Identity Theft and Other Stories

  Jerry was going to be royalty.

  If, that is, he could find something he could afford. He kept looking, getting more and more depressed. Maybe he’d just—

  Jerry felt his eyes go wide. A 1997 Toyota, only twenty thousand miles on it. The asking price: “$3,000, OBO.”

  Just three thousand! That was awfully cheap for such a car…And OBO! Or Best Offer. It couldn’t hurt to try two thousand dollars. The worst the seller could do was say no. Jerry felt in his pocket for the change he got from buying the paper. There was a phone booth just up the street. He hurried over to it, and called.

  “Hello?” said a sad-sounding man’s voice at the other end.

  Jerry tried to make his own voice sound as deep as he could. “Hello,” he said. “I’m calling about the Toyota.” He swallowed. “Has it sold yet?”

  “No,” said the man. “Would you like to come see it?”

  Jerry got the man’s address—only about two miles away. He glanced up the street, saw the bus coming, and ran back to the stop, grinning to himself. If all went well, this would be the last time he’d have to take the bus anywhere.

  Jerry walked up to the house. It looked like the kind of place he lived in himself: basketball hoop above the garage; garage door dented from endless games of ball hockey.

  Jerry rang the doorbell, and was greeted by a man who looked about the same age as Jerry’s father…a sad-looking man with a face like a basset hound.

  “Yes?” said the man.

  “I called earlier,” said Jerry. “I’ve come about the car.”

  The man’s eyebrows went up. “How old are you, son?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Tell me about yourself,” said the man.

  Jerry couldn’t see what difference that would make. But he did want to soften the old guy up so that he’d take the lower price. And so: “My name’s Jerry Sloane,” he said. “I’m a student at Eastern High, just going into grade eleven. I’ve got my license, and I’ve been working all summer long on the loading dock down at Macabee’s.”

  The basset hound’s eyebrows went up. “Have you, now?”

  “Yes,” said Jerry.

  “You a good student?”

  Jerry was embarrassed to answer; it seemed so nerdy to say it, but…“Straight A’s.”

  The basset hound nodded. “Good for you! Good for you!” He paused. “Are you a churchgoer, son?”

  Jerry was surprised by the question, but he answered truthfully. “Most weeks, with my family. Calgary United.”

  The man nodded again. “All right, would you like to take the car for a test drive?”

  “Sure!”

  Jerry got into the driver’s seat, and the man got into the passenger seat. Not that it should have mattered to whether the deal got made, but Jerry did the absolute best job he could of backing out of the driveway and turning onto the street. When they arrived at the corner, he came to a proper full stop at the stop sign, making sure the front of his car lifted up a bit before he continued into the empty intersection. That’s what they’d taught him in driver’s ed: you know you’ve come to a complete stop when the front of your car lifts up.

  At the next intersection, Jerry signaled his turn, even though there was no one around and took a left onto Askwith Street.

  The basset hound nodded, impressed. “You’re a very careful driver,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  Jerry was coming to another corner, where Askwith crossed Thurlbeck, and he decided to turn right. He activated the turn signal and—

  “No!” shouted the man.

  Jerry was startled and looked around, terrified that he’d been about to hit a cat or something. “What?” said Jerry. “What?”

  “Don’t go down that way,” said the man, his voice shaking.

  It was the route Jerry would have to take to get to school, but he was in no rush to see that old prison any sooner than he had to. He canceled his turn signal and continued straight through the intersection.

  Jerry went along for another mile, then decided he’d better not overdo it and headed back to the man’s house.

  “So,” said the man, “what did you think?”

  “It’s a great car, but…”

  “Oh, I know it could really use a front-end alignment,” said the man, “but it’s not that bad, is it?”

  Jerry hadn’t even noticed, but he was clever enough to seize on the issue. “Well, it will need work,” he said, trying to sound like an old hand at such matters. “Tell you what—I’ll give you two thousand dollars for it.”

  “Two thousand!” said the man. But then he fell silent, saying nothing else.

  Jerry wanted to be cool, wanted to be a tough bargainer, but the man had such a sad face. “I’ll tell you the truth,” he said. “Two thousand is all I’ve got.”

  “You worked for it?” asked the man.

  Jerry nodded. “Every penny.”

  The man was quiet for a bit, then he said, “You seem to be a fine young fellow,” he said. He extended his right hand across the gearshift to Jerry. “Deal.”

  Today was the day. Today, the first Tuesday in September, would make everything worthwhile. Jerry put on his best—that is, his oldest—pair of jeans and a shirt with the sleeves ripped off. It was the perfect look.

  He got in the car—his car—and started it, pulling out of the driveway. A left onto Schumann Street, a right onto Vigo. Jerry didn’t have any real choice of how to get to school, but was delighted that some of the other kids would see him en route. And if he happened to pass Ashley Brown…why, he’d pull over and offer her a lift. How sweet would that be?

  Jerry came to the intersection with Thurlbeck, where there was a stop sign. But this time he was trying to impress a different audience. He slowed down and, without waiting for the front of the car to bounce up, turned right.

  Thurlbeck was the long two-laned street that led straight to Eastern High. Jerry had to pick just the right speed. If he went too fast, none of the kids walking along would have a chance to see that it was him. But he couldn’t cruise along slowly, or they’d think he wasn’t comfortable driving. Not comfortable! Why, he’d been driving for months now. He picked a moderate speed and rolled down the driver’s-side window, resting his sleeveless arm on the edge of the opening.

  Up ahead, a bunch of kids were walking along the sidewalk.

  No…no, that wasn’t quite right. They weren’t walking—they were standing, all looking and pointing at something. That was perfect: in a moment, they’d all be looking and pointing at him.

  As he got closer, Jerry slowed the car to a crawl. As much as he wanted to show off, he was curious about what had caught everyone’s attention. He remembered a day years ago when everybody had paused on the way to school as they came across a dead dog, one eye half popped out of its skull.

  Jerry continued on slowly, hoping people would look over and take notice of him, but no one did. They were all intent on something—he still couldn’t make out what—on the side of the road. He thought about honking his horn, but no, he couldn’t do that. The whole secret of being cool was to get people to look at you without it seeming like that was what you were trying to do.

  Finally, Jerry thought of the perfect solution. As he got closer to the knot of people, he pulled his car over to the side of the road, put on his blinkers, and got out.

  “Hey,” he said as he closed the distance between himself and the others. “Wassup?”

  Darren Chen looked up. “Hey, Jerry,” he said.

  Jerry had expected Chen’s eyes to go wide when he realized that his friend had come out of the car sitting by the curb, but that didn’t happen. The other boy just pointed to the side of the road.

  Jerry followed the outstretched arm and…

  His heart jumped.

  There was a plain white cross on the grassy strip that ran along the far side of the sidewalk. Hanging from it was a wreath. Jerry moved closer and read the words that had been written on the cross i
n thick black strokes, perhaps with an indelible marker: “Tammy Jameson was killed here by a hit-and-run driver. She will always be remembered.” And there was a date from July.

  Jerry knew the Jameson name—there’d always been one or another of them going through the local schools. A face came into his mind, but he wasn’t even sure if it was Tammy’s.

  “Wow,” said Jerry softly. “Wow.”

  Chen nodded. “I read about it in the paper. They still haven’t caught the person who did it.”

  Jerry finally got what he wanted at the end of the school day. Tons of kids saw him sauntering over to his car, and a few of the boys came up to talk to him about it.

  And just before he was about to get in and drive off, he saw Ashley. She was walking with a couple of other girls, books clasped to her chest. She looked up and saw the car sitting there. Then she saw Jerry leaning against it and her eyes—beautiful deep-blue eyes, he knew, although he couldn’t really see them at this distance—met his, and she smiled a bit and nodded at him, impressed.

  Jerry got in his car and drove home, feeling on top of the world.

  The next morning, Jerry headed out to school. This time, he thought maybe he’d get the attention he deserved as he came up Thurlbeck Street. After all, even if the cross was still there—and it was; he could just make it out up ahead—the novelty would surely have worn off.

  Jerry decided to try a slightly faster speed today, in hopes that more people would look up. But, to his astonishment, he found that the more he pressed his right foot down on the accelerator, the more his car slowed down. He actually craned for a look—it was a beginner’s mistake, and a pretty terrifying one too, he remembered, to confuse the accelerator and the brake—but, no, his gray Nike was pressing down on the correct pedal.

  And yet still his car was rapidly slowing down. As he came abreast of the crucifix with it wreath, he was moving at no better than walking speed, despite having the pedal all the way to the floor. But once he’d passed the cross, the car started speeding up again, until at last the vehicle was operating normally once more.

  Jerry was reasonably philosophical. He knew there had to be something wrong with the car for him to have gotten it so cheap. He continued on to the school parking lot. Not even the principal had a reserved spot—it made his car too easy a target for vandals, Jerry guessed. It pleased him greatly to pull in next to old Mr. Walters, who was trying to shift his bulk out of his Ford.

  Jerry was relieved that his car functioned flawlessly on the way home from school. He still hadn’t managed to find the courage to offer Ashley Brown a lift home, but that would come soon, he knew.

  The next day, however—crazy though it seemed—his car developed the exact same malfunction, slowing to a crawl at precisely the same point in the road.

  Jerry had seen his share of horror movies. It didn’t take a Dr. Frankenstein to figure out that it had something to do with the girl who had been killed there. It was as though she was reaching out from the beyond, slowing down cars at that spot to make sure that no other accident ever happened there again. It was scary but exhilarating.

  At lunch that day, Jerry headed out to the school’s parking lot, all set to hang around his car, showing it off to anyone who cared to have a look. But then he caught sight of Ashley walking out of the school grounds. He could have jumped in his car and driven over to her, but she probably wouldn’t get in, even if he offered. No, he needed to talk to her first.

  Now or never, Jerry thought. He jogged over to Ashley, catching up with her as she was walking along Thurlbeck Street. “Hey Ash,” he said. “Where’re you going?”

  Ashley turned around and smiled that radiant smile of hers. “Just down to the store to get some gum.”

  “Mind if I tag along?”

  “If you like,” she said, her voice perfectly measured, perfectly noncommittal.

  Jerry fell in beside her. He chatted with her—trying to hide his nervousness—about what they’d each done over the summer. She’d spent most of it at her uncle’s farm and—

  Jerry stopped dead in his tracks.

  A car was coming up Thurlbeck Street, heading toward the school. It came abreast of the crucifix but didn’t slow down, it just sailed on by.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Ashley.

  “Nothing,” said Jerry. A few moments later, another car came along, and it too passed the crucifix without incident.

  Of course, Jerry had had no trouble driving home from school, but he’d assumed that that was because he was in the other lane, going in the opposite direction, and that Tammy, wherever she was, didn’t care about people going that way.

  But…

  But now it looked like it wasn’t every car that she was slowing down when it passed the spot where she’d—there was no gentle way to phrase it—where she’d been killed.

  No, not every car.

  Jerry’s heart fluttered.

  Just my car.

  The next day, the same thing: Jerry’s car slowed down almost to a stop directly opposite where Tammy Jameson had been hit. He tried to ignore it, but then Dickens, one of the kids in his geography class, made a crack about it. “Hey, Sloane,” he said, “What are you, chicken? I see you crawling along every morning when you pass the spot where Tammy was killed.”

  Where Tammy was killed. He said it offhandedly, as if death was a commonplace occurrence for him, as if he was talking about the place where something utterly normal had happened.

  But Jerry couldn’t take it anymore. He’d been called on it, on what Dickens assumed was his behavior, and he had to either give a good reason for it or stop doing it. That’s the way it worked.

  But he had no good reason for it, except…

  Except the one he’d been suppressing, the one that kept gnawing at the back of his mind, but that he’d shooed away whenever it had threatened to come to the fore.

  Only his car was slowing down.

  But it hadn’t always been his car.

  A bargain. Just two grand!

  Jerry had assumed that there had to be something wrong with it for him to get it so cheap, but that wasn’t it. Not exactly.

  Rather, something wrong had been done with it.

  His car was the one the police were looking for, the one that had been used to strike a young woman dead and then flee the scene.

  Jerry drove to the house where the man with the basset-hound face lived. He left the car in the driveway, with the driver’s door open and the engine still running. He got out, walked up to the door, rang the bell, and waited for the man to appear, which, after a long, long time, he finally did.

  “Oh, it’s you, son,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  Jerry had thought it took all his courage just to speak to Ashley Brown. But he’d been wrong. This took more courage. Way more.

  “I know what you did in that car you sold me,” he said.

  The man’s face didn’t show any shock, but Jerry realized that wasn’t because he wasn’t surprised. No, thought Jerry, it was something else—a deadness, an inability to feel shock anymore.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, son,” said the man.

  “That car—my car—you hit a girl with it. On Thurlbeck Street.”

  “I swear to you,” said the man, still standing in his doorway, “I never did anything like that.”

  “She went to my school,” said Jerry. “Her name was Tammy. Tammy Jameson.”

  The man closed his eyes, as if he was trying to shut out the world.

  “And,” said Jerry, his voice quavering, “you killed her.”

  “No,” said the man. “No, I didn’t.” He paused. “Look, do you want to come in?”

  Jerry shook his head. He could outrun the old guy—he was sure of that—and he could make it back to his car in a matter of seconds. But if he went inside…well, he’d seen that in horror movies, too.

  The man with the sad face put his hands in his pockets. “What are you going to do?” he said.


  “Go to the cops,” said Jerry. “Tell them.”

  The man didn’t laugh, although Jerry had expected him to—a derisive, mocking laugh. Instead, he just shook his head.

  “You’ve got no evidence.”

  “The car slows down on its own every time I pass the spot where the”—he’d been about to say “accident,” but that was the wrong word—“where the crime occurred.”

  This time, the man’s face did show a reaction, a lifting of his shaggy, graying eyebrows. “Really?” But he composed himself quickly. “The police won’t give you the time of day if you come in with a crazy story like that.”

  “Maybe,” said Jerry, trying to sound more confident than he felt. “Maybe not.”

  “Look, I’ve been nice to you,” said the man. “I gave you a great deal on that car.”

  “Of course you did!” snapped Jerry. “You wanted to get rid of it! After what you did—”

  “I told you, son, I didn’t do anything.”

  “That girl—Tammy—she can’t rest, you know. She’s reaching out from beyond the grave, trying to stop that car every time it passes that spot. You’ve got to turn yourself in. You’ve got to let her rest.”

  “Get out of here, kid. Leave me alone.”

  “I can’t,” said Jerry. “I can’t, because it won’t leave her alone. You have to go to the police and tell them what you did.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you? I didn’t do anything!” The old man turned around for a second, and Jerry thought he was going to disappear into the house. But he didn’t; he simply grabbed a hockey stick that must have been leaning against a wall just inside the door. He raised the stick menacingly. “Now, get out of here!” he shouted.

  Jerry couldn’t believe the man was going to chase him down the street, in full view of his neighbors. “You have to turn yourself in,” he said firmly.