"...until George finally pulled me aside and explained the difference between hegemony and hominy." "In any event, the reason that I crashed this wonderful gathering, George, was to thank you for your years of service as Chairman of the Department of American Studies." "Well, have you made a decision on my replacement?" "No." "You know, if Sanders doesn't get the chair, he's threatening to leave." "George, it has to be my decision along with the regents'." "I mean, Sanders is a brilliant teacher when he bothers to show up to class." "But with lectures and talk shows..." "He even did an ad for the Gap." "And where is he today?" "Probably still working on that rap record." " Dr. Winthrop?" " Well, what can I do for you, Mark?" "I need to talk to you about another extension on my dissertation." "Hmm." "I was hoping you could speak to the new chair..." "Well, as soon as there is one, you can speak to him or her yourself." "I can't believe he said rap record." "Sanders will flip his afro." "Hello, Mark." "Were you waiting for one of us?" "Mmm-mmm." "So, if Winthrop's soured on Sanders, does that put you in the lead?" "Winthrop doesn't much like me, either." "My critique of patriarchy in academia hit a little too close to home." "Oh, donnez-moi un break." "I thought the politics at Oxford were insane." "You know why the battles in academia are so vicious?" "It's because the stakes are so low." "Are you sure?" "I distinctly heard him say him or her." "And "her" can only mean Dr. Fellowes." "I talked to her last week." "She said it was obvious I'd never finish my dissertation, and it was time to let someone else have my spot." "I'd hate to see that happen, Mark." "A decade of hard work down the drain." "Now if you were head of the department, would you..." "But I'm not head of the department." "That's up to Winthrop." "You know that." "How dare you characterize anything I do as a rap record." "Call it whatever you want." "I prefer "danceable education."" "I expect my professors to be in the classroom, teaching." "I'm not your professor." "Just because you run this university like a plantation, don't make you massa and we your field hands." "I came here to discuss the future of American Studies at Hudson University." "I am the future of American Studies." "And if you don't make me head of the department," "I will leave." "And sue you for discrimination." "Dig?" "We may be here awhile, Kate." "I'll make coffee." "How did you get in here?" "What are you doing?" "No!" "No!" "The guard saw them come in at around 9:15." "We'll need a list of everybody with keys to the building." "Any idea what Winthrop was doing here with his secretary?" "Well, the guy who should know, the vice-rector, Mr. Frisch, well, he doesn't know." "Nothing in his book." "Just a breakfast meeting with something called the "AS Committee."" "Ask Mr. Frisch what that is." "The killer came out from the front." "Winthrop... he raised his arm, took the first blow to his wrist from a... a blunt instrument with a round striking face." "The killer chose a weapon that would have meaning." "A gavel." "The killer wanted justice." "Winthrop came in the room." "The killer was already waiting." "Winthrop turned on the light, and the killer attacked him." "The secretary had gone to make coffee, she walked in on it." "She tried to get away." "Mr. Frisch, when's the last time you spoke to Mr. Winthrop?" "Around 5:00." "And that meeting you asked about, it was a search committee for the American Studies Department." "They're deciding on a new chairman for the department." "Does Miss Robbins live alone?" "I believe she has a roommate." "Oh, my God, what am I gonna tell her parents?" "They're supposed to come up from Charleston this weekend." "Did you see her last night?" "When I came back from the gym, she was working on her computer and listening to a CD." "And she was listening on these?" "Yes." "I think there was something wrong with the CD." "Why do you say that?" "She kept pressing stop and play, stop and play." "Well, there's no CD in here." "Did you see her leave?" "Yes." "She grabbed something out of her printer." "She said she had to go to Winthrop's office for a couple of hours to work." "Here's the last document she printed." "Hey, it's lyrics." "The writer came of age in the '60s and '70s, probably in the Bay Area, Oakland." "Here, "Flipping Pancakes for Preschoolers."" "That's the Black Panthers' breakfast program." "And he works for Hudson University." "Okay, how do you figure that?" "Here, "Massa will go the way of the Dutchman's mercenary" ""who gave his name to the plantation."" "Henry Hudson sailed for the Dutch East India Company." "He's the Dutchman's mercenary, and the plantation is Hudson University." "And massa would be Winthrop." "So the writer's middle-aged, African-American, from California, works at the university." "And wanted Winthrop to disappear like Henry Hudson." "Hmm." "You could tell all that just from these lyrics?" "Do you know why Dr. Winthrop had his secretary transcribe the lyrics to your CD?" "You're asking the wrong person." "Unfortunately, we can't ask the right persons." "You're up for the chairmanship of your department, right?" "Winthrop was meeting with the search committee?" "The committee had already voted to approve my recommendation." "Well, maybe Massa Winthrop was hoping your lyrics would change their mind." "What is this about?" "Your whereabouts Tuesday night." "I was in my office, here, grading papers." "These papers here?" "Yes, sure, those papers." ""Bitch:" "Gender Metaphors in the American Literary Tradition."" "These courses sound like a lot of fun." "I try to keep things lively." "This is cool here, what you wrote in the margin." ""Civilization, an old bitch gone in the teeth."" "Did you make that up?" "No, Ezra Pound did." "Can anybody vouch you were here all evening?" "Valerie Goodman, she's one of my teaching assistants." "Good old Ezra Pound." "I was checking footnotes for Professor Sanders' next book until about 10:00." "He told us he was grading papers on gender metaphors." "That sounds right." "He made an interesting notation on one of the papers." ""Civilization, an old bitch gone in the teeth."" "It's by Ezra Pound." "Did you know that?" "No, but it sounds like Pound." "Professor Sanders knew it was Pound." "Why wouldn't he?" "Well, he would." "But you see, the person who made the notation, the person who actually graded the paper, attributed the quote to T.S. Eliot." "Professor Sanders wasn't in that night grading papers, was he?" "True or false, Miss Goodman?" "And we don't give incompletes." "He said he had a dinner with some people from NYU about a job offer." "How long was the dinner?" "He came back around 8:30." " He was in a bad mood." " Why?" "He didn't say." "He just shut himself in his office and got on the phone." "Then he left at 9:30." "He told me if anybody asked, he was grading papers all night." "I'm sorry." "It's okay, Valerie." "Thanks." "Doesn't sound like he got that job offer." "That would make him more desperate to get his promotion here." "Except Miss Goodman alibis him for the time of the murder." "He made a call from his office." "Professor Sanders is a charismatic teacher surrounded by impressionable minds." "Students lie for him." "Maybe one of them killed for extra credit." "Doorknobs in Winthrop's office had been wiped clean." "No witnesses who saw anybody leave the administration building." "Any candidates for the extra credit?" "We've cleared Sanders' teaching assistants." "Now we're looking at the PhD students in American Studies." "Sanders is their adviser." "He's probably known some of them for years." "How's this for a dissertation topic?" ""Fighting in the Captain's Tower." ""The Influence of T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound" ""on American Popular Culture."" "Sounds like the same guy who graded Sanders' papers." "Yeah, and confused Eliot and Pound." "Mark Bayley." "He's been working on this dissertation for 10 years." "Don't universities put a clock on these things?" "Bayley's gotten five extensions." "And a nice chunk of change in student loans." "Professor Sanders travels a lot, so I offered to grade those papers." "Is that why your thesis is taking so long, you're too busy doing favors for Professor Sanders?" "My thesis is coming along fine." ""The old bitch gone in the teeth."" "That's Pound, right?" "No, Eliot." "Professor Sanders says it's Pound." "You sleep here?" "I'm between apartments." "Besides your student loans, how do you support yourself?" "I work at the library on Saturdays." "Well, at least you eat healthy." "I told you it was Pound." "Maybe that's why your thesis is taking so long." "When'd you quit?" "You've got nicotine gum." "Two years ago." "When does your current extension run out?" "At the end of this semester?" "It's just a technicality." "Winthrop's phone logs have you calling him every day about it." "You were practically stalking him." "That's not true." "Anyway, extensions are up to the chair of the department." "The new chair." "Your hero, Professor Sanders." "Sanders call you Tuesday night to see Winthrop?" "No, I was here Tuesday night." "Nobody called me." "What about your girlfriend?" "What girlfriend?" "The one who bought you these shoes." " I bought them." " No, you didn't." "Those are the kind of shoes you buy." "Converse, Vans." "Come on, these are..." "Well, they definitely have a woman's touch." "I bought these shoes myself." "I had a wedding." "You wore tan shoes to a wedding?" "Yes, I wore tan shoes." "You people are wasting my time." "Not just any tan shoes." "$2,000-a-pair John Lobb tan shoes." "We could just ask." "See anything you like?" "I don't see anything I don't like." "My wife thinks I need a new pair of everyday shoes." "Well, I should say." "Darling." "These?" "I don't know." "The whole ankle-boot thing..." "I know." "You really liked the pair that Mark was wearing." "He said he bought them here recently." "Not him, his girlfriend." "Mark never pays for anything unless he has to." "Do you see the shoes here?" "Not the exact shoe." "Oh, I'm starting to get frustrated." "Well, you'd have a record of what they bought, right?" "I mean, you could look it up." "Mark's early thirties, curly hair." "Student at Hudson, orange backpack, chews gum, nicotine gum." "Oh, yes, yes." "He came in wearing skateboard loafers." "But his girlfriend, she's a stunner." "Then again, I'm a sucker for the take-charge type." "Oh, you noticed that about her." "She must've made him try on 30 pairs." "She was whipping him into shape." "Not that he seemed to mind." "Oh, here they are." "It was a pair of double-buckle Williams." "Look at how Elizabeth spells her last name." "Hitchens with an "e"." "Is her number on there?" "I want to ask her to dinner Saturday night." "What a good idea." "Excuse me." "Isn't that the Hudson University switchboard?" "She did say something about being a visiting professor." "A professor?" "Well, he didn't tell us that." "Your cousin's a very bad boy." "Thanks." "Terrible business, this murder." "My colleagues at Oxford gave me dire warnings about America." "And this just confirms their worst fears." "Well, we hope it doesn't sour you on our country." "Oh, heavens, no." "A little danger keeps you on your toes." "This place doesn't look all that dangerous." "Hudson's taking good care of you." "Actually, an Oxford alumnus volunteered it." "He's spending the year abroad." "So rather than having the flat sit empty..." "How lucky for you." "Well, I assume that my good fortune isn't what brought you here." "You are obviously here to talk to me about Winthrop's murder, which I'm sorry to say I know nothing about." "We're going with the theory it's somebody at the university." "Well, everyone knows that academics are all talk and no action." "Does that include you?" "If it did, I would've stayed in my cozy little office on Manor Road lecturing women's writing and punting on the Cherwell on the weekends." "No skinny-dipping in Parson's Pleasure?" "Very good, Detective." "Did you memorize the Oxford tour guide on your way here?" "No." "No, I spent a couple of weeks there once chasing coeds." "Took you that long to catch one?" "I'm shocked." "Well, that's very funny, Professor." "Does Mark Bayley find you funny?" "He might, if he had a sense of humor." "I don't know him that well." "Well enough to buy him a pair of shoes." "Just a gesture." "You know graduate students." "They never have a pot to piss in, and Bayley was on his uppers, literally." "I see you like opera." "These tickets for Don Giovanni." "Yes." "Not my favorite." "I lean towards Penderecki." "I hate to be a spoilsport, but did you see Bayley Tuesday night?" "No." "Why would I?" "You might have, if you were having an affair with him." "Well, that would be against university policy." "The bottom line, she didn't alibi Bayley." "No." "But she lied about having an affair with him." "Men only let two kinds of women buy shoes for them, their mommies and their significant others." "Hitchens' work visa expires in three months." "Any extension has to be supported by the new chairman of her department." "Assuming Sanders would support her and that she even wants to stay." "She's bought a new subscription for the opera." "She's applied for a driver's license." "She's making herself at home." "I didn't tell them about the shoes." "It's that big detective who noticed them." "That big detective is smart." "He traced the shoes to the store." "The whole thing's coming apart." "People think Sanders had something to do with it." "Now he won't get the chairmanship." "It'll blow over." "What?" "Nothing." "Just have your gum and get into bed." "I doubt if Roland Sanders would want to keep Elizabeth on." "He once accused her of being an apologist for Australia's shabby treatment of the aborigines." " She's Australian?" " Mmm-hmm." "A graduate of the University of Sydney." "Well, you could never tell by her accent." "What else do you know about her?" "Well, she ran an educational foundation in Australia." "Rising star at Oxford." "If she's a rising star at Oxford, why leave in the first place?" "I don't know." "Whatever her plans, they don't matter now." "Sanders has no hope of becoming chair." "His candidacy is tainted." "Who's next in line?" "Christine Fellowes." "It's pretty much a lock." "In theory, I wouldn't be opposed to offering someone of Elizabeth's caliber a permanent position." "In theory." "What about in practice?" "I'm not head of the department yet." "Please, the regents will decide on Friday." " But you're already packing." " Well..." "Let me help you with this." "Penderecki." "The Devils of Loudon." "You like opera?" "I'm getting to." "This was a gift." "There was a beautiful performance of Don Giovanni the other night." "You would've loved it." "I did." "A friend took me." "Friends with good taste, huh?" "One more thing." "This professional student, Mark Bayley, would you give him an extension if you became chair?" "He's already written a thousand pages of his thesis and he's nowhere near done." "He needs to go." "Professor Hitchens will be sorry." "Why would she?" "She thinks he's an idiot." "Oh, no." "I think she's been able to overlook his shortcomings." "They've become close friends." "At least, that's what we heard." "I..." "Your source is wrong." "Elizabeth wouldn't violate university policy." "Not if she wanted to be asked back." "In American literature, the descent into madness is usually preceded by obsession." "A consuming obsession." "Example, anyone?" "All right." "I'll get you started." "Moby-Dick." "What characterizes Ahab's obsession?" "Yes, in the back." "The dogged, unrelenting pursuit of evil." "Interesting, evil." "I always fancied it was man's unrelenting pursuit of his own potency." "All right, everyone, I expect you to make a dent in Moby-Dick by the end of the week." "Sometimes a whale is just a whale." "Nothing is ever just something." "Not even detectives." "Or professors." "Or graduate students, for that matter." "That sounds a bit ominous." "Well, it's certainly not good news for Mark Bayley." "We're about to arrest him for Winthrop's murder." "Am I expected to run and warn him?" "Because you've seriously misconstrued my relationship with him." "But you can settle a bet for me." "My partner thinks that" "Bayley acted alone." "But I think that..." "I think that Professor Sanders... he put him up to it." "Why do you think that?" "Well, Sanders, he had the most to gain from Winthrop's murder." "And the killing, well, it required qualities that elude Bayley." "Planning, organization." "I mean, you agree?" "Well, you're not wrong about Mark." "There is a reason why he hasn't finished his thesis." "He has no discipline." "I heard his thesis runs a thousand pages." "T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound have a love child and his name is Bob Dylan." "I mean, donnez-moi un break." "This is what passes for scholarship in this country?" "So you don't think popular culture's fair game?" "Well, Mark's is the worst kind of pop literary analysis." "Pathetic attempt to synthesize high and low culture." "It wouldn't butter your parsnips." "You're right." "We did" "Misconstrue your relationship." "No, Mark." "Well, just tell them you don't know anything." "You don't know, you don't remember." "Yes, those are all good answers." "No, I can't see you tonight." "Look, Mark, you'll be fine." "Yes, same here." "Who was that on the phone?" "It was Bayley." "Why is he calling your cell phone?" "I was calling him back, silly." "He's worried because his great mentor Roland Sanders has fallen out of favor, and he wants me to put in a good word for him with you." "Why does he think you can help him?" "Well, he's under the strange delusion that you and I are friends." "Hey, that's quite a woman you got there." "A real take-charge lady, Elizabeth Hitchens." "I don't know." "The clerk at the shoe store said she had you jumping through hoops." "I don't remember." "Well, let's face it, Mark." "That's exactly the kind of woman a guy like you needs." "Somebody that helps you, you know, keep those thoughts focused." "Do what has to be done, right?" "I don't know." "Like killing Winthrop." "I mean, that was her idea." "No." "It wasn't anybody's idea." "We're pretty sure it wasn't Sanders'." "I'm sure it wasn't yours." "I mean, even Hitchens thinks that someone would have had to put you up to it." "What do you mean, she thinks?" "Well, she said that you didn't have any discipline." "That's why you..." "Well, you never finished your thesis." "The title, "Fighting in the Captain's Tower," that's Dylan, right?" "Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain's tower." "Desolation Row." "The whole album's a touchstone of American literature." "That's my thesis." "Exactly." "What Hitchens said, exactly, is, "Donnez-moi un break."" "I'm trying to remember what else she said." ""The worst kind of pop literary analysis."" "She said it was brave." ""A pathetic attempt to synthesize high and low culture."" "No, no." "You're making it up." "Oh." "How did she put it?" ""it wouldn't butter your parsnips."" "I'm not making it up, am I?" "She used you, Mark, to kill Winthrop, to discredit Sanders, so the promotion would go to her friend, Christine Fellowes." "Her close and intimate friend." "Oh, my God." "Oh, God." "What did I do?" "You want to tell us what happened?" "She told me to..." "She planned it." "I'll get a stenographer." "She told Winthrop to meet her at his office." "Why did I listen to her?" "How did you get in the building?" "She gave me a key." "She took it from Professor Fellowes." "She said she never uses it." "You still have it?" "No." "I gave it back." "Mark, are you all right?" "Call the paramedics!" "There's no pulse." "He just stopped breathing." "Bayley died of anaphylactic shock brought on by an allergic reaction." " A reaction to what?" " They don't know yet." "We're waiting for the tox report and Bayley's medical records." "Before he died, he implicated Hitchens." "His statement's of no use now." "Have you heard from Scotland Yard?" "They have no outstanding warrants for Hitchens, no open investigations." "Bayley's allergic reaction was to peanuts, specifically peanut oil." "The nicotine gum." "She spiked it with a needle through the packaging." "She knew he was a liability." "When I went to her class, she knew what I was doing." "She knew I'd use her words to turn him." "We can't assume she knew he had an allergy." "It's in his medical records." "He might have mentioned it to her." "What I had in mind was proof she knew." "Well, it depends if Bayley eats alone." "Two months ago, he was rushed to Emergency from a Thai restaurant." "Peanuts are a common ingredient in Thai cooking." "Yes, I remember them." "He got very sick." "They should have told us" " he was allergic to peanuts." " Who ordered?" "The woman." "She ordered som tum." "Green papaya salad." "Thai chili, fish sauce and peanuts." "Well, it's clearly marked which dishes have peanuts." "Didn't he see this?" "Sure." "But the woman ordered in Thai." "So Bayley wouldn't understand." "She speak fluent Thai?" "Yes, but low-class." "Did she say how she learned it?" "She said she lived in Thailand 15 years ago." "She say where?" "I asked." "She laughed." "She said in Chatuchak." "Chatuchak is the location of the Lard Yao Maximum Women's Prison." "I did a search for Australian women who had been imprisoned in Thailand." "I found one who matched Hitchens." "Nicole Wallace." "She and her French boyfriend were convicted of killing eight male tourists in Thailand." "She'd seduce them, they'd rob them and he'd kill them." "At the trial, she testified against him." "He got life, she served 10 years and got deported back to Australia." "It could be her." "The Australian Consulate's getting me a passport photo of the real Elizabeth Hitchens." "The one who was studying at the University of Sydney while Nicole Wallace was in prison." "Wallace passed herself off as a professor of literature." " Quite a feat." " Well, maybe it was catching up to her." "That might explain why she's desperate to establish herself here." "Then where's the real Professor Hitchens?" "Nicole Wallace killed the real Elizabeth Hitchens, applied for a passport in her name and went off to Oxford." "This woman's very, very good." "Oh, good, you're both here." "Can we come in?" "We heard." "It's official." " Congratulations." " Thank you." "Now that you're chair of the department, you can give your friend that permanent job she's wanted so much." "Well, I don't know about that." "She's a real catch." "Now I could be wrong, but there can't be many Oxford professors who've spent time in Thai prison." "For eight murders, no less." "Are we meant to take this seriously?" "It's thanks to her you got your promotion." "She helped Mark Bayley kill Winthrop." "You can stop right now." "Bayley told us the whole story before he died from poisoning." "I don't believe any of this." "Prove it for yourself." "She stole the key to the administration building from you and gave it to Bayley." "I would've noticed." "She slipped it back on your key ring." "Except Bayley gave her back the wrong key by mistake." "He gave her his spare to his office." "You've really outdone yourselves, Detectives." "Well, let's check Bayley's office." "This should be the administration key." "It's you who outdid yourself, Nicole." "That is your name, Nicole Wallace?" "This is utter nonsense, Christine." "It's a trick." "I didn't take your key." "You did sleep with him." "You lied to me." "For heaven's sake, Christine." "I can't have you here." "You're relieved of your duties as of immediately." "In that case, you're under arrest." "For what?" "You just got fired." "You're in violation of your work visa." "Nothing has happened to Elizabeth Hitchens because I am Elizabeth Hitchens." "I mean, do you honestly think that I could fool the dons of Oxford for one minute if I wasn't who I say I am?" "You had plenty of time to read in Lard Yao Prison." "My dear woman, there is more to literary scholarship than reading books." "Nobody said you aren't bright, Nicole." " Elizabeth." " Nicole." "The game's up." "You botched the key exchange." "Bayley gave you the wrong key." "You know bloody well that that's not true." "No, I don't bloody well know." "But the real culprit does." "Now you see the problem." "You can't expose our trick without exposing your own culpability." "And you know what that's called, your being an expert on the modern American novel and all." "Yes, well, I never much cared for Heller." "Look, you can bang on all you want, but I am invoking my right to be silent." "No, you don't have that right." "I know what rights are, and I'm also invoking my right to an attorney." " No, you don't have that right either." " What are you talking about?" "You're a foreign national with no green card, no tourist visa, no valid work permit." "That makes you a person with no status." "I can keep you as long as I want to." "Until we build a case against you." "You wouldn't dare." "What do you mean, I can't see her?" "I have been retained by the university to represent her." "She's in this country illegally." "She is here employed under the terms of a valid work visa." "I reinstated her." "I found out the police changed the lock on Bayley's office so that it could be opened with a key to the administration building." "The whole thing was a sham." "We still believe Miss Hitchens is here under false pretenses." "You're not entitled access to her." "We'll see." "I'm walking down the block into federal court and filing for a writ of habeas corpus." "If you really are Elizabeth Hitchens, this will be easy." "Just tell me the name of the educational foundation in Melbourne." "I don't have it in my papers." "I'm sure that that's a lie." "And if I am impersonating Elizabeth Hitchens, don't you think that I would have committed her entire work history to memory?" "That's my social security number and my birth date." "Yes, it's remarkable the fountain of information that can spring from those little numbers." "Home address, next of kin, mother's maiden name, mother's address." "Tell me, Robert, how often do you get up to the Carmel Ridge Center?" "Once a week." "And a phone call every day." "How old were you when you first realized it?" "No." "You want to play, then it's gonna have to be tit for tat." "You have to tell me something true about you, about Nicole." "All right." "I did meet Nicole before I left for England." "She told me things." "Where is she now?" "I don't know." "Carried away by dingoes?" "It happens a lot in Australia." "What did she tell you?" "She told me that she enjoyed being under the thumb of her French boyfriend, that relinquishing responsibility to him" "gave her the unimaginable freedom to commit violent crimes without any guilt at all." "My turn." "How old were you when you first realized your mommy wasn't like all the other mommies?" "Seven." "Were you ashamed?" "And frightened." "It's my turn." "How old were you when your father first molested you?" "It's the only explanation for your intense hatred for men." "The murders in Thailand were an attempt to correct the tragedy of your childhood." "To punish your abuser," "absolving yourself of guilt by using a man to kill other men." "And not that you think much of women either, but since your mother was" "too scared and too drunk," "too self-absorbed..." " No." " To protect you." "None of those things happened." "None of those things are true." "No, that's why you can't form connections." "That's why you use sex as an exercise in self-hatred." "That's why when you came back from Thailand you supported yourself with prostitution, didn't you, Nicole?" "I am Elizabeth Hitchens." "I am a professor" " of literature at..." " No." "No!" "When I met you, you wanted me to know who you truly were." "How smart, how funny, how charming you are." "You wanted me to know you, Nicole Wallace." "The sparkling little girl who survived horrible abuse" "with her wits intact." " Professor Hitchens." " Nicole." "I was retained by the university to represent you." "The federal court has issued a writ of habeas corpus" "Ordering your immediate release." "I advise you to leave with me." "Now, please." "That foundation that you asked me about in Melbourne, it was the George Hurstwood Foundation." "Come on." "I'm sorry, Detective." "There was nothing I could do." "No, the foundation, it's called the New Covenant Foundation." "Why did she say the George Hurstwood?" "She was trying to tell me something?" "George Hurstwood." "Well, it's Sister Carrie." "It's a novel by Theodore Dreiser." "George Hurstwood was a saloon keeper who stole money from his boss' safe." "Nicole used the name of a thief to..." "I need to call Melbourne." "Okay." "Thank you." "Yes, we'll be back in touch." "The Melbourne police recently started investigating the financial affairs of the New Covenant Foundation." "They suspect that five years ago $400,000 were embezzled by the then-president of the foundation." "Elizabeth Hitchens." "The real Elizabeth Hitchens." "Nicole Wallace stole the identity of an embezzler." "I'm sure she didn't know it at the time." "She found out when she heard about the investigation." "She knew the Australians would catch up to her in England." "They'd extradite her back home." "That's why she wants US citizenship." "Because non-violent financial crimes aren't covered by US extradition treaties." "If she became a citizen, the Australians couldn't touch her." "She's not a citizen yet." "She's gone." "I came here, the door was open, her things were gone." "I'll call the airports." "What did you think, she'd have scones and a glass of sherry for us?"