if—Sara’s Dawn Davis isn’t the same person as Walter Gudgeon’s Dawn Davis? What if they’re two different people, rather than two different things!”
Rosco started to reply, but Belle stopped him. “Which means we could be dealing with a case of identity theft . . . More than that; personality theft.”
“Whoa . . . whoa . . . That seems pretty far-fetched—”
“But it’s possible, isn’t it?”
“Well, sure, yeah, I guess. Anything’s possible. The Bay Area could have a snow-free winter, for instance, or our health insurance premiums could be cut in half; gas prices could tumble to fifty cents per gallon—”
But Belle paid no attention to the facetious tone. “What if another woman met Dawn, Sara’s Dawn, that is . . . then befriended her, heard the story about the abusive boyfriend who’d landed her in the emergency room, and the resulting need for surgery, as well as the genuine date of the hospital stay, et cetera. Then this phony Dawn sets her greedy sights on Mr. Gudgeon and invents a far more expensive procedure to con him out of a quarter of a million dollars . . . She doesn’t even have to look like the original woman, because Gudgeon has never met her. All he’s asked to do is hand over the dough and then drive the bogus Ms. Davis to the hospital on the right day.”
“That doesn’t fly; both Gudgeon and Bownes described Dawn the same way. I had no trouble recognizing her.”
“Okay, okay, so our fake does some makeup work. Descriptions are very general, they aren’t conclusive like photographs or face-to-face meetings.”
“Belle, I know how much you love Sara, and that you’re incredibly loyal; but just because she believes this woman is innocent doesn’t make it so.”
“Hear me out, Rosco. I know this sounds crazy. But if it’s true, it’s an amazing con . . . because it means that our phony Ms. Davis had two marks: Walter Gudgeon and the real Dawn, and worked it all out brilliantly.”
“Was Bownes in on the scam?” was the skeptical reply. “I grant that he’s no sweetheart, but a con artist? I’m not sure.”
Belle ignored her husband’s dubious tone, although she considered the idea, and then shook her head. “I doubt it . . . a surgeon who’s part of a prestigious practice. Besides, what would his motive be? Cash? No, these guys make a bundle anyway.” Then her gray eyes opened wide, growing charcoal dark in her excitement. “But our con artist would have to be someone who either worked at the hospital or in the orthopods’ office—”
“Or had a snitch on the inside.”
“Now you’re with me—”
“If Dawn isn’t, in fact, Dawn.”
“Right.”
“Let me call Gudgeon. Time for a little Dawn Patrol.”
CHAPTER
25
Nine A.M. on a Sunday morning isn’t an hour most folks choose to resupply their home offices, or have important paperwork copied, or order business cards, or hunt for a new desk lamp or ergonomic chair, but Papyrus had a small line waiting for the doors to unlock when Rosco and Belle drove into the parking lot. The vehicle they’d picked for this excursion was Belle’s gray sedan. It looked as bland and unremarkable as the office superstore’s facade, as the new shopping mall across the street, or the interstate highway that separated the two mega “retail parks.” The term was one Belle might have commented upon if she and Rosco weren’t engaged in this mission. “Retail park,” she would have huffed. “There’s a modern-day oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one. Who dreamed up a loopy title like that? Commerce doesn’t occur in grassy knolls and bosky glens.”
As it was, she said nothing; instead, she adjusted the brown wig and scholarly tortoise-shell glasses she’d donned in order to mask her identity. Since a byline photo always appeared in the Crier with her puzzles, she didn’t want to take any chances that Dawn might recognize her and connect her to Rosco. In a matter of moments, Papyrus’s door was unlocked by the manager. The couple watched the customers begin filing inside and sat tight, waiting for Walter Gudgeon to appear.
When his navy blue Lincoln Town Car arrived ten minutes later, Rosco and Belle hurried across the macadam to speak with him before he had a chance to exit his car.
“What’s all this?” was Gudgeon’s irascible question. “I thought you and I were going in there on our own, Polycrates. You didn’t mention bringing a woman.”
“My junior assistant, Lexi,” Rosco told him with a slight but firm smile. “She works undercover