Without a Trace (TV Series)

Confidence (2003)

Marianne Jean-Baptiste: Vivian Johnson

Quotes 

• Samantha Spade : Okay, so it turns out Christopher Mayes has a record. License revoked after a couple DUIs and a drunk and disorderly charge when he was 19. He got off with community service and counseling.

  Vivian Johnson : Rich parents buy good lawyers.

  Samantha Spade : Yeah, well, his alibi's tight. Doorman says he never left the party. But the building manager saw a suspicious vehicle casing the place a few weeks ago. He said he approached the car, but the driver took off.

  Vivian Johnson : Upscale building, rich tenants. Could be trying to pick out victims.

  Samantha Spade : Mm. He gave us a make and a partial plate. We're running it now.

  Vivian Johnson : Which is more than I've got on Whitney Ridder. Phone bills, credit cards, everything dead-ends the day she arrived in the city. The boyfriend says that she grew up in Philly, but I keep coming up blank.

  Samantha Spade : Name change?

  Vivian Johnson : Nothing on file. It's like she didn't exist until she got here.

  Samantha Spade : Okay, so she comes to New York, reinvents herself. New name, new identity, clean start.

  Vivian Johnson : She won't be the first. Question is, what was she running from?

• Vivian Johnson : Let me be frank with you, Mr. Sellars. You don't look like the type who hires an ex-con, and now you've lied to a federal officer. If I can help you stop this downward spiral in your personal life, please let me know.

• Danny Taylor : What do you got?

  Vivian Johnson : I found out where Whitney grew up. Small town in Ohio named Nassau.

  [showing him an old yearbook] 

  Vivian Johnson : Check out our Whitney; real name Sheryl McGee. Activities include travel club, French club, president of the drama club for four years. Good training, huh?

• Vivian Johnson : Jack, I've got the Social Security records. Turns out Whitney Ridder was born in LaFontaine, Louisiana in 1971, and died in a car crash in 1974.

  Jack Malone : Any progress on her real identity?

  Vivian Johnson : We're still looking.

• Vivian Johnson : Fake identity, now fake residence. Danny and Martin are checking out the business.

  Samantha Spade : Yeah, she was fooling everybody.

  Vivian Johnson : Including her fiancé.

  Samantha Spade : Check it out. Whitney Ridder's cell phone records. Okay, you know that call she got just before she disappeared?

  Vivian Johnson : Mm-hmm.

  Samantha Spade : She got another call twenty minutes later from the same number, a guy in Palm Springs named Lucas Vohland. I checked him on NCIC. He did ten years for manslaughter at Joliet.

  [showing Viv his rap sheet] 

  Samantha Spade : That's him.

  Vivian Johnson : Whoever she is, she's keeping some bad company.

• Martin Fitzgerald : You see all this beautiful oceanfront property? It's all fake. We called Cozumel, Midtown Trust, we checked out their business records. There's no connection to a hotel chain. There's not even a planned resort.

  Danny Taylor : Yeah, it looks like Whitney trolled the city for potential targets; mostly sons and daughters of rich families anxious to make some money on their own.

  Martin Fitzgerald : Yeah, she promised them a quick return on their initial investment, plus VIP treatment at this luxury resort.

  Danny Taylor : Early investors made a killing. Word spread, the money poured in. The second round of investors didn't see zip.

  Vivian Johnson : A Ponzi scheme.

  Martin Fitzgerald : Exactly. And by the time they figured out what was going on, the money was gone and Whitney had reinvented herself somewhere else.

  Danny Taylor : Except this time. She never finished the con, and she still has $400,000 in her corporate bank account.

  Vivian Johnson : Maybe one of her marks found out they were being swindled and got to her.

  Danny Taylor : I'm on it. Here's a list of investors from her bank records.