Turned out Joe's office was the one with the cat and all the candles. It figured. The second I entered she pounced on me. Made for a pretty awkward scene when Joe came back, but I'd seen worse.
"You're Joe, right? Seen this pen before?" I held it up. "I'm gonna need you to show me everything you've written with it."
Turned out Joe was surprisingly compliant. Normally people in his situation just keep digging a deeper hole, but he pulled a notepad out right away. Could be he figured I was a cop. That or that I'd use the pen on him if he didn't cooperate. The first couple entries weren't what I'd expected. "You don't look like a busty 18-year old..."
"No no, that was Dave. Well, Dusty now. You see-"
"Yeah yeah, I can read. So the bimbo downstairs did that to herself. Fair enough, not one to judge. Doubt there's any grounds for a claim from her though, capability's not impaired, you just wiped her identity after. Good case for a wrongful termination suit but that's none of my business. Now, who'd the cat girl used to be?"
"I'm not sure what you mean? Miss Kitty?"
"Don't see any other cat girls around here. She some stuck-up broad who kept turning you down or a coworker you didn't like, or what?"
"I'm not really following. I never did anything to her with that pen. I mean, I suppose it's why we wound up out on that first date, but..."
I cut him off, scanning to the bottom of the page. Seemed fine, but I still figured something was fishy with that dame, besides her breath. "And then we've got Mr. Lidel... you really did a number on him."
Joe was sweating now. "I... I'm sorry! It'd been a rough week, and he's always such an ass- uh. You know what I mean. I'm not going to prison for this, am I?"
"Well I mean you basically committed identity murder. Don't know the local laws on that, but if we were in New York you'd definitely be doing time for that sort of thing. What I'm concerned about though is the insurance fraud. The policy he's trying to make a claim on didn't exist until you wrote it in, clearly. We really don't look kindly on people thinking they can use us for a quick buck like that."
"I'm sorry again, I wasn't thinking things through."
"Save it. If you're lucky, we'll just cancel your company's policy, and it's my professional recommendation that you personally be held to account for any financial damages-"
"But wait, what if I just change that part? There's plenty of other ways to keep his wife comfortable, or I could turn him back even. I mean... I don't think your company even existed before all this, so that should cut me at least a little slack, shouldn't it?"
Damn, that was a headscratcher. Normally I tended to be immune to a lot of this stuff, but that pen... What if that was true? Would I be here today if he hadn't made that stupid note? Hell, would I even be?