Shakespeares Trollop Page 0,72

said, "I'm from TexasTech Car Insurance. Your car was named by one of our insurers as being involved in an accident that dented his car. Could you tell me about that?"

The elderly man, looking confused, gestured the young woman into his living room. He had a nice home, big and formal.

The actor playing the older man began to protest that his car hadn't been involved in any accident, and when the young woman asked him if she could have an associate examine the car, he readily handed over his keys.

He was a fool, I thought.

So was I.

On the screen, the young woman tossed the keys out to her "associate," a large, blond young man with impressive shoulders. He strode off, presumably in the direction of the homeowner's garage, but the camera stayed inside the house while the owner continued expostulating with the woman. To show us how shifty this woman was, the camera dwelled on her eyes flicking around the attractive room while the homeowner rattled on. She drifted closer and closer, and when the man announced his intention of calling his own insurance agent, the young brunette dropped into a classic fighting stance, drew back her left fist into the chamber position, and struck the man in the spot where the bottom ribs come together. He stared at her, stunned, for a second or two before collapsing to the floor.

I was barely conscious of a shuffling of feet behind me.

"Excuse me, Lily," Claude said abruptly. "I'll be in the bathroom."

I didn't respond. I was too shocked.

Now the camera showed the man lying limp. He was probably meant to be dead.

"While their victim lay on his own living-room floor, breathing his last, Sherry Crumpler and David Messinger systematically looted his house. They didn't leave until they had it all: money, jewelry, and car. They even took Harvey Jenkins's rare-coin collection."

Show the mug shots again.

As John Walsh went on to detail the couple's string of similar crimes, and urged viewers to bring these two murderers to justice, their heads filled the screen once more.

I peered at the face of the woman. I paused the picture. I put my hands on either side of her face. In my imagination I painted all the colors in brightly.

"I thought I heard someone up here," Becca Whitley said from the doorway.

I hit the OFF button immediately. "Yeah, Lacey asked me to work up here some more. I shouldn't have been watching television," I said, trying to smile.

"Watching television? You? On the job? I don't believe it for a second," Becca said blithely. "I'll bet you found another tape."

She turned and spoke into the hall behind her. "Honey, she knows."

Her brother came in. He was the other mug shot. He was much more recognizable.

"Where is the real Becca Whitley?" I asked, glad they couldn't hear how loudly my heart was pounding. My knees bent slightly, and I shifted my feet for better balance. "And the real Anthony Whitley?"

"Anthony got into a little trouble in Mexico," David Messinger said. "Becca is a pile of bones in some gulch in Texas hill country."

"Why did you do this?" I asked. I waved my hand to indicate the apartment building. "This isn't riches."

"It just dropped from heaven," the woman I still though of as Becca said. "David had been romancing Becca for months when he had to leave the country for a month or two. Things were getting too hot for us to stay together. David talked Anthony into going with him. Becca was a real straight arrow, but Anthony was a bad boy. You ever wonder why the apartment building was left to just Becca? Because Anthony was in jail. In fact, that's where Dave and Anthony met. While they were down in Me-hee-co, the guys went boating together, and when the boat came back in, why, there was only one man on it. And that man had all Anthony's papers." Becca smiled at me, her hard, bright smile that I'd grown nearly fond of. "I'd remade myself, as you can see. The best wig I could buy, and a lot of makeup. While I was hanging around with Becca in Dallas, being her best friend since I was gonna be her sister-in-law, she thought, her uncle died here in Shakespeare. She'd told me about him, about his apartment building and his little pile of cash. And she told me about the great-grandfather, too. I needed a place to be, a quiet place where no one would bother me.