"There is." The young woman nodded vigorously, a welfare-wonk bobblehead. "But there are loopholes. The woman can decline to provide that information if she says she's a victim of abuse."
"Abuser." Mark Rubin's face flushed wine red. "How could anyone…?"
But Tess was remembering Nancy Porter, the Baltimore County homicide detective who had felt obligated to make the same discreet inquiries, in part because of the insular nature of Baltimore's Orthodox community. Natalie had used the system-and, perhaps, certain cultural biases-quite cleverly. Maybe that explained her route through smaller Midwest towns. She was banking on people's being unfamiliar with the lives of Orthodox Jews and therefore even more inclined to believe her stories about an abusive, vengeful husband who must never know where she was.
"Is there a pattern to the towns or to the route?"
"Not that I can find," Miss Horn-Rims said, in a tone that implied that something she couldn't find didn't exist. "They just zigzagged around Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio."
"But we know they suddenly started heading east in a pretty linear way, driving across Ohio to Wheeling."
"No one ever went to West Virginia to perpetrate welfare fraud," Miss Horn-Rims said. "I could call these county agencies on your behalf to try to get more information, but my guess is she's dropped this scam. The last check was cut in Valparaiso, last Friday. Before that they never went a week without a check."
Which was, Tess calculated, right after they were spotted in French Lick. And just before Amos was killed. The zigzagging had stopped once Amos was dead. Were the two things connected?
"I'm trying to work this out," she said, remembering Amos's state-of-the-art photocopier, the templates for documents. "You say the grants averaged a hundred to two hundred dollars, which she received in the form of a check. So Natalie clearly has a fake ID, or else she couldn't cash the check."
"Right," Miss Horn-Rims agreed. "But the check is issued through the state or the county, so no bank or check-cashing store is going to be too worried about it bouncing. If she has an ID that satisfies welfare workers, she must have one that will meet standards at most banks as well."
"Still, that's not a lot of money. Total it all up. She probably hasn't made a thousand dollars since she left, and that's just not that much money for five people on the move. Her friend Lana couldn't possibly cover them for this long."
"She could be getting off-the-book work or staying in shelters," Miss Horn-Rims said with a blithe shrug, as if food and shelter were simply abstract concepts to be plugged in to her theories and formulas.
"Possibly," Tess said, trying to keep a lid on her partisan animosity. "Meanwhile, could I have a list of the banks and check-cashing stores where Natalie cashed her checks? Maybe someone will remember her or a telling detail about the man she's traveling with."
"A real man, an able-bodied man," Mark put in, "supports a woman."
The perky Human Services analyst nodded again, mistaking Mark's private bitterness for a larger worldview. "Traditional core values are at the heart of this administration's mission."
"I know," Tess said, pushed past her breaking point, a short trip at the best of times. "Sometimes I can't sleep at night, worrying about welfare fraud. Or whether billionaires are going to qualify for the family tax credit."
Miss Horn-Rims' smooth forehead crinkled. "She means well," Mark said swiftly. "She's just a little agitated. Thank you for all your work on this."
On the street outside the nondescript D.C. office building, Mark offered Tess another life lesson while she scarfed down a hot dog from a street vendor.
"When people are doing you favors, you have to swallow a few things-including your own tongue."
"Is that in the Talmud?"
"If it's not, it should be."
Tess quickly learned that small-town bank tellers don't necessarily remember strangers, not even beautiful ones who resemble Natalie Wood-or Gene Tierney or Merle Oberon-and have three children in tow. Not in Valparaiso, not in Paoli, not in Mount Carmel. The managers were invariably friendly, smothering her in chatter and irrelevant detail before finding the right teller, but no one seemed to know or remember anything. One teller did recall a dark-haired woman, but he insisted she was traveling with two children, a boy and a girl. No, he couldn't tell if they were twins. No, he didn't remember anything else.
"It was the seventeenth, a Thursday," Tess said. "Can't you recall anything more?"
The man's voice, already high and effeminate, became shrill. "Look, I'm sorry if I don't remember everything that happened that day. I happened to be held up at gunpoint, and that memory is a little more vivid than cashing some county check."
"I'm sorry," Tess said, understanding the man's testiness. Tellers were sometimes questioned closely after bank robberies, in case they were conspirators in such crimes. "That must have been harrowing."
"Well, I didn't see a gun," he said, mollified. "But you're not supposed to put up any opposition, no matter what. There's a protocol. I guess I should be grateful it's the only one so far this year."
"Really? Is Fort Wayne that dangerous?"
"Oh, the security in our branch is practically nil, but you find that everywhere these days. Did you know bank robbery is actually up, even though the takes are smaller than ever? This joker got four hundred out of my drawer, but he knew enough to make sure I didn't put a dye pack in. Made me count the money out like a withdrawal, telling me all the time that he had a gun and he had an accomplice with a gun inside the bank. I've been on Paxil since, and the side effects are dreadful."
"Side effects," Tess repeated, just to be saying something.
"Dry mouth. Among other things. Anyway, the federal agents spent all of twenty minutes with me-if it doesn't involve some guy in a turban, they're just not interested."
"That's awful," Tess said, unsure how to end the conversation without seeming callous. This man clearly had nothing to tell her, except his own sob story.
"The field agent actually said to me, 'Look, we've had five of these in the past two weeks'-not just in Indiana but in southern Illinois and Ohio, too. It's a new craze, like one of those silly dances that comes along every so often."
"A new craze of bank robberies," Tess repeated. "In southern Illinois and Ohio."
"And Indiana. So I said-"
Through being polite, Tess hung up the phone and asked Mark to read her the number for the Valparaiso bank.
"But you already talked to them."
"I know, but there's something I forgot to ask."
The Valparaiso bank had been robbed the day Natalie cashed her check. So had the Paoli bank. Only the Mount Carmel bank had been spared for some reason.
"That's how they're making it," Tess said. "Natalie gets a social-services check, takes it to the bank. Within an hour or two, it's robbed."
"Natalie's not a robber," Mark said.
"No one's saying she is. But it's three for four, which is a hell of a coincidence. She's casing the places, don't you see? The check gives her cash, but it also gives her a plausible reason to go into the bank and study the layout. That's how they're making it. They're robbing banks with lax security. Bonnie and Clyde, with three kids in tow."
"It's a ridiculous theory."
"Probably," she said, trying to placate him even as her excitement grew. "But I bet it's strong enough to go to federal authorities and persuade them to issue a warrant for Natalie. That means the next time she's spotted, local police can take her in and hold her long enough for you to get there and get your kids back."
"No."
"No?" She had thought her idea sheer genius.
"It's dangerous. The police could give chase, and the children would be in the middle."
"Your children are traveling with a bank robber, who's been risking encounters with the police up to twice a week. They'll be safer if authorities intervene."