List of stolen items
• Laptop
• Visa Cash cards, total value $975 US
• 6 prs underwear
• 6 prs socks
• 2 white t-shirts, One with Grateful Dead logo, one plain
• Sweatpants
• Shampoo/conditioner, toiletries
• Contact lenses, case, solution
The police officer was kind, but preoccupied. Mrs. Henderson was ushered away, and I was brought into see Sergeant Milton Garda in his diminutive office. He looked my list over, and then slapped a pen on the paper in front of me and had me write the whole story down. I did my best, leaving out the bit about the hunt for Jamie, of course. Afterwards, he read it over silently before setting the page gently down on the table.
“She said ‘Faith and Begorrah’ and you bought it?” he said, incredulously.
“Well—yeah. I’ve heard it before from Irish people, I’m sure of it.”
He shook his head. “Well, mebbe in a cereal commercial …” he muttered.
“She called the truck driver who nearly ran over me a feckin’ eejit,” I said, stubbornly. “That sounded Irish.”
He nodded. “Mebbe so. But it ain’t the truck driver who’s the feckin’ eejit here, is it?”
I had to agree with him.
He picked up my statement again. “So, ye spent most of the day at the battlefield, aye?”
I nodded. “We headed over around ten o’clock or so, and stayed until after lunch. Maybe mid-afternoon?”
The officer leaned back in his chair and flicked the door open with the tip of one finger. “Allie!” he bellowed. “I need Dav!”
By the time he returned all four chair legs to the floor and clicked his pen once, another young officer was knocking on the door.
“Emma Sheridan, meet Special Constable Dav Dosanj. Dav, this young woman has been taken in by some besom going by the name of …” he checked my statement, “… Susan O’Donnell. A young, brunette woman. Robbed her blind, ye might say. AND the two of them spent the day at the battlefield.”
The second officer shot a look at his Sergeant. “Is she clean, sir?”
He nodded. “Aye. Got rube written all over her. The perp stole all her money, laptop …”
“Contact lenses,” I muttered, hanging my head.
I looked up in time to catch the sergeant rolling his eyes at the new guy.
“Well, what kind of a weirdo steals a person’s contacts?” I asked. “Maybe it’s a part of her M.O., and it’ll help you track her down.”
“Whatever you say, Miss,” said the sergeant. “Now tell the special constable here anything you can remember about your trip to the battlefield.”
“Look, I don’t know what this has to do with anything,” I said, my exasperation growing. “I don’t remember anything special. We rode over there on the rented bikes—which I ended up paying for twice, thanks to Susan—and toured around the place.”
“Were you with her at all times?” Dosanj asked.
“Yeah … or maybe, okay, not at all times,” I said, slowly, remembering. “Someone had their pocket picked, just as we were leaving. You think she …?”
“With your permission, sir?” said Dosanj, and his sergeant nodded. The special constable stepped over to a side desk that held a computer with an ancient monitor. He flipped the on-switch, tapped a few keys and stepped away from the screen.
There, in grainy black and white, was a closed circuit view of the visitor’s center gift shop. A few people milled about including— the back of Susan’s head. She’d pulled up her hoodie, but there was no mistaking the backpack she had slung over one shoulder.
“That’s her!” I cried, involuntarily.
“Wait for it …” Dosanj said, then leaned forward and hit the space bar. The picture froze with Susan’s hand slipping into the back pocket of a man bent over examining a collection of snow globes. The officer tapped a computer key several times, and each time the picture moved forward a frame, as Susan smoothly pulled something dark out of the pocket and slipped it into the open zipper of her pack.
“Her name’s not Susan O’Donnell,” said Sergeant Garda. “And she’s as Irish as I am Indian. No offense, Dosanj.”
“None taken, sir.”
“The bike guy told me she was American,” I whispered.
“Well, we’re not sure. We reckon she may actually be a Canadian national, or p’raps a dual. At any rate, she’s travelling on an American passport, under the name of Gail Lee Duncan.”
“Gail … Duncan?” I repeated.
“Aye. That shot from the CCTV camera was taken yesterday morning,” Dosanj said, snapping the computer off. “We have a dozen more like it.”