“Well, with Marino not here, I thought it was good to come in.” He’s not looking me in the eye and I notice the boxes are computer supplies.
Machado and I walk off, and I comment, “It says a lot that she continued using her husband’s name when he’s been dead thirteen years.”
Toby pushes the cart behind us, stopping every few steps to straighten out the wheel.
“Maybe she didn’t want people to know she lived alone,” Machado supposes. “My girlfriend’s like that, doesn’t have her address or phone numbers on her checks. Doesn’t want her information out there so someone can just show up at her door, doesn’t want strangers calling. Of course, being with me and hearing all my stories about what goes on has made her a little paranoid.”
“Why do you think he didn’t cash the check? Based on your description, he could use every penny he got.”
“I’m betting he tried and couldn’t,” Machado says. “A handyman who basically would go around Cambridge collecting bottles and cans, doing anything anybody might hire him for. I seriously doubt people paid him with checks.”
We walk through Lucy’s open door, and she’s at her desk, surrounded by large flat-screen monitors, and Toby pushes the cart in after us. He begins stacking the boxes against the wall.
“You want these anyplace special?” he asks her.
“Just leave them.” She says it like an order, staring at him.
“Raking leaves, yard work, home repairs, even electrical, and he’s not licensed in anything, according to his ex-wife. Probably paid in cash,” Machado is saying to me.
“He probably wasn’t mailing invoices to people,” I point out.
“No sign of anything like that in his house.”
“Then why did she owe Howard Roth money? Why didn’t she pay him at the time he did the work? Maybe it was for a job he hadn’t finished?” I suggest.
“I’m thinking what you are,” Machado says. “The work in the basement. Nothing hooked up yet. Maybe he drops by a couple times to finish and no one’s answering the door. Maybe he leaves a note in her mailbox.”
“Maybe.”
“And whoever is impersonating her sends him a check. The perp had to have his address.” Machado’s talking to me and looking at Lucy.
“Howard Roth, forty-two years old, died over the weekend at his central Cambridge home.” She reads what she’s just pulled up. “Bateman Street. You can Google it.”
“So maybe that’s how, and he gets the check in the mail,” Machado says. “He has no account at Peggy Stanton’s bank and nothing that might inspire a teller to hand over a hundred bucks to him.”
“Her bank would have her signature card on file, and it’s not a great forgery.” I sit next to Lucy.
“I agree with you there.”
Machado pulls up a chair and unzips his briefcase.
“If you put her signature and this one side by side?”
He slides out two plastic bags, and Toby is taking his time.
“So maybe some teller pulled up her signature card and got a bad feeling, wouldn’t cash it for him, plus his driver’s license isn’t valid, like I said. And that might be what the bank was calling about,” Machado says. “There are a couple messages on her answering machine from Wells Fargo, asking her to call. First one in early June, about the time the check was mailed to Howie.”
“How do you know it was mailed?” Lucy scans information scrolling by on every screen, what I recognize as files her search engines are finding.
I can’t tell what they are. I can’t decipher what I’m seeing, and that’s deliberate, because I’m not alone.
“What’s called the power of deduction.” Machado continues looking at my niece as if she might not be a waste of his time.
She’s in faded jeans, a long-sleeved white T-shirt that is tight and could use ironing, and tactical boots. I’m aware of the big ring on her index finger as she moves the wireless mouse. I smell her cologne, and I can tell when she wants people to leave us alone because she has something important on her mind.
“If someone stole her identity,” Machado is saying, “then this person wasn’t going to show up at Howie’s house and hand him a check, right? Safest thing would be to mail it. My guess is it’s the same thing this person was doing with her other bills. Forging checks and mailing them, and the bank probably wasn’t going to question checks made out to the gas, electric, and telephone companies. But they might pull