Identity Thief (14 page)

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OU SHOULD CHANGE YOUR NAME, JESSE. You and Esther and even Sabrina.”

It was my lawyer on the phone. He was explaining to me that a common practice among victims of identity theft was to change their names. I knew that telling me to change my name wasn’t the same thing as telling me to chop off my dick, but still, it seemed ridiculously unfair. Why should I have to go through all that nonsense—not to mention my wife and daughter—simply because law enforcement was too incompetent to solve my case? It really pisses me off when I have every right to be pissed off but someone tries to calm me down, as if the only real problem was that I was pissed off. I said as much to my lawyer, who calmly went on and on about how these cases were very complicated.

“Well, your asshole is pretty complicated, too.” I hung up the phone.

“What is it now?” Esther came toward me, rubbing my shoulder in sympathy. I clasped her hand. It was amazing how close Esther and I had become. Maybe all those years of simply staying together were worth something after all. Esther kept all the identity theft documents for me and said that I could only look at them once a day. I had to admit it was helping a little. Too bad I couldn’t fully appreciate such happy turns of events. Only about an hour earlier, my accountant brother told me that another hundred grand had been withdrawn from my investments and placed in an offshore bank in my name. After popping a couple of extra happy pills, I called the FBI and was put on hold for forty-five minutes. I hung up and called my lawyer, whom I also hung up on. As I thought of it, probably the thing I did most anymore was hang up the phone on people.

I explained to Esther about changing our names. She tried to make light of it.

“Well, that’s not so bad, is it? I never cared for ‘Esther’ anyway. Maybe I could be Sophia Something. In honor of Sophia Loren.”

I popped another pill. “I know you’re trying to help, honey, but I don’t know how much more I can take.” Of course, the missing suicide note thing was also destroying whatever sanity I had left, but I hadn’t told Esther anything about it. It was so nice to have a real marriage again that I didn’t want to mess it up. In fact, I’d only had one hotel quickie since we’d kissed and made up—something of a record for me.

“I suppose we should call Sabrina,” Esther said.

“Yeah, whatever.”

She clasped my hands. “Jesse, please. However hard this is, we need each other now more than ever. I don’t want to sound like a nagging wife, but you’re still taking too many pills and drinking on top of them. You of all people should know how bad that is.”

“Look, you said you were going to call Sabrina. Do it already.” In times of old, this kind of remark would’ve set Esther off, but now she looked at me with an understanding sadness.

“What do you think our new names should be?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Fred Fuck.” I went to the front door. “I’m going for a ride.”

“You really shouldn’t be driving, dear, when you’ve—”

“I’ll be fine.”

I thanked God I was a psychologist when I called Marty Goldstein from my car.

For the heck of it, I’d already inspected every square inch of the rooftop but was hardly surprised that Linda’s tell-all suicide note wasn’t sitting there waiting for me. I knew that it could be virtually anywhere. But since the cops took my word for what happened, they did not dig deeply. I thought the note might be in Linda’s purse, which presumably had been inside her car when she decided to go psycho on the roof. She was one of those women who practically lived out of her oversized purse. And from what she told me about Marty, he was such a schnook that it might never have occurred to him to go through her belongings for clues about her bizarre behavior. From Linda’s descriptions, he was the kind of man who had to ask for instructions for how to make a peanut butter sandwich. Apparently, though, Linda had been true to her word and never told Marty about us. Now what I needed to do was get Marty to let me look inside her car and purse. And if it turned out he already had the goods—doubtful though the possibility was—I was prepared to make a generous offer.

I went to the hospital one evening, relatively certain Marty would be keeping vigil by Linda’s side. Indeed, the voice message at their home—apparently, he’d moved back in—informed the listener that, “This is Marty, and I am either at work or at my angel wife’s bedside. Please leave a message and send a prayer.” However, to get to Linda’s room, I had to get past the snooty nurse receptionist, who said that only immediate family was allowed to see Mrs. Goldstein.

“I’m her psychologist.” I showed her my credentials in my wallet. “I want to see how she is, and also how her husband is doing. I understand he’s here.”

“Are you also Mr. Goldstein’s psychologist?” She held a pencil to her chin, tapping it lightly as if to express her utter control of the situation.

“No. But I’m here to see Mrs. Goldstein.”

“Mrs. Goldstein is in a
coma
, sir.”

“Well, so are you.”

She flustered, her head trembling and her chin quivering. “I beg your pardon, sir.”

“Look, you fucking bitch, I’m fucking here to help.” I pounded my fist on the counter. “I’m going in there or expect a lawsuit from the APA.”

“Just one moment.” She disappeared behind a cubicle and came out a few minutes later with another woman, though the other woman didn’t say anything. “Okay, you may go in,” said the nurse receptionist, handing me the room number on a slip of paper.

“What do you want me to do, kiss your ass?” I stormed off to the elevator.

Through the glass partition where Linda lay motionless, I saw a stumpy middle-aged man with thick glasses and very little hair left, though he insisted on featuring what few remaining tufts he had. He was exactly how Linda described him. I could also see Linda, who, in her state of deep slumber, looked more attractive than when her bizarre personality was in force, which detracted from her appeal. There were machines and tubes everywhere. Marty was holding her hand and sobbing. “Our little girl, Linnie, is home with her grandma,” I heard him say. “Linnie’s a fighter, just like her mommy. She fought to live. You can do it, too.”

Frankly, I imagined Linda normally fought to remember how to tie her shoe, but I did not think this the opportune time for such sarcasm.

I tapped sympathetically on the glass and entered. “Mr. Goldstein? I am Dr. Jesse Falcon. I thought it was time we met.” I extended my hand.

Marty ignored my hand and gave me a hug instead, burying his head in my chest. “Oh, Dr. Falcon, Linda spoke highly of you. I’m so sorry she caused you such unhappiness with her tragic action.”

Disengaging as quickly as I could from the hug, I could see how Marty would’ve been impossible to live with. Linda may have been way over the top, but at least she had some spirit for living. Marty was one of those utterly nerdy types who took wild guesses at what life was supposed to be like. I’m tempted to say his ability to make money was rather like those autistic people with a genius for music or math, except I don’t wish to insult the autistic, whose achievements are sincere.

“No need to worry, Mr. Goldstein—”

“Marty.” He smiled with a melancholy air.

“Okay, Marty. As I was saying, it is part of one’s training as a psychologist to learn how to cope with these . . . these . . . ” I feigned a mighty grief that I was swallowing back.

“I know, I know.” He patted my hand. “Please, have a seat.” He gestured to the second chair in the room on the opposite side of the bed.

“I heard you say your little girl is home, safe and sound.”

“Yes, she’s beautiful. She looks exactly like her mommy. Our first child. But then, you already knew that, I’m sure.”

“Oh, I’m sure she has some of her daddy in her, too.”

Marty permitted himself to chortle. “Let us hope not.” Self-consciously, he touched his balding head.

“How are you doing, Marty?” I frowned for my supposed concern.

“Hanging in there, Dr. Falcon. Thank you for asking. It’s been hard going to work every day and then coming here in the evening. I don’t get much R and R. But my mother’s been taking care of the baby. Grandma is also a wonderful cook and housekeeper. So it hasn’t been
too
bad.”

God, talk about a man of depth. He thought all I meant was how was he budgeting his time or whatever. I mean,
hello
? Your wife tried to kill herself and is in an irreversible coma, and you have a daughter who will never know her mother. And though doubtless it was an ordeal to come to the hospital every evening, apparently he never missed a single minute of work. I wondered if the only reason he cried about the situation was because of the time it took away from things he’d rather be doing.

“How are you
feeling
, Marty?”

“Oh, you mean how am I doing like
that
. Sorry, Doctor. I’ve never been in therapy. I don’t know too much about it. I guess I’m okay. Really, I only want Linda to wake up.”

“Of course you do.” I nodded my head with understanding. “Have you wondered much about why Linda . . . well, what she did?”

Marty looked away. “No, why should I? I mean, what she did was wrong. Why would I want to know more about it?”

“You’ve never even been curious?”

“I figured you were the expert on that. You’re her doctor. I know from watching TV that you can’t tell me anything she tells you.”

I took a deep breath, as if taking in the profundity of his words. “You’re absolutely right. But you see, I need to know more about it, too. Linda was doing beautifully. She was so happy to finally be a mother. I know she was having some difficulties with her marriage, but—”

“Difficulties? What are you talking about? There were no difficulties.” Marty looked honestly perplexed.

“Well, you were getting a divorce, right? Wouldn’t you call that a difficulty?”

Marty stood up in disbelief. “
Divorce
? There was no divorce.” He could tell I was skeptical, so he added, “I swear. I swear on my wonderful wife’s soul. There was never any talk of divorce. Not even separation.”

I hated to admit it, but I believed him. This made me wonder more than ever what Linda’s suicide note might’ve said, since obviously she’d been lying to the both of us. You could even say she was lying to three different personas, since I was both her psychologist and her occasional fuck. She was even nuttier than I realized, which meant she potentially was even more of a threat to my well-being.

“Marty, I was only going by what Linda told me.”

“You mean at like a million bucks an hour she was
lying
to you?”

“So it would seem.” We both stared at the comatose Linda, as if wondering what other mysteries were buried in her utter silence.

“Just out of curiosity, how much did the cops talk to you?”

“Oh, once or twice. They figured Linda was kind of—well, you know, not all there in the head. One of them wanted to go through all her things, but this other one, an old guy, said it wasn’t necessary.” Marty looked ready to cry. “He said it was an open-and-shut case. Right to my face.”

Hallelujah, praise Jesus. I could only thank my lucky stars for that shitty old cop. Walking up to Marty, I put my hand on his shoulder. “Look, Marty, I think there’s a lot we still need to know. What if Linda wakes up? We have to know exactly how to handle her.”

He sighed. “I guess you’re right, Dr. Falcon. What do you suggest?”

“Let me look through all her things. I’ll see if there’s a note or a journal or anything that gives a clue to why she did what did.”

“I could do that much for you, Doctor. After all you’ve been through.”

“Thank you, Marty.”

I think he was being agreeable because the whole situation utterly perplexed him, and he didn’t know where to begin. But whatever was going through his mind—and it couldn’t have been much—I was grateful for his cooperation.

Claiming that I would be extremely busy starting the next day, Marty let me follow him to his suburban home that evening. He insisted I meet the sleeping baby, whom I studied as much as I could for a resemblance to either Marty or me. I honestly couldn’t tell. Babies all look the same to me. I said, though, that the baby was adorable. I next met Marty’s mother, who was smilingly nice in a way I never trusted. I had to insist several times to Granny Goldstein that I wasn’t hungry and didn’t even want a nice cool glass of water. Marty asked me if I wanted to see the bedroom he shared with Linda. I replied that it was doubtful she’d keep any secrets in there, so instead I was led to the spacious garage.

“Here it is,” he said grimly. “Linda’s Toyota.” Marty went back in the house, as if leaving me to perform an autopsy on a corpse.

Linda’s Toyota was a bright yellow on the outside but a dismal chaos of crud on the inside. Empty potato chip bags, old shopping receipts, torn road maps, sweaters, broken flip-flops, plastic supermarket bags. It was like a landfill.

I did, however, find her purse. It, too, was extremely disorganized. I combed methodically through tons of makeup and things, only to come up empty-handed. No note. I searched through every last greasy Taco Bell wrapper in the car and likewise found nothing.

The other likely place to look was in what Marty called Linda’s “craft room,” though it might as well have been called her Adult Attention Deficit Disorder room. There were piles of unfinished knitting, three or four unfinished scrapbooks, blank drawing pads, unopened boxes of colored pencils and pastels, a set of glitter tubes (unused), about ten types of glue, dozens of brand new rubber stamps, and a wood carving kit but no wood. The one file cabinet had nothing but chaotic scraps of fabric in either of its two drawers. However, Linda did have a laptop computer in the room, and I anxiously turned it on.

Although no password was required to enter, she had a file on her desktop called “Private.” She seemed to think that one word would keep people from opening it, though in fairness to Linda she probably never thought anyone except Marty would have reason to be in this room at all. And dimwitted Marty would’ve respected her privacy.