Chapter 1
Reese climbs the library stairs, the marble worn into softly sloping grooves from years of foot traffic, and marvels yet again at whatever legal limbo Finch has managed to set up to keep real estate this valuable from attracting any attention.
Down the book-lined hallway with its faint smell of leather and damp rot, into the room he thinks of as Finch's brain, the man's thoughts splayed out all over bulletin boards and spare wall space and the cracked window.
"Good morning, Mr. Reese. It seems we have a new number, and this one has proven to be quite difficult."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, the number is for an Ethel Fielding, and she died in 1988."
"It wouldn't be the first time we've had a number for someone presumed dead."
"Yes, but the problem, Mr. Reese, is Ethel Fielding was, by all accounts, 91 years old when she died."
"So someone's reusing her social security number. Witness protection?"
"No. People in witness protection are invariably given unused social security numbers when they enter the program. Whoever this is, my first guess is it's a perpetrator using a false identity. Someone in your former line of employment, possibly. But I've had a very difficult time getting a name, much less a picture. They've clearly been living off the grid."
"If they were completely off the grid, how would the machine come up with the number?"
"I told you the case was difficult, Mr. Reese." Finch glances back down at his keyboard and begins typing, rapid-fire. "I've struck out at the DMV, the IRS, all the usual locations. I'm trying banks, now, but every firewall is — oh, here were are. An ING account, online-only, smart. Belongs to one Lisa Williams, opened in 2007, supplemented regularly from an offshore account. Our Lisa makes a thousand-dollar withdrawal at a different ATM on Long Island every month."
"Can you get camera footage?"
"Working on it now." Finch resumes his rapid-fire typing, and Reese drifts across the room, restless.
It's been four days since they wrapped up the last number, longer than usual, and he wants to begin. Something tells him that Finch's original assumption of perpetrator is wrong. Not because Lisa Williams is a woman — he's known plenty of women who can and have killed — but because the regular ATM withdrawals don't fit.
If she was for hire, she'd have been paid in cash. And if she was using a cover identity, she'd have made a quick cluster of withdrawals, maxed out the account, and then been done with it. No, Lisa Williams might be using a false identity, but he doesn't think she's going to kill anyone, and that means she's likely to be a victim.
"Ah, here we are," Finch says, as grainy video pops up on his screen. It shows a woman in a Yankees baseball cap and giant sunglasses. Reese can make out blond hair around her temples, but that's about it.
"That's all you've got, Finch? That could be half the women in New York."
Finch offers to try another, but after three more videos of the same, similarly covered-up woman, they agree it's time to try a new tactic. Finch begins searching for real estate rentals and purchases to a Lisa Williams since 2007, a set of results that quickly ticks up in the hundreds on Finch's screen.
Reese leans over Finch's shoulder, which no doubt makes Harold nervous — it doesn't take much to make Harold nervous — and points to one of the results towards the top of the screen.
"That one. Paid in cash just before the ING account was set up," Reese says. October of 2007. Reese can't help but think of where he was then — Islamabad, still reeling from learning about Jessica's death, trying to hold himself together to keep doing his job, because there was nothing left but the job.
"It's possible there was a video camera at the title company. I doubt she would have worn a baseball cap to sign for her new house. I'll see if I can pull better picture while you check it out," Finch says, but Reese is already halfway down the hallway.