Донна Эндрюс - Delete all suspects

"Hey, I know her," a voice said. Casey, accompanied by a cop, was peering in the doorway. "It's that crazy woman who was bothering Eddie."

"Crazy woman?" Tim asked.

"Stand by," Norris said. "More information coming."

"Yeah," Casey said. "I remember it now. It was the last time we had lunch, at some Vietnamese place in Clarendon. She came up to the table and began yelling at him, claiming he'd stolen money from her. Eddie said she was crazy. I figured he was right—Eddie would never do something like that. That was what made him finally ask me to send him the name of the PI I knew. I e-mailed it to him when I got home. Sorry," he said, seeing the look on Tim's face. "I should have remembered this when you talked to me, but I was pretty out of it."

On screen, the camera had pulled back until you could see all three women. Maude was finishing up with the duct tape.

"Now show me," the woman said.

Something happened on the screen. The *video picture shrunk in size, until it only occupied the lower left two thirds of the screen. Another window popped up in the up-

Delete All Suspects 22^

per left corner—a Maryland driver's license for a woman named Gladys Phelps. The picture showed the fake Mrs. Stallman. Though she was visibly younger and a lot more, well, normal looking. Turing must be getting better at visual identifications.

"Suspect tentatively identified as Mrs. Gladys Phelps, sixty-seven," Norris said into the phone. He continued rattling off the rest of the information about Mrs. Phelps. Powell was doing much the same thing out in the corridor.

Something else appeared on the screen. A small window showing a computer file directory, with one file name highlighted. Then a third small screen, this one showing a list of names and social security numbers. One record was highlighted: Gladys Phelps.

"I think that's the list we found, the one we told you about," Tim said. "The social security numbers Matt Dan-forth stole on his first phishing expedition."

As if to agree with him, the highlighting on the two new screens flashed on and off rapidly.

"Don't try anything," Gladys Phelps said, on-screen. "I'll use this if I have to."

"I have no doubt of it," Maude said. "You killed Eddie Stallman, didn't you?"

"I only wanted to scare him," Phelps said. "I just miscalculated and hit him too hard."

"And when you couldn't find a trace of the money yourself, you hired us to help you." Maude said. "The fact that we led you to Mr. Meekins was a bonus. You didn't kill him accidentally."

"He probably didn't even see enough to be a problem,'' Mrs. Phelps said, with a slight shrug. "But I couldn't take the chance. So you know I'm not kidding; I'll kill her if you don't cooperate. Show me where it is."

"I'll need to use the computer," Maude said.

"What is she looking for?" Norris asked.

Tim shrugged.

"You're recording this, right?" Norris said.

Tim glanced over at him. Norris's face looked pale and rigid. In fact, his whole body was rigid, except for his left foot, which tapped the floor in what looked more like a nervous twitch than a voluntary motion.

Tim glanced back at the screen. The word RECORDING appeared at the top left, in red, with a small check mark beside it.

"Yes," he said.

Norris nodded.

"Give me an ETA," he said into the phone.

He didn't look as if he liked the answer.

"You're not going over there?" Tim asked.

"It's twenty minutes away," Norris said, not taking his eyes from the screen. "Maybe if things stabilize . , ."

Tim looked back at the screen. He had the sinking feeling that what Norris really meant was that there was no time to get over there before something happened, and at least here he could watch. He wondered, if he were in Nor-ris's shoes, if he'd have the nerve to stand there and watch what might be about to happen.

On screen, Maude was typing something on the computer. What was she doing? Or was she only pretending to do something to buy time?

I'd already sent in a 111 calli reporting

an armed intruder. With Dan Norris and Detective Powell sending out their calls, I was sure the police would arrive soon. But even after they arrived, they had to make their way into the house and down into the basement to disarm the imposter^and rescue Maude and Mrs. Stallman. I didn't feel optimistic.

Maude was sitting in front of the keyboard. She typed in a couple of words at random — "file," "names," and "phishing" — and I deduced she wanted the file in which we'd found Gladys Phelps's name.

/ took the file of fake names, addresses, and social security numbers — the one we'd let Matt Danforth download — added the actual record for Phelps to the middle of it, and displayed it on-screen.

"There it is," Maude said. "See for yourself "

Mrs. Phelps motioned with the gun for Maude to get out of the way. I don't know whether it was deliberate or not, but Maude got up on the side away from my camera and my waldo. Mrs. Phelps sat down in the chair and shoved it as far away from Maude as possible. Pacing Maude. Perfect. I might have a chance of grabbing the gun with the little pincer.

Although, considering my skill at maneuvering the pincer we would probably all be better off if Maude could stall her until the police arrived.

Mrs. Phelps glanced at the screen.

"What's this?" she asked.

"It's the social security and credit card numbers Eddie and his friends have stolen in their phishing expeditions over the last month," Maude said.

"I want the money, not the damned evidence."

"Eddie spent all the money," Maude said. "But you can get money for this."

"Get money with it? How?"

"Sell it," Maude said. "There are plenty of people who would pay money for this data. There must be several hundred social security and credit card numbers there."

"Sell it where?"

Just then I spotted Sachi, the cat, coming down the stairs. Maude spotted her, too.

"Stop that!" Mrs. Phelps snapped.

"Stop what?"

"Stop pretending there's someone coming down the stairs. You won't fool me with that old trick. Where would I sell it?"

Sachi was batting at something. A Chinese carryout carton, probably left over from the FBI technicians' visit.

"Well," Maude said, deliberately ignoring the cat. "then m websites where you could go and —"

S3S Donna Andrews

Sachi knocked the carton off the stairs, and it fell to the ground with an audible thump.

Mrs. Phelps whirled and fired the gun toward the noise. Sachi hissed and ran upstairs.

"It was just the cat! " Maude exclaimed.

I heard something upstairs. Probably upstairs and outside — the police arriving?

"Stand back!" Mrs. Phelps hissed. She was watching both Maude and the stairs, judging by the way her head moved back and forth. Her back was to me, so I couldn't see which way she was looking, but I assumed her eyes and the gun would be pointing in the same direction. So I waited until the gun was at the far end of its arc — pointed at Maude — then extended my waldo with the pin-cer. When the gun swung back, I gripped the barrel with my pincer and jerked up as sharply as I could.

Mrs. Phelps shrieked something incoherent and fired two shots through the ceiling while the pincers were still holding her. Then she pulled the pincer out of the USB slot and it dangled uselessly from the barrel while she whirled and emptied the rest of the bullets into two of Eddie's computers. Neither of them was the one I was logged in on, though, so I still had a good view of the action as Maude smashed her on the head with an obsolete hard disk drive.

"Thank God," I heard Norris mutter. Strangely enough, he looked more upset now that Maude was safe than he had when she was in danger. He sat with his eyes closed for a good five minutes, which was a pity, because he missed seeing how efficiently Maude disarmed the imposter and tied her up with her own duct tape.