Secrets in Stockbridge

Chapter 2-1

2

As I tucked into my rental car at the Albany airport, trying to find the delicate balance between being able to reach the pedals and not being killed by my airbag during the next hour of driving, I thought about James Marshall and the man he had become. Was he really in love with Jeanette, or at least as in love as someone past the first blush of youth has to be to make a marriage work? Or was Jeanette just a long con? On paper, he’d been clean since he got out. (Of course, on paper, he’d been clean up until the moment he was arrested for check fraud.)

James had worked a series of part-time jobs while getting an associate’s degree in something computer-related at a community college. Then he’d gradually made his way up the East Coast—South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania—never staying in any one town for more than eighteen months, sometimes as little as six. He was coming up on eighteen months in Stockbridge, and he’d been dating Jeanette for the past year.

That kind of periodic migration was enough to raise a red flag for a suspicious sort like me, but James hadn’t left a trail of hacked computers or broken-hearted women. In fact, the former employers I spoke with only had good things to say about him. He’d told each of them about his previous conviction during his interview. He’d proved himself to be a dependable, considerate employee, although not one who socialized with his colleagues outside of work. One supervisor told me James was wasted in the back room; it had been obvious on the few occasions when James had to fill in for someone that he had a gift for sales and customer service, but he said he preferred to do repairs. The only unusual comments came from an assistant manager who may have had an overactive imagination.

“I kinda felt like I was in an episode of The Fugitive or something, you know?”

The assistant manager definitely didn’t sound old enough to have seen the show, but I guess that’s what late night re-runs are for.

“I mean, I know it was just check fraud and all, and I know he really did do it. It wasn’t, like, a conspiracy set-up thing. But it seemed like he was running away from something, you know?”

The guy paused. I wondered if he was waiting for an answer, but he was just catching his breath. “Was he? James, I mean. Was he, like, not a fugitive, but a protected witness? Or a, like, some kind of an agent? Is that why you’re calling? Are you really an agent too? Is this—”

I cut him off before he could start interrogating me about my martial arts expertise. Although that would be a short conversation, since I have none. “No, I told you, I’m just checking his references for a job. Thanks for your help.”

That conversation had been last week, and with the advantage of a little distance and the numbing sound of my tires on back roads, I began to reevaluate the paranoia factor. Ten years ago, something had made sitting in jail and then going to prison preferable to being on the street for James (then Jimmy). When he got out, he tried to start a new life. He changed his name, but not so he could hide his background from potential employers, although it wouldn’t have been difficult. And then he kept moving. He wasn’t trying to hide the person he used to be (Jimmy); he was trying to hide the person he’d become (James). Now, if the pattern held, James was due to move again. Who or what was he hiding from, and was sticking around worth the risk?