…laptop bag?”
The woman laughed. It was a beautiful, practiced laugh. Then she reached for her purse and said she suddenly wasn’t feeling well.
I stood between her and the front door. I’m seventy-two, and I’m not particularly big. But I’ve raised three children and buried a husband, and I wasn’t about to let her walk out with that bag.
My daughter, Lisa, still didn’t understand. She’d met “Mrs. Lane” once, at a school event three weeks ago. A friendly woman who said she was Owen’s teacher and offered to tutor him. Lisa had been grateful. She invited her to dinner.
Then I asked her, as politely as I could, to open her purse.
She didn’t. She pushed past me. My son-in-law, Mark, caught her at the door.
We called the police. While we waited, Owen came out from under the table and showed us the security app on his father’s tablet. He’d been playing a game on it the night before and noticed a “person” notification from the garage at 1:14 a.m. He’d watched the clip and seen this woman walk in with a garage code and walk out with his father’s laptop bag. He’d been too scared to tell anyone.
The real Mrs. Lane was on medical leave after surgery. The woman at our table was named Celeste Moreau. Police later discovered she was part of a ring that targeted families through school newsletters and social media. She’d pose as a teacher, a tutor or a coach. Once inside a home, she’d learn the garage code, collect banking passwords and steal laptops and documents to open accounts in the parents’ names.
Mark’s laptop had his company’s client files and our family’s tax returns on it. The police found it in her car, along with four others.
She was charged with burglary, identity theft and fraud. Detectives said our family was the first one where a child had recognized she wasn’t real.
“How did you know?” Lisa asked Owen later.
“Mrs. Lane has a scar on her hand from a cat,” he said. “And she never calls me buddy.”
The real Mrs. Lane came back to school a month later. She came to dinner too. Owen sat right next to her and didn’t hide under anything.
