A Singular Witness

Stolen Identity

Everatt Neilson swiveled his chair away from his desk, gazing out over the city skyline.  The stacks of brick, mortar, steel, and glass that formed the buildings clustered at the city's center resembled varying sequences of code, and made the resulting structures appear like external expressions of the corporate life that hummed within.  The city was like a circuit board, and Everatt Neilson held it in view as he sat considering his next move.

He spent a large portion of August familiarizing himself with Quinn Moore's movements and routines.  She woke up around seven o'clock in the morning, going for long runs each day before the summer heat became brutal.  Twice a week she attended sessions with an established local psychiatrist.  She started classes at the local university in the last week of August, which she attended on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, and Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.  She worked in the university library several evenings a week. 

Of the people she socialized with, only two actually ever came by her house.  Oddly enough, the same young man that picked her up almost every night on the weekend also seemed to be her ride for her psychiatric appointments during the week.  He drove a small black convertible of European make. 

The other person to frequent the premises of the Moore home happened to be the sort of girl that Neilson frequently imagined murdering for the sake of knowing that a particular annoyance had ceased to exist.  It struck Neilson that everything this friend of Quinn's said, she seemed to yell, which had been helpful from his vantage point, watching, as he was able to gather that her name was Jessica. 

He did not mind waiting, as he was very fond of watching.  He knew from experience that when the waiting was over, the watching would be also.  The course of action he was planning also entailed a great deal of preparation.  He abhorred making mistakes in general, though they were particularly unaffordable when the consequences were severe.  Consequences were something Neilson had always preferred to inflict, as opposed to endure.

Neilson had an elaborate notion of how he planned to proceed; the only caveat being that he would need very specific materials, and an inconspicuous location, in order to execute his plan.  It was important that no one be able to trace any component of the plan back to him, which had proved an unfortunate impasse.  Showing identification was a necessary prerequisite for acquiring property, and Neilson did not want to be identified.

It had occurred to him that he would need an alias, but one with a credit history sufficient to acquire a lease.  He sat, closing his eyes as he mentally traversed the rocky terrain of his present conundrum, and then the thought came to him.  There was an identity very familiar to Neilson; one he knew was accompanied by pristine credit, because he himself had run a check every few months, going back almost twenty years.  Gephardt Harjo may have disappeared from the real world, but in the realm of financial data he had remained a fixed number.

Everatt Neilson slid open the file drawer on the left hand side of his desk, extracting a slender file from the front of the stack.  He then stood, and straightening his tie, left his office.  Within half an hour he was standing outside of a familiar nondescript door.  He waited while the person on the other side could be heard unlatching a chain lock.

"Hello Joe, do you extend such a warm welcome to all of your old friends?"  He asked, in a tone of cool amusement at the resignation on the flaccid face that greeted him.

Joe looked concerned for a moment, answering in a falsely polite tone, "Can't be too careful, as I'm sure you well know.  How can I help you?"

"You can't actually, but as you are correct in assuming that I know the value of caution, I am hoping you can refer me to someone who can.  I need identification."

Joe raised an eyebrow.  "I don't even know who you are."

"Which is preferable.  I want to acquire identification that convincingly identifies me as someone else."  Neilson spoke softly, but his voice was as hard as ice.

"Whom you have already identified, I'm sure."  Joe responded in a wry tone.

Neilson responded with an appreciative nod.

Joe stared at him, and then suddenly remembering his manners said, "Come in.  I'll make a call."

Letting the door close softly behind him, Neilson stood in the dimly lit living area encroached on at every angle by computer cords and monitors.  Joe walked into a back room of the apartment, emerging several minutes later with a small business card that contained only an address.

"He said to come tomorrow evening at seven o'clock.  If you come early or late he won't answer, and he gave additional instructions.  You will need a wig.  He does not create disguises, and he does not want to know who you are, so come as your best version of who it is you plan to be.  When you buy the wig, park a few streets over from the shop, so that the street cameras will not record your vehicle in connection with your entering the store.  There will be cameras inside of the store, so to the extent that it is possible, try to alter nodal points picked up by facial recognition software.  The most obvious points are the width of your nose, the shape of your cheekbones, the distance between your eyes, and the depth of your eye sockets.  You can buy silicone paste at any costume shop, which can't be traced to the outcome it is used to create, whereas a wig can.  You pay cash for the silicone paste and cash for the wig.  You bring a cash payment for the identification."  Joe sighed.

"You did not mention what this identification will cost." Neilson replied evenly.

Joe looked at the card that Neilson held in his hand.  "For that you add the last three digits of the street number to the last digit of the zip code, and you have your price."

"It's an odd number."  Neilson observed.

Joe shrugged.  "He's the only number I have.  You can see him tomorrow at seven, or not.  I won't know, or care, either way."

"Thank you for your assistance."  Neilson took out his wallet and handed Joe several large bills, before turning to leave.

When he was back on the road again, steering his quietly humming electric sedan onto the highway, Neilson wondered for a fleeting moment whether she was worth it.  He made many women pay an incalculable cost for an obscure purpose, and part of the pleasure he had taken from it, had always been how little it cost him personally.  It was then that the irony of his present situation struck him, and he decided that acquiring the one identity that had eluded him for so long was priceless.  He drove for several more minutes before spotting a large chain drugstore just ahead off of the highway, and pulling into the far lane, took the next exit.