Identity Thief Read online

  “I know, son.” In spite of myself, I bit my lip to keep from smiling.

  “I won’t live with Biff.”

  I thought about asking him why he thought Biff was moving in—besides of course the fact that he was, per Betsy’s own words the night before—or what Scotty thought went on between grown-ups. But I decided it was not the best time to get into how babies get made.

  “You’ve never liked your Uncle Biff, have you?”

  “I hate him.” I was taken aback by the ferocity with which this seven-year-old boy spoke. “He’s not my uncle, and he’ll never be my dad.”

  “Just why do you hate Uncle—I mean, Biff, so much?”

  Scotty looked away. “He makes fun of my glasses and says no one will ever like me. He says he’s going to cook Porky for dinner. He says . . . he says you and Mom had to get married because of me. You know, stuff like that. But only when it’s just me and him.”

  “‘Him and me,’” I corrected through force of habit. Then, to make sure, I asked, “Is there anything else?”

  He moved his fingers around on the bed in a kind of nervous twitch. “No.”

  Somehow, I knew he really meant, yes. I took his face in my hands and looked into his eyes sternly but with love. “Tell me. Whatever it is.”

  Scotty was quiet for a long minute. Finally, very softly, he said, “He touches me. You know, like, down there.” He pointed to the buttoned front slit in his pajamas. “He says it’s the only way I’ll . . . I mean, my thing down there, will get big.”

  Everything I’d been through with Betsy evaporated. It was like wondering if you should appeal a parking ticket and then finding out you’re charged with murder. I felt a heartbreak I didn’t know was possible. Finally, I asked a stupid question. “Scotty, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “He’s your best friend. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

  “Oh my God.” I held my son tightly, mussing up his hair. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I know.” I could feel the breath of his muffled voice against my chest. I think we both cried, but it didn’t matter. It was something beyond tears.

  Suddenly I let go of him and stood up. “Scotty, you’re coming with me. Now.”

  He sighed with impatience. “Well, obviously.”

  Scotty knew exactly what to pack and without making a sound. With hamster cage on board, I left a note saying, Scotty and I are visiting Mom. That way, Betsy couldn’t say I kidnapped him; I was a custodial parent informing the other custodial parent of our son’s whereabouts. I had to get custody of Scotty. Sole custody. Biff should rot in jail. But first, I wanted to get us both the hell out of there. I decided as long as I got Scotty to a safe place, I could talk to a lawyer later in the day. It occurred to me that Biff and Betsy would dismiss what Scotty said as a ploy to get back at them. And did I want Scotty to testify in court and be traumatized even more than he already was?

  My mom was a decent old broad—or rather, an indecent one—who’d made hating Betsy into a hobby. Besides, I didn’t know where else to go on such short notice with no money. Despite all the hours I’d worked, I’d rarely socialized with the people back at my job. I had no real friends.

  I was almost at Mom’s place when I realized there was something else I should do. Something I had to do to maintain any sanity at all. Making the first illegal U-turn of my life, I drove to the rich part of town, where Biff lived in an imposing, humorless mansion with his snooty parents—although I happened to know they were in the Bahamas. (After all the years I’d known them, they still treated me like a stranger.)

  “Wait here,” I told Scotty, who was drawing an imaginary picture on the car window.

  Biff had the same bedroom he’d always had, which meant I could climb up a tree and a trellis to break in like I always could, especially when we were teens. I knew it was also the servants’ day off. Biff would be alone in the house, unless he was fucking some bimbo—or hell, molesting a child. His bedroom itself looked out on the enormous grounds, which included a pool, tennis court, stables, and wooded area. The nearest neighbor must’ve been a mile away. This served us well during many a boyhood prank. And, I figured, it would serve me well now.

  Biff was alone in his designer bed, sleeping away without a care in the world. He fell asleep—or rather, passed out—with his clothes on, including flip-flops. His fancy bedroom was the usual chaotic mess it became after only one day of the maid not picking up after him. (Biff changed his clothes about a hundred times a day.) I stood over Biff for a moment, swallowing back the urge to puke. I wanted some cleansing ritual to erase the feeling of ever having known him. I woke him up with a hard shove.

  Biff moaned, but then at the sight of me, he smiled. “Hey. What are you—?”

  Gathering everything inside me, I punched him in the face. His skull hit the headboard hard, and I could see his nose drawing blood.

  “What the fuck?” He studied the blood while rubbing the back of his head.

  I shook his shoulders; his head kept hitting the headboard but I didn’t care. “You stay away from my son. Yes, my son. If you speak to him, if you get within a mile of him, I swear I’ll kill you. And then I’ll dig up your grave and bring you back to life and kill you again.”

  Opening his nightstand, he pulled out a small handgun. “Get out! If you don’t, I’ll . . . I’ll shoot you. And my dad will hire a good lawyer so I won’t have to go to jail.”

  I wisely stepped back, raising my hands in surrender. “Betsy says Scotty looks like you. I’ll bet that’s why you did it. You really want to fuck yourself. Biff’s true love is Biff.”

  “You shit. You fuck. No one talks to me like that. You’re nothing, you know that? Nothing.” Biff held a Kleenex to his nose as he took aim at me. A shot went off. Either because I ducked or because he was lousy shot, he missed me. I could see the useless bullet burn into a pile of clothes on an overstuffed chair. He leapt out of bed; one of his flip-flops made him slightly stumble. But he quickly steadied himself and took aim.

  “Easy now, Biff.” With my hands still raised, I stepped toward the window. “You don’t want to—”

  “All my fucking life you’ve told me what to do. Always so superior. The good little poor boy. Like we’re fucking Goofus and Gallant. Do you know how much I’ve always hated you?” I heard his pistol click. “Now you’re finally suffering, like everyone else. No job, no money, a fucked up kid, a wife who hates you. Oh, and by the way—you’re gonna die.”

  I should’ve kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t help it. “When have you ever suffered for a minute in your life?”

  “Fuck you.” The gun was aimed straight at me.

  I flinched, closing my eyes. A shot went off; it nearly pierced my eardrum.

  I opened my eyes and saw Biff lying on the floor, a bull’s eye gunshot right through his forehead. His face was pretty much unchanged. He wore the same indifferent expression he usually wore.

  One long second later, I looked over and saw Scotty holding a smoking gun. “Is he dead?” He looked up at me calmly, like any kid asking his dad a simple question.

  “Jesus, Scotty. Where did you—I mean, how did you—” I grabbed one of Biff’s dirty T shirts to test for a pulse or heartbeat. I’d watched enough TV to know not to put fingerprints on his body. Biff was dead as a rock. The bullet, I could see, went straight through his head to the other side, as if there’d been nothing inside it at all. There was merely a slight discoloration on another of his shirts on the floor, and what you might call a token puddle of blood.

  Scotty adjusted his glasses. “It’s an easy climb up here. I watched what you did.”

  I stuffed Biff’s T-shirt into my jacket pocket. “I don’t mean, ‘How did you get up here?’ I mean what are you doing with a gun?”

  “Biff showed me his gun collection. I stole it when he wasn’t looking.”

  “But how did you know how to use it?”

  Scotty shrugged. “Doesn’t everyone? I was aiming for his throat.
The jugular vein. That’s J-U-G-U—”

  “But Scotty, why?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Get real, Dad. I saved your life, in case you didn’t notice. I figured you’d need help because Biff is—I mean, was such a jerk. I’m glad he’s dead. Now you and Mom can get back together.”

  “Oh, Scotty.” For a minute or so, I just stood there, staring into space. I didn’t cry, I didn’t reach out to him. I could only stare. I was numb. My son murdered the man who molested him. I couldn’t come up with a way to react.

  “Since it was Biff’s gun, we can stage a suicide,” Scotty excitedly offered. “I saw this TV show once where—”

  “Scotty, we’re going straight to the police.” But then I looked at my son, thought about all that would happen to him if I turned him in, and I realized I couldn’t do it. Maybe I should’ve, but I couldn’t. I had to think fast. “I mean, no, we’re not. And we’re also not ‘staging a suicide.’ Christ, where did you learn to talk like that? It’s too risky. We’re going to have to clean up instead and get rid of the body.”

  Scotty smiled with admiration. “Whatever you say, Dad.”

  My not quite eight-year-old son. A murderer. Sexually molested. I would deal with that later.

  Fortunately, Biff’s head fell onto more scattered clothes, which meant there was no bloodstain on the carpet. I wrapped Biff’s body and bloody clothes in a bed sheet and threw it out the window, aiming carefully so that it didn’t get caught in the tree. I put both guns in my jacket. Though it grossed me out, I wiped the nosebleed from his Kleenex on the bed to mix with the trace of blood on the headboard. Then I wiped it all away. It would look like he had a nosebleed and tried to clean it up. I knew where Biff kept his passport in his dresser. I got it out and pocketed it. Next, I got his wallet from the floor and took out a credit card. On his laptop, I made him a reservation for that day to fly to the Bahamas. I took one of his suitcases and packed it with his passport, wallet, and some clothes and tossed it out the window next to Biff’s corpse. In spite of myself, I laughed a little when the suitcase landed on his groin.

  I sent his parents an e-mail saying I (meaning Biff) was on my way to join them. “Biff” confided that he needed to get away from Betsy. He told them that he agreed to move in with her because he was afraid to stand up to her since she was such a bitch, but he really wanted nothing more to do with her. I next sent a message to Betsy from Biff, saying that, I, “Biff,” would be joining my parents to milk them for more money but would be in touch soon.

  I signed it with all of Biff’s love.

  Next, I wiped away any trace of fingerprints except for objects I knew Scotty and I hadn’t touched and picked up all the shell casings. I made sure our shoes had left no discernible imprint in the carpet.

  Scotty studied me intently throughout, especially when I stuffed the body into the trunk of my car. As we drove, I found a large, empty fast-food box by the side of the road, put the guns inside the box, and tossed it into a town litter can. By the time anyone would want to find it—if such a day would come—the guns would be long gone into a landfill. We drove to an old dirt road. I buried the body deep into the woods, carefully arranging leaves and sticks in a natural, random-looking way on top. I knew that burying bodies in the woods was pretty common as murders go, but Biff hated being out in nature, so searching the woods was unlikely to be a top priority. I drove to another area to bury the suitcase. I made sure our footprints and tire treads were covered over.

  Done at last, I wiped my brow for the sweat. “It’s off to Grandma’s.”

  “Dad, you’re the greatest.” Scotty smiled at me. Oddly enough, I found myself tickling and roughhousing him, and he giggled like he always did.

  Ironically, though, all that happened did nothing to take my mind off of money.

  Instead, I realized I needed money more than ever before. Divorce, custody, maybe even a murder trial down the road. And Biff’s parents could take on twenty of me in court with one hand tied behind their backs. I knew my mom had some money stashed away. She’d sold my childhood home for a handy profit and moved into a small, pricey condo. But I’d never borrowed from her before and especially now couldn’t bring myself to ask. She could end up being an accessory after the fact.

  I told Mom nothing about Biff, other than that he and Betsy planned to live together. It would be a while before all the dots could possibly be connected. First, there’d be a missing persons report, then there’d be a search for the body, and so on. The dots were likely to connect to Betsy or me and not Scotty. I’d go to jail for Scotty without thinking twice, but I was damned if I’d let him live with Betsy as sole parent. Scotty gave me his solemn promise to say nothing to Grandma or anyone else about all that had happened. I completely trusted him.

  I barely nibbled on the microwave breakfast Mom insisted I needed. Her condo, like my childhood home, was homey in a trailer park sort of way. Mom liked dollar store paintings of babbling brooks and placid deer and wooly covers for Kleenex boxes and toilet paper.

  She called Betsy an A-Number-One Cunt right in front of Scotty, who said, “Dad, if Grandma says ‘cunt,’ is it okay if I do, too?”

  My mother thought this hilarious, but before I could respond, she asked me to get the morning mail from the mail stand in the parking lot. And it was there, among the grim bills and hysterical sweepstakes offers, that I saw a pale blue envelope addressed to a Dr. Jesse Falcon, presumably the condo’s previous owner.

  I started to toss the envelope into the recycle bin, but when I saw it was a credit line offer, I couldn’t resist opening it. Apparently, Dr. Jesse Falcon was my polar opposite. A new nationwide bank was pleased enough with his credit rating to offer him a twenty-thousand-dollar line of credit. There wasn’t even a disclaiming asterisk. I made sure no one was watching and tucked the envelope into my pants pocket.

  If you’ve ever been in a car crash, you know the feeling: you spend the rest of your life wishing you left the house two minutes later or didn’t make that wrong turn. I could’ve thrown away the envelope. Yet, in the moment, I couldn’t. It just wasn’t meant to be. I had the answer to my prayers, as far as I was concerned. Not that I’d literally prayed, but sometimes living in hell is its own kind of prayer. I know it sounds unbelievable, like when people on trial for murder say they don’t remember firing the gun, but it really did feel like someone else was doing this instead of me.

  I plunked the useless mail on the kitchen table. Scotty, I saw, was reading my mom’s Enquirer on the front lawn. “Mom, I’m curious. Who owned this place before you?”

  Mom drank her morning black coffee as if it were straight whisky. “He was some shrink or professor or something. In a big hurry to move across the country.” She chuckled to herself. “He must’ve really stepped in a pile of shit.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “Oh, he was so full of himself. That kind of snooty jerk makes nothing but enemies. He’d yawn when I asked him questions, and when I said I might plant flower boxes in the front windows, he said in this uppity way, ‘Yes, I imagine you’re the type.’ I mean, what the hell was that about? ‘The type?’ Who the hell hates flowers, for God’s sake?”

  “Betsy doesn’t like flowers. Allergies.”

  “Figures. She has an allergy up her ass, if you ask me. Didn’t I tell you ten years ago to get a paternity test?”

  “It was eight years ago. And yes, you did. I was a wild, impetuous youth, and never paid heed to my wise elders.”

  “Cut the crap. I assume you’ll sue that frigid whore for custody? If it were me, I’d sue her just for getting in my face. Do you need money?”

  “I’ll be fine, Mom. But thanks.”

  “Look, if it’s your asshole male pride, we can make it a loan.”

  “Really, I’ll work it all out. Go be a nice grandma. Bake some cookies.”

  “You go bake cookies, Sonny Boy. I’m watching my NASCAR races today.”

  Feeling the torn, folded envelope crinkle in m
y back pants pocket, I felt like I couldn’t get to my laptop fast enough.

  Stealing Jesse Falcon’s identity was not the nicest thing I’ve ever done, but it was by far the easiest. I have considerable computer skills, but a child could’ve done it. I would’ve preferred stealing money from Biff, but obviously that was likely to get me caught. Besides, was it really stealing if this Jesse Falcon never even knew he had the money in the first place? After all, I had every intention of paying it back.

  First, I did a search for “Jesse Falcon” plus “psychologist.” Within seconds, I was browsing through his web page from a nearby university. I struck gold with his online vitae, which included his all-important social security number. It was the type of arrogant, absentminded mistake that people who think they are invincible often make. The university also had a union contract available online, so I looked up how much Jesse Falcon would’ve been making.

  Then, since my mother told me he’d moved cross-country—the university, like many bureaucracies, was slow to update its website—I did another quick web search and found him to be in private practice. This gave me his current office address and phone number, in case I needed it later. Obviously, I wanted the twenty grand to come to me and not to him.

  Next, for thirty bucks, a people-search website gave me a history of where he’d lived, his credit rating—superb—and any criminal charges—none. I knew how long he’d been married, the name of his one child, Sabrina, and where she lived and what she did for a living.

  This same source also told me what bank he patronized. Conveniently for me, his accounts were all in another new nationwide bank that had branches everywhere. At the bank website, I clicked on the “I forgot my password” box needed to access the checking account. This required two test questions to make sure I was who I said I was: What was the name of “my” daughter, which I already knew was Sabrina, and what was the name of “my” dog, which I knew from Jesse Falcon’s web page was a bull dog with the pretentious name of Jeremy. I soon had Jesse Falcon’s checking account number and samples of his signature from photocopies of cancelled checks. I next set up a free, all-purpose e-mail account that supposedly was Jesse Falcon’s. And at a website that specialized in genealogy, I got a copy of Jesse Falcon’s birth certificate.