spinach-stuffed salmon. It was ready when she heard Frank come in the door and empty his pockets into the small ceramic tray that held his keys, change, a watch—all the things he used only outside the house. The clink of metal on ceramic had come to be a comforting all’s-right-with-the-world sound to Diane. She smiled and decided she was glad she’d dressed in something a little sexier than fleece. She served up dinner in the dining room with candles.
“Is it my birthday?” asked Frank.
“After looking at some of the stuff I’ve looked at all day, I thought it would be nice to get away from it all,” she said.
“I’m good with that,” said Frank. “You look great.”
“Thanks.” She kissed him and went to get the wine.
After dinner they curled up on the couch with their glasses of wine. Curling up with Frank was getting to be Diane’s favorite pastime. She was just about to tell him that very thing when the phone rang. They both sighed. Frank got up to answer it.
Diane deduced that it was Frank’s partner, Ben Florian. Must be something important—he rarely called Frank at home. But it was hard to tell. It was a very one-sided conversation. Frank mostly listened, sitting on the arm of a chair.
“That was interesting,” said Frank when he sat down next to her again.
He gave Diane one of his eye-twinkling smiles, the kind that made his eyes sparkle and crinkle in the corners.
“Ben’s brain processes information in a kind of algorithmic loop. Data goes around and around until an answer occurs to him.” Frank took a sip of his wine. “Or, ‘He’s like a dog with a bone,’ is another metaphor I could use.”
“I take it he has an answer for something?” said Diane.
Frank nodded his head. “A pretty good answer. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. It seems so obvious.”
Diane straightened up and sat cross- legged with her back resting against the arm of the sofa, rolled her glass of wine in her hands, and watched Frank.
“Can you talk about it?” she asked.
“Actually, it’s about you,” he said.
Diane raised a brow. “Me? He’s got a circuit going through his head about me?”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” he said, grinning at her. “I told Ben about your adventure in the mountains, the tree, the skeleton, Slick and his girlfriend, her temper, her cousin with the walker, Slick following you to the museum to give back your stuff, the finger bones in the hood of your car—all of it. It’s all been making a circuit through his brain,” said Frank.
“And?” said Diane.
“And the answer Ben’s brain has come up with is that Slick and his girlfriend are involved with Social Security fraud,” he said.
Diane opened her mouth. “Okay, I’m listening.”
“You have a skeleton of an older person showing some disability that was walled up inside a tree. You have an elderly person with a disability staying with Slick and Tammy. Tammy, who doesn’t have a particularly generous nature, is being very solicitous to the so-called cousin staying with her. Put all these pieces together and one scenario that occurs to us fraud professionals is that they may be taking in vulnerable individuals and stealing their Social Security checks. It doesn’t have to be Social Security; could be any pension. But Ben thinks there may be some kind of fraud going on, and I agree.”
“But what about these people’s families? No one’s been reported missing,” said Diane.
“Do you know that for a fact?” said Frank.
“Well, I suppose not,” she said.
“They could be taking their victims from nursing homes,” he said. “Or just homeless people with a pension of some kind. Do you know how many homeless we have in Atlanta? They could choose the kind of person who has no one else in the world. All Tammy and Slick would have to do is change the address where the check is being sent. Or better yet, go down with the person to a bank and open up a joint account to have the checks direct-deposited. There are any number of ways they could play it.”
Frank shook his head. “They could just wait for the person to die. I don’t imagine Tammy and Slick are particularly good caregivers. Or they could murder their victims. Either way, they don’t report the death, and they continue to collect the check. It’s been done—mostly between relatives, but not always. It’s actually pretty safe for the criminal if it’s set up right. Tammy