guessed that he was probably very good with juries.

They stepped from the office building onto the sidewalk. It had just started to rain. Susan had parked out on the street, so they didn’t have far to walk. They hurried to the car, and Diane slid into the passenger side and buckled her belt.

“Your car smells new.”

“It is. Gerald bought it for my birthday. Dad will probably be home by now.”

They were both quiet as Susan drove. Diane relaxed in the soft leather seat. So few road noises penetrated the passenger compartment it would be easy to lean her head back and drift off to sleep-she felt so tired. Diane closed her eyes.

“What did you mean that Mother is like me?”

Diane jerked awake. There was a tone in Susan’s voice that sounded like suspicion, like she wanted to make sure Diane didn’t have a joke with Reynolds at her expense.

“I meant that Mother isn’t the kind of person who should be in prison. He could see that you clearly aren’t the criminal type. I was trying to tell him that Mother isn’t either.”

Diane wasn’t entirely truthful. What she had wanted to convey to him was that her mother was naive, like her sister, and it was imperative that they get her out of Tombsberg Prison as quickly as possible.

“Oh.” Susan paused for a moment, intently watching the traffic. “I’m glad you’re here. Dad and I have been beside ourselves, and. . well, frankly, I felt Alan was taking too long to get anything done about getting this mess resolved.”

Ah, the first crack in Alan’s armor. Maybe Susan would stop believing that Diane’s ex-husband had hung the moon. Diane decided to be nice, sensing that disagreement would make Susan turn around and defend him.

“Alan’s very good with finances. It’s just a different world from the criminal justice system,” Diane said. Fortunately her cell rang then, saving her from having to heap any more praise on her ex. She looked at the name on the display and smiled broadly. It was as if the sky cleared and the day was going to be sunny after all.

“Hi,” she said to Frank.

“Hey, babe, how are you doing?”

“We just saw Daniel Reynolds. I feel better about the whole thing.”

“He’s good. I’ve seen him in action-up close.” Frank chuckled; then his voice became serious. “I have some news. I looked up your mother’s arrest warrant in the federal system. It was there with her name, address and Social Security number.”

“How did you know her Social Security number?”

“I’m a detective.”

Diane could almost see him smiling on his end of the phone. “That’s right, how could I forget?” she said.

“Okay, it says she robbed the Bessemer Branch of the First Southern Bank of Birmingham on June fifteenth, 2004. She was captured just over a month later, on July sixteenth. Plea-bargained and escaped on the way to prison.”

Diane looked over at Susan. “That just didn’t happen. I’m sure Mother will know what she was doing on those dates. She keeps a diary.” Susan nodded in agreement at the mention of the diary as she stopped at a red light. “Did you find anything else?” asked Diane.

“Yes. There are several interesting things about the warrant. The dates cluster-both months start with J, all the dates are numbered in the teens. When people make things up, they tend to unconsciously stick to patterns. It’s something about the way the brain works. It won’t convince authorities there, but it’s a tell for me when I’m looking at documents. The thing that should convince the authorities, though, is that I haven’t been able to find an incident report of the robbery, a bail report, or any of a host of other paperwork that should be on file and isn’t.”

“Frank, that’s good. That’s really good, isn’t it?”

“It is. I sent the fingerprints and mug shots via e-mail to your crime lab for them to check the fingerprints-that’ll be faster than if I try to do it here-more discreet, too. David should be calling you soon with the results. I’m expecting that the fingerprint images were lifted from some felon’s file and won’t be your mother’s. I’m also betting that if they look for the actual physical paper file, there won’t be one-her record will turn out to exist only on computer.”

“This should make it easy to get her out, shouldn’t it?”

“I think Reynolds will be able to take care of it without much of a problem, provided nobody gets pigheaded, which sometimes happens when bureaucrats are told they’ve screwed up big-time.”

“Do you think they can discover who created the bogus records?”

“I don’t know. They naturally will not want me looking inside their computer system, so it will be up to their experts. The easiest way for the perp to have done this is to have someone on the inside. I’m sure they’ll be looking into that possibility.”

“I’m really grateful, Frank.”

“It was easy. No one tried to do a really slick job of this. It was just enough to get your mother picked up and sent away. She wouldn’t have even been sent to prison if they’d done the proper checks.”

“I owe you one.” She smiled into the phone as she said good-bye and hung up.