Formerly Fingerman by Joe Nelms Page B

psychologists, detectives, and animators to dissect and understand human behavior, analyze emotions and, in the case of officers of the law, determine when persons of interest are lying.
    Based on observations of her frontalis, pars lateralis, zygomaticus minor, and orbicularis oris, it was clear the woman on the monitor, despite her enthusiasm, was not telling the truth. There was no chance she had called for a plumber. For that matter, the plumber unzipping his pants in her doorway was no plumber at all. Look at his buccinator and his levator labii superioris. Ha! Fat chance.
    Not that this was a shock. The video Christopher Stumberg had decided to study that night had been plucked from the Classic selection of the website that hosted it. Most of these were works of fiction, performed by terrible actors. But they made for interesting analysis. The site had a huge library of video and to really learn the Facial Action Coding System, you had to watch a lot of faces. The toughest reads were found in the Amateur section. There was almost never a story to them beyond a web cam accidentally left on, or someone saying, “You’re going to erase this afterward, right?” and the participants were generally happy to be involved, so there wasn’t a lot of lying to be found.
    The actors in the classic videos were more of a challenge. They had the subtleties of Facial Action Units down. Probably a subconscious residual of a childhood surrounded by hustlers, junkies, and liars. He was making assumptions here, but it seemed logical. There was a reason they got into porn.
    Christopher backed up the footage about thirty seconds. Actually, on closer inspection, while the lady of the house was lying about making the phone call to the plumber, she did appear to genuinely want some help with her pipes. Interesting.
    A hair over six foot three and roughly two hundred forty pounds, Christopher Stumberg was a thick, muscular presence who had become accustomed to answering to, appropriately enough, the name “Stump.”
    Stump had played his college ball at Slippery Rock (tight end with occasional punt-return duties), although the school’s initial interest in him had been for his state champion wrestling prowess. Despite offers to try out for various teams in the NFL, Stump had decided to put his honors degree in sociology to good use.
    He was now a U.S. marshal inspector with fifteen years on the job and a reputation for being an oddball with eccentric methods. He was also considered to be one of the best marshals in the history of the Witness Protection Program, so his quirky tactics tended to be overlooked. Stump lived to make witnesses disappear, in a good way. Mob turncoats, former molls, and ex-hit men could all thank Stump for their new lives as anonymous accountants, nameless butchers, and forgettable checkout clerks. He placed them all around the country through his bizarre secret network of business contacts. And he had never lost one.
    There were records of where Stump’s witnesses now lived, but they were kept in a locked vault in a basement somewhere in Brooklyn. The files were written in a code known to no more than a dozen people with top security clearance. But the more efficient and reliable file system was deep in the back of Stump’s brain. Off the top of his head he could tell you the new names, locations, and occupations of all one hundred and twenty-four witnesses he had placed during his tenure. He could. But he wouldn’t.
    Stump loved his job and never stopped trying to improve himself in an insatiable drive to become a better marshal. A student of nine different martial arts since the age of twelve, he balanced his warrior side with a rigorous study of Buddhism, knitting, cooking, and gardening. And, of course, the Facial Action Coding System.
    His newest accomplishment was the mastery of Leonardo da Vinci’s revolutionary polyphasic sleep routine—twenty minutes of power napping