Dead Secret

with warmth and seemed so opposite to her family, Diane thought.
    Diane realized that she hadn’t eaten all day and was starving. She sat down eagerly and heaped her plate from the platters of food passed to her. Over a dinner of roast lamb, new potatoes and grilled asparagus, Diane and Susan took turns explaining what happened.
    “The fingerprints they used in her fake file belong to a Jerome Washington. They also made fake mug shots,” said Diane.
    “Alan, I thought your people were telling you that it had something to do with Homeland Security?” said her father.
    “That’s what the indications were,” Alan said. He forked a piece of meat and stuck it in his mouth, perhaps to forestall the expectation of further words.
    Diane noticed that Alan had a lot of color in his face this evening. He was sullen throughout the meal. No one but she and Gerald seemed to notice. Once, Gerald looked at Alan, then at her, and winked. Diane hadn’t realized that she had an ally in her brother-in-law. It also surprised her how much Susan seemed to enjoy showing Alan up. She would never understand her family.
    “This is the best news we’ve had in . . . I can’t even remember how long,” her father said. “How did you find out what happened? What made you think it was identity theft or hacking?”
    “A friend of mine, Frank Duncan, is a detective in the Metro Atlanta Fraud and Computer Forensics Unit. He deals with identity theft all the time.” Diane told them what he had found. “Just about the only reason they would put her in a place like Tombsberg without a trial is if they thought she had already had one.”
    “These days,” began Alan, “they are sending lots of people to prison without a trial. About all they need is suspicion or grounds to detain you as a material witness.”
    Diane was shocked that Alan knew so little about current law. But he’d probably never set foot in a criminal court-room. He knew only about laws concerning trusts, wills and anything to do with money. Still, she thought to herself, surely he should know better. She suspected he got his knowledge of criminal law from television.
    “Not American citizens,” said Diane. “And there would have been a process she would have gone through. They wouldn’t just throw her in prison. Besides, Mother would have remembered if she had witnessed a bank robbery.”
    “I didn’t say she actually witnessed a robbery. I only said that the authorities may have thought she had. That is the only way it all made sense. We all know that she couldn’t have robbed one herself.”
    “Well, what matters now,” said her father, “is that Iris is coming home.”
    Diane wanted to say that something could still go wrong, but she didn’t want to ruin his happy mood. At any rate, if everything didn’t exactly go as planned, it would only delay the release for a few days. And she had a feeling that Daniel Reynolds had put the fear of God into the prison officials.
    “Who would do such a thing?” said Gerald. “And why, for heaven’s sake? What was to be gained?”
    “I’ve been thinking about that,” said Diane’s father. “The market has been down lately. You remember the Wolcotts were very unhappy with the performance of their portfolio. Very unhappy. They lost quite a sum of money. Money makes some people do strange things.”
    “The FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, and the federal marshals will all come out of this looking bad,” said Diane. “They will want to know who got into their files.”
    “I agree,” said Gerald. “But enough about all that for now. Like you said, Nathan, this is the time to celebrate. Diane, tell us about the museum. It’s a large operation, isn’t it? Annual budget in the millions?”
    Diane described the dinosaurs, the Egyptian exhibit, the elegant rocks, butterflies, seashells, the huge paintings of dinosaurs on the walls containing hidden unicorns in each one, the nature trail, the restaurant and even the museum store.
    “Christopher loved the collection of model dinosaurs you sent him for Christmas,” said Gerald. “Especially that big—what do you call it—brachy-something?”
    “Brachiosaur.”
    “Yeah, that’s it. He really liked that one. Carried it around by the neck all the time.”
    “And what is your position in the museum?” asked Alan.
    “She’s the director,” said Susan.
    “The director?” her father said. “Isn’t that wonderful? I’m proud of you, Diane.”
    Diane had been